Heart of India

I visited MP about 2 years ago and i wrote this then. Thought it's worth sharing

Well I’ve been around in Madhya Pradesh for the past 10 days and I thought I’ll share my experience with u all. To start with my perception of MP being a dry and barren state was wrong of whatever little I managed to see of this huge state. I think the topography of the state is quite unique. You have vast stretches of land and in between the planes you suddenly have some highlands (mini hills or plateaus you can say). I found that quite amusing. The black soil in the state was also something new for me. The vast stretches of black soil with patches of greenish yellow vegetation on it was a good site. In fact there is a lot of green cover in the state.

I was staying in Bhopal for most of the time. Bhopal is sort of a dead town or you can say a perfect reflection of a bureaucratic town. The capital of MP is quite relaxed and laid back with nothing much to write back home about apart from a big lake which is decently maintained.

An hour’s drive from Bhopal is Sanchi. Sanchi’s claim to fame is the Sanchi Stupa which is a world heritage site. My visit to Sanchi was a good one. A very quite and calm place, it had a certain peace about its surroundings (or maybe it was because early in the morning me and my colleague were the only visitors there). However, the remains of the ancient monastery and Buddhist temple were worth a visit. On my way to Sanchi I also happened to cross the Line of Cancer (23.5 N – remember geography people). Not that it’s of much consequence but then I have to write something and bore you people.

Next destination was Dewas followed by Indore where I had to do warehouse inspections. Nothing to mention about Dewas. It’s a small district. However, en route to Dewas I saw a lot wind mills on the mini hills/plateaus mentioned earlier. Seems Suzlon has a big project here. Indore was the complete opposite of Bhopal. It was energetic, was far more developed/commercialized than Bhopal and very crowded. Didn’t feel like I was in MP which had been calm and laid back so far. My stay in Indore was for only a night. Next day being a Sunday, my colleague was very keen on visiting Ujjain before heading back for Bhopal. Now I was not interested in going but seeing how badly he wanted to visit the holy temple town I agreed. I tried to go with an open mind but please excuse me if I’m hurting anyone’s religious sentiments, but the experience was not something I’ll want to repeat. After waiting for an hour (quite a lot of it in heat) we finally got the chance to have a look at the shivling and that too for a few seconds. Not to mention that pushing and shoving was common. However, luckily the temple was not dirty. Some relief. Anyways, my colleague was happy and we headed back for our base.

For all those who have read till here and not abandoned the mail midway thanks for your patience.