RAAG BHOPALI

BHOPAL

Why Bhopal? Especially why when one had to pay a tout a good Rs. 400 extra for a seat on the train? “It’s just a dirty, crowded city”; some friends who had never visited advised. Well, for some reason I had wished to visit this city and other interesting historical areas around it for a long time. I even thought of visiting Prince Balthazar de Bourbon who lays a claim to be a descendent of the erstwhile Bourbon line of French Royals! I had read about him in the newspapers. He is at present a lawyer in the Bhopal High court and lives in the old part of the city. I located him on Facebook and requested a meeting to which he replied “I wish i could see you lately, however on account of my pre- scheduled engagements, i shall be out of station during that period. I look forward to some other occasion perhaps”. Anglo French Bhopali?

THE TRAIN JOURNEY

5 a.m. on a Saturday morning isn’t exactly the ideal of an ideal time for me jump up and out of bed enthusiastically. But we have to catch the train. Of course, the first thing I do is get the coffee brewing since Madam Shalini who is snoring in the next room needs to be woken up in luxury. Fortunately she moves faster than usual too, this time it’s the taxi that’s late. We finally head for the station and make it just short of 15 minutes for the train to leave – and voila! – A traffic jam. The only way we can try and get into the train is jump off on the road and bag in hand run as fast as we can to the station, up a big flight of steps, down another at the farthest end of the over bridge, all along the train and phew!!!!!! Our compartment had to be at the very end. Well we made it.

We have two seats along the corridor and a family of four moves in to the adjacent coupe. The minute their bags are in place the kids start jumping around and trying to climb on to the top berth. Its early morning, but the parents decide the best option is to get everyone to sleep and so the bedding is spread out. Just then, a young bearded man walks in – he has a seat too in the coupe but the family which has by now spread out doesn’t feel the need to accommodate him as his berth is the top one! He quietly sits down at the edge of the berth and doesn’t utter a word. The mother sleeps and the kids don’t have any plans to follow suit. I am close to telling them to shut up. After a while thankfully they settle down. Curtains drawn the parents go to sleep and the lone gentleman now very awkward goes for a walk.

The best part of a train journey is the food. A continuous stream of vendors will walk down the corridor marketing various goodies, which if you are not a quality and hygiene freak, you will try for sure. So for the next 9 hours announcements of Chai, Milk, Juice, Soft Drinks, “Char Cheezon ki sewa”, which is a four item service of chips, biscuits, chocolates and namkeens in various tones kept us entertained. All these plus the Breakfast, Lunch and Hot Samosas for Evening Tea. Shalini had to ask for coffee each time the chaiwala came around. He informed us that Coffee was for after dinner! Finally relenting he did one coffee session before we arrived in Bhopal, only to find her catching up on some beauty sleep!

Towards the afternoon we had got down to chatting with the guy across. Serious philosophical conversation. Do I really deserve this, but any talk is time pass. We got our coffees and no sooner had we finished we had arrived! Bhopal Junction.

BHOPAL

The first impression is the final impression they say. Well one look at the station, out of it and on our way and I knew this was one hell of a crowded city. Both houses and people were kind of all over the place and as we wound through narrow broken roads and streets of Old Bhopal I began to understand why everyone had asked me – why Bhopal?

Finally we were at the hotel greeted by the sight of security guards and cars with the “Laal Batti”. We had been informed by the driver that the President of Sri Lanka was in town to inaugurate a Buddhist Centre in Sanchi. Did that mean our plan for Sanchi the next day would fall through? Keeping our fingers crossed that it was over and done with that day itself we got off our Auto – yes we did arrive in an auto in the porch of a Lakeview Ashok! Some security guys suddenly woke up from their slumber and began to shoo our driver away till I informed him in no uncertain terms that we were hotel guests and need to get off first. There is a difference between security in Delhi and Bhopal for sure, because the guy backed off.

If you think our problems were finally over and we could kick start our holiday, not yet. We got into a nice enough room with a splendid view of the lake. But in five minutes we discovered that nothing was working. Flush, TV, No Water, No Towels – what the …… But VVIPs were in the hotel after all and so it wouldn’t help to complain too much.

The next best thing to do was hit the shopping centre. No vacation begins or ends for Shalini without roaming the market place – she is a compulsive shopper. No amount of pleading can restrain her from buying even stuff which you could pick up in Delhi cheaper. Well, I thought, why not get this out of the way? It was too late to go sight seeing anyway. And so after giving our long list of complaints to the Manager we were on our way to the main market – The Chowk.

