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Bhaskar Majumder
1
The attic of Daipayan’s ancestral home in North Kolkata smelled of old books, mothballs, and the faint aroma of his grandfather’s pipe tobacco — a scent that clung to the wooden trunks and rusted almirahs like a memory too stubborn to leave. Dust motes danced in the slanting beam of afternoon light that filtered through a broken ventilator, casting long shadows on the faded floor mats. He wasn’t supposed to be here — just a short trip home for his cousin’s wedding — but the pull of nostalgia had dragged him up the creaky stairs to explore the childhood hideout where he once played archaeologist among his grandfather’s collection of brittle maps and dog-eared journals. Amid the clutter, tucked inside an old shoebox wrapped in jute twine, he found a yellowing black-and-white photograph. It showed a terracotta temple with carved panels so intricate, they seemed to breathe life into the still image. On the back was a handwritten note: “Where stories still whisper through clay. – Dadu, 1957.”
Daipayan sat cross-legged on the dusty floor, staring at the photograph as a strange sensation took hold — a mix of longing, curiosity, and something almost spiritual. The temple in the image was unlike anything he had seen during his travels as a freelance photographer. It wasn’t marked with any date or name, just that haunting line in Bengali inked in his grandfather’s distinctive looped handwriting. Memories of evenings spent listening to Dadu’s tales of lost kings, wandering bards, and forgotten towns surged forward. He remembered a name — Bishnupur — once mentioned during one of those stories. A place where kings built temples not from marble or gold, but from clay baked in sun and soul. It had sounded mythical then, like something out of an Amar Chitra Katha comic. But now, with this photo in his hand and a city life that felt increasingly hollow, Bishnupur felt like a call waiting to be answered.
That night, back in his room, Daipayan looked up everything he could about Bishnupur. The internet fed him pages of its Malla dynasty, terracotta temples, Baluchari sarees, and festivals filled with Chhau dancers. But the information felt clinical, incomplete. What he was seeking wasn’t just historical — it was emotional, ancestral, intimate. By morning, he had made up his mind. He called off two scheduled shoots, packed his camera, two notebooks, and the photograph. As the train tickets confirmed on his phone screen, a flicker of purpose lit up his weary eyes. He wasn’t just going to take pictures this time — he was going to find a story. One that his grandfather had perhaps begun, and that he now felt destined to finish. Bishnupur awaited — not as a tourist destination, but as a riddle whispered through clay, asking to be remembered.
2
The morning Howrah–Purulia Rupashi Bangla Express pulled away from the city with a soft jerk, its old metal coaches rattling over the suburban stretches as Daipayan watched the skyline of Kolkata dissolve behind layers of smog and sunlight. He sat by the window, camera slung beside him, the photograph folded inside his notebook like a secret he didn’t want to share too soon. Around him, vendors hawked tea in clay kulhads and cutlets wrapped in newspaper, families chattered in Bengali and Hindi, and the rhythmic clatter of the tracks became a comforting drone beneath the hum of anticipation. Fields of green flashed by, punctuated by lone palm trees and huts with tiled roofs. For the first time in months, Daipayan felt untethered from deadlines and editorials, the pressure of selling stories giving way to the joy of discovering one. He flipped open his notebook and scribbled: “Every story begins with a departure. Bishnupur isn’t a place. It’s an invitation.”
As the train crossed into the Bankura district, the landscape began to change subtly. The flat plains gave way to undulating red earth, dotted with sal trees and the occasional glimpse of tribal murals on mud walls. Daipayan had read somewhere that the soil here was rich in iron, lending the earth its distinct rust colour — the very clay that sculpted Bishnupur’s famed terracotta temples. He felt a strange reverence looking at the terrain, as though the land itself had memory. An old man across the aisle, noticing his curiosity, leaned over and said, “You going to Bishnupur, Babu?” When Daipayan nodded, the man smiled and added, “Good time of year. Not too hot. And the temples — they glow at dusk, like they’re alive.” The phrase lingered in Daipayan’s ears — like they’re alive — reinforcing his feeling that this journey wasn’t merely physical but part of something larger, something that had been waiting for him to arrive.
