Nashik

Nashik believes it is in the Ramayana, and on the banks of the Godavari that belief is everywhere. Panchavati, the old quarter by the river, is where Rama, Sita and Lakshmana are said to have lived in exile; the city's name is often traced to the moment Lakshmana cut off Shurpanakha's nose — nasika — here. Ramkund, the bathing tank in the riverbed, is where the dead are remembered and the living come to wash.

Every twelve years the Simhastha Kumbh Mela comes to Nashik and Trimbakeshwar, and the city fills with sadhus and millions of pilgrims. The next one formally begins with the flag-raising at Ramkund on 31 October 2026, and its great bathing days fall on 2 and 31 August and 11–12 September 2027.

The Kalaram temple, built in black stone in the late eighteenth century, is the heart of Panchavati — and in 1930 the site of B. R. Ambedkar's satyagraha for Dalit entry, which is as much a part of its story as its idol. Twenty-eight kilometres west, Trimbakeshwar, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, sits below Brahmagiri, where the Godavari rises. On a hillside south of town, the Pandavleni caves were cut for Buddhist monks around two thousand years ago, with inscriptions of the Satavahana kings.

Modern Nashik makes wine — Sula planted the first vines on these hills in the late 1990s, and dozens of wineries followed — and grows grapes and onions in quantities that set national prices. But breakfast is misal pav, and Nashik's misal is famously hot: sprouted moth beans under a red, oily tarri, with farsan and a squeeze of lime. Follow it with chivda and a cup of tea.

Go to Trimbakeshwar before dawn on a weekday — weekend and Monday queues can run for hours, and the paid darshan line is not much quicker on festival days. Ramkund is best at evening aarti, watched from the far steps. Climb Anjaneri in the cool of the morning for the view over the Trimbak range. At the wineries, go for the vineyard rather than the party: a weekday afternoon tasting is quiet and unhurried.

The Godavari at Nashik carries the city's waste as well as its prayers; do not add flowers in plastic, soap or offerings wrapped in foil. Ritual bathing and last rites happen side by side at Ramkund — photograph the river, not the mourners. During the Kumbh, follow police crowd routes and do not try to reach the ghats on main bathing days unless you have a plan.

Aurangabad is about four hours east: the Grishneshwar Jyotirlinga, and the rock-cut temples of Ellora and Ajanta — the great work that Nashik's small Buddhist caves foreshadow.