Day 2 (4th March, 2010)
Route
Maihar – Katni – Jabalpur – Seoni – Nagpur
The Maihar Cement complex is located about 10 kms from Maihar town. Driving towards the town at 06:30, we saw the temple of Goddess Shaarda atop the Trikuta hill. Maihar would have remained another unknown and obscure town, but for the temple and Ustad Allauddin Khan – the grand old man of Hindustani classical music.
Legend has it that Maihar derives its name from Mai(Mother) and Haar(Necklace) because the necklace of Sati is supposed to have fallen atop the hill. Ustad Allauddin Khan – the founder of Maihar Gharana – was a devotee of the Goddess and climbed up the hill (1063 steps) every day. Now, of course, one has the luxury of driving up the hill or using the ropeway. We did not have the time to go atop the hill so we just took a couple of pics from afar and carried on towards Katni.
Our hearts sank and the horrid experience of yesterday started haunting us once again when we encountered bad roads just beyond Maihar. However, the bad stretch was limited to a few kilometres. We relaxed and started enjoying the picturesque drive.
A reasonably decent looking dhaba was spotted and not willing to take chances, we stopped for breakfast. It was only 08:00 and the dhaba was just about coming to life. We enjoyed the morning breeze under the shade of a garden umbrella as hot Kanda Poha was prepared for us. It was a tasty and sumptuous breakfast followed by a cup of reasonably OK tea.
As we drove further south into Madhya Pradesh, the roads kept improving. The traffic was not very heavy either and much to our pleasant surprise there were stretches of extremely good four lane roads as well. In some sections, the road signs indicating the name of the village gave statistics of population as well. What made it interesting, though, were the low population figures of each village. Hardly did we see a sign indicating the population to be beyond 1,000. If only the other Indians could learn from these simple villagers!!!
We noticed another interesting fact. The total absence of speed breakers. In Bihar, on the other hand, speed breakers – often car breakers – literally litter the roads. They serve a variety of purposes, apart from performing their primary duty of reducing the speed of vehicles. They announce to the world that the village has muscle, so to say, and should not be taken lightly. They also facilitate forcible stoppage of buses and trucks – for free travel. The speed breakers have also been notoriously, though gainfully, employed for looting vehicles at night, though in all fairness, this is not so prevalent now. And last but not the least, the speed breakers come in handy for collecting “donations” for “religious” purposes. These could either be an approaching festival or a temple being constructed. The most common deity presiding over this blatant land grab? Bajrangbali, reduced by the evil forces of Kaliyug to being the God of Encroachment!!
We kept crossing the cities, towns, villages, hamlets without any problem. Bye passes around the bigger cities and towns helping us save precious time. Driving through the towns without a bye pass was not a problem either – thanks to the absence of congestion on the roads. By 10:00 hrs we were driving through the Jabalpur bye pass. Some enterprising families were engaged in a novel business activity on one of the crossings. They were selling old – indeed, very old and torn as well – cotton saris etc. These cotton rags are great for washing and wiping vehicles. Obviously they had realised this and had made a small business out of it! The ingenuity and business sense of the often illiterate Indians beats the best management gurus!!
The entire drive was pretty picturesque with stretches of hills, ghats and forests. We would also be driving through the Pench National Park where Rudyard Kipling is supposed to have conceived The Jungle Book. Indeed, if we recall correctly, the town of Seoni is mentioned in The Jungle Book. Seoni is the closest town from this forest which spans across MP as well as Maharashtra.
Manmeet Singh, the DIG of Police, Seoni had repeatedly suggested that we have lunch at Seoni circuit house. We had, however, demurred. “Don’t worry, we will have lunch somewhere in a dhaba”, we had confidently proclaimed. Aaaah, the misplaced confidence of the ignorant!!!
The Seoni bye pass was only partially complete. So we started looking for a hotel, motel, dhaba, fast food joint – any eating place – as we negotiated through a part of the town. None could be located. Unfazed, Rituraj was confidence personified and declared, “No problems, we will find a good dhaba ahead”. It was approaching 13:00 hrs as we drove out of Seoni. The hunt for a good dhaba had begun.
The stretch between Seoni and Nagpur had a lot of dhabas, but the bevy of trucks parked around these deterred us from stopping. We had, by now, forgotten the joys of enjoying the scenic beauty; were keenly eyeing each passing dhaba instead and started noticing their names. The ubiquitous, Sher-e-Punjab Dhaba and Khalsa Dhaba were of course there. But so were Bengal Tiger Dhaba, Kaithal Haryana Dhaba, Mathurawale UP Dhaba and even one Bihar Calcutta Dhaba! Practically all the States were represented, except the four South Indian and the seven North Eastern States. Probably the dhabas proclaimed their state of origin to attract the fellow truckers, we surmised. But why were these states not mentioned? We could not, however, find any answer to the riddle. Any help in solving it would be highly appreciated.
The primary goal of having lunch still evaded us. We did come across some dhabas which were not swarming with trucks. However, when Rituraj enquired, “Should we stop”, Jenny gave the classic statement “शेर भूखा मर जाएगा पर घास नहीं खायेगा" (A tiger would rather die than eat grass)! And so we drove on, reading the name of each dhaba and trying to locate a dhaba good enough for the “शेरनी” (Tigress)!!
None could be found though. It was almost 14:00 hrs. We did not have any sandwiches and kebabs either. Suddenly, we saw a dhaba without a single vehicle. A forlorn bicycle adorned the large parking area. “Let us stop here”, Jenny said and dutifully the driver obeyed the command of the navigator.
“खाना मिलेगा?” (Can you provide lunch?), elicited an indolent but affirmative nod. A rather more energetic reply came to the query, “क्या - क्या है?” (What all is available?), and a long list was rattled off. We ordered the simplest items, and settled down to wait amidst the blaring sound of a TV. A few men languidly watched some inane Hindi film (nothing strange – most of them are inane anyway). We politely requested them to lower the volume. They impassively stared back. We gesticulated and we mimed. In unison they swivelled their heads back towards the TV. Obviously they did not believe in the dictum, “Customer is king”!! Resignedly we waited for lunch.
Lunch consisted of dal fry, aloo gobi, anda bhurji, roti and mineral water. The tastiest items – mineral water and Roti!! Pangs of hunger had forced the "शेर" and "शेरनी" (Tiger & Tigress) to eat grass!!!
Nugget of wisdom : Do not be overconfident when driving on unknown routes.
After Pench National Park we were in Maharashtra and speed breakers now sprang up with a vengeance! Every town, village and hamlet had at least two sets of rumble strips. Other than this irritant, the journey remained pleasant even in the intense afternoon heat.
We were to stay at the Guest House of Western Coalfields and knew that it was in the Civil Lines. So we kept asking for directions from polite traffic cops and not so polite auto drivers. We reached Civil Lines alright, but finding the guest house was not going to be easy. Up and down we drove, when suddenly the navigator rose to the occasion and shouted, “There it is”. We were bang opposite the guest house.
By 16:15 we were in the room after covering a distance of 456 kms. Not in a mood to venture out in the intense dry heat of Nagpur we enjoyed a siesta instead. A leisurely evening of watching TV and a tasty, wholesome dinner concluded our second day of adventure. Despite the siesta we slept early – tomorrow was going to be a long day indeed.
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