Journey to Hinglaj

""Journey to Hinglaj

Samaranand had always been a man of books and distant dreams. As a retired engineer and occasional writer with a flair for the dramatic, his mind often wandered to places etched in memory and myth. One such memory was the Bengali novel Marutirtha Hinglaj, which he had first read as a schoolboy. The haunting narrative of Thirumal’s journey to the ancient temple nestled deep within the Makran mountains of Balochistan had never quite left him. Now, with the Indo-Pak conflict once again simmering and stories of Baloch resistance to Pakistani rule gaining ground, Samaranand’s mind loitered along the rocky terrain of Baluchistan. He decided that the time had come for an audacious pilgrimage to the sacred site—Hinglaj Mata Temple.

Logistics were daunting, but help came from an unexpected quarter. His old golfing partner, Jaggi Kohli—a flamboyant tea exporter with extensive business ties in the Middle East—offered to connect him with reliable contacts in Afghanistan. Through Jaggi's network, Samaranand, his street-smart assistant Babulal, and the tech-savvy young Soumya forged a circuitous route. They crossed the border from Iran into Afghanistan with forged papers, aided by a Taliban commander they had befriended during a previous trip to Shiraz. From there, Baloch locals, eager to aid Indians as fellow resistors of Pakistani oppression, escorted them across rugged terrain.

They journeyed in a rusted, paint-chipped truck that groaned under the strain of sharp bends and craggy outcrops. The truck was a moving gallery of Pakistani kitsch art—its sides emblazoned with bright peacocks, a grinning Shah Rukh Khan next to a horse rearing on two legs, angels fluttering with Urdu couplets, and slogans like “Jaan se pyara Pakistan” juxtaposed against “Dil hai Hindustani.” Each panel was a riot of colors—neon pinks, blinding oranges, and psychedelic greens. The horn blared a musical tune every time it was pressed, adding to the surreal atmosphere of their odyssey.They found the couplet written on the rear of the truck!

**"Ae Sher Parhne Wale Zara Chehre Se Zulfen Hata Ke Parhna, Gharib Ne Ro Kar Likha Hai Zara Muskura Ke Parhna"**  

   - Translation: "O reader, read this couplet after removing the tresses of hair from your face; the poor man has wept as he writes this, so please smile while reading." 

 

As the truck rattled over rocky paths, crossing dusty hamlets where children ran barefoot and veiled women peeked from mud houses, they would stop occasionally to pick up flowers and offerings—bright marigolds, coconuts, and agarbattis from makeshift roadside stalls. The landscape was bleak but majestic: wind-swept gorges, dry riverbeds, and towering cliffs guarded their route like silent sentinels.

During this journey, Samaranand found himself slowly morphing into Thirumal—the hero of Marutirtha Hinglaj. He remembered how Uttam Kumar had portrayed Thirumal in the film adaptation with a brooding intensity that matched his current state of mind. Each turn of the road, each silent glance from a Baloch escort, and each flutter of prayer flags from a forgotten Sufi shrine seemed to echo scenes from the book he had read decades ago.

Finally, they reached Hinglaj. The ancient temple carved into the rocky hills appeared almost ethereal. There was no grand entrance—just a cave, a spring, and an age-old sanctum embraced by desolation and reverence. They offered prayers silently, deeply aware of the sacredness and danger entwined in their presence.

After paying homage, they spent the night in a humble hill village not far from the temple. The night sky was clear—an unimaginable blue embroidered with a tapestry of stars. Samaranand had never seen such a sky before. It was as if the heavens, free from pollution and noise, had opened a secret window into the universe. Occasionally, the quiet was shattered by the distant growl of fighter jets, a grim reminder of the war unfolding beyond the horizon.

Back in Kolkata, weeks later, Samaranand sat in his drawing room, a steaming cup of Darjeeling in hand, flipping through the frayed first edition of Marutirtha Hinglaj. Babulal lounged on the divan, and Soumya, ever the rationalist, peered over his laptop.

“So, Babuji,” Babulal grinned, “when’s our next adventure? How about Kailash this time—if China allows?”

Samaranand chuckled, “Let me recover first, Babulal. Thirumal had one journey; I had mine. No sequels planned.”

