Sights on Morning Walks - Adivasi Gowari Memorial, Freedom Park

 Right across the road to the Zero Mile is another memorial - the Gowari stampede in 1994 which occurred when 50000 tribals of the Gowari community came to Nagpur to protest for their rights. In the ensuing police lathicharge a stampede happened and 114 people, mostly women and children, died and 500 were injured. The commission found no one guilty and the one who resigned was the tribal welfare minister who took moral responsibility for the incident. Clean chits for the police, the CM Sharad Pawar and all concerned. The memorial has a plaque which explains why it is there and the names of all those who died are chiselled into the plaques around the memorial.

Good that it is right next to the Zero Milestone. Further down the road, a stone's throw away is the Vidhan Sabha.

I walked a little down the road and found the Freedom Park which has a huge Metro station attached to it.

I took a cab and headed back to the hotel. Nice walk.

Sights on my Morning Walk - Zero Milestone

 From Deekshabhoomi I took an auto to Zero Milestone which is said to be India's geographical centre (and there are many who say it is not) but until I find another one advertised and has a structure to say it is, I will go with this.

Zero Milestone

There is a column, some steps, some four horses and some construction activity in terms of doing something to beautify it I feel. Anyway, nice to be at the geographical centre of India.

Sights on My Morning Walk - Deekshabhoomi

 In Nagpur and woke up early enough to hire a cab and head into the city to see Deekshabhoomi where Dr BR Ambedkar converted to Buddhism on October 14, 1956 (I was born a Hindu but I will not die a Hindu) alongwith some 4 lakh people, mostly dalits one would expect. The gates were shut when I arrived but opened soon enough.

Deekshabhoomi - Nagpur

The Bodhi tree

It is a huge dome, a meditation hall like the stupas that Buddhist centres have, a large ground to the left, a meditation hall to the right, a huge Bodhi tree to the right and the vows that Ambedkar took to the right. I walked behind a group of people who came there with a Buddhist monk who sang beautiful verses inside the main hall while they all repeated them. 

The vows

The Bodhi tree from another angle

The Buddha

Inside the dome there are pictures of various milestones of Dr BR Ambedkar's life.

Another view 

View from the ground

Was just nice to be there in a place so historic. Everything is tacky but there is an innocence and an earnestness to it all which was beautiful.

Born to be Mild - David Armitage

 The book starts with a reunion of sorts where the hero finds his one time tormentor in a wheelchair after suffering an accident and then, his crush or his fantasy, Belinda, now the size of a house and a grandmom and seemingly available. His mind then goes back to his days as a eleven year old - back in 1969.

We go through a rollercoaster of the 60s things - music, movies, girls, political happenings an it looks like a journal until it catches fire - our hero sleeps with his best friend's sister who is much younger than he is but more experienced than he is. And then, he discovers he has feelings for his same best friends mom and wonder of wonders, discovers that Ms Penny or Penelope also has certain feelings for him which comes from his being mild or whatever. Anyway there's no escaping the fact that she is more imaginative and adventurous and experienced than he is so she takes him on a rollercoaster romantic affair. There's a bittersweet element to it, to her romance as she lets him go, her last vestige of reliving her youth or romance, yet keeps a lovely gift of a ring for him and the memory of their last meeting at Wickets. 

The end makes up for everything. Its beautiful, bittersweet. And coming back to his present the hero knows Penny is long gone, but her memory is as sweet and as painful as ever.

One heck of a coming of age novel.