The Land

Bidar is a charming district- one of its charms being a very bracing climate practically throughout the district and for the greater part of the year. April and may are the hot months, but even during this hot weather period, the heat is often broken by sharp and sudden thunder showers. By early June the south-west monsoon sets in with all its pleasant coolness and the weather is back to its bracing glory. The cold weather is never too cold and the rainfall is never excessive though its excessive variation is often the cause, symptom and malaise of severe droughts. One other aspect of its charm is that it is full of history- every village and town being replete with monuments, legends, stories of velour, romance of beautiful princesses, long forgotten battles, feuding military adventurers and even of social reform movements that shook the very foundation and structure of medieval Hinduism.

Almost 700 kilometers from Bangalore, Bidar lies at the farthest north-eastern corner of Karnataka. Bifurcated and truncated during the re-organisation of states in 1956, it is only a fraction of its vast expanse in the erstwhile state of Hyderabad.

Present day Bidar covering an expanse of 5448 square kilometers of land lies between 17 ^o 35 ^!! and 18^o 25^!! North latitudes and 76⁰ 42^!! minutes and 77⁰ 39^!! east longitudes, with the districts of Nizamabad and Medak in Andhra Pradesh on the East and the districts of Nanded and Osmanabad in Maharashtra on the west. On the south lies the district of Gulbarga of Karnataka. This central position in the Deccan had for long imparted to Bidar, the pre-eminent position in the history of the Deccan though to-day it presents a picture of centuries of neglect and ruin.