India, Sept. 16 -- Travel is often imagined as departure and arrival. But in an age where it resembles consumption-boxes ticked, destinations rushed-Bhoura is a threshold into something older and more patient than the hurried geography of modern travel. Eight years ago, I was carried here, to a small panchayat 90 km from the ancient art of Bhimbetka and near the vast Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. If Bhoura were a folktale, it would take many forms, each a fragment of its character, never the whole story.

The bus lurches across a low bridge over the Tawa, a restless river that never answers twice. Today it runs beneath you; in the summers, you walk barefoot across its damp bed where watermelons and cucumbers sprout. By monsoon,...