Day 15: Rally mode activated as the Renault Kwid crosses Jharkhand

I have an admission to make. When I saw the route map for the day’s drive, I felt like we were in for more of the same from the previous day in West Bengal. And I seemed to be proven right up until reached the end of West Bengal and the roads into Jharkhand started. Blimey, how wrong was I to be. Nestled in the Eastern Ghats, the roads were an absolute delight.

Monday blues did set in early on as we crawled through West Bengal. Even a hearty breakfast of poori sabji and chai couldn’t lift our spirits from the dreariness of the location. The mood just seems to be of gloom, nothing fortuitous coming your way. But it did come.

Never had we envisaged that Jharkhand to have roads that would put many sections of our home state Maharashtra to shame. Heading into the industrial Jamshedpur, it was literally the second city in India that I have seen with heavy involvement of the Tatas. The Parsi family has contributed greatly in the welfare of the state and that just begged me to think what the state of West Bengal would have been if the Singur fiasco didn’t take place.

The latter half of the drive was literally through the forest region of Jharkhand, that had numerous mineral ore mining sites. We literally had a baller time driving, the road even becoming quite like a rally stage for a few kilometres. There were moments when it did go sideways but it was always controlled. The final 50km drive into Rourkela did slow us to a degree but did manage to keep our wide smiles plastered well into the night. There are just 11 states left which we are targeting to count down on a daily basis. Chattisgarh ahoy!

Click here to read the previous blogs on the 29 States 29 Days challenge.