Madhya Pradesh

Even though, it’s a little overdue I want to dedicate this post to Akhand, my wonderful research assistant, housemate, and dost (friend in Hindi). When Srikumar, CMF administrator, sent me an email with my tickets to Bhopal for July 2nd, I realized that my fun and social life in Chennai is coming to an end. I was going alone to backward Madhya Pradesh to conduct various interviews for my financial inclusion project. Suvojit, project supervisor, kept telling me not to worry because Akhand Tiwari, RA for the project, lives in Jabalpur and will help me out with everything. He was right; my worries were groundless.

I arrived in Bhopal with my entire luggage after 27 - hour train ride from Chennai, which wasn’t very pleasant due to my rude co-travelers. Akhand arranged for his friend Parikshit to pick me up from the train station and show me around Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) campus where I was staying for next few days. The difference between Bhopal and Chennai was drastic. IIFM campus is located on top of the hill in the middle of the beautiful lush forest with great lake views. Fresh air and ability to go for a jog helped me to get over the nostalgia for fun times in polluted Chennai.

Exercising has been very difficult for me in India. In Chennai, although I couldn’t go for a run outside, at least for two weeks I had access to a small gym in my apartment building. Later when I came to Jabalpur and started looking for a yoga studio or a gym, I found out that most of the gyms in the city were for men only (Akhand told me that the gym for ladies does exist but it’s very far from where we lived). The alternative was to get up at 5 am to go for a jog through dirty city streets before the motorcycles, trucks and rickshaws start aiming for my life. I managed to get up that early only once during the whole time in Jabalpur. My exercise life became limited to a jail workout (sit-ups and push-ups in my room). But this was later, after I left Bhopal and realized that not all MP cities are that green and running friendly. Walking to places is also not an option, in Jabalpur it was mostly scary motorcycle rides (with Akhand driving against one-way busy traffic) and in Bhopal I had my private rickshaw driver whose name was Babloo and who always charged me 100rps no matter where I went.

Some of the most memorable moments for me in Bhopal are fun times with local students, who showed interest in hanging out with a foreigner and showed me places around Bhopal. Parikshit took me to Bhopal State museum, Rewasa entertained me with her fear of water and paddle boats on the lake, and Ritwajit played tennis with me, rode double seat bicycle in Van Vihar watching tigers and took me to eat meat (first time in 3 weeks). Speaking of eating meat, I never knew that I could survive for so long being vegetarian. Most of my local friends in MP who are Hindu from higher casts do not eat meat or fish or eggs, but Ritwajit who happens to be from West Bengal (carnivore state) saved me from turning vegetarian. When I returned to Bhopal for the second time for interviews we went to a great restaurant to indulge and savor chicken and mutton. On the other hand, I can’t complain about great vegetarian dishes that Akhand cooked for me in Jabalpur. Fresh made chapattis by his made, chili pepper omelets and pressure-cooked basmati rice with vegetables were my favorite. In those days I also discovered my love for pannier (tofu-like hard cheese), which replaced my protein need for meat. Today some of my favorite dishes are pannier tikka, pannier masala and palack pannier. Later in Chennai, I was even putting it into my egg scrambles. So back to MP…


Back in June when I found out I will be spending most of my India time in MP, I was excited about an opportunity to visit some of the most famous national parks in India for spotting tigers. I had these wild plans to ride elephants and look for tigers… That excitement was a little rushed. There is this thing called monsoon, and every year all the national parks are closed from mid June to mid November. But one weekend Akhand organized a fun day trip to marble rocks, Bandi damn and famous river, which name I can’t neither remember no pronounce. We had a great time getting soaked in the boat, walking through the river and shopping. His friends Phart and Joety who came visit for a weekend were a great company. Even though language barrier was a little problem, Joety and I became great friends and it was a weekend when I learned most of my Hindi vocabulary.

Overall, the month of my field-work in MP was very memorable and fun, mostly thanks to Akhand’s effort and kindness, and other great people that I met during my stay in MP (Ashish and family, Mahesh and his wife, women in villages, professor Biswas, madam from Pradan…)