The Wheel of Fortune

I am an Indian and a proud Bengali at that. West Bengal is a state intertwined with a variety of Indian cultures. From being a once capital of India to have earned the rarest of the rare distinction of being the only state in India to be partitioned and recombined, we in West Bengal have witnessed it all, through our forefathers.

The tourism industry is quite developed in West Bengal(let us not talk about the impending confusion regarding her name, recently I have heard of an initiative being taken by one of the most popular English news corporations of India which is trying to gather support for West Bengal’s name to be changed to Bengal), mainly due to the ecologically rich areas in North Bengal. Not to be forgotten are the two main coastal strips, Digha and Bakkhali. While Bakkhali is, in common tongue, unattractive, Digha is exactly the opposite. Here, I am not going to describe the place. It is about a dream I had on the night after returning from my second trip to Digha.

The first time I went to Digha was in 2009. I had planned to take my grandparents somewhere or the other after my seventh standard terminal exams even before it meant going next door(for the simple reason that they had visited Vishakhapatnam with my brother and his family).

We stayed at Sea Hawk, arguably the best budget hotel in the whole of Digha at present. The rooms were nice, the corridors enabled us to move freely while enjoying the breeze all the time, the hotel-owned beach was more than just up to the mark. The sole problem with the hotel lay in its restaurant. Besides being illogically overpriced, the quality of the food was not up to the mark.

It was then that we found out the doings of most Sea Hawk tourist residents. They used to purchase highly attractive king prawns from the local market and have them cooked at any of the significant roadside food stalls on the opposite side of the hotel. With a thriving business of these stalls, Sea Hawk’s restaurant’s business gradually started to phase out.

We followed suit and thoroughly enjoyed our last three meals in Digha.

A few months ago, just before the semi-final match of the cricket world cup, we went to Digha once again. Naturally we stayed at Sea Hawk.

It was then that I came to know that the food stalls were not allowed any more to conduct their business in the vicinity of the hotel. The reason was obvious to me to be honest..after all why will a big hotel bow down to a small open-roofed portable food stall? The sad can cope with sadness better than the happy therefore it is better to sadden the sad more than they currently are.

In spite of the reason being obvious, I was deeply moved at this but was helpless, just like my poor foodie friends. We returned home a few evenings later and that night I had a dream.

In my dream, I saw huge harbour waves—like the ones which I saw from the 2004 tsunami footage. The waves were approaching the Indian coasts(Digha included) at a tremendous speed. Within no time whatsoever, the entire Sea Hawk was washed away. The waves receded in a short time after which the food stall owners who had been deprived their right to live by the now dead Sea Hawkers, appeared and began their business on that Sea Hawk road once again, this time without their interference. I woke up just then and realized that I had only been dreaming.

This is exactly the scenario in today’s materialistic world. The hurt continue to be hurt whereas the rich continue to store wealth which is on its way to topping the list of all time greatest hobbies.

But there is someone called GOD/DESTINY/someone of similar stature who takes care of all mortals, especially the more deprived ones. So each and every person should remember about Mother Fortune's Wheel.