From Deepa's Desk

  29.10.2026 After having breakfast at the hotel, we checked out. We had hired a cab for half-day sightseeing at Konark and then to be dropped off at a hotel in BBSR. I felt bittersweet as we left Puri. I kept hoping for a glimpse of the temple or better yet, Patitapaban Jagannath. Unfortunately, the vehicle took another route and I had to say goodbye to both without seeing them.  I had already read that the road connecting Konark to Puri is scenic. It was a beautiful drive along the coast-line and I enjoyed every minute of the drive.  Our first halt was at Chandrabagha beach which is a pristine sea-face. We spent some time there listening to the music of the waves, watching them ebb and flow in a mesmerising rhythm and enjoying the strong yet pleasing breeze.  We had a funny moment here. My husband and I were taking a selfie with the waves as the background. I believe that we were standing at a safe distance from the waves. Even as we were busy taking selfies, a sne...

  28.10.2026 Umbrellas, leather bags/purses and mobiles are not allowed inside the temple of Puri. Once we met Om, we surrendered our mobiles and umbrellas (which, to burst your bubble, are utterly useless in cyclones. They FLY with the storm!) Here's the thing - we thought that having a guide would help us to avoid the queue and would assist in getting a quicker Darshan. We were so wrong! Om told me, my kid and my husband to join the queue to get inside the premises of the temple while he led my mother-in-law in through a short cut allowed only for guides. It didn't exactly matter, for within five minutes, we all met at the same point - neatly barricaded lines of people waiting just outside the stairs leading to the interior of the temple.  We thought we had been duped by Om, for we were very much standing on the same queue as all the others. But Jagannath had plans for us, and Om was but a part of His plan! Om kept telling us to stay together in the line. I wasn't much wo...

28.10.2026 Bhubaneswar airport is neat, cozy and compact. It hardly took us minutes to collect our baggage. We booked Uber Intercity for traveling to Puri. We did however pose in front of a beautiful sand sculpture showing the unique trademark of Bhubaneswar.  The airport is surrounded by lush greenery. That, coupled with a sky overcast with dark clouds created a beautiful panorama. The road leading out of the airport is really scenic. There is a huge Ramakrishna Math just outside the airport premises. We passed by, already regretting the very less time that we were going to spend at Bhubaneswar.  I usually think of a word that best describes my first impression of a city. 'Big' is the word that came to my mind on seeing BBSR. Walls adorned with the traditional and beautiful murals of Odisha, broad roads with some of the greenest dividers that I have ever seen and sprawling farms on either side of the road made the drive a heavenly experience. There is a major highway connecti...

27.10.2026 Ornab has officially turned me into a stalker. Never have I ever tracked someone or something with such intensity and fervor. It is unfair, Jagannath... I thought in frustration. He knows how anxious I get about air travel. He knows how badly I have wished to visit the temple. And yet the cyclone had to arrive at the time of my journey! It had to make landfall on the same day that I am expected to arrive at Puri. Just. Not. Fair!!! I got a nice reminder of how narrow-minded I am by watching a video on the SM. This person who works as a guard at the coastal areas was smilingly saying that he and his team had spent a rough night on the ship, being tossed by huge waves. Only, he didn't use the phrase 'tossed by waves'. That was stated by me. What he said was immensely beautiful and poignant. He said that it felt as if Jagannath Prabhu was lovingly swinging the boat to and fro. He exuberantly and confidently stated that only good will come from Ornab. That, many part...

28.10.2026 On any given day, I feel the jitters before boarding a flight. Today I was going to board one, fully knowing that the plane would be flying through cyclonic weather. My anxiety had reached peak levels. "I love the dark of the morning more than the dark of the night." My son told me as we left for the airport at 3 in the morning. I had to agree with him. There was a certain charm to the dark of the morning, if we may say so. You look at everything with a fresh perspective. There is that hopeful feeling of immense possibilities to the day ahead. But all the possibilities that my mind could conjure were negative. Normally I love driving through the ORR - Outer Ring Road, a network of several roads and highways that connect different parts of Hyderabad to the airport and to other cities. But today even the dark, cold and beautiful drive to the airport failed to distract me. We reached the airport with a lot of time to spare. Once all the formalities were done, we board...

  26.10.2026 I check the cyclone tracker for the umpteenth time on my mobile, just like I have been doing the whole day. To be precise, this checking has been going on since a week. Ever since a cyclone named Ornab (also pronounced as Arnab) was predicted for Odisha, I have been checking the weather app and getting disheartened after seeing heavy rain forecast in Odisha in the coming two days. Then Ornab formed, and I switched on to the cyclone tracker, carefully monitoring the forecasted path of the cyclone (as if my monitoring would make the cyclone change its course).  You see, the day on which Ornab was supposed to land on Puri was the same day that my family and I were supposed to land at Bhubaneswar. Via flight. Which is the most terrifying part for me.  Not thunderstorms, not heavy to very heavy rainfall, not cyclones, but flying over a cyclone and the turbulence that is sure to occur.  When we booked tickets for Puri, we had no idea that we would be flying un...