The Chowk sounds exotic, is exotic in that very old Delhi, Chandini Chowk sense. Is that why every ancient city has one? Narrow streets crisscrossing each other with glittering clothes in every hue, bangles, bags, name it. Shalini began her shopping in right earnest and I got some hot ‘moongphalis’ to keep me busy. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere dressed in black, muslim women here wear brightly coloured and fashionable burkhas not covering their faces, there were young girls in fashionable western clothing, spaghettis and all walking with equal ease. Not one lewd remark, stare or men brushing past deliberately. We must have been the only ones walking hugging our bags and arms crossed across the chest from habit! You know how it is to walk in a crowded market in Delhi. But soon we were at complete ease and got to like the local people who were very polite and helpful.

So much jewellery both artificial and gold, you could hardly tell the difference. You could only expect to see such a large area dedicated to gold shops in the Gulf. The only disappointment was a lack of good eating places. We had been advised by the guy on the train to try out the “Chatori Gali”. That we came to understand was the place where chaat and such lovers go to. Well, we were too tired to walk anymore and so we just got back to the hotel. A soup and biryani later we hit the sack – my bones aching.

I had come with a long list of places to see in Bhopal. Our driver however smirked and told us that we could do all the sightseeing of the city from the car itself since or at best do short stops for photographs. Most palaces were just a shell of what they used to be from the outside and well the city’s bursting population had moved in. And so, we decided to do some excursions instead during the day.

Though last but not the least – the reason for my visit and should I now say – why Bhopal?

Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh is situated on the site of an 11th century city, Bhojapal, founded by Raja Bhoja. Bhopal today presents a multi-faceted profile; the old city with its teeming market places and fine old mosques and palaces still bear the aristocratic imprint of its former rulers; among them the succession of powerful Begums who ruled Bhopal from 1819 to 1926. The founder of the existing city was Afghan soldier Dost Mohammad (1708-1740). Fleeing from Delhi in the chaotic period that followed Aurangzeb's death, Dost Mohammad met the Gond queen Kamlapati, who sought his aid after the murder of her consort. A charming legend relates how the queen would recline in a lotus barge that, on moonlit nights, would drift across the lake. The two lakes of Bhopal still dominate the city, and are indeed its nucleus.

Beautiful mosques dot the old city and sitting across the lake one can see portions of them as they peer out on top of the crowded part of town. Gold spikes crown the minarets of the Jama Masjid built in 1837 by Kudsia Begum. The Moti Masjid architecturally akin to Delhi's Jama Masjid, was built by Sikander Jehan, daughter of Kudsia Begum, in 1860. But the best is The Taj-ul-Masjid which is one of the largest mosques in Asia, built by Nawab Shahjehan Begum around a courtyard with a large tank in the centre and with an imposing double storeyed gate-way with 4 recessed archways and 9 imposing cusped multifoiled openings in the main prayer hall.

Situated at the entrance to the Chowk area in the heart of the walled city, Shaukat Mahal is an architectural curiosity. Its mixture of styles sets it apart from the predominantly Islamic architecture of the area. It was designed by a Frenchman, said to be a descendent of an offshoot of the Bourbon Kings of France. Post Renaissance and Gothic styles are combined to charming effect here. Nearby is the elegant once-opulent Sadar Manzil, Hall of Public Audience, of the former rulers of Bhopal.

On the banks of the Upper Lake is Gohar Mahal, which is an architectural gem dating back to the times of Kudsia Begum, also known as Gohar Begum, who built this sprawling palace in 1820. The Mahal is a magnificent expression of the fusion of Hindu and Mughal architecture. But we did not have the opportunity to get into the premises. As our driver said – there is nothing left, the people of Bhopal have occupied it!

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SANCHI

Sanchi is a small village located 46 kms north east of Bhopal. It is an important pilgrimage place for Buddhists as several Buddhist monuments and Stupas dating from the third century BC exist here. A stupa literally meaning "heap" in sanskrit is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, once thought to be places of Buddhist worship, typically the remains of a Buddha or saint.



After the parinirvana of the Buddha, his remains were cremated and the ashes divided and buried under eight stupas with two further stupas encasing the urn and the embers. Little is known about these early stupas, particularly since it has not been possible to identify the original ten monuments. However, some later stupas, such as at Sarnath and Sanchi, seem to be embellishments of earlier mounds.

In the third century BC, after his conversion to Buddhism, the emperor Ashoka had the original stupas opened and the remains distributed among the several thousand stupas he had built.
The 'Great Stupa' at Sanchi was originally commissioned by the emperor Ashoka the Great in the 3rd century BC. Its nucleus was a simple hemispherical brick structure built over the relics of the Buddha. It was crowned by the chatra, a parasol-like structure symbolising high rank, which was intended to honour and shelter the relics.