By the time the train rolled into Bishnupur station in the soft gold of late afternoon, Daipayan was already enchanted. The small station was quiet, almost sleepy, flanked by flowering trees and hand-painted signboards. There were no blaring horns or neon billboards — only cycle rickshaws, the scent of fried muri and peanuts, and a distant rhythmic thump that sounded like a drumbeat. He wondered if it was the beginning of a local Chhau rehearsal. He took a deep breath, the air dry and earthy, and stepped onto the platform. A narrow road stretched out from the station, flanked by old shops and crumbling colonial bungalows. As he began to walk toward the guesthouse he’d booked, photograph tucked safely in his bag, Daipayan felt the strange certainty that he had been here before — not in this lifetime perhaps, but somewhere deep in his bones. The town welcomed him not like a stranger, but like someone returning to fulfill a promise left unfinished.
3
The next morning, Daipayan rose before the town did. Bishnupur lay swathed in mist, the terracotta rooftops and tamarind trees barely visible in the silvery hush of dawn. He stepped out of his modest guesthouse — a renovated two-story building with peeling green shutters and a sleepy caretaker who only stirred at the sound of temple bells — and followed the winding path toward Rasmancha, the most iconic temple structure he had seen in countless photographs, yet never in person. The air was still, broken only by the soft rustle of leaves and the distant conch call from a nearby home. As the structure emerged through the veil of fog, it took his breath away. Rasmancha stood like a silent sentinel of time — its arched corridors and pyramid-like roof rising from the earth like a monument carved by dreams. The laterite stone glowed faintly pink in the morning light, and Daipayan, camera forgotten, simply stood there for a long moment, absorbing the presence of something far older and wiser than he could comprehend.
He stepped closer, running his fingers along the terracotta panels that covered the temple’s outer walls — panels that told stories without words. There were scenes from the Mahabharata, musicians frozen mid-song, dancers captured mid-twirl, and rows of elephants and horses marching across the clay. Each panel was a narrative, and each narrative was alive with emotion, even after centuries. Daipayan took out the photograph from his bag and compared the carvings. The temple in the picture wasn’t Rasmancha, but something about the artistry matched — the same delicate craftsmanship, the same reverence for detail. He wondered if the same hands had worked on both. His fingers brushed over one worn panel showing a woman holding a veena, and for a split second, he thought he heard a faint hum — not sound, exactly, but a memory echoing through stone. He blinked and shook his head, but the sensation lingered like a scent. Somewhere behind him, a cowbell clinked, and the town slowly began to wake.
A few meters away, he spotted an old man sweeping the temple courtyard. Daipayan approached him and asked if he knew anyone who might have archives or knowledge of older photographs of the temples. The man paused, squinted at the image, and said, “This… this is not Rasmancha, not even Jor Bangla. But it looks familiar. Maybe Madan Mohan or something further off, in the village side. You should speak to Charulata Di, who runs the local museum library. She knows stories more than books, I’d say.” Thanking him, Daipayan noted the name. Charulata — it rang with a quiet authority. As he walked away, camera now snapping instinctively, he felt the air around Rasmancha hum with a silent welcome. The temple, in its stillness, had shared a secret — not fully revealed, but just enough to pull him deeper into Bishnupur’s woven tapestry of time and terracotta.
4
The path to Charulata Di’s house led Daipayan through a narrow, shaded bylane near the old market, where red hibiscus bloomed defiantly over mud walls and the smell of dried chillies and mustard oil hung heavy in the air. The building wasn’t marked, but an old man outside a tea stall pointed it out — “That one with the neem tree and the blue door. Just knock. She doesn’t like phones.” The house stood like it belonged to another century — with a courtyard shaded by vines, rows of clay pots stacked along the wall, and pigeons fluttering from an iron trellis above. When he knocked, a voice called out without hesitation, firm yet welcoming, “Esho, chole esho.” Charulata Devi appeared at the door in a handwoven cotton saree, her long silver-streaked hair tied in a bun, and eyes that seemed to have seen more than most bookshelves ever held. She looked at him for a moment and said, “You’re Dutta’s grandson, aren’t you? I’ve seen that face before — just younger and far more stubborn.”
