Locating Bhandara!

12.09.2010

I spent almost the whole day travelling from Chennai to Bhandara. First I flew from Chennai to Mumbai and then flew another hour and a half to reach Nagpur. Nagpur airport is chic and modern; it could well be a miniature version of any airport abroad.

To locate Bhandara, I suggest that you take a map of India and locate Nagpur somewhere in the center. Now, imagine that you are drawing a thick black straight line towards east (that would be your right hand side if north is on top as it should be) with an eye-liner pencil; the line is almost straight except in places where it curves up and down when you find it difficult to control the soft tip of the pencil. This is the road running out of Nagpur to Raipur. Whatever scale you are using, when you’ve drawn the equivalent of seventy kilometers, you

have located Bhandara. You can take your line further east to Bhilai and then Raipur and on and on. This is the central portion of India where there is maximum space between east and west. Gujarat on the western cost and Bangladesh on the East or W. Bengal and the North East. I think this part of Maharashtra and MP were once the thick jungles that Indians had to cross to reach Kashi or Kashmir on pilgrimage. Although post independent India has tamed these forests somewhat, the flora and fauna are just waiting to take over at anytime.

As we drove from Nagpur on the Road running east to Bhandara, the setting sun was behind us bathing the road with a tawny light that shined on the trees and grass and made them look fresh and bright.

We passed through Bhandara which is a typical “developing town” in India’s agrarian heartland. It is small pocket of industrialization surrounded by green rice fields on all sides. This is a rice belt and people are rice eaters here. The prevalence of paddy fields has resulted in numerous crickets that take refuge in the guest house.