The Barpali Days

This blog is the Facebook of Barpali which picturise its "life" and "culture". It was a "palli" or a village a century back where the all time great Oriya poet swabhaba kabi Gangadhar Meher had taken birth. Now this bustling little town is renowned world-over for the weaving of Sambalpuri ikat handloom fabrics. Agriculture is its prime economy. And when you happen to visit this little town don't miss to taste Chaul bara.

Breaking

Aug 25, 2016

11:45 AM

Akash Agrawal : Riding the heights of Himalaya’s


It's the human brain that makes us stand apart from other primates on earth. For time immemorial we the human beings have got the thirst and hunger to reach the new heights. Exactly this is what driving the spirit of Akash Agrawal of Barpali to ride a bike since his college days. This young man of around 27 years old is a Marwari businessman. Apart from taking risk while doing business, he got the unquenched thirst to undertake the life threatening risks in adventure sports. This young man is passionate about life. At every stage he tried his best to excel in life. He tested the ground for ice skating, observed the air to do paragliding and measured the depth of the water to do water skiing. Apart from all these he got a long standing passion for riding bikes. And for him bike means no ordinary 100cc phatphati(bike). He is fond of riding only Royal Enfield Bullet. In terms of elegance this 500cc duel engine bike could be ranked as the Harley Davidson bike of India. One who owns this bike in India is considered to be a man of aristocracy.

Through social media he got to know about few young men who were planning for a bike expedition to the Himalayas. Akash made a minute planning to undertake this adventure of his life time. But his parents at home were skeptical about this move of their son. His father is well aware how hazardous Indian roads are. In an average in every other minute a person dies on the roads of India because of motor accidents. Many afternoons his mother did not partake food until Akash returns from Bargarh after doing his business assignment. Akash went to a motor garage for two months to learn the basics of bike repairing. Apart from repairing a punctured tube of the bike, he learnt how to replace a clutch wire and change a brake disc pad. He learnt how to clean a carburetor and all other sundry jobs so as he could repair his bike on his own, if it ever breaks down while riding the heights of Himalayas. 
   
Akash caught a train from Odisha and reached New Delhi. He joined a poll of 17 other bikers gathered from across India. He hired a Royal Enfield Bullet from Karol Bagh market of New Delhi. Apart from a bike he hired every safety gadgets that are available in the market. He did not compromise with the equipments because he knew apart from his parents, his wife would be looking forward for his safe return journey to home. He hired a full cover helmet, a jacket, knee guards, elbow guards, shoulder guards, eye glass, surgical gloves and biking gloves.

He got introduced with Srijeet who hails from Kerala. That man came in a bike all the way from the Southern tip of India to reach the Northern top. On 20th May 2016 early in the morning around 4.30AM the expedition started. There were eighteen participants riding around 15 Royal Enfield Bullets. On the first day of the journey they travelled around 500kms in tropical summer temperature of around 50 degree Centigrade. By evening at 6.00PM they reached Pathankot. In the first day itself their bodies were completely dehydrated. They checked into a hotel and rested in the night.


Early morning of 21st May they resumed their journey. After travelling for 100 kms the hill area started. As compared to the previous day’s 50 degrees, the temperature sharply skidded to less than 10 degree Centigrade. On the mountain roads they travelled for 200kms and by evening reached Srinagar, the Capital city of Kashmir. It is a city with the most scenic beauty. It is the place where many Hindi movie songs were shoot over the past 65 years showing hero and heroine dancing to the popular Bollywood songs. At the check-in point to the city the Indian Army personnel hedged them. They enquired about the motive of so many people riding bikes. They checked the identity proofs of every individual of this gang. The army personnel told, there is some social unrest in the city. This Bullet gang was directed to check into any hotel and not to roam on the streets at night. By the way neither Akash nor his gang members had left with any energy in their mortal body even to lift their eyelids. After checking in to the hotel they fell on the bed as if dead bodies.


On Day-3 this Royal Enfield gang traveled a distance of another 250kms from Srinagar to Kargil via Sonemarg and Zojila Pass. This road is considered to be the world’s toughest road to travel because of the steep mountains. Entire stretch of the root was lashed with rains and the road was converted to sludge.  


On Day-4 they traveled a length of another 210kms through the world’s highest cold desert. Until here the road was in good condition as it has been well maintained by Border Road Organisation (BRO). 

 On reaching Leh they were completely exhausted and wanted to take a brake for a day to nurture their physical bodies. On Day-6 they headed for Pangong lake. It is a place with no human habitation. They had to dig the earth to fix the tents on open sky to spend the night. On Day-7 they reached Nubra valley crossing through sand dunes. On Day-8 they headed for Khardung La pass. It is the world’s highest motor able road at the height of 18,380 feets. Few of them encountered difficulty to respire due to lack of oxygen. Despite encountering numerous physical odds, their spirit was soaring high while looking at the magnificent mountain peaks of Himalayas. By evening they reached Leh.