Taken aback, Daipayan followed her inside without question. The living room was cluttered yet elegant — shelves of palm-leaf manuscripts, wooden idols, framed photographs, and an old gramophone resting on a lace-covered table. She poured him tea without asking and said, “Your Dadu and I were once part of the same heritage documentation group in the ’50s. We wanted to record everything — temples, oral stories, fading rituals — before it all disappeared. He loved this town more than most locals ever did.” Daipayan pulled out the photograph and handed it to her. For a moment, her face didn’t change, but her fingers trembled slightly. She held the image like it was fragile glass, then said quietly, “He took this. I remember the day. It’s not one of the famous temples. This is from Lalbandh, near the edge of town — a temple dedicated to a dancer-goddess, now mostly buried. No one goes there anymore.” She looked up at him. “But if this picture found its way back through you, maybe the story wants to be told again.”
As the day waned, Charulata Di led him into her private archive — a cool back room filled with rolled-up scrolls, sepia maps, and dusty diaries. She handed him a journal — his grandfather’s. It contained field notes, sketches, even verses written in his flowing hand about a temple dancer named Anuragini, who was said to have vanished the night the temple bell cracked during a storm. “Some say it was a curse,” Charulata said. “Others say it was love. But every story leaves behind a shadow.” Daipayan felt the weight of history not as a scholar, but as a grandson, a witness, and perhaps, now, a bearer of a forgotten truth. As he walked back to the guesthouse that evening, journal in hand, fireflies blinking like old memories around him, the town no longer felt still. Bishnupur had begun to speak. And Daipayan was finally learning to listen.
5
The morning light filtered through the bamboo blinds of Daipayan’s guesthouse room, casting lattice-like patterns across his open notebook and the old leather-bound journal that had belonged to his grandfather. He hadn’t slept much — the pages had kept him up, filled with sketches of temple reliefs, coded references to dancers, rituals, and a recurring name inked in Bengali: Anuragini. Alongside, a few pages described the artistry of Bishnupur’s Baluchari weavers, likening their narrative sarees to “moving scrolls of clay turned silk.” A line stuck with Daipayan: “In the hands of a true weaver, even forgotten gods return.” Compelled to find this connection between thread and temple, he set out that morning toward the weavers’ colony, where the famed Baluchari sarees were still made on handlooms that groaned like old men whispering secrets. The road was narrow, flanked by mud-walled houses with fading frescoes, and the scent of boiled silk and drying dyes hung in the still air.
At the heart of the colony, he met Nimai Da, a master weaver whose hands moved like flowing water across the loom. The old man didn’t speak much at first, only nodded when Daipayan introduced himself and showed the photograph. But when he mentioned Anuragini, the loom stopped. “That’s not a name we speak lightly,” Nimai said slowly. “She wasn’t just a dancer. She was a muse. They say she danced before the Malla kings — a Baluchari was once woven just for her, filled with miniature motifs of her performances.” He led Daipayan into a dark storeroom, where, wrapped in cotton cloth, lay a folded saree so delicate it seemed to breathe. On its pallu were scenes that mirrored the terracotta panels of Madan Mohan Temple — dancers with veenas, a moonlit courtyard, a single cracked bell at the top corner. “This was never sold,” Nimai whispered. “Some say this design brought ruin. The weaver who made it… his loom never sang again.” Daipayan traced the patterns in awe, wondering how silk and stone carried the same story.
