Blog 12, N&N - Hometown visit – 1st to 8thDec 2022
- Jan 13, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 1, 2023
Namrata originally belongs to a city that is close to 1000 years old and proudly hosts one of the most famous temples in the world and the longest beach in India. Puri is a beautiful coastal city known as “Shri Kshetra” or “Sri Jagannatha Dhama” after the 12th-century Jagannath Temple and it is one of the original Char Dham pilgrimage sites for Hindus. She has been part of this heritage city for almost 40+ years and was brought up in a house that is located at a distance of 200 meters from Jagannath temple. Her preschool, high school as well as music and art education were nurtured in here.
This was the first visit as a couple for N&N, to Namrata’s hometown Puri. Nitin had been there earlier as a part of an official trip in 2019, as a tourist. However, this time it was completely different, as the host, his wife had planned to show him the city from a local’s point of view, which includes Shri Jagannath Temple, Beaches of Puri, Experiencing Food, Visit to village, Exploration of handicrafts and quick tour of Bhubaneshwar. They landed at the capital Bhubaneswar’s airport, which is around 60km from Puri. The picturesque view of paddy fields, lush green trees along with top-notch infrastructure is what impressed Nitin, on the way to Puri. They were warmly received by Namrata’s parents at their 55-year-old residence. The first evening was dedicated for Sri Jagannath temple visit, which is now immaculately managed by the government to cater to the huge number of tourists visiting the city daily. Many may not know yet, the construction of Puri international airport is already in speedy progress, and is planned to be completed in 2 years timeline. The city is supplied by a central RO water system and hence the municipal tap water is safe to drink. The small yet iconic city is well maintained by the Government. Low cost of living, well-maintained roads, clean beaches, clear signages and free drinking water are a few of the perks of visiting Puri. Namrata visited her both the schools, college, teacher’s house and friend’s house along with Nitin; who was slowly getting adapted to the city.
The Puri temple is famous for its annual Ratha Yatra/chariot festival, in which the three principal deities are pulled on huge and elaborately decorated handcrafted wooden temple cars. Unlike the stone and metal icons found in most Hindu temples, the image of Jagannath (which gave its name to the English term 'juggernaut') is made of wood and is ceremoniously replaced every 12 or 19 years by an exact replica. We can find a fusion of Saivism, Shaktism, and Vaishnavism of the Hindu religion so reverently held together in Shri Kshetra. The huge temple complex covers an area of over 400,000 square feet and is surrounded by a 20 feet high wall known as Meghanada Pacheri. It contains at least 120 temples and shrines, inside. With its sculptural richness and fluidity of the Odia style of temple architecture, it is one of the most magnificent monuments of India. Currently, furthermore construction developments are going on outside the temple, to ease the movement of tourists. Namrata’s mother has deep knowledge about Odisha’s rich temple culture and the story behind each. Nitin had curiously listen to her daily, clarifying all his doubts.
Puri beach is the most popular beach in Odisha and the largest in the country, on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. The splendid beach stretches up to 7 km and is a round-the-year destination for both domestic and international travelers. The most famous paid access “Golden beach” is the site of the annual Puri Beach Festival and hosts sand art displays, including work by international award-winning local sand artist “Sudarshan Pattnaik”. It was awarded the prestigious 'Blue Flag' tag on October 11, 2020 by the Foundation for Environment Education (FEE), Denmark. Next to it is “Niladri beach”, which has free access and is mainly for locals to have some quiet time of their own. The original Puri beach which is a stretch between “Swarga Dwar” and “Digbareni”, is where the max of the shops and smaller hotels are located and is mostly crowded by tourists. N&N had multiple visits, including a morning bath at Golden beach, morning meditation at Niladri beach, and an evening sunset view at the lighthouse beach. The distance from their house to these beaches is only 2KM and they loved to walk all the time. They also visited 2 famous ponds in the city called “Narendra” and “Markanda”.
The food which any visitor to Puri must eat is, temple prasad, which is called “Mahaprasad” and is a collection of 56 delicacies. It is eaten by hand while sitting on the bare ground. N&N had Mahaprasad inside the temple premises at “Anand Bazaar”. Odia cuisine is simple, nutritional, and full of fresh vegetables. Locals like to procure and eat lots of vegetables, green leaves, and fish. Namrata’s mother prepared extravagant vegetarian options for Nitin including Khichdi, dalma, mixed veg, saag, khatta and lots of pitha. Though originally from the north, Nitin prefers simple and light food, non-oily, light on spices too and hence he explored the options whole-heartedly. The endless variety of fresh chhena and milk sweets at Puri is something to witness personally, the shops make it all fresh twice a day and nothing is refrigerated. The most famous are Chhenapoda, rasagola, rasabali, rabidi, chhena jhilli, chhena khai. In dry sweets, “Khaja” is quite famously known.