Soumya added dryly, “Next time, we’ll just do a VR pilgrimage. No Taliban, no fake passports—just Wi-Fi and 3D goggles.”

They all laughed, the echoes of Hinglaj still quietly resonating in the room.

---

Footnotes:

1. Hinglaj Mata Temple: One of the 51 Shakti Peethas, Hinglaj Mata Temple is located in the Hingol National Park, Balochistan, Pakistan. It is an ancient site of Hindu pilgrimage and remains one of the few temples that survived centuries of socio-political changes in the region. Devotees consider it one of the most sacred shrines where a part of Goddess Sati's body is said to have fallen.

2. Marutirtha Hinglaj: A Bengali travelogue-cum-novel written by Kalikananda Abadhut, based on his own spiritual journey to the Hinglaj shrine. The protagonist, Thirumal, undertakes an arduous pilgrimage fraught with physical and spiritual trials. The book was later adapted into a Bengali film in 1959, with matinee idol Uttam Kumar playing the lead role of Thirumal. It remains a seminal work capturing the blend of myth, devotion, and self-realization.""

The ransom ....concluding part of The mask

The ransom

“Yes,yes we will call it Coronavirus !” Soumaya yelled with joy while his fingers played with the laptop like he was playing a piano key board.

Samaranand, Babulal and Soumaya were in Samaranand’s flat in Golf Green to catchup with  the progress of teaching a lesson to the owner of Pakheer Basha. The readers would recall that Babulal had visited Prantik in Bolpur , under guidance of Samaranand could lift the curtain on the mystery of dancing mask at night that was the doing of the owner to get the guest move out much before scheduled time. Samaranand’s friend Dinu and his family was one such victim.

Samaranand had promised Dinu that he would teach that Ghose ( owner of Pakheer Basha) fellow a lesson. After that talk Samaranand sent Babulal once again to Prantik to collect data about the past guests who stayed in Pakheer Basha and also to collect guest list and details of similar setups run through B& B (bed and breakfast) at Prantik.

Armed with the data he framed a plan with Babulal and Soumaya. Readers may know that Soumaya is a computer geek and a hacker. Initial plan was simple, it was to lower the rating of Pakheer Basha in all social media platforms like Google, Facebook, B& B page etc. This was in Soumaya’s domain of expertise. Soumaya also carries out rating enhancement through his cahoots in Tollygaunge and Sealdah slums. He has 50 boys who carryout this, Soumaya has given each a smartphone and pays for the monthly subscription, the boys are excited with this free phone so they happily carryout the task of putting like in FB,comment, star rating etc in Google and so on as instructed by Soumaya. All of them have established false identity in virtual network. In this particular case false identity would not work as the guest who really stayed there would have to give the rating as the owner Ghose was clever enough to tally the name with the guest list.

Armed with actual guest list Soumaya had a meeting with his team in Sealdah slum. One of the boys who was also savvy in computer pointed out that if they assume the guest name then their IP address can be tracked in case Ghose becomes suspicious and takes help of some IT expert. They also knew Ghose enhances the star rating with the help of such group. Then Soumaya had a bright idea of involving Lee from Chinatown who was also a fellow hacker.

Next they had a meeting with Lee at Big Boss restaurant in Tangra. Lee suggested to use his hacker friends in China who can carry out the rating war.

Soumaya kept Samaranand and Babulal aware of his plan.

 The group in China was given the names of the past guests of Pakheer Basha, Samaranand supplied the content as Chinese were not good in English. Initially 3 star was given by the Chinese group by phising the identity of one of the past guests, they were routing through Pakistan. Immediately within 6 hours someone gave 5 star and the average rating was maintained as 4.5 in Google. It was clear that Ghose had used his agency to neutralize the poor rating.They started the war on Google first. Then 4 of them gave 2 each and the average came down below 4, we all know anything below 4 is shunned. The game of Star War was hotting up between unknown players in the virtual battle field. They found in the meanwhile Ghose was trying to reply on each of the comment by promising to improve the performance. Within 2 days the rating of Pakheer Basha climbed down below 3. The group from China hacked B&B page and put adverse comment about the setup. The group had the list of guests of other such setups in Prantik, they praised those and started discouraging people from going to Pakheer Basha.

