I have always been fond of remembering past days especially good ones & the following story is about going 14 years back down memory lane. The occasion was official but the feeling was almost-not completely-like having a vacation in country side.
The training cum exam was planned to be an exciting get together of our batchmates & that was a nice change from the past tour when I was the only one from my state. But my approach towards studies was almost as casual as it was in the year 2008. (The story is available on this blog with the title 'India Dekha' inspired from MP tourism ads)
Meeting long lost friends on the train was the only excitement on the otherwise boring train route to Jabalpur. I still can't believe that all of us are past 40 years of age & most have teenage kids. But that's what life is - you keep thinking, planning, preparing, shaping, designing, organizing & it just happens. Anyway it was officially acknowledged that the tour is supposed to be a refreshing break in addition to the learning & we were excited for the additional part.
Now compared to the previous one this was a very short one & there was no scope of going for tourist attractions. Anyway we managed to arrange a trip to Bhedaghat which is quite close to Jabalpur. I was about to revisit the thrilling ride on very calm, very deep waters of Narmada surrounded by marble rocks. But this time the boatman was trying to fill the boat just like a shuttle rickshaw & that spooked me so I decided to skip the boating adventure & went off to capture the beautiful surroundings with the Sunset setting. Dhuandhar fall was also visited before concluding the trip.
A striking realization that hit me on the way back from Dhuandhar / Bhedaghat trip was that Jabalpur is much more than the cantonment area we relate it with.
