From Cambridge to The Wash

We recently completed our journey from Cambridge to The Wash, an estuary and bay on the North-Eastern borders of England. The entire route has been broken into three sections, and for each, a short summary (in italics) of the trip has been provided by Rajesh Singh, my fellow companion.

 Cambridge to Ely

05Nov - we walked to Ely. It was a nice walk. Passing across fields with cows and horses and the beautiful countryside.

We can probably bet on Rajesh to maintain his calm demeanour and understate things. With me, it’s quite the opposite. I usually speak in superlatives and thus risk your disappointment! The walk to Ely was not ‘nice’ as Rajesh puts it! It was beautiful and had it not been such a lovely experience, we wouldn’t have stood by the banks of The Wash, ever! 

We just did not pass cows and horses, but a plethora of bird species on our way to Ely. If you are really into Bird-Watching, then Cambridge to Ely is your cake. I will leave it to Rajesh to mention the various species we encountered (as Bird Watching is one of his many interests).

The weather was serene, even though at the beginning, we had to deal with dew and wet socks as the Sun decided to wake up from its cloud-nap, a bit late that day. We took a small picnic break by the river to dry our shoes. Once the Sun was out, the trek was marvelous. You basically follow the Cam throughout, with minor diversions (which were fun as we got to climb some muddy fences on the way). The Ely Cathedral is visible from afar (may be from 5-6 miles away) and plays good cop - bad cop with you, as you have to finish 18 miles in total. 

                     

 

                                                                          

                                  

                                 

Ely Cathedral

 

                                 

We reached Ely, and had our first (as it has become a custom now ) fish-n-chips. It was already dark by then (around 5:30 pm) . I tasted Haddock for the first time, and Rajesh (pardon my unfortunate pun) decided to be the Codfather.

Ely to Littleport

 

22 Nov.  We only walked a little bit. The next stop was Downham market and we decided to do it another day! Had some ordinary fish and chips in a park with a model of Harley Davidson in steel

Yes, a little bit equals 6 miles! We were lazy from the start, as I missed the 8 o’ clock bus from Eddington to Cambridge station. Thankfully, Rajesh was not carrying his 2 kilo camera and the 20 kilo lens. Instead he had brought his drone along! It was a beautiful, Sunny day. For me the drone experience was new, fancy and scary. Rajesh had entrusted me with the controls and I made it land beautifully into the arms of an insect-filled tree! We did manage to set our companion free, but as one of my mentors once put it, “One should not elaborate on one’s own struggles to arrive at the results.” 

It was a lazy walk for us, and as again Rajesh understates, the fish-n-chips was not ordinary, but rather useless!

 

 

Littleport to King's Lynn

Very cloudy day on 28 Nov - could not walk on the dykes - shoes got wet too soon. so walked on the road!

We waved Bye to the river and walked in the village of Southery. From there took a bus to King's Lynn and the rest is etched in our memories.

This time my friend decided to bring along both his camera and the drone! We started really early from Cambridge. We took a train to Littleport at 8:35 in the morning and started our trek from the Littleport station. Lest we forget, we had used a dead round branch as our trekking stick on our way from Ely to Littleport which we dropped near the station fences at Littleport. The damn stick was lying there for a week, and thus we were joined by our fifth companion. The day was too cloudy and hence we figured out in about five minutes that the dykes were not walkable! We basically broke the law and hit the highway. 

                         

 

 

 The branch

 

 

After managing to criss-cross our way through law-abiding English drivers, we arrived in Norfolk. 

 

Guys, we have managed to walk out of a County during the Covid lockdown era! 

 

Walking wasn’t much fun now, as it became more about survival than experience. Hence we made some changes to the plan. We reached Southery, went to a Church/ WW1 Cemetery, walked idly around the village and waited for our bus to King’s Lynn. In between, Rajesh carried on with his Bird Watching.

 

The bus arrived at 1 pm and took us to our destination, while nearly making the highway our final one! But let that be.

Once at King’s Lynn we thought of following The Great Ouse to its Moksha, but only after having, yes, you guessed it - Fish-n-Chips! If you are thinking that I have been over-selling Fish-n-Chips, get ready to be disappointed! Our quest for “The Codfather” (yes!!) took us to a destination that neither of us had imagined! 

As we stood on the Eastern banks of the Great Ouse, Google Maps pointed us to the other side of the river for our fishy lunch. However,  a narrow Howrah-like lane led to the “Ferry-point”! There was no bridge connecting the two banks. We could see the sea on the horizon but a little disappointment hit us as we were about to miss our FnC tradition. Rajesh’s drone circled us for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden we heard the engines roar into action on the other side of the river! Yes! We will be able to savour Fish-n-Chips again!

