Ranchi

Ranchi was the summer capital of Bihar under the British and became the capital of Jharkhand when the state was carved out in 2000. The city itself is workaday, but its geography is generous: the Chota Nagpur plateau ends here in a rim of hard rock, and the Subarnarekha and its tributaries pour over it within an hour's drive in every direction. Hundru Falls is the big one, where the Subarnarekha drops 98 metres in stages down a black basalt gorge, loudest and widest from September to November when the monsoon has just let go.

Dassam Falls on the Kanchi river spreads into ten separate cascades, Jonha or Gautamdhara waits at the foot of a long stone stairway beside a small Buddhist shrine, and Panchghagh splits into five channels over a shelf. Between waterfalls, the road through Patratu Valley coils down thirty hairpins to a reservoir and is a genuine pleasure to drive. In the city, the Pahari Mandir stands on a rock outcrop reached by 468 steps, a Shiva temple that flew the national flag through the freedom struggle and still does on Independence Day.

Ranchi is also a good place to meet the Adivasi cultures of the plateau, in the Tribal Research Institute museum, at village haats, and over a plate of dhuska with rugra mushrooms when they are in season.