BharatSangraha

Haryana Bangar & Bagar · Upper Indus–Gangetic Plain

Terrain and eco-zones

Semi-arid in the west, sub-humid at the Shivalik edge, and continental everywhere — the annual temperature swing is among the widest of any Indian plain, from near freezing on a January night at Hisar to 47 °C in May. Rainfall falls off sharply from east to west: over 1,000 mm a year at Ambala and Panchkula, around 300 mm at Sirsa. The loo blows from mid-April; dust storms arrive ahead of the monsoon; and the two or three western disturbances that bring winter rain in January are watched more anxiously than the monsoon itself, because wheat depends on them.

Landforms

Bangar — older alluvium with kankar nodules at depth, standing above flood level and carrying the villagesKhadar — the active Yamuna floodplain, re-cut and re-laid annually, farmed for melon and fodderBagar — sand sheets and low dunes over thin alluvium, continuous with the Thar to the westAravalli quartzite outliers through Mewat and up the Delhi ridge, low, bare and steeply weatheredShivalik piedmont and the Morni block in the north, the only true hills in the plain's catchmentKallar and sem — sodic and waterlogged patches thrown up by a century of canal seepageThe Ghaggar palaeochannel belt, dry for most of the year and lined with Harappan mounds

Rivers and waters

Yamuna — the eastern boundary, the only perennial river, and the source of the region's oldest canalGhaggar — seasonal, ending in the sand at Sirsa; identified by many with the Vedic SarasvatiMarkanda and Tangri — Shivalik torrents feeding the Ghaggar, violent in the monsoon and dry after itSahibi (Sabi) — an Aravalli drainage that once reached the Yamuna at Delhi and now largely does notDohan, Krishnavati and Kasaunti — the ephemeral Aravalli streams of the southern tractWestern Yamuna Canal — cut in the fourteenth century and re-dug in the 1820s; the reason the central plain grows wheat

Through the year

SeasonMonthsTypicalWhat it is like
WinterNovember–February1–22 °CWheat and mustard in the ground, sugarcane and gur crushing under way, and the sarson saag season. Mahawat — the western-disturbance rain of January — decides the wheat crop.
SpringMarch15–32 °CPhagun. Holi, the last of the green cholia roasted over field fires, and the start of the harvest.
SummerApril–June28–47 °CThe loo and the dust. The kitchen switches almost entirely to buttermilk — raabdi, chaach, lassi — and bajra gives way to lighter food.
MonsoonJuly–September26–36 °CBajra sown, swings hung for Teej, and the Ghaggar and Markanda running hard enough to flood the northern districts most years.
Post-monsoonOctober18–33 °CThe cattle and horse fair season, and the run-up to the Kurukshetra and Pehowa gatherings.

Best time to visitOctober to March. February for the Surajkund Mela and for Sultanpur's migratory birds; late November or December for Gita Jayanti at Kurukshetra. Avoid May and June — the loo makes the open sites of Rakhigarhi, Kurukshetra and Panipat genuinely unpleasant by ten in the morning.

The climate, landforms, rivers and seasons of Haryana Bangar & Bagar, and the best time of year to visit. (5)