After a fortnight Babulal was again sent to Prantik to make a discreet inquiry about the result of the cyber-attack. From the Toto driver Khokon he gathered that Gopi was complaining that no new guests were coming, the owner was unhappy, as Gopi could not make them happy; he feared that he might lose the job.

Samaranand never wanted Gopi to lose job. So he advised Soumaya to suggest the Chinese group to directly meddle with the webpage of Pakheer Basha and other business which that business group controls.

Now the attack was direct, first they meddled with their computing system and thus all emails got screwed. Next they got into their data base and blocked it by using Ransomware.This virus caused total paralysis of the computing system in Ghose's establishment. Ghose could not carryout on line transactions, email etc.

Yes by this time reader must have understood that why Soumaya yelled and said, “We will call it coronavirus” as it came from China, of course not from Wuhan city of China.

Ghose received a Text message on his mobile informing him that if he doesn’t a pay a certain amount then he cannot retrieve his data. The amount was to be paid in cash and at a designated place in Tangra, which will be informed, to him later.

We are not aware of Ghose's reaction but from the Chinese group it was gathered by Soumaya that Ghose was compelled to pay a good sum of money to make his computer system normal.

Overnight the rating of Pakheer Basha started going up and within 4 days reached to 4.5.
A certain percentage of the money came to Soumaya who utilized that in purchasing some smart phones for his new recruit from the slums. He with his team of slum boys were on the lookout for new business area. They had less overhead so could under quote established players. In addition to rating enhancement they were engaged in cyber security also.
Samaranand with a twinkle in his eyes suggested,'Tap Ghose for cyber security job!" Babulal and Soumaya laughed out loudly !
All three headed for WOW,China at Park Street to celebrate as the mission was accomplished  with the help of friendly Chinese hackers!

Patriot duty

Patriot duty

……………………..

I was wrong in assuming that after doing compulsory NCC during IIT days there would be no more regimental training, but a surprise was waiting for me in Indian Oil, Guwahati Refinery where I joined as Engineer Trainee in 1965.

It was the time when skirmishes with Pakistan in Kashmir border escalated to a full scale 17 days war in September, 1965. The management was instructed to tighten security in the township and the refinery because the East Pakistan border was very close by, Bangladesh was yet to form.

One night while we were in the officers club heard air raid siren blowing and all the lights were switched off . Pak planes on reconnaissance were  flying over our refinery and Indian antiaircraft guns located on two hillocks by the side of refinery started firing at those. Heavy armored vehicles, tanks  and trucks carrying soldiers moving was a common sight those days. Next to refinery was the Narangi military camp and so the movement. The situation was tense in and around the refinery; trenches were dug in the refinery and  the township. Every day we had to undergo civil defense drill of diving in the trenches whenever siren was blown, yes air raid sirens were put at strategic locations in the refinery, township and the market place.

All the trainees were selected to undergo training for home guard. So NCC like training by the army personnel started for us. It was regular workout, march past and finally rifle shooting in the army range. We were pressed in duty of guarding the township during the night.  We would work in the refinery in the day  and guard the township in the night.  Mr. Chowdhury was a confirmed bachelor; he offered his flat to be our night camp. At any given time as per regulation two of us would be moving together. A danda and a torch were our tools to defend. I guess at that time of history those were sufficient to handle any suspicious movement, Pathankot type attack was unheard of.

Nothing exceptional happened during that one month of guard duty excepting for one night.

I and my friend Mitra were walking towards the market from our sector 2 township on that fateful night; we had to cross a jungle. We heard some suspicious sound from the shrub, we got ready with our danda .

“Yes, there is movement.” Mitra said.

“Watch there are two shinning things in the shrub.” I said.

It was a moonless night, we debated whether we should further investigate by going around the shrub.

Both mustered enough courage to move further in, there was distinct sound of movement in the shrub.

“Come out, whoever is there!” We shouted.

No response….we cautiously walked deeper in the shrub with baited breath, it was dark and two shinning eyes stared back at us.

We spread the shrub, walked forward, to our amusement and relief found an innocent cow looking back at us.

We shared our that experience with our comrades and soon it became folklore of the refinery. The ceasefire was declared in September, 1965 and a peace treaty known as Tashkent Declaration was signed by the initiative of USA and Soviet Russia in January, 1966.

Our war time special duty ended without any other major incident.