The Wrong Karaundi

As a part of the stunt to cover all four corners of the country, I added the centre of the country to the list as well.

Well, I wasn’t sure as to where the centre was, coz I hadn’t done enough research on it.

Apparently, there are two. One for the undivided Indian Subcontinent. The other for the Country of India.

I am definitely sure you must have heard of “Zero Mile” in Nagpur.

Well, finding the centre of the divided land wasn’t an easy task. It was the year 2015, and many had not ventured to that path yet. I did my research and found out that it was located somewhere close to Jabalpur, MP. Well, a known land for me.

By this time, my Hindi wasn’t as proficient as it is now. It had been just one and a half years since I started my basic conversations in the language. And, understanding village dialect was all the more difficult. I could survive with my Hindi. But can I venture out bravely?

Pondering over that doubt, I completed my visit to Nagpur’s Zero Mile with the help of a close friend Aditi.

Now the difficult part. Time to find a place that doesn’t exist in Google or Google Maps.

The research indicated that there was a small village called Podhi. And there is a much smaller hamlet called karondi next to it, with no roads leading to the place. People at the bus stop were clueless as to where the village was located. I used a GPS device to identify the nearest bus stop.

And at 10am, away I was. Elated to tick one more place of my bucket list. Or so I thought.

Skipped breakfast as usual. Coz visiting the place was more important than food. And breakfast in north india? Please,.. Starving is better…

I got down at Podhi. And I had to walk a good 5kms to the village. I heard that there is a pillar constructed by the Indian Government that denotes the centre of the country. More like landmark for fellow explorers.

I reached the village of Karondi. And to my dismay, there was no pillar anywhere. I asked around whether they know that their village is the centre of the country. They were pleasantly shocked to hear that. The entire village gathered around me to know more about their village being the centre.

Okay… Now, I’m puzzled. I asked the villagers whether there is any other village called karondi nearby. They replied that there are two more karondis in a 40km radius. I immediately knew that this karondi wasn’t the centre.

The time was already 2pm. I had a train back to Chennai on the same night. I can’t afford to miss it.

I came back to the original bus stop and started hunting for bus in the right direction. By now, I learnt the name of the place. It was called “Kendra Bindhu”. Meaning the Centre Point.

More on the story about right karaundi in Part-2.