First Day :
At last the day of departure came. We started the bus journey in a merry note. I met representatives of this karate from different parts of India. Andaman, UP, Mughalsarai, Ajamgarh, New Delhi. All of the trainees were very young and were very energetic.
The bus journey from Shihan Shivaji Ganguly’s home to the Government Youth Hostel at New Digha took almost 5 hours. We reached there at about 1:30 pm. Just as we entered we got the news that there’ll be no electricity for 3 consecutive days. Moreover, the heat was also scorching. Shortly we got admitted to our dormitories. In mine there were about 30 students. The beds were okay. But the bathroom and the fans were terrible. Water-supply was very poor. This was the first time that I bathed in front of a number of cockroaches and in such dim light that I had to strain my eyes to get a proper view of everything inside. But very fortunately the electricity came after a few hours.
In our lunch we had dahi-chire. It was a rule that there shouldn’t be a single grain of food in our plates after completing eating, otherwise he were warned to be punished. Most of us were so hungry that the idea of leaving food behind never occurred to us. We had our first session of training on the sea beach 2 hours after our lunch. The session wasn’t very tiring one, but was quite refreshing. We had to walk for about 8 minutes from our hostel to get to the sea-beach. In dinner we had the same menu. Then we went to sleep. We were always guided by whistles blown by the senior blackbelts. 10:30 pm was the time of Lights Off. After that whoever was found awake had to be on the duty of night-guard and stay awake for the rest of the night. I almost got caught on the first day. The next day was the real test of tenacity. We were informed that next day we were going to night-training, beginning from 2:30 am.
It seemed a few minutes that I laid down on the pillow and being cruelly ravaged by the bird-like-mosquitoes that my sleep broke. I noticed that the lights of the dormitory were already on. It took sometime to come back to myself and realize where I am and what’s going on out there. But as soon as I heard that the first two whistles had been already blown, my heart gave a huge leap. I leapt from my bed and did my brushing in haste and then dressed myself up. Thank god that I don’t usually go to big-toilet in the morning. Then we gathered in the open place in front of the hostel. All the neighbouring place seemed to be in a peaceful slumber. The roar of the wind through the leaves of the trees seemed to be the sound of their snoring. After all of us had gathered and the late-comers were punished we were placed on the two sides of the highway and our practice started.
It was almost 2:45 am. Not a single sign of human habitation could be seen around us. Our rythmatic loud sounds (khiai) filled the air. This practice was quite strenuous. After all the shadow techniques were practiced, we ran for about 4 Km (Up and Down). Then we sat down in the two sides of the highway making a straight file to meditate. What a pleasant experience it was !! There was not a single disturbance, pin-drop silence reigned around us. All our strains and pains and floating haphazard thoughts were blown away by the gentle breeze. We were told to wipe off all the thoughts in our mind and concentrate to : “nothing”. This “nothingness” brings an indescribable mental peace. It is an attempt to forget the self and to unify self with the nature, which is the main aim of all the martial arts.
Our practice ended at 4:30 am and we were told that the next session would start from 5:30 am and we can lie off for the moment. We did not care to undress and we jumped into our beds and roared our way into a sound peaceful sleep.
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