While leaving Raipur, 30 kilometres out
we reach Durg where Deepika’s house is there and she invited us for breakfast
and we were welcomed sooooooooooo warmly by her family. She introduced us to
each member and some of her close friends were also there, who were practically
family only. The love in the air was so thick and smiles were floating all
around.. It was a very happy time.
And her dog Veer! He was a cross between
a lab and something else (I forget) was the cutest and most loving creature! I
wish people weren’t scared of dogs.. Dogs are one of the richest sources of
unconditional love.. I would have sat
and petted and loved him all day if people hadn’t chased him out of the room. To
all those people who ‘don’t like’ them – you don’t know what you’re missing..
(And if you say you know – you still don’t)
We have a most delicious and nutritious
breakfast with puris, sabzis, chicken,
bananas, grapes, home made cake and kadak
chai. Like, yummmmmmm.. Our mouths
still water when we think about it.. But I particularly loved the grapes.. They
were deep purple, at least 50% larger than your average grape and sooo juicy..
And they were pleasantly sweet. Just enough to let you have a whole bunch of
them and not get that sugar-saturated feeling later. There really is something
about home grown stuff that makes you miss it elsewhere..
I really liked how Deepika’s family was
so close-knit.. The bonds they shared were very tight and the mutual support
and the being-there-for-each-other feeling was very strong. We had to leave
just after breakfast to reach Jabalpur in time, but we just kept delaying. Not
on purpose.. But no one took the initiative to start moving. We were having
such a great time..
We hit the road again. Metaphorically.
But we wanted to physically hit the road!
It was sooooooooo bad!! Just so uneven and broken! It looked like they broke it up to rebuild it, but destroyed it and never got around to fixing it up again. God knows how long it's been under construction! Maybe it wouldn’t have been so unbearable if we had to travel
for just a few hours or so. But today it’s travel for the whole day pretty
much. And it stayed like that for 150 km or so.. By the end of the day, everyone’s back and
legs were silently screaming. But honestly, haven’t seen roads like this
anywhere. And they’re supposed be our national highways.. It was appalling! If
the leaders in our country ever want this great land to develop further, they
should really do something about the roads. At least start from there. It’s just that none of them ever travel on these
roads in between cities and towns, so they don’t even know that they’re in this state. It’s just so wrong on so many levels..
There has to be something that we can do to make this right. But I know
that one person can't do it alone. All or nothing. It’s either all of us, or we get nothing, right?
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