On Day-9 they ride 230kms to reach Sarchu. Overnight they stayed in a rented tent where the temperature was -17 Degree Celsius. On Day-10 they headed for Manali via Bara-lacha Pass. Let how farther one goes, as if a bird he had to return home before the sun set. And the heart of Akash was throbbing to return home at the earliest, so as he could cuddle and play with his eleven months old baby boy Rajveer. 
kiranbima@gmail.com
E.Kiran Mohan (The Writer)
C/o.Dr.E.R.Rao (MD)
Tehsil Chowk,
At/PO. BARPALI – 768 029
Dist. Bargarh, Orissa, India
Cell # 91-99-371-20565
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Aug 12, 2016

12:05 AM

Ramesh Jhawar : Art that has been parked on the streets of India



Ramesh Jhawar is born to a family of Rajasthani business community. This 38 years old artist is ranked among the top water colour artists of India. Since birth he was well groomed by his parents. All the basic needs of his life were met by his father who was a first generation entrepreneur. His father migrated to Erode in Tamil Nadu to setup a hosiery trading firm. During his childhood in the early 90’s he was literally and pictorially grown up while reading the comic magazines. Then cable TV network was in the nascent stage, while internet was nowhere. He grew up fanatically with the cartoon characters like Superman, Batman and Tarzan. Then Shinchan and Pokemon were yet to be born. While joining the college Ramesh was directed by his father to get enrol in Commerce, so as Ramesh could be the scion of his business empire. Accordingly he followed the instructions of his father. In three years time though he graduated in commerce and joined their family business, but his mind was wondering in the realm of fine art.    


While sketching the cartoons he was drawn towards fine art. Since he never attended any art school or art college, he had no mentor to imbibe the right skill to learn fine art. Yet he kept exploring a field of discipline that could be ranked as creative as the field of music.  He started with oil paints. But he didn’t like their slow drying process and the strong odor it carries. More to it the materials were expensive and the paintings required much space to store, since the paper sheets cannot be folded. Then he tried his hands on pastels, but it was very difficult to protect them from smudging unless framed, which was again a costly affair and also required space. This was followed by acrylic, but found it a little difficult to handle, since it dried up very fast. Water colour was one medium, where there is no odor, no maintenance like varnish and above all, was quick and easier to handle. So he finally settled down with the application of watercolors.

Every artist is identified for a unique feature that he creates in his art works. For example the works of artist Bijay Biswal could be attributed to trains, railway tracks, railway stations and railway passengers since he is someone who works with Indian Railways and had spent a majority of his active life while travelling in the trains. On the other hand the works of artist Saroj Rout of Barpali could be correlated with rural life as he resides in a semi urban area of Odisha. The works of any artist is largely influenced by the environment that he lives. Likewise Ramesh Jhawar got a special arena where he perfected his skills. He worked extensively on the street vendors selling fresh vegetables either laden on the cycles or push carts. His other area of specialisation is perched cycles. From the below given image you could clearly count the spokes of either of the wheels of the cycle. That is not all, you could measure the shadow of each of these spokes with geometrical proportion. 
                                              
Ramesh Jhawar is someone who able to transpire the light and shadow effects on the canvas in most of his outdoor paintings. He says most of us does not like shadow or the darker side of our lives, but we need to appraise it. Shadow appears because of the presence of the light. In one of his trip to Banaras of Uttar Pradesh he virtually fell in love with this city which situated on the banks of river Ganga. He captured the colourful walls of the houses on the narrow lanes of this ancient religious city that attracts lakhs of Hindu pilgrims every year.

In the year 2011 while participating in an art
exhibition at Chitrasanthe, Bangalore an unforgettable event happened with Ramesh Jhawar. A young lady visitor showed specific interest on a portrait of Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor. She purchased the sketch without any bargain. But in next couple of days she mailed the photograph of actress Sonam Kapoor along with this portrait. That young lady happen to be a cousin sister of Sonam Kapoor.       
                            

Another joyous occasion in his life was to attend the shooting of an episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) at Mumbai. At the end of the shoot, Mr Amitabh Bachchan the host of the show personally came to greet the audience. The portrait of Bachchan that Ramesh carried with him caught his attention. Ramesh gifted him the sketch. While looking at the master’s work the mahanayak or the Super Star of Bollywood stood unmoved for a while. Amitabh accepted the sketch cordially with a word of thanks.


[Sparkling Ganges]
On that very evening he had to rush to Chowdiah Memorial Hall at Bangalore to attend the award ceremony of Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation. In the function he was felicitated by Mrs.Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. She is the Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company. As of 2016, this lady was listed as the 77th most powerful woman in the world on the basis of net worth by Forbes magazine.



In case you unable to appraise his art work, than  just shut your eyes and effortlessly listen to his songs. Apart from the fine art his other specific interest is singing. He creates the music in his synthesizer or musical  keyboard and sings vociferously the Hindi songs of Kishore Kumar and Mohamad Rafi. His songs will take you to the golden era of Hindi melody dating back to the 70’s of the last Century.  Instead of following the suite of other siblings at home Ramesh Jhawar charted his own path. In the year 2010 he kicked off the secured home spun job for the sake of art. In the days to come this multifaceted icon called Ramesh jhawar would be worth a watch since in his blood cells different art forms are grooming.

kiranbima@gmail.com
Cell # +918249314972
E. Kiran Mohan (The Writer)
C/o.Dr.E.R.Rao (MD)
Tehsil Chowk,
At/PO BARPALI – 768 029
Dist. Bargarh, Odisha, India

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