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| Welcome for King George V |
Nagpur is quite a beautiful place. It is right in the center of our Incredible India! it is the winter capital of Maharashtra.
It has the feel of a big city and yet maintains its charm of a small town. There are lovely bungalows and wide smooth roads. There are lots of trees and lots of greenery. There is an old world charm in its colonial type bungalows.
The weather was kind. After the biting cold of Delhi, my few days in Nagpur made me feel liberated to be able to enjoy the fresh breeze, and not want to cover myself up with all those woolens. I know Nagpur is scorching in the summers. One feels as though the sun is right on top of your head in summer. I have always been very amazed and amused to see the number of girls riding scooters and scooties at Nagpur. There is a unique style of dress that the girls employ. They cover their entire face with a dupatta keeping only their eyes open.They have a special style of wrapping the dupatta. They also wear full length gloves on their arms. All this is to avoid getting sun burnt!
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| Orange & well covered girls! |
Nagpur is also called Orange City because of the bounty of oranges that the city and its surroundings produce. Nagpur oranges are very tasty.
I am closely associated with Nagpur as my mother belongs to this city, and my father got his education here.
I come once in a while and always feel happy.
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| Stone mansion |
The High Court, and all the colonial style buildings, offices, General Post Office with sprawling lawns and gardens and beautiful trees make me feel as though abundant space was used and a luxurious atmosphere has been created.
I have noticed that gardens are very well kept and there is no dearth of ornamental trees in the gardens.
Most of the crossings have statues of people who belonged to Nagpur.
There is an apology of a river here, which is called Nag nadi. The fort also seems to be quite small. The country's first textile mill was established by the Tata's. It was inaugurated on the 1st January 1877, on the date when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, and thus the mill was named Empress Mill. The mill has now closed down. Life in Nagpur revolved around the two Mills of the sleepy little town. The Empress Mill and the Modern Mill. The siren called ponga locally determined the pace of life. The seven o' clock, nine o'clock and so on and so forth Ponga directed the general public to wake up, leave for the mill, lunch break, go home after a day's work. People relied on the ponga as most people did not possess watches. I was told of an interesting story. There was a Doma Jadhav Vastad(Pehelwan) who used to collect hafta from the mill workers on pay day. A box would be kept outside the mill near the exit and every mazdoor would put in chavanni or 1/4 of a rupee, in todays language 25 paise in the box. This was depicted in the movie Deewar. There is a dearth of industry over here. Nagpur and its surroundings are full of real wealth, Manganese, coal, cotton, oranges, and yet the place did not develop and grow as it should have. It is still a laid back city. The buildings are beautiful, the roads are wide and in very good condition. I did not encounter any potholes. Every road has a pavement showing that care has been taken for the humble pedestrians too. Most people speak Hindi. That is because Nagpur was the capital of CP & Berar. It is also a big rail head. Being in the center of India all trains going from East to West or North to South would pass through Nagpur.
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| RBI Building |
I like the names of localities in Nagpur. Mahal, Arab ka wada, Indora, Itwari, Sitaburdi, Paanchpaoli( five steps), Dhantoli,Gadi Khana,Gaddi Godam,Ganja Khet,Satranjipura, Teen naal chowk, Untkhana.
Nagpur has a number of lakes. Ambazari, Telangkhedi, Gorewada lakes are natural, while Sonegaon and Gandhi sagar are man made lakes. Nagpur has closely been associated with Dr, Ambedkar and the Budhist movement. The Deeksha Bhumi, the Budhha Bhoomi, The Dragon Palace, located near Kamptee are very beautiful places.
There are a number of Tiger Reserves near Nagpur. Pench, Tadoba, Nagzira, Navegaon are well known forest reserves.
Nagpur and its neighborhood has also been the land which gave us the famous Rukmini,wife of Lord Shri Krishna, Lopamudra the famous wise lady who was the wife of Rishi Agastya, and Damayanti wife of Nal.
There are a number of Educational Institutions in Nagpur. The College of Science, a number of Engineering Colleges, Medical College, Law College and Management Institutions. Education finds pride of place in Nagpur.
The typical cuisine of Nagpur is called Savji. One can find a number of restaurants serving Savji preparations, basically for non vegetarian stuff. The use of spices is great and one can't control the tears as they roll down, because of the amount of spices used. The taste is so fantastic that in spite of the Spices one cannot stop eating it. One must try it at least once!
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| Gautama THE Budhha |
While going on the Seminary Hills to the Gondwana Club, I was very impressed with the sight of a number of dustbins on both sides of the road. I have rarely seen dustbins on the road sides in any city, including Delhi.
People appear to be friendly. I also felt that women feel safer in Nagpur. Could be because of the small town feel of the place.
Nagpur is friendly, safe, green, no pollution, cool, calm, fresh and a peacefully happy place!
