Bhubaneshwar - The city of temples

Retail Banking does not pay a great deal. What it does however is give you great experiences, different job roles, different people to meet and my favorite part - lot of different places to travel to and experience. My latest travel program took me to Bhubaneshwar...The city of temples. Puri has always been a favorite haunt for the Bengali, and Bhubaneshwar - 60 km away is a favorite haunt for most travellers. However somehow it had not featured in the 4 - 5 trips i have made to Puri as a kid and it was my first visit to Bhubaneshwar.
I landed at 12.30 in the afternoon, the air connectivity is not great to Orissa yet with not too many morning flights from Mumbai. The plan for the day was to spend time at the Orissa state office and in the evening go to Cuttack. As is my wont I insisted on a traditional lunch and we went to Dalma - possibly the only national Odiya food chain - they have an outlet in Bangalore.
I went for the Prawn meal at Dalma. The meal consists of rice, a prawn curry which was a bit like the traditional Malai chingri - only redder than the Bengali version and quite tasty. You also get Dalma - which is quite simply Dal cooked Odiya style - with lots of vegetables and is a traditional Odiya preparation, decent but not outstandingly good. The highlight of the meal was the sweet dish we had - Rasaballi which is fried sweets soaked in Kheer. I am not a fan of sweets but the Rasaballi was really really nice.
We then left for Cuttack at around 5 PM, Cuttack is a twin city and is around 20 km from Bhubaneshwar. The route also contains one of the highest per capita sweetmeat shops in a 400 m stretch that you will ever pass through. The 400 m stretch is lined on both sides by shops selling sweets. We stopped and sampled the most famous Pahado Rasogulla. The Pahado Rasogulla is a browning Rasogulla made of Chhana. More than the taste which is quite good, what does stand out is the area with the lines of shops.
I spent the night at Hotel Crown back in Bhubaneshwar, ferreted in by my injured foot, ordering room service and watching some Ollywood - the odiya film industry. Next morning was the time of the 2 hours i allow myslef to sight see in the travels that work takes me on. The same is done from 7 to 9 AM before office starts. In Bhubaneshwar the most famous tourist sight is the Lingaraja temple. The temple however was skipped because of my dicey foot. I instead spent the two hours going to see two of Bhubaneshwars other landmarks. The Udaygiri/ Khandigiri caves - Jain caves built into hills which are heritage monuments and the more historical and land-mark-ish Dhualigiri Stupa which is built on the sight where Ashoka the great Maurya king saw the river soaked in blood and embraced Ahimsa. It was pretty cool going on top of the small hill where the stupa is placed, overlooking the river from the spot where Indian history took an entirely different course. Incidentally the river is also where Shahrukh and Kareena were romancing during the famous movie.
The rest of the day was work which took me to all parts of the city. The city is really rather well planned. The most impressive thing were the vending zones created by the government. These are places where hawkers have been relocated to, green in colour and having the feel of a bistro, the zones have resulted in the city being neat, and as evidenced by the business the hawkers doing good business as well. In the afternoon I had a chance to also sample the famous drink the Lingaraaja Lassi, which was unlike most Lassis brownish in colour possibly due to jaggery I am not quite sure, it is very heavy, though taste wise does not really come close to the Original Lassiwala in Jaipur.
The other really striking aspect I will always remember about my visit was how Orissa appeared to be a classic link between North and South India. The script was very like the script followed by the South of the country, the dialect however was similar to the North.
Overall - a very productive and enriching trip. I left with a far higher opinion about the state and the government than I had come with. It just goes with show that dynastic politics and a long uninterrupted party rule in a state need not necessarily lead to decay or slow progress. One just needs the right people for the job.