The stupa was vandalized at one point and later rebuilt and expanded with stone slabs to almost twice its original size. The dome was flattened near the top and crowned by three superimposed parasols within a square railing. With its many tiers it was a symbol of the dharma, the Wheel of the Law. The dome was set on a high circular drum meant for circumambulation, which could be accessed via a double staircase. A second stone pathway at ground level was enclosed by a stone balustrade with four monumental gateways (toranas) facing the cardinal directions.
The gateways although made of stone, are carved and constructed in the manner of wood and the gateways were covered with narrative sculptures. They showed scenes from the life of the Buddha integrated with everyday events that would be familiar to the onlookers and so make it easier for them to understand the Buddhist creed as relevant to their lives. Some of the friezes of Sanchi also show devotees in Greek attire (Greek clothing, attitudes, and musical instruments) celebrating the stupa.

Further stupas and other religious Buddhist and early Hindu structures were added over the following centuries until the 12th century.

A British officer in 1818, General Taylor, was the first known Western historian to document (in English) the existence of Sanchi. Amateur archaeologists and treasure hunters ravaged the site until 1881, when proper restoration work was initiated. Between 1912 and 1919 the structures were restored to their present condition. Today, around fifty monuments remain on the hill of Sanchi, including three stupas and several temples.

NOT TO MISS!
And when you have walked around, the one place you should not miss are the Public Conveniences – or Loo! The building blends with the surroundings, is immaculately clean and the walls adorned with paintings of men and women in the period head dress, hairstyles, jewellery etc.

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UDAIGIRI AND VIDISHA

Udaygiri Caves are situated in Vidisha district. These caves are at a distance of 4 km from Vidisha and 13 km from Sanchi. Udaygiri is word of Sanskrit language meaning – sunrise hills. These are a group of rock-cut caves sanctuaries carved into a sandstone hill that stands sentinel-like on the horizon. An inscription in one of these states that they were produced during the reign of Chandragupta II (382-401AD), thus dating these caves to 4th - 5th century AD. The use of the word "cave" is a bit of a misnomer, since these are not natural, but instead examples of rock-cut architecture.

The Udaygiri caves possess all the distinctive features that gave Gupta art its unique vitality, vigour and richness of expression; the beautifully moulded capitals, the treatment of the intercolumniation, the design of the entrance way and the system of continuing the doorframe as a stringcourse around the structures.

They have been numbered probably according to the sequence in which they were excavated, beginning with Cave 1, which has a frontage adapted out of a natural ledge of rock, thus forming both the root of the cave and its portico. The row of four pillars bear the ‘vase and foliage’ pattern of which the eminent art historian Percy Brown so eloquently says: “the Gupta capital typifies a renewal of faith, the water nourishing the plant trailing from its brim, and allegory which has produced vase and flower motif, one of the most graceful forms in Indian architecture”.
The shrines are progressively more spacious and ornate. Cave No.9 is remarkable for its large ceiling and massive, 8 feet high pillars, its long portico and pillared hall. Throughout, there is evidence that the master craftsmen of Besnagar practised their art with skill and artistry under the Guptas. Four centuries later. In Cave No. 5 a massive carving depicts Vishnu in his Varaha avatar, aloft one tusk. Yet another stupendous sculpture is of the reclining Vishnu. Taken as a whole, this group is a rich representation of the vitality and strength of Gupta art and architecture.

Vidisha or Besnagar is a town situated in the fork of the Betwa and Bes rivers, 10 km from Sanchi. Vidisha became an important trade center in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Emperor Ashoka was the governor of Vidisha and it finds mention in Kalidasa's immortal Meghdoot. Besnagar was abandoned in the sixth century; it came into prominence again as Bhelsa during the medieval period. It thus, passed on to the Malwa Sultans, the Mughals and the Scindias.

The ruins of a Hindu shrine at Vidisha dedicated to Vishnu reveal that the foundation bricks were cemented together with lime mortar, the first known example of the use of cement in India. The ruins are of period prior to 2nd century BC.

Close to the ruins are the remains of votive pillars with palm-leaf capitals; the only one that still stands is the Heliodorus pillar, also known as Khamba Baba. A monolithic free-standing column, the pillar bears an inscription which states that it was Garuda Pillar, raised in honour of Vasudeva by Heliodorous, a resident of Taxila, who had been sent to the court of Bhagabhadra as an envoy of Indo-Greek monarch, Antialkidas. This inscription is a valuable historical record, revealing both the relations that existed between the region and the Greek kingdoms of the Punjab, and the fact that the Greek ambassador had become a follower of Hindu god Vishnu. The inclusion of the name of Antialkidas dates the erection of the pillar to approximately 140 BC

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Photographs of idols inside the temples are taken either through the grills or split due to lack to space taken the whole space in one frame. Each temple entrance has a grill door to it preventing bats and romantic couples from entering. Fortunately the guide opened most of them for us to peek into.

