Tanakpur: My Journey to the tiny town.....Part 1

As the age old saying goes – Man proposes, God disposes… there are so many things in life, we wish to do, but things just don’t materialize. We can attribute it to will of God, or for that matter, our circumstances. Am sure, we all have that personal To-do list waiting to see the light of the day.

Needless to say, same goes for me too. However, I will always be proud of myself for at least completing one such task and visiting a place called Tanakpur.

It was on 13^th Apr 2017 that I found myself sitting in a luxury bus at Red Fort Bus Depot. The bus was about to start for Tanakpur at 11:00 pm and was scheduled to reach there at 7:00 am next morning. I had planned for this trip for more than 2 months and picked a long weekend with no pending official work.

I had grabbed a window seat after having 3 deep fried 'Parathas' and a 'Lassi' at 'Parathe Wali Gali' at Chandni Chowk. I was expecting the seat next to me to be empty for the whole journey as the bus was only half filled with passengers. All my assumptions went for a toss as suddenly there was a rush of 20-30 people who filled the bus just a minute before its departure.

A young lady about 27-28-year-old got the seat beside me. Her husband, who had come to see her off, gave her about 50 instructions on how to travel safe. Before deboarding, he requested me to help his wife during the journey if she needed anything.

I nodded with a smile and told myself that I was going to help her (or anyone in the journey) till the time she doesn’t ask me to give her my window seat.

Whether it is a bus or train or a flight, I am very good at fighting with anyone and everyone if I am denied a window seat.

As the bus started and picked speed, I got to know from the lady that they were married just 2 months back and she was travelling to meet her in-laws at Rudrapur, while her parents stayed at Roorkee. She was a qualified Electronics Engineer who had worked in Electronics Assembly Line in Uttarakhand and was looking for a job in Delhi at that time. Though her husband was running a Web-Designing business, she was more interested in Electronics.

When I told her about my purpose of visit to Tanakpur, she was a bit surprised initially, but later gave me some good advice. She told me that if I was planning to go to Nepal then I should not carry my credit/ debit cards or cash above Rs. 1000 there and that I should be back to India before sunset at any cost.

She was aware of the place and had been there long back when her uncle used to work there.

Tanakpur, a small sleepy town in Champawat District of Uttarakhand has always fascinated me since my 10th Birthday, 18^th Oct 1992, as It happened to be the day, my father started his journey to this town for an official work of Indian Railways. Although he was back to Raipur in 5 days, but the way he described that place and his 18 hours stay there really made a solid impact on my mind.

Although I now know that it is an important spot on the Kailash Mansarovar Route (via Lipulekh) and, also a base for the famous Purnagiri Temple, I didn’t have any clue about this place that time except for its position in the Oxford Atlas which was a fascinating thing for me as a 5th Standard Student.

I always wanted to visit this place, but the corporate rat race never allowed me to ever make any attempt to visit that place. Things gradually faded from my mind until, this word popped up again in June 2015 in a title of Bollywood Movie named 'Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho'. I was still recovering from the shock of my father's sudden demise in July 2014 and this movie just brought back all the memories of my father describing his 18 hours stay there.

Things got favorable for me as I got into a Project with Indian Army and moved to New Delhi in January 2016. A visit to Tanakpur was one of my prime targets apart from delivering the Project on time.

As the bus picked speed and entered the speedy highway in Uttar Pradesh, all passengers got into sleep mode while I was still in an excited mode about my journey, which I finally was taking after planning for so many years. I remembered a green diary which I had discovered from my father's closet in 2015 in which he had penned down about all his experiences on all his official trips between year 1990 and 1995 when was posted at Bhilai Steel Plant by Indian Railways and his duty was to ensure seamless loading of Steel Products on hundreds of goods trains bound to different parts of the country or Vizag Port (for exports).His department was also responsible for achieving a revenue target for Indian Railways from Steel Authority of India ltd(SAIL).

My father had written 3 full pages on his journey to Tanakpur. He had also described some other journeys to places like Ramtek (Maharashtra), Adra (West Bengal) and Hirdagarh (MP) among many others.