As Nitin calls it “The 5Rs. town”, a decent sized piece of samosa/alu chop/most sweets costed only Rs. 5. A person can have a tummy full of breakfast for only Rs 25 in the cart located at grand road. A masala dosa in a well-maintained seated restaurant costs Rs. 40, a Marwari unlimited vegetarian meal in an AC restaurant costed them Rs. 140 per person. Any fresh milk or chhena sweets price per kg will be maximum Rs. 250. There are sweet shops at every 50mtrs distance nearby the temple or grand road. There is no concept of supermarket cold storage vegetables there, local farmers market caters to all seasonal vegetables and fruits at quite cheaper price. Entire grand road connecting Jagannath temple to Gundicha temple hosts many numbers of neat food and beverage carts selling multiple items throughout the day.
N&N visited Namrata’s paternal ancestral village “Sripurushotamapur”, which is around 30kms distance from their Puri home. Namrata had her beautiful childhood summer days fishing in the pond, long walks through the paddy fields, hide and seek in the hay, cooking in the wood-fired mud stove, climbing the tree, unlimited access to free green coconut water et all. This is the first time ever, that the city-bred man Nitin experienced life in a village. They boarded a local train along with Namrata’s father and reached the destination in about 30mins. Full of beautiful clean ponds blooming with lotus and lilies, concrete roads, throughout greenery, a calm and clean environment, simple lifestyle is all about Odisha villages. The extended family at the village did their best to make Nitin feel comfortable and cooked a simple meal served in the banana leaves. Most vegetables are homegrown by the villagers and one can witness trees like elephant apple, lemon, bel, chikoo, coconut, mangoes, banana etc. The green coconut water is supremely sweet and large in quantity and they both had it multiple times during their one-day visit. There are paddy fields everywhere and rice is the main crop in here, followed by urad dal and Moong. On the way to return, they stopped at SakhiGopal temple as well.
Puri, also is house to artisans and craftsmen and produces many beautiful handicrafts. Woven cotton and silk sarees (Sambalpuri, Bomkai), Stone carving, Applique work, Silver Filigree work, Pattachitra, wood carving, terracotta, seashell items etc. are few from the long list of items to look for at Puri. Handloom industry is quite good and cheaper as compared to many other states. Large number of shops near to beach, sell handloom and handicraft items. Readymade garments are directly sourced from Kolkata or Bangaladesh and are surprisingly good quality and cheap. Namrata bought sarees, conch, local jaggery, ber pickle, organic red poha and many more items from Puri.
On their way to return, N&N had a night’s stay at a dear friend’s house at Bhubaneswar. The city has come a long way since Namrata did her Engineering during 2001 and long declared as a smart city. It hosts a series of top engineering and other educational institution like IIT , XIMB, NIFT, SOA, IHM. Also called the city of temples, it forms golden triangle along with Puri and Konark. The infrastructure and flyovers, and local transportation is advanced to another 10 years or so. It is exceptionally clean, and structured and N&N were already thinking of what was waiting for them at Bangalore. Together they visited Lingaraj temple in the evening and tasted some local delicacies like chat, tandoori momos, rasagolla. Namrata’s friend cooked an early morning meal of fresh water prawns curry, round brinjal fry, spinach vada and khichdi, for them. Even in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, life is super cool; eatables are freshly available and lifestyle is still way cheaper as in a capital city.
With their inter-state wedding, N&N has the best of both worlds, north India/Delhi and east India/Puri. It is on us individuals to adapt to any culture, without boasting or holding on to just one.
Every city, and culture has something to offer and hence one should visit there with free mind. The more receptive we are to the surroundings around us, the more joyful life we get to live.
In front of Jagannath temple
Golden beach or Blue flag beach
Grand road
Niladri beach
Narendra pond
Handloom cotton Bomkai saree
Panchmukhi Conch
A simple lunch thali
A vegetarian everyday thali in Odia household
Nitin eating the famous "Pakhala" with a spoon
Puri chat
Vegetarian street food
Our village
Freshwater prawns at Bhubaneswar
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