Deoghar is not on the destination list of the yuppy crowd any more. But then who cares? I am not part of the yuppy crowd in any case. Although urban all my life, but at 44 I am neither young nor very professional!!
My connection to Deoghar stretches for more than sixty years and three generations. My grand father had made a house there in the mid 40s to spend his retired life and my father maintained it, against a lot of odds, till the 90s when it was finally sold off. Although it has been close to 20 years now that the house has been sold off, I have yet to come to terms with that sense of loss that still engulfs me when I think about those days.
I spent all my childhood and teenage Puja vacations in Deoghar and have very fond memories of the place.
The Tower of Deoghar
The Deoghar I knew is completely lost. Vast stretches of open land have made way to an entire new township, unplanned and ugly. The cute little hill where we used to run up and down for fun in the afternoons has now become an entertainment park with a large ugly concrete slide and swings and a cafeteria with a huge Coke signage. There is hardly any tourist there.
The greatest shock came when I went looking for the small little river that used to flow behind our house. The dirt track remains the same. The river is also quite the same. I had no problem finding my way there through the now barren paddy fields. But where once the vision used to run free for miles on end we have a brand new railway track coming up there now, complete with a giant bridge over the river!!
On the way to Dharwa behind Pasi para
The Dharwa I was looking for is still there to the left
But to the right this sight greeted my vision
I am not anti-development. Perhaps some of all this is actually good for the locals. But for me it’s a very personal loss that I cannot explain in words.
These boys told me the rail line would be operational by 2010
Funnily enough, the main town has remained more or less intact. But the wilderness that we used to associate with the outskirts of Deoghar is completely lost.
I miss such barren landscape
For the drive I chose a rather unconventional route. I went via Burdwan-Guskara-Bhedia-Sriniketan-Suri-Massanjore-Dumka and while coming back I chose to take Dumka-Massanjore-Suri-Ilambazaar-Panagarh-Burdwan route. If I have to advice anyone, I would say take the second route. Though 30/40 km more, you save about an hour because you avoid driving through the congested town of Suri plus the bad road between Sriniketan and Suri.
The route through Guskara-Bhedia upto Sriniketan is quite good. In fact for going to Shantiniketan I would prefer to take this route now. But I wouldn’t take this route again for going to Deoghar.
In Jharkhand the roads are pretty decent, except for one stretch (Pattabari to Dumka) of around 15 km where it is quite broken. The Massanjore dam is really very pretty. In the space of last four/five months I have been to Panchet, Maithon and now Massanjore. I would give Massanjore the top crown among these three.
The majestic view of Massanjore from the road to Dumka
Here is a link to the team-bhp page where I have uploaded an XL sheet showing the travel log of the trip
