Nagpur

The first thing you notice about this widespread city is the HUGE roads and green belts. The city is beautiful if that’s the correct word to describe it. It is so peaceful, so less cluttered, so orderly that it is impossible to believe that a city like this exists today. Nagpur is the geographical center of India. All the metros are equidistance from Nagpur and thus the city hosts what is called “the Zero Mile’ which marks the center of the country. Nagpur is rather low profile for the kind of achievements it has. Over 300 international flights fly over the city’s skyline therefore a new international will enable a stop over for a huge number of flights in the near future. The city is full of two wheelers and sells perhaps the highest number of scooty’s in the country. But what attracts anybody is the stature of the roads so neat and clean and so well maintained.

Nagpur is perhaps the only city in Maharashtra where the communication language is Hindi. The entire state speaks Marathi, but here even native maharashtrians speak hindi. The highest selling daily is also hindi.

The weather is torrid in Nagpur. Summers can raise temperatures to a killing 50 degrees Celsius and winters and not very long lasting either. Nagpur is also called the Orange city for it’s oranges that are mostly exported. Locals can make anything edible out of oranges! But the most famous food from Nagpur is undoubtedly SAOJI. It’s primarily a non-vegetarian dish made of mutton or chicken and the curry is so hot that you’d smoke fire in seconds of eating it. The name of the dish comes from the community that makes it. There isn’t much of specialty food from Nagpur but it is home to the countries biggest sweet makers Haldirams.

Tapri culture is very strong in Nagpur. People flock these small tin shacks for their daily dose of tea and chaat and chat up for hours around. Everybody has one tapri that they associate themselves with. The most popular ones are Bajaj Nagar, Shankar Nagar, Telankhedi. Oh yeah! Telankhedi is a lake and mind it; every youngster in Nagpur has to hang out there. Sadly there is not much to do in the city so youngsters drive around on their two wheelers and hang around at Futala/Telankhedi. There are infact very few places inside Nagpur to see but there is a lot around the city. My favorite would be Pench Tiger reserve. The city is surrounded by quite a few forests and wildlife habitats. Pench is approximately 90-100 kms from the city and is a fantastic tiger reserve. It was recently rated as India’s best for tiger citing. It boasts of a population of around 33 tigers and some 22 thousand Deers of various species along with wild boards etc. They have two safari’s one in the morning at 6am to 11 am and the next round begins at 2pm. The best time to spot tigers is around winters when they come out in open to soak up the sun. Summers may not be a good time to spot tigers. For an open jeep safari it may cost you around Rs.800 rest depending on your haggling skills and the entry fees would be an extra Rs 100 guide charges included, although driving your own vehicle inside the premises is allowed but hiring the Jeep is recommended. There are ample of accommodation choice here but living in a tent is super adventure.

Ramtek would fall in the way to Pench. It’s roughly 60kms away from Nagpur and is said to have been the place where Lord Ram stopped over on his way to Lanka hence the name ‘Ramtek’. It’s a temple complex and is a visual delight with hills around and a lake just behind.

There is Waaki where there is dense forest and apparently inhibited by tribes so not very safe to go alone. There is Chikaldhara, Tadoba which is again a hugely popular tiger reserve, Nagzira just ahead of Pench near MP border and more such places. All in all, a city which is made to live a peaceful life.