I understood that my father had to go to Tanakpur in 1992 as some steel structures were transported by SAIL for constructing a dam near Tanakpur and Indian Railways was waiting for the payments of the transportation even after 2 years due to missing invoices. My father was asked to visit Tanakpur and collect those invoices in person.

During a short break around 1:30 am at a Dhaba, I realized that most of the 50 odd passengers would be getting down at Rudrapur or Khatima and only a handful would be going up to Banbasa and Tanakpur. As I was totally unaware of any of these places, it didn’t make much difference to me except an apprehension that they may terminate the bus at Khatima and that I may need to arrange for an alternative means to continue up to Tanakpur. I met a professor of Mathematics who told me that the Railway Station of Tanakpur was under demolitions process and it would be totally gone in next 15-20 days as a new Railway Station was being built along with conversion of the tracks to Broad Gauge.

I don’t remember when I dozed off or for how long did I sleep, before I woke up seeing morning light from the window. It was 5:30 am and the bus was standing at big square at a town where people were just realizing that it was morning as the tea stalls were just opening for the day ahead. I realized that the seat next to me was now empty and before I could make out anything, I saw the lady waiving a goodbye to me from across the road. I realized that it was Rudrapur and that it was just a matter of a couple of hours before I would be landing at Tanakpur.

The next leg of the journey was mostly uneventful with the bus reaching Khatima at around 7:00 am. Here the bus almost got empty and only about 12 people remained who were going to travel to Banbasa of Tanakpur. As anticipated earlier, the bus operator declared that the bus would get terminated there itself.

They arranged 2 small 8-seater auto rickshaws. One for the 6 passengers bound to Banbasa and the other one for the 6 heading for Tanakpur. I again grabbed a window seat after ensuring that my laptop bag was safe. As the auto rickshaw got out of the town and entered the highway with awesome greenery, my heartbeats got faster as I was just about 25 km and 30-35 minutes away from the place which my father had described many times with a great passion.

As my journey had been absolutely comfortable, I again remembered the diary of my father where he had described his journey to Tanakpur by train.

It was not that easy for him that time though he was on an official duty. He boarded an express train from Raipur at 10:00 pm on 18^th Oct 1992 and reached Allahabad

at 12:00 noon on next day. Then he boarded another express train to Bareilly and reached at 3:00 am on 20^th Oct 1992. It was Meter Gauge track after that, and he had to spend about 10 hours changing 2 passenger trains to reach Tanakpur at 4:00 pm on the same day. His return journey was equally filled with train changes and

he reached Raipur back on 23^rd Oct 1992.

While I was thinking about all these, I found myself at a small bus stop with a sign board of 'Tanakpur'. Also, I could see a Railway track nearby which was just being

laid. They were converting the Meter Gauge track to Broad Gauge which meant that all trains were suspended at that time.

I realized that the most important entity of my trip to Tanakpur i.e. the Railway Station was just a km away from the bus stop and I could reach there walking along the new tracks. I was eager to visit the Railway Station as now I knew that it was just a matter of 2-3 weeks before it will be completely gone. I felt very fortunate

to pick this date for the journey as I knew that it would be difficult to connect with the memories of 1992 with a brand-new Railway Station being built in 2017.

It took me just 10 minutes to locate a good hotel named 'Blue Empire' and get a room for myself. I spent about 2 hours and then was ready for my tryst of exploration

with my 36X Zoom Canon Camera. As I looked out of the hotel window, I could see a huge peak overlooking the whole town. Maybe this was the 'Kala Pahaad' that my father had described several times. The peak was actually located in Nepal, as noted by him in his diary.

It was 14^th Apr 2017. After a brief chat with the hotel manager, I was ready with my agenda for 2 days at Tanakpur:

1) Exploring Tanakpur Railway Station

2) Finding the Railway Guest House

3) Looking for Mr Harishankar Jaiswal or his descendants (if they were still in Tanakpur)

4) Finding the dam (steel structure) for which my father had to come to Tanakpur

5) Walking to Nepal ad spending some time there (though my father didn’t do that in 1992)

6) A visit to Purnagiri Temple which the locals were insisting me to do.

To be continued…

Part 2:

http://asgthedong.blogspot.com/2020/07/tanakpur-my-journey-to-tiny-townpart-2.html