Machilipatnam mail


Get down at the Vijayawada central station,if you are travelling by train,, (we, the locals usually call it as bezawada or blazewada in summer.Believe me it lives up to the nickname.) or at the bus stand...Then you can board a bus,or hire a car,or sqeeze into a ticket taxi, (you can go by train too,only it takes a great deal more time)and proceed eastwards along a road surrounded by eye pleasing scenery...Green fields ,,canals on both sides..betel leaf orchards,...It is green ,green green everywhere.....dark green of the sugar cane crops...parrot green of the seedling nurseries,and the bottle green bowers of the sidelining trees... No surprises, buddy......after all this is the krishna delta....

When you cover fifty miles of this ,you reach the land"s end..a terminus..As you go past the PAMPULA CHERUVU,and within minutes find your self right in the middle of a bustling city square......yes ...our Bandar has a ROBERTSON PET SQUARE. An imitation of a european and english type....When the separate Andhra strike was at it"s peak in early seventies,N.T.R and KRISHNA shot their DEVUDU CHESINA MANUSHULU,"s climax parts here itself and liberally showed the town in detail..I still remember the buzz it created at that time.....every one went out and thronged the shooting spots....There was no other topic for days together....They clucked their tongues and swept krishna away, who was still an upcoming hero at that time....".he is still amateur" they declared...".N.T.R. had to show him how to act every time"...Once there was great hullabaloo at our school...A chota mota film personality visited all classes, followed by some of our staff-ostensibly to select few girls for ACTING in the movie......I don"t think any were .


Well....well...where are we?....at the square?..yeah..and clutching at your hair in desperation?...o.k. that is normal.. For in Bandar, people are no respecters of traffic rules...You can permanently cling to the horn...yet not even bicycles are going to give way...not only your pleas are going to be ignored,but you will be treated to some accusing looks and few choicest curses...When you finally shove, push and elbow out your way-particularly around the vegetable market and minerva center....you can take a breath and look around...


The main roads ARE wide enough..no doubt...If you go east, or straight, for a few furlongs, you will pass by the kotavari thullu,PHIRANGI DIBBA ...When i was a child cannons were used to be fired DAILY at six or seven in the evening (don"t correctly remember).. then the railway station , and if you still go further, end up at bandar kota (there is no kota at all) and fall off into the backwaters of the sea, exactly where the ganesh was immersed in the film"s climax...This is the place of the famous CHEPAKANNU DARWAAZA or THE SHARK EYE GATEWAY....Legend has it that a gateway was carved out of a shark"s eye and erected here.....only there is"nt even a remnant of it...I have never seen it, and for that matter think not even my dad did...

If you take north,or left...-.that is where most of the town is expanding...-There are courts, collector offices,,and road to GUDIWADA...In the north east,the road to MANGINAPUDI where the beach is...almost eleven kilometers of distance...

On the south side, the town stretches almost to 10 kilometers from the square...to the actual delta a few miles away.......where krishna merges with the bay of bengal as it gets bifurcated into several channels and merges with the bay of bengal...This is the road that is to become the much awaited coastal high way.....from CALCUTTA to MADRAS and further too.Most of the Bandar people are banking on to this high way to boost up the land prices in coming days....Let us hope they get it...or where else do you get lower prices than the govt rates for your lands?...only in Bandar.


Ofcource west is the way you have come in from vijayawada...to be accurate,...southwest....facing MECCA.. The legend says the nawabs have built it like that..It was under the rule of golkonda nawaabs for a while. Yes..Believe it or not, there was actually a nawaab of machilipatnam, as i have learnt to my shock sometime back.Till then i never thought there was one.

I think by now you will have started leaking like a fountain from all the pores of your body.Very soon small rivulets of sweat are going to flow unpleasantly down the legs,.... Your clothes are going to stick to the oddest parts of ur anatomy, and you will have a strong urge to tear at your hair,clothes, shriek ,and streak along the roads.Do not worry. You will get used to it as we do so nonchalatly.

So, stand there at the square and breath in some of the sea breeze, mixed with the stink of open drainage until the next post.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It is a very nice commentry about Machilipatnam. I was born and brought up here and do know some of the stuff here but after going through this blog, I really feel that I missed a lot.

I would like to add some facts to parts of your commentary.

Machilipatnam Fort: Yes, you can still see the ruins of this "Fort" at Bandar Kota (Machilipatnam Fort), you just have to treck a unpaved way deep into the marsh lands. You will also be surprised to see the Clock tower and Amunition factory near the fort.

CHEPAKANNU DARWAZA: Again, yes you call still see the foundation of this so called shark eye gateway. Its just the foundation and you have to again treck into marsh land to acutally go there.

When I go back to india, will click some pictures for these two places and will post them online

Thanks for brining to light some of the interesting facts about Machilipatnam.
ratna said…
Thank you sir...
ratna
Interesting things to know about Machilipatnam.My dad belongs to that place but I always hear that so many illustrious people come from there.
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