Detour Pit Stop #70: Dhuandhar Falls, India
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A detour to Dhuandhar Falls will take you to a scene straight out of a Bollywood movie.
If you’re cruising at 140 km/h on Indian roads – a difficult feat on the best of routes – you wouldn’t normally want to pause such progress. But Dhuandhar Falls on Narmada River at Bhedaghat, 13 km from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, is well worth a pit stop.
The first thing that meets my eyes when I leave the highway, however, is an unglamorous reminder of the dangers of road travel in India – a badly smashed Maruti 800 mounted atop a pillar at the roundabout.
As I approach the Falls on the double lane road, I’m greeted by the intense noise of falling water hitting the rocks below and a white mist on the horizon. Even before I lay my eyes on gorgeous white froths spiralling down the Narmada, I’m refreshed by cool water droplets spraying on me.
I’m quickly accosted by a local guide, Dilawar Singh, and it takes me a couple of minutes to realise he talks in rhyming couplets. Even when he tells me his name.
He makes the next two hours highly entertaining and my daughters are so hooked to his couplets that they take more photos of him than the scenic beauty around.
Just 400m from where the falling water hits the riverbed, it settles down into a calm and tranquil river meandering leisurely through the high marble rocks on both the sides.
If you’re a Bollywood buff, you may recognise the locale of numerous popular movies from Raj Kapoor such as Jis Des Mein Ganga Behti Hai and Hrithik Roshan’s Mohenjo Daro. Though, I must confess that the wet and misty feel of the real thing surpasses everything you would ever watch on-screen.
And if you can get hold of Dilawar Singh to guide you, that’s the cherry on top.
Words Shweta