BHOJPUR

Founded by the legendary Parmar King of Dhar, Raja Bhoj (1010-1053), and named after him, Bhojpur, 28 km from Bhopal, is renowned for the remains of its magnificent Shiva temple and Cyclopean dam.

The magnificent temple of Bhojpur, which has earned the nomenclature of the Somnath of the East is known as the Bhojeshwar temple and is about 1000 years old. This temple attracts devotees of Lord Shiva in huge numbers during the Shivaratri festivities. Richly carved above, the doorway is plain below, throwing into sharp relief the two exquisitely sculpted figures that stand on either side. On the other three sides of the structure are balconies, each supported by massive brackets and four intricately carved pillars. Here is the biggest Shiva Linga carved out of a single stone, rising to a height of 7.5 feet with a circumference of 17.8 feet. Although the temple was never completed, it still remains one of the best examples of temple architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries.

Visiting on a Monday proved to be auspicious as it is the day when Shiva is worshipped. Although no Pujas take place in the main temple, the small canopied arrangements in the front courtyard serve as altars. Pilgrims and visitors alike are seen performing their Puja and Shalini who never likes to dirty her feet did this one for her family. We took Prasad back with us, mine was confiscated at airport security and Shalini as usual lied with a straight face and got away with it.

Further down the road is a Jain Temple also incomplete and with a similar stone-raising ramp. There are three figures of the tirthankaras; one of a colossal statues of Mahavira 20 feet high, and the other two of Parswanath. Rectangular in plan, this temple probably belongs to the same period as the Bhojeshwar.

West of Bhojpur once lay a vast lake, but nothing remains except the ruins of the magnificent old cyclopean dams by which its waters were contained. The site was chosen with great skill, as a natural wall of hills enclosed the whole area except for two gaps. These were closed by gigantic earthen dams, faced on both sides with enormous blocks of sandstone, many being 4 feet long, 3 feet broad, and 2.5 feet thick, set without mortar. These embankments held up an expanse of water of about 250 square miles. This great work is ascribed to Raja Bhoj, but it may possibly be of an earlier date.

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BHIMBETKA

Bhimbetka which is 46 kms from Bhopal is an archaeological treasure trove. The Bhimbetka shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India; its Stone Age rock paintings date approximately 9,000 years old, making them among the world's oldest. Surrounded by the northern fringe of the Vindhya mountain range, Bhimbetka is also known as Bhima’s Lounge (Bhima was the second of the five Pandava princes in the Hindu epic Mahabharata). A pre-historic site, its giant rock formation must have provided ample shelter to the ancient tribes that dwelt here. Recently, about 760 rock shelters of the Neolithic age (circa 8,000 BC) were discovered here. These shelters are decorated with picture writings, depicting the life and times of pre-historic cave dwellers, making the Bhimbetka an invaluable chronicle in the history of man.

Executed mainly in red and white with the occasional use of green and yellow, with themes taken from everyday events of eons ago, the scenes usually depict hunting, dancing, music, horse and elephant riders, animals fighting, honey collection, decoration of bodies, disguises, masking and household scenes. Animals such as bisons, tigers, lions, wild boar, elephants, antelopes, dogs, lizards, crocodiles, etc. have been depicted in some caves. Popular religious and ritual symbols also occur frequently.

The colours used by the cave dwellers were prepared by combining manganese, red stone and wooden coal. Occasionally, the extracts of leaves and the fat of animals were also used in the mixture. Even after so many centuries have elapsed, the colours are still discernable, thanks to the chemical reaction resulting from the oxides present on the surface of the rocks.

The sad part though is that the entrance cave – called Bhimbetka (Bhim’s Lounge) is now occupied by a pandit and his family! A Vaishno Devi temple has been installed and the cave itself serves as a cowshed. The priest home has been carved out in the adjacent caves by putting doors at the entrance. Government Apathy?

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THE DRIVE

Words cannot always express the emotions one goes through visiting these ancient parts where tribals still live, a real life connection with villagers in remote areas living on close to barren land, at most shrubbery at times. But the tranquility, contentment of those who don't know what a city looks like is something you would like to exchange your life for - if only for a while

Driving from Bhopal to these places was an experience in itself and a highly recommended way to travel in this State. The landscape which is very sparsely populated changes from vast expanses sparse vegetation to low lying and verdant hillsides. Every now and then one goes past a small hamlet – huts painted in blue and white with tile or slate roofs. A cowshed and stack of firewood next to each one. What is striking is the cleanliness of these hamlets and the people as they go about their work silently. They seem blissfully unaware of life in the big cities and content with their lot. Temples and community ghats are where you would see the largest number of people congregated. The rest is nothingness.