As we boarded the ferry, the driver explained to us that the sea is actually called The Wash, and that one can trek towards it along the western bank of the river! Imagine our elation! Ever since Ely, this was our target!

The driver anchored his boat and led us to the beginning of the Peter Scott Walk. I will reserve this last-stretch-experience for myself, as I will not do justice to my feelings. However I can refer you to this website : http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/sevenwonders/yorkshire/the_wash/

                                                                         

Towards The Wash

                                 

Ferry-point

 

 

We did manage to experience a LARGE flock of returning birds. It was never-ending…it was beautiful, and probably reserved for two fellow travelers by Mother Nature..

When we came back to the western bank of King’s Lynn, it had just become dark. We went to The Codfather and bought what turned out to be our dinner.

Next we hopped on the ferry, and it was, well, nice indeed, back to the eastern bank!

We finished our dinner near the city-center, and took a train back to Cambridge.

We leave you not with an image of the destination, but rather a snippet-movie of the journey.

Yes, it's indeed meant to be like that. \m/

সন্ধ্যারতি

গান শোনার নেই, গল্প পড়ার নেই

এই দুপুরবেল বড্ড গম্ভীর প্রকৃতির।

থমথমে নিঃস্তবদ্ধতা ছড়িয়ে আছে বাতাসে

মানুষ আছে, কিন্তু বিশ্বরূপের তফাতে।

কোথাও ছুটি চাইছে মন, পাবে না জেনেই

কাজ বেড়েছে শরীরের সমস্ত ক্যুবিকেলের

অজুহাত খোঁজে জীবন, যদি আরও কিছু দিন

মুখ থেকে যায় নীরবে, কম্বল-আড়ালে।

প্রতিশব্দের কোলাহল বন্ধ জানালা ভেদ করে না

রাত্রি নামে বিকেলের হাত ধরে, 

ক্রমশ লাল হয়ে আসা চোখ দেখতে চায় না আলো,

সন্ধ্যে হারিয়ে গেছে দশলীলাচক্রে।।

The Last Ride

He grew up as the sunset became an illusion

By the same coast that had nurtured it forever;

The water still crimson yellow, sand as white

As the people enjoying the evergreen tides,

Everything was the same, as a frozen frame

Except that the Sun wasn't magic anymore -

Riding the curves of a fateful Sunset

The sour truth had dawned on the day.

He sat by the shore, lost in its silver ripples

Of what lay ahead in a dark, descending night

With punctured vision he gazed up at the stars

Cold sand reminded him of the one pending ride.

Opposite winds, as usual, and wheels in motion

 Armed with the piercing beacon of conviction

He rode towards the Sun, into the perfect Night

Away from the pull; a broken, free kite.

A Philosophical Transaction on Time-travel

Have you ever imagined the bounds of a creator? A creator sadly, isn't all powerful, but rather restricted in his/her own existence. The joy of creation lies in being able to provide freedom to the object of creation.

Take for example, time travel. We humans are incapable of achieving this feat, and this is one of those facts that human beings have been forced to accept. However, we have made time travel possible already for uncountable entities. There's no surprise or shock really. 

The modern physicist doesn't depend on exact Mathematics, as much as he/she does on computer simulations. These simulations, encoded through certain logical algorithms basically do the hard work that the human brain would have done. However, there is something extremely powerful about computer simulations. They help us visualise the rhythms and symphonies of our artistic intellect or for the lack of a better expression, our poetic abundance.

Let's take a simple example. Most of us are familiar with particle-based simulations where we specify the forces acting on the particle and the initial/boundary conditions, and evolve the particle from one state to another. Now imagine doing this experiment more than a billion times, and the entire process takes only a few hours! What not can you do with such enormous power?

The truth is, we do anything and everything. The more creative your mind, the greater is the scope ( or should I say, the space?) . Now imagine you have your particle whose dynamics has some kind of randomness. You evolve the system for some time, but then revert the particle back to its initial state. If you are familiar with coding, you know the term for this, as does any other person who is not : loop. 

When I say that the particle has been sent back to its initial state, it has achieved what its master never could. It has travelled in time. Now note the randomness in the dynamics. The particle now has a new trajectory until it travels for the same amount of time, when it is made to return to its initial state. It travels in time again! 

Oh! The infinite possibilities of righting the wrongs...The promise of eternal youth.

