Journey to the Centre of India

My journey to the centre of India... well let me make things clear. It was not very adventurous as my blog title might suggest. I did travel recently to the city of Nagpur helping my folks shift base over there and Nagpur happens to lie at the geographical centre of India. Theres a Zero Mile Marker to indicate this point.



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I barely went in to explore the city as i was trying to make myself useful in helping to settle things down in the new quarter so no photos of the place to upload this time around.


The train journey from Kolkata to Nagpur was an experience to remember. Travelling with 32 pieces of luggage is not very pleasant. Much thanks to the two coolies {luggage porters} whom we hired to carry our things and also shove in what seemed like a hundered pieces of bags and suitcases into every available space around us in our train compartment. A few days back i had sent the major bulk of our household items by truck to nagpur and i wished we had all travelled in that same truck which was pretty spacious. Anways we made it through. 

Red

Above is a photo of my daughter - a little tired but strong enough to pose for the camera. The only one i took while in Nagpur. She's wearing a Ji-Sung Park t-shirt. He scored the only goal in Man Utd.' recent match vs Arsenal. Park plays for Manchester United. I guess our recent shifting trip was like a football match where we won. A mix of excitement... hard work....tiresome but mission accomplished in the end.

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Kids working - collecting plastic bottles and other valuables.

It has been a long time since i travelled long distance by train. I learnt that trains always get delayed [departure] by at least 5-6 hours on  the Howrah - Mumbai route. We took the Azad Hind while going and above is pic i took while entering Howrah station back today on the Howrah Mail. This train was supposed to reach at five in the morning which would have allowed me to get back to office on time but no chance. While the train halted before entry into the station,  seeing kids ...some who seemed just about as old as my daughter ...collecting waste was not a pretty sight.

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Nakhoda

After the long train ride i decided i needed to take a long walk home back to my pad and i came across this....I recalled seeing it on some travel channel and here i was near it for the first time.  A partial shot of the dome + minaret of the largest mosque {Nakhoda} in Kolkata (Rabindra Sarani / M.G. Rd.).