Your train eases into the junction, and on the next track a long line of open wagons rolls past, heaped with black coal. You step down into a city built on the Jharia coalfield, where freight thunders along the Grand Chord line day and night and a mining school trains engineers on a leafy campus.
On weekends, the city heads for the water. Families spread picnic mats by the reservoir at Maithon Dam, and Topchanchi Lake sits among green hills at the foot of Parasnath Hill. Summers are fierce, the monsoon pours from June, and winters stay mild and dry. When your plans run out, a Local Friend picks the next stop, usually somewhere you would have driven straight past.