Consider now if you instead had two particles, rather than one, who start not necessarily either at the same place or time, but over the course of their motion intersect each other and only by luck, follow respective trajectories, such that they remain in proximity, for an atypically large interval of time...until one of them is randomly taken back to its initial state.

Isn't it good to have freedom? But what is freedom, really? Who gets to decide about it?

The Creator and the particle(s) play a game of Friends and Adversaries. Like in any other board game, the playmates exist, questioning each other's move, on a stochastic landscape.

It's only by luck that we, me and you, belong to this epoch. Is it upto us to decide whether we get to play the particle or the creator? Or is it dignified to surrender to the randomness of it all?

ফেরা

ফিরে যেতে পারবো কোনদিন?

আজকের আগে, গত কালের প্রবাহে?

যখন ভুল জমতে জমতে পাপ হয়ে ওঠেনি

সেই সময়ে; ফিরে যেতে পারবো কোনদিন?

কি হবে? আজকের সঞ্চয় নিয়ে কালকের রাস্তায় ফিরে?

যে সামগ্রী কাল কিনতে ইচ্ছে হয়নি,

কাল তাহলে কেনই বা নতুন করে ইচ্ছে হবে?

যদি ইচ্ছেই না হলো, তাহলে সঞ্চয়ের কি লাভ?

মরুভূমি। ধুলোয় ঢাকা স্বপ্নের প্রেতপুরীতে 

এই সঞ্চয় নিয়ে কি হাতড়ে বেড়াবো ?

ফিরে গেলেও তো সেই এখানেই নিয়ে আসবে সময়;

শুধু যারা আজ আছে, তারা আরও দূরে চলে যাবে।

The Pauper Prince

Like a melody that was meant to erode

Away the mud from your heart

About me, I wish the next day brings

To you the love that I couldn't bring.

In a narrow channel of aches, I sing 

Of the blood we failed to donate,

Like the wealth that flows streamlined

Around the edges of structures divine

I see the waste we have made

Of something pure, but fragile.

I see, for that's my blessing and curse,

In a hope that these words would nurse

The wounds their ancestors caused,

If possible, the bad, and the worse.

Flips and Dips

In a quest of oiling the cracks and the pores

The heat was turned up a notch;

Bonds moaned into existence, and disappeared

Only to reignite when flipped over;

The fingers pushed deeper into the skin

To reveal that the pita was optimum, (and)

The hummus could step out of the refrigerator.

 

But the fridge isn't a silent spectator

It laughs at the choices we're offered

Thus some Greek yogurt arrived on my plate

Mesmerized I noticed, the door opens to the left.

Birds of Day

With these wings around our hearts

We were destined to fly;

Yet, at day-break we made a promise

To wait for the melancholic kiss

Of the evening. Towards the nests

We fly together, but separated at best

You, a little ahead along the North

Me, succumbing to the West.

photo : the fellow traveler

India - III

Where love isn't milked, but reared

And blood, not shed but shared 

Where the dark is met with calm, not fear

And light isn't chained to far-away spheres

Where trust resides in what one hears

And why one writes becomes crystal clear

When sleep returns to children everywhere

And mothers regain what they lost in the war

Where poets can live in a peasant's gear

And music accepts to reside between the ears

Into that serene epoch

May my country arise.

India - II

When was India born?

Has it ever occurred to you?

The India, you know, that one ...

That still probably exists

Somewhere, among the salt, and

The snow; Within the music and the food

Along the dialects, and the rude

Weathers of innocence lost in greed

And destinies shaped by melancholic moods.

I wander my friend , in a barren field

Of questions, with no end in sight, of the fruit

Or even the tree; forget the seed -

The very seed that sprouted into what 

My country is supposed to be.

 

And if I'm not there

When the dilemma of the brush

Happens to cease, 

May you find answers, in the image to be.

India - I

 What is the idea of India?

My friend, have you wondered

Ever, where your India lies?

Does it lie where you give in to lies?

Or does it rest along the fault lines,

Of a few fractured, visionary minds?

Where does it look for water

When thirst overpowers it for decades?

Have you ever wondered whether

The desert in the West has spread

To the heart, polarized in a quest

To paint an Oasis, above a mirage?

Away from the mysteries of words

Away from novelists, and poets,

Where summer and rain bless the shades,

Into that silent light of freedom, 

May my country awake.

Oranges

Have you ever wondered,

What an orange really is?

May be you have, and

I'm not the only one -

Who doesn't shiver while

Thinking of a violent death that

The seeds embrace to welcome

A cycle of never-ending deaths.

In between, lie the epochs

Of life, and everything else

And evoke a strange question :

Was death the chicken, or the egg?