Second Last Day...............

Today was the pneultimate day of our student life at IIM Indore. Early part of the day was spent in visiting the temple town of Omkareshwar about 70 Km from here. I went with my mom, aunt and bro.Drove all the way and drive was through Mahadev hills, very scenic and beautiful.Town was small and quite. A typical religious town in central India, but the Narmada was at its best. Since, its summer one can see the rock formation through which the river flows and it looks awesome. Very grand and heavenly!
After noon, came back to the institute, one final time as a student. Tomorrow evening, when I get my degree I will get transformed into an alumni. If you ask me the transformation is not going to be pleasant! We are so used to being a student that the mere thought of becoming an alum is getting most of us nervous. We went through couple of rounds of dress rehersals for tomorrow's convocation. How the procession will start and will move forward. How we have to accept the degree and then what to do next and blah blah! We enjoyed these moments as they are going to get etched in our memories for life. The institute is as its best, dressed in sparkling lights and the make up is too tempting. Last year when I wrote about the convocation,the scene was similar.
We had a grand party today and a grander party is awaiting us tomorrow evening! After dinner, there was a very famous skit of Charan Das chor by Habib Tanvir. It was simply awesome! The grand old man was himself there and it was good to see him, sitting and watching the entire show till late in the night. Myself and Riddhi, decided to go for a walk down the "Serpentine". I have named the winding road from the main gate up the hill as the Serpentine, for obvious reasons.

Trip to Tincha Falls!

We have been hearing about this place since the time we landed here. It is said to be the nearest to the campus ,about 15 KM in all. But as life would have it ,during the entire last 1.5 years or so we kept on planning a trip to Tincha falls, but the rigour of the course did not gave us any time to translate our wish into action. Two monsoons have passed, since we came at IIM Indore but our wish still remained a wish. But not this time ! We decided to visit the falls or our wish would have remained on the paper. So on a lazy sunday on 8th March, Anupam and myself drove out in my bros car searching for Tincha falls. I had read on the blogs and travelouge that the falls is non existent during this time of the year . We drove to MHOW and then searched for a road to Khandwa . We drove about 12 Km till we hit the Khandwa Road coming straight from Indore. From there we turned back towards Indore on the highway, till we hit a village called Simrol. We turned right from the road and took a single carriageway road to Tincha. We kept asking for the way and local guys were good enough to show us the way. One thing we noticed while driving towards the falls, the terrain was pretty flat and we was infact cultivated. There was nothing to suggest ,that there would be a grand water fall nearby. We had assumed that terrain would be hilly if not mountanious with a winding road taking us up and down, but it was not like that at all. The road was pretty straight and terrain flat or rather undulating. We came across few streams but on our way but that was nothing extraordinary. After driving 10 Kms on the road, we reached a villaged called Tincha. A herdsmen was quick to point out that the falls our a KM ahead and on the right hand side of the road. As we drove forward we came across a board by the tourist department indicating the location of the falls. We turned right and came acorss a rift valley. There were couple of huts for the tourists and the entire valley baricaded by wires, so that people wont fall down. We came out the car and started searching for the falls and as soon as I climbed one the mounds, I came across a spectacular view. It was simply awesome! The entire river bed sank into the earth forming a rift valley which was as long as eyes could see and the place where the rived bed sank, was the water fall. Obviouly, there was no water falling down there, but the view was spectaular and awesome. We could make out how beautiful it would look during the monsoons. The valley was quite deep and I could see a pool at place where the water falls down from 200 m above the valley. We decided to cross the river and go to otherside to have a look at the falls from other angles. There was no water in the river only rock formations in different colours. The view from the other side of the valley was as great as the earlier view. The pool looked deep and surprisingly there was a temple just along one of walls of the valley on the other side. We were extremely surprised as to how one reaches there. We tried to find the way to the bottom of the falls. Locals showed us the way but advised not to go down as the path was very steep and with a hefty fellow like Anupam with me it would have been impossible to climb back. So we decided not to go down for the sake of a baby elephant with me. We took couple of photos of the valley and the falls without any water. We spent about 45 mins there and it was worth a visit. While coming back we decided to follow the other route and rather then going back to Mhow , drove straight towards Indore, turned left on the by pass towwards Rau and came back. This route was better then the Mhow one, as the road was much better and straight forward but yes, it was longer.It took us about 2.5 to 3 hours to finish the entire trip. A piece of advise to all IIMIans planning a trip to Tincha:

1. Take the route via the by pass and then to Khandwa road to Simrol rather then the MHOW SIMROL road. The road is better, driving time is less .

2. Best time to visit is obviously the monsoons but the place is very beautiful even without the fall.

3.You need only 3 hours max to visit that place and be back at the campus. Its worth a visit.

4. Please do not let the monsoons pass by as we did, if you really want to enjoy the place.