I take to road after my school re-opens post nightmares of 2020, though trains are available aplenty now.
Yesterday I took the well-repaired wide metal road that branches out of National Highway off Shaktigarh to reach red-earthed road along the stretch of Damodar river.
Hat Shimul, Choitropur, Palla-Sreerampur I scootered down in my Activa-Honda.
The vast swath of paddy land on both sides of the red road gave me a welcome break of coolish feel from the sudden spell of sultriness the mid-February weather unleashes on us. I was pleasantly reminded of those days when I frequented the place years back.
Damodar looked a glittering ribbon afar in noon-time scalding sun.
The shimul gave a scarlet delight to the forest. Some crows were seen pecking headily at those blossoms that still lay lusciously in the tree.
Barbets were on their wavy flight from one unknown leafy tree to another. They signed off their free-willed jaunt with a satisfying kurr,kurr,kurr and built them up to voluminously cryptic kutrook,kutrook,kutrook when settled down.
The mango trees came alive with enormous amount of flowers in almost every tip of twig that had a somewhat mildly choking smell. I looked up. Sparrows, sparsely seen now-a-days, chirped on mango branches at their shrilled choric best in a surprisingly large assembly.
Woodpeckers were at it, pecking away on the bark of an age-less banyan tree. A squirrel hurried down its colossal trunk and scampered away, followed by another.
Lo! A Santhal lad was struggling in a wayside bush near a solitary shimul tree to have a convenient cover to melt his body with that of his lover. Their giggles suggested how impatient they were for my lone scooter to pass over before they made a world of their own.
Everywhere I saw a life regenerating with the harbingers of spring after it went into an abrupt, long hibernation following the pompous tomtom of pandemic.
I screeched my Activa to a timely halt before it sped over a mosaic of slightly waxen flowers of scarlet shimul, that lay strewn all over the place under a massive shimul tree, in fanatic abandon.
I dodged them skillfully.
I did not want to bleed them further. Because they were off a tree, that stood next to amorous bush, in close proximity to moram-filled red-earthed road. Lonely.