By Saptarshi Majumder
It all started with a holiday. It was Diwali holidays followed by a Saturday and Sunday. So ample time to see a new place. The first time I came to know about Krang Suri Waterfalls was in a photography exhibition at Rabindra Bhavan, Guwahati, in 2001. I wanted to visit the place.
I planned on November 10 to visit the falls. I called my friend, Anwar Hussain Majumder, Vice Principal, Army School Shillong, and we decided to go there. Anwar took his family along with him, and one of his colleagues and his wife on a different car. My wife accompanied me.
It was a beautiful drive to the waterfall. The scenery, the greenery, the curves, the twists and the turns, the ups and downs and the world rolling by as I comfortably cruised through it all was like meeting an old friend.
The falls was pure magic. After parking the car, we began to climb down a narrow pavement made of concrete blocks and hugging the mountain as a snake by its side. We walked for about five minutes and then arrived at a viewing point. The falls was visible a few hundred feet below through a break in the dense canopy. It looked so beautiful that we were all infused by its awesome appearance and all excited to meet it at the base of the mountain. The tiredness of the long drive simply vanished for there was a rush of adrenalin as that view of the falls unfolded a magic world of picturesque dreamscape made by the creator who created us all.
The climbing down was comfortable, and the slope was gradual. Then we arrived at the stage to get front row seats of that mesmerising magic show. The clear blue pool, the water rolling down in a relentless flow, the gigantic rocks lying in abandon, the azure sky, the dense hue of all shades of green all added up to create a magic far beyond the inventory of human words. It was paradise.
Of course, there were other tourists and marks of human civilization like ropes and plastic pipes which effectively spoiled the pristine charm but still the beauty rose above all and its sheen was bright enough to dissolve all these artefacts of human presence. It is beautiful and as you stand there at its temple you realise that that is God in all his/ her splendour. The blue pool, the white spray, the grey rocks, the green trees all dance together to give shape to a drama of life that has been and will be for an eternity and you realize how we are mere miniscule parts of that elaborate pattern and tapestry called life.
At the venue construction work was going on to make it more accessible. May be after a few months it will be easy to access but then its raw charm will by subdued by the tourism industry developing around it. A balance is the need of the hour.
The human efforts at accessibility should not compromise the beauty and aesthetic appeal of nature at her best. Human efforts should complement and supplement instead of being just mindless business enterprise trying to milk the beauty. All construction work must be synchronized with the dance of nature. For as little as Rs 20, you can swim in that natural pool. The water is cold, and it would require considerable madness to swim in that cold water. All the same some tourists were indulging in that and it presented the indomitable human spirit that never shies away from trying something new.
The best thing about the falls was that you can walk right below it. The way to the exact below part is barricaded by a motley arrangement of dried branches and that spoiled the photographer’s delight by the way of its ugly display. I strongly felt that the place could be arranged in a better way. It is no doubt beautiful, but the human efforts seems to work in contradiction to that. May be in time things will become better as tourists’ foot fall increases and things become more systematic. For the time being the effort seems haphazard and incongruous to the aesthetic appeal of the mesmerizing falls.
The hours spent at the falls were full of awesome clicks. The water felt good to the feet. It was refreshingly clean. It was a fountain of youth for it washed away all the tiredness of the journey and infused us with youthful vitality of happy thoughts and contented emotions. We could not go for boating as time was running out and we planned to leave that place before dark. We spent around two hours there, but it was not enough to soak in its exquisite beauty.
We needed a few hours more to at least accept fully the intoxicating impact and we decided to visit that place again for one trip for just two hours is not enough to experience the place in all its totality. I parted ways with Anwar and decided to meet on the highway. The climbing up took our breath away for we city dwellers are accustomed to use escalators and elevators. The heart beat fast and the ravishing charm of that fairyland resonated in the beat.
I met Anwar on the highway and then we had a small picnic near an ancient bridge made of stone blocks. The food was good as it effectively controlled our hunger pangs. We didn’t get time for a proper breakfast and till then there was no lunch. But the beauty of the land fed our heart and we forgot about the bile in our belly till we smelt that tantalizing food lovingly made my Parvin, Anwar’s wife and also by the wife of AK Singh, Anwar’s colleague.
It was dusk, and the evening sun brought to a beautiful close an eventful day. The night drive was in ways better than the day drive for the headlamps of the vehicles made those vehicles visible long before they announced their physical presence and that was an immense help while dealing with the blind curves of the hilly terrain. But then the night drive was more tiring for there was no scenery to paint our heart. The headlamp lighted up the road and the beautiful countryside dreamscape was lost in the darkness of the night.
The sickle moon shone above suspended a little above the horizon. The outside temperature was between 12°C to 14°C and the ride was comfortable. We arrived home at 11 pm and the head and the heart were full of the exotic day.
My cell phone capturing moments of that trip was just the tip of the iceberg that floated in the deep ocean of my heart. That iceberg will eventually melt to merge with my being and this experience will make me wonder a little more at the fact of being alive in this wonderful world of painted dreams, in this melodious music of the duet of Gaia and God dancing together with grace and grandeur.
(The author is a teacher at
Kendriya Vidyalaya, CRPF Amerigog, Guwahati)