जगहें

Deekshabhoomiतीर्थNagpur

The ground where B. R. Ambedkar and a very large gathering, generally put at around four lakh people, took Buddhist ordination on 14 October 1956, Ashoka Vijaya Dashami, seven weeks before his death. The hemispherical stupa over the site, begun in 1978 and inaugurated in 2001, is modelled on Sanchi and is among the largest hollow stupas anywhere. It draws pilgrims year-round and several lakh on the anniversary.

सबसे अच्छा समय: Mid-October for the observance; any time otherwise.

Zero Mile StoneविरासतNagpur

A sandstone pillar with four stone horses, set as a reference point of the Great Trigonometrical Survey and long described as the centre of India. It is a survey convention rather than a computed geographic centroid, but the two great trunk highways do genuinely cross within a few kilometres of it, which is why Nagpur is where it is.

Sitabuldi FortविरासतNagpur

The hill fort in the middle of Nagpur, held by the army and opened to the public only on a few fixed days in the year. It was the site of the 1817 battle between the Bhonsles and the East India Company that ended Maratha control of the Nagpur kingdom.

सबसे अच्छा समय: Check the open days before travelling.

Ramtekतीर्थNagpur

A hill temple complex above the plain, traditionally identified with the Ramagiri of Kalidasa's Meghaduta — the hill from which the exiled yaksha sends his cloud north. The identification is old and not provable; the view that makes the poem work is available regardless.

NagardhanविरासतNagpur

Ancient Nandivardhana, a Vakataka capital, a few kilometres from Ramtek — excavated in recent decades and producing seals and structures from the dynasty whose Washim branch patronised the fifth-century phase at Ajanta.

Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserveवन्यजीवChandrapur

Maharashtra's oldest national park, notified in 1955 and made a tiger reserve with the addition of the Andhari sanctuary. Dry deciduous teak forest with a large lake and high tiger density, and among the most reliably productive reserves in India for sightings.

सबसे अच्छा समय: March–May for sightings; closed in the monsoon.

Pench Tiger Reserveवन्यजीवNagpur

Teak forest either side of the Pench river, continuous across the state boundary with the Madhya Pradesh side of the same reserve. These are the Seoni forests that Kipling used for the Jungle Book without ever having seen them.

सबसे अच्छा समय: February–May.

Melghat Tiger Reserveवन्यजीवAmravati

Steep Satpura forest on the Gawilgarh hills, among the first nine reserves notified under Project Tiger in 1973. Low tourist pressure and difficult terrain, with a resident Korku population inside and around it.

सबसे अच्छा समय: November–February.

Chikhaldaraपहाड़Amravati

The only hill station in Vidarbha, at roughly 1,100 m in the Melghat, cool enough to have carried coffee plantations. Local tradition ties the name to Kichaka of the Mahabharata, whom Bhima is said to have killed and thrown into the ravine here.

सबसे अच्छा समय: October–February, and the monsoon for the views.

Gawilgarh FortविरासतAmravati

A large hill fort above Chikhaldara with Bahmani and Imad Shahi construction, stormed by Arthur Wellesley in 1803 during the Second Anglo-Maratha War. Largely unrestored and largely empty.

Lonar Craterप्रकृतिBuldhana

A hypervelocity meteorite impact crater about 1.8 km across at the rim, blasted into Deccan basalt and dated by argon-argon methods to around 576,000 years. It is one of very few impact craters anywhere formed in basalt, which is why planetary scientists use it as an analogue for Mars and the Moon. The lake at the bottom is both saline and alkaline, and stratified — a near-neutral outer body over an inner one at around pH 11, each with its own microbial community. Declared a Ramsar site in November 2020. Note that Lonar is in Buldhana district, which is Vidarbha — it is frequently and wrongly placed in Marathwada, whose boundary is about fifty kilometres away.

सबसे अच्छा समय: October–February, early morning for the descent.

Markanda templesविरासतGadchiroli

A group of Nagara-style stone temples on the bank of the Wainganga, densely carved and heavily damaged, under long-running conservation. Locally called the Khajuraho of Vidarbha, which oversells the comparison and undersells how strange it is to find this much carved stone in the middle of teak forest.

Anchaleshwar temple and the Gond samadhisविरासतChandrapur

A Shiva temple by the Jharpat river with the memorial samadhis of the Gond kings of Chandrapur beside it. The city's fortification wall, several kilometres of it with four main gates, was built under the same dynasty and still frames the old town.

Sevagram AshramविरासतWardha

Gandhi's base from 1936 until the mid-1940s, and therefore the address from which much of the last decade of the national movement was run. The huts are mud, bamboo and thatch, kept as they were, and the ashram is still inhabited rather than curated.

PaunarविरासतWardha

Vinoba Bhave's Brahma Vidya Mandir on the Dham river, from which he ran the Bhoodan land-donation movement from 1951. The riverbank also carries an early sculpted stone panel of Vakataka date, which is not what most visitors come for.

Navegaon and Nagziraवन्यजीवGondia and Bhandara

Two adjoining reserves around old man-made lakes, forming a tiger reserve and one of the best bird sites in central India. The Navegaon lake is itself a piece of pre-colonial engineering, not a natural water body.

सबसे अच्छा समय: November–March.

The malguzari tanksप्रकृतिBhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur

Several thousand earthen tanks across the eastern districts, built and maintained under a land tenure that was abolished in the 1950s, after which many silted up. They irrigate the rice, hold the fisheries and set the shape of every village in the belt. Restoration programmes have been running on them since the 2000s.

Mendha-Lekhaप्रकृतिGadchiroli

A Gond village that in 2009 became the first in India to secure community forest rights over its own forest under the Forest Rights Act, and then the right to harvest and sell its own bamboo. Its gram sabha decisions are taken by consensus rather than vote.

Shegaonतीर्थBuldhana

The samadhi temple of Gajanan Maharaj, among the largest pilgrimage destinations in Maharashtra by footfall, run with a level of organisation that has become a subject of study in itself. The Anand Sagar complex on the town's edge was built by the same trust.

Pohradeviतीर्थWashim

The principal pilgrimage centre of the Banjara community, centred on the samadhi of Sant Sevalal, drawing tandas from Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Often called the Banjara Kashi.

Warud and Morshi orange beltप्रकृतिAmravati

The densest mandarin orchards in the region, worked on the two-bahar cycle. Groundwater draw here has been heavy enough for long enough that the water table, not the market, is the limiting factor on planting.

सबसे अच्छा समय: November–January, when the ambia crop is coming in.

Ambadevi temple, Amravatiतीर्थAmravati

The old goddess temple around which Amravati grew, and the reason the town has the name it has. The Navratri fair here fills the old city.