Part Three of Three
Farewell Varanasi
Leaving the hotel in the wee hours of the morning to the banks of Sacred Ganga for Dilip’s appointment of the “Pinda Daan”, we met the priest, and he performed the ritual. And we witnessed yet another beautiful sunrise at Kashi
Bidding farewell to Kashi, we were back on the road. We took an alternate route via Mirzapur, joining back to the same road and cruised via the Pench National Park to reach the outskirts of Nagpur when hunger struck.
Getting into a road-side Dhaba [hotel], we were enlightened by them that the hotels around that area open only in the evenings — getting an answer to our earlier puzzle of absence of food availability. But, hunger made us explore small town to take us into a nice hotel, Vithal Kamat, at the town of Butibori for a fulfilling lunch.
Namami Narmade [Salutations, O Narmada!]
With our energies back, I called my friend Niraj in Jabalpur and he suggested us to see whether we can make it to the Dhuandhar Falls of Narmada at Bhedaghat. And what a treat it was!
There was a gondola ride to cross the Narmada river.
and to our delight on reaching the other end we found a converted Tata Nano which we hired for a quick tour. Patel, who was the driver took us to various points.
He explained about the Marble Rocks we were seeing right in front. For Hindi movie buffs, “Asoka” and “Mohenjadaro” had scenes from here — well we realized that this indeed was worth many a movie.
Hey Narmada, will meet you again.. And indeed we did ..never too soon..in another hour at the Gwarighat where my friend Niraj agreed to meet us. Gwarighat was another visual treat. Teeming with people, with an
almost-submerged temple in the middle, a Gurudwara on the other banks and the tolls of Narmada aarti in the fore-front, its a sight to behold! This place can easily take a couple of hours without the visit to Gurudwara but unfortunately, Dilip was exhausted due to driving and hence we decided to add this to our bucket list for later.
However, we met Niraj briefly during which time he showered us with sweets and local specialties — Niraj could not have spoiled us more! Promising that we will return to do justice to this beautiful place we retired to our hotel and proceeded back the next day, via Hyderabad and finally to reach Home Sweet Home at Bengaluru!
Epilogue
Travelling around four thousand kilometres, across the heartland of our Nation crossing five states was a heart-warming experience, to say the least. At the end of everything we realised the humaneness of individuals, people who made our journey very comfortable and joyful, be it my friend Niraj or the Professor Yadavji, who went out of their way to be with us. Even the people at the hotel, the drivers all had a part not insignificant to make this an everlasting memory. Thank you!
People hope to end their journey of life with Kashi — however, we part now, promising ourselves that this journey would be the first of the many to come — After all, we started with Destination Kashi!
