Kamptee 26th June 2013.

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This blog is a private blog and will only interest those who lived in Kamptee. The primary purpose is to post photos for my family especially for my Mom to see.

At last I managed to make it back to Kamptee after 43 Years, a place I spent my early childhood. The place has changed very little in the past 43 years.

We lived in the Army cantonment area which looks very different from Kamptee village. The Centre of activity for us was the Mall Road.

I expected everything to be smaller in size from what I imagined. As a child everything looks gigantic. To my surpise, everything was exactly as I had imagined it so it was a dream trip.

I used a Pentax compact camera for this trip and did not carry my usual Canon DII DSLR.


Added by Sydney Lobo (4th July 2013).

The story of how Kamptee got its name is that during the World War 2 - CAMP T was established to train The CHINDIT Forces for counter offensive against the Japs in Burma. Or it could have been a code name given to Kamthi village.

It is 16 Kms from Nagpur on the banks of Kanhan river which joins the Godavari. It has very fertile soil yet farmers are committing suicide due to bad governance. The picture shows that there is plenty of water for entire Vidarbha region. Across the river are very rich Gondia and Chotanagpur regions where coal, iron and other minerals are found. The British had found a very ideal site to make themselves comfortable. It Gets unbearably hot but there was the sweet smelling KHUS KHUS screen on which water was thrown to give the heavenly cooling effect. There were plenty of Birds and Game around. There is a renowned Bird Watchers Club in Nagpur.

 

Just as you enter Kamptee from Nagpur you will see this beautiful Afgan Church.

For a while, we stayed at this house on T-40, The  mall Road
Added by Sydney

T 40 The Mall - Khanna's, Sibloon's, Dani's, Rao's, Packiaswamys were our Neighbours. I left for Indian Military Academy from here and Danny to NDA?.

 

The Garisson Engineers house where my good friend Krishna stayed. Adjacent to it was Moses's house

The house of strongman Jaggi. Joginder Singh Bedi, a good cricket batsman and a badminton champion of Kamptee. Unfortunately he had passed away a year back in a scooter accident. I met the family who welcomed me to their house even though they did not know me.
This is actually the house of Narinder Singh Bedi though they are all part of one family

Gen. Cariappa road, another bypass road. I remember this road as this was where a trainee Air Force pilot had died following an Air Crash of his fighter Jet. Being a small kid it left a very sad impression in my mind.

Added by Sydney

Flt Lt Sudan died in air crash in Pune I think due to a Power line coming in the way. I sat on the pillion on his scooter once. That was the ride of my life

 

On the way back to Nagpur is the Christ Church cemetery opposite the Afgan Church we saw when we entered Kamptee from Nagpur.