Nimai Da offered him a place on the verandah and a cup of cha. As the sky turned amber and the village children ran past chasing kites, Daipayan listened to the weaver hum a tune — an old Baul song once sung to accompany Anuragini’s final performance, the night the bell cracked. The lyrics spoke of a soul trapped between clay and sky, waiting to be remembered. It was then Daipayan felt the lines between craft, myth, and history blur. Perhaps Bishnupur’s real legacy was not just in its temples or weaves, but in the way it layered its stories — in brick, in silk, in sound — so that the past never truly left. That night, back in his room, he placed the saree’s photograph next to his grandfather’s journal. The stories were converging now — threads of history, whispers of love, fragments of ruin. And Daipayan, in the middle of it all, wasn’t just recording them. He was becoming a part of them.
6
Rain came unannounced in Bishnupur, sweeping over the red earth like a sudden memory, flooding the courtyards and temple steps with the scent of wet terracotta and old moss. Daipayan stood beneath the eaves of Madan Mohan Temple, watching the storm soak the ancient carvings, giving them the illusion of movement — dancers appearing to sway, musicians striking invisible strings. The priest, a stooped man in saffron cloth with a voice like crumbling paper, had agreed to meet him earlier but now hesitated, watching the storm with an unreadable look. Finally, he stepped closer and spoke in hushed tones, as if afraid the very walls might hear. “You seek the story of Anuragini, don’t you?” Daipayan nodded. The priest exhaled slowly and said, “Then you must know of the bell — the one that cracked the night she vanished.” He pointed toward a small chamber behind the sanctum, rarely shown to outsiders. Inside, hanging on a rusted iron hook, was an old bronze temple bell — split down the middle like a wound. “They say it rings only during storms,” the priest added. “And only when someone speaks her name in longing.”
Daipayan stepped inside, the air heavy with incense and secrets. The bell was darkened with age, but its form was beautiful — embossed with lotus motifs and a faint engraving of a dancer mid-pose. He could almost hear a faint hum in the chamber, the echo of some ancient melody too quiet to name. He opened his grandfather’s journal and read aloud a verse written in a trembling hand: “In her final bow, the sky wept / and clay remembered her touch.” As if in response, a low tremor passed through the air — not a sound exactly, but a vibration, as though the bell had sighed. The priest watched with quiet eyes, offering no explanation. “No one knows if she was real or just a tale passed down to protect the temple’s sanctity,” he said. “But one thing is certain — after that storm, she was never seen again, and the bell never rang in prayer again. Only rain could awaken it. And sometimes, regret.”
Later that night, Daipayan sat by the banks of the Dwarakeshwar River, the town now shrouded in darkness, with the sound of crickets and distant drums drifting across the water. He felt the photograph in his pocket grow heavy again, as if the story inside it was no longer willing to wait. Charulata Di had told him stories leave shadows, but here in Bishnupur, shadows seemed to leave stories. The cracked bell, the weaver’s cursed saree, the dancer who vanished into myth — each thread pointed to something deeper, older, buried not in time but in silence. He stared at the temple silhouettes in the distance, their outlines flickering in the intermittent lightning. Somewhere between the carvings and the stormlight, he began to feel Anuragini’s presence — not as a ghost, but as a memory the town was aching to share. And he, camera in hand, was ready to listen with more than just his lens.
7
By the time Daipayan found his way to Lalbandh, the sky was a shade of copper and mauve, the sun dipping behind the sal trees, casting elongated shadows on the narrow, overgrown path. The temple, or what remained of it, was buried partially under earth and time — bricks entwined with roots, reliefs half-swallowed by moss, and weeds sprouting between sacred crevices. This was the place Charulata Di had spoken of, once vibrant with music and ritual, now forgotten even by maps. As he stepped past a crumbling arch, the air changed — heavier, hushed, like he had entered a space that remembered. In the clearing stood a half-collapsed mandapa, its lone pillar etched with the faint figure of a woman poised mid-dance, her anklets carved in minute detail, her face turned upward as if caught in devotion. Daipayan stood motionless, the air around him thick with something he could not name. The wind rustled the leaves like soft applause, and in that moment, he knew — this was Anuragini’s temple, the shrine to a dancer who once swayed under moonlight, worshipped not as a deity, but as art incarnate.
