Madhya Pradesh On Wheels

Madhya Pradesh reveals its stripes to Kersi Khambatta as he hops onto his bike and journeys through the heart of India.

- Tom Parker

The fact that Raipur’s airport is named after Swami Vivekanand, a gentle, deep-thinking philosopher rather than the usual martyred politician, makes me smile. The good Swami spent much of his life here, in this little state capital in the upper reaches of Chhattisgarh, the point of entry for anyone wishing to go to Kanha National Park. It’s a four-hour drive across the border into Madhya Pradesh, once a land of swashbuckling bandoliered dacoits with mile-wide Robin Hood streaks, today known to house one of India’s largest, densest and most contented populations of the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Chhattisgarh used to be part of Madhya Pradesh once, a massive piece of real estate nestled shoehorned in the middle of India. The road to Kanha Earth Lodge makes for a swift journey, even as life outside the car passes in a calm and unhurried manner, the pace of pastoral life plodding on as steady as the clip-clop of buffalo herds; the smells are sweetly rural and a feast of samosas and endless amounts of chai sets us back by a princely 30. The honesty and simplicity suck us in, even as, at first, everything seems new and untested. In time, a distinct personality of this state called Madhya Pradesh will emerge, but for now, the best way I can describe it, from the gentleness of the people, their shy smiles and utter lack of guile, is definitely somewhere-north-of-Maharashtra and definitely not-quite-Uttar Pradesh. Agriculture and miscellaneous industry may be the prime movers of commerce here, but there is no scoffing the dollars and cents that its national parks bring in, which only means one thing—the tiger.