Friend Bhabani Patnaik visited a few places in Odisha during the current monsoon to see a few waterfalls and have some photographs. I admired his adventure. He came from Pondicherry. That is the place where he lives. He was, however, somewhat disappointed that he could not visit a few Falls in Kalahandi District as the approach roads had been damaged during rains. I too was sad. I fail to understand why we cannot maintain these roads to many of our scenic spots.
He also told me how difficult it was to approach the historic waterfall at Kodarkot in Deogarh District where India's first hydro electricity generation facility was created by Raja Sachidananda Tribhuban Dev that provided electricity to the the Palace, cloth loom, sugar factory established in 1908. Bhabani could walk to this waterfall through rocks and bushes, only because he got help from a willing young shepherd who ably escorted him to the spot.
He made yet another interesting comment. During this trip, he told someone known to him in a town that he would like to take a few pictures of the waterfall nearby. The person was somewhat surprised and asked him why he should take pictures of such places. Bhabani then put him a counter question and said, "If you have been to Nainital, you must have seen visitors taking pictures of the lake, hills, houses, boats and no one asks them why they were doing that. If that is a normal activity there, why should you feel I am crazy because I like a picture of the waterfall here?"
Bhabani's brief talk, the other day, summed up our attitude to tourism in this part of the world. We believe in expensive road-shows , bring out expensive advertisements in newspapers and magazines for marketing Odisha tourism but do little to develop our innumerable scenic spots and we fail to make our people realise the benefits a visitor from distant land brings to us.
Bhabani was in a hurry to leave. I suggested that his next tour should be to take pictures of the palaces of Odisha. He liked the idea but seemed not sure if he would be able to meet the requirement of logistics and resources for such an exciting project. But the idea seems to have registered in him and I am sure, once back in Pondichhery, he would give it some thoughts.
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12th August, 2016
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