He approached the broken sanctum, ducking under low branches and fallen lintels. Inside, the space was circular, the roof partially open to the sky, where shafts of fading sunlight pierced through the canopy like spotlights on a long-forgotten stage. The walls were decorated with fading frescoes — some barely visible, others defiantly intact. He raised his camera but hesitated. This wasn’t a space that wanted documentation. It wanted remembrance. So he sat, breathing in the scent of earth, decay, and jasmine — faint, but unmistakable. He opened his grandfather’s journal again and found a rough sketch of the sanctum — the same layout, the same central figure. A note beside it read: “She danced here under the Sharad moon. Her final offering — one of beauty, defiance, and surrender.” Daipayan whispered the name aloud: “Anuragini.” Nothing stirred. And yet, everything listened. The silence that followed felt not empty, but full — as if the temple had exhaled.
As night fell, the moon rose, pale and luminous, through the broken ceiling. A sudden breeze rushed through the trees, and for a brief second, he saw it — or thought he did — the flicker of a silhouette twirling in slow rhythm, anklets chiming on stone, eyes closed in rapture. It vanished as quickly as it came, but left his heart racing, his breath short. Was it imagination? Memory? Or the residue of something too deep for words? He couldn’t tell. But as he packed up and stepped out under the moonlit sky, one thing was certain — the story of Anuragini was no longer just a mystery passed down by priests and weavers. It was a living presence, embedded in the soil, the brick, the rhythm of wind through trees. Bishnupur had revealed its heart — not through history, but through a dance that had never truly ended. And Daipayan, now more than a traveller, was the chosen witness.
8
The final morning in Bishnupur dawned with a stillness that felt sacred. Daipayan stood on the rooftop of his guesthouse, watching the town slowly awaken — smoke curling from clay ovens, temple bells chiming in soft succession, and pigeons rising in spirals over the domes. In his bag were carefully packed relics of his journey: the photograph, his grandfather’s journal, the weaver’s song scribbled in his own hand, and a single clay figure of a dancer he had bought from a silent artisan near Rasmancha. But the real souvenir lay elsewhere — etched into his memory like the terracotta panels he had touched, where stories endured not in words, but in form, in silence, in rhythm. Charulata Di had given him one final gift the night before — a faded letter, unsent, from his grandfather, addressed to “whomever finds this path again.” In it, he had written, “Art outlives everything. Even grief. Even us. Let it be your guide.” And now, as Daipayan prepared to leave, the words felt not like an ending, but a passing of the torch.
He took one last walk through the Jor Bangla Temple, sunlight slanting against the bricks, illuminating scenes of divine battles and pastoral grace. He paused by a corner panel showing a woman dancing alone under a tree, two musicians seated in quiet reverence beside her. He hadn’t noticed it before — or perhaps hadn’t been ready to see it. Was it Anuragini? Or a hundred dancers like her, now forgotten? He stepped closer and saw something inscribed at the base, so faint it was nearly gone: “She offered herself not to gods, but to beauty.” He reached for his camera, but stopped. Not everything needed to be captured. Some stories asked to remain as whispers, embedded in clay, waiting for those who could listen with more than eyes. With a deep breath, he traced the carving once with his fingers, a quiet gesture of farewell, or maybe thanks.
At the station, as the train groaned into motion and Bishnupur began to recede behind fields and sal trees, Daipayan didn’t feel like he was leaving — only moving forward with something now inseparable from him. He wasn’t just Daipayan Dutta, photographer from Kolkata. He was the grandson of a seeker, the listener of a town’s unspoken hymns, the recorder of a dancer’s memory carved in temple stone and silk threads. The wind rushed past the window, carrying the scent of red earth and ripe guavas, and somewhere in the distance — or perhaps only in his heart — he thought he heard anklets echoing once more. The story wasn’t over. Stories like these never end. They return — in song, in stone, in silk, and in those who care enough to remember. And in the quiet hum of a moving train, Daipayan smiled. Bishnupur had given him a story. Now, he would carry it — so that clay may continue to remember.
