A Time Travel Through Incredible India

This and the past few posts, form the complete story of some of the most incredible things I experienced and saw during my week-long tour of Madhya Pradesh. To make it easier for you to go through, I shall index them in this pilot post, and hyperlink each place to its respective post.

1. A Walk in a Pre-historic Park
2. A Boat Ride through a Marble Palace
3. Cave Paintings of the Early Man
4. Stupas at Sanchi
5. Muslim Palaces at Mandu

a Time Travel through Incredible India – 5 : Muslim Palaces at Mandu

We are all aware of the monumental standards that the Mughals set when it came to building palaces and pleasure domes for themselves – yeah, we’ve all seen the Taj Mahal, Humayun’s Tomb et al.

Now little known to many, before the Taj Mahal was designed, the architects drew inspiration from another, albeit less grander Muslim piece of architecture. That, and various other exquisite Muslim palaces and pavilions form the fifth and the closing part of my Madhya Pradesh travelogue.

We leave Bhopal and travel by road to Indore. The distance is a little less than 200 kilometers and can be covered in two-and-a-half to three hours, on a usual day.

Our place of interest is not Indore however. It is 100 kilometers south west of Indore, and this place is the ruined city of Mandu. Established in the 10th century by Raja Bhoj, it gained prominence during the Mughal rule in the Medieval Age, as the capital city of Hoshang Shah, the king of Malwa. After the Mughals however, when the Marathas shifted their capital to Dhar, the importance of the town waned.

Mandu is home to a number of beautiful Muslim palaces. The most noteworthy of them, being the Jahaj Mahal, a huge ship-like palace, positioned between two huge lakes (which still exist, but are much smaller). The Jahah Mahal was built by Hoshang Shah, as his harem, and it was meant to give a sea-like ambiance to the lady members who stayed there – with the cool wind arising from the cross-ventilation between the two lakes.

Beside the Jahaj Mahal, there is yet another exquisite palace, albeit smaller, known as Hindola Mahal, which features sloping walls on its three sides – to give the impression that the entire structure is swaying with the wind.

All these do make one wonder on the creativity of the architects in those times!

The next place that we visit is Roopmati’s pavilion – a “pavilion” that was built by Baz Bahadur, the last sultan of Malwa, for his Hindu queen – Roopmati, a singer and Rajput by birth. The pavilion was built for a specific purpose – to be a seat for the queen while she would gaze down the Narmada valley at the flowing waters of the Narmada. The pavilion is perched atop a cliff overlooking the valley – the Narmada is not visible to the naked eye, but there is a telescope that allows one to see it from the terrace.

Beside the Pavilion is the palace of the sultan Baz Bahadur himself.

The last couple of places that we visit in Mandu are the Jami Masjid, and thereafter the tomb of Hoshang Shah. This tomb of Hoshang Shah, was the structure that inspired the design of the Taj Mahal, as you shall see in the slideshow that follows.

The Masjid shows the confluence of two unique architectural patterns, the Hindu straight-cut-rectangular dharmshala style, and the second, the curve-oriented and arches of the traditional Mughal style.

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

That was it. This is the end of the travelogue. It was an incredible learning experience for me. I hope I have been able to share most of what I felt with you.

Thank you for staying till the end.

a Time Travel through Incredible India – 4 : Stupas at Sanchi

This post takes us back to Bhopal and then some 60 kilometers to its north west – to Sanchi.

Everyone has heard of Sanchi. We’ve all read about it in our History books, seen the beautiful Stupas that make Sanchi so important today, in print.

Trust me when I say, the real thing is a totally different deal.


Back in the times of the Maurya Empire (circa 250 BC), when the newly found faith of Buddhism was fragmenting, a few hundred years after the death of founder Gautam Buddha, it was King Ashok who took upon himself the monumental task of propagating the religion and methodically channelising its progress.

And thus the construction of the Stupas were started. Stupas are essentially round, mound like structures, housing significant Buddhist relics; Today they are some of the most iconic historical structures of India, and with good reason. When India won her independence in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru was quick enough to recognise the Ashokan Stupas as a aymbol of the very beginning of the existence of the Indian State. Before Ashok, India had existed physically and geographically, but the concept of a political state, stretching from present-day Kashmir to Kanyakumari, was unheard of. Ashok was the first emperor who consolidated most of the region of the present Indian subcontinent into a single political entity – and thus, this period can safely be considered to be the beginning of an Indian polity.

It was because of this, Nehru established the Ashok Stambha, the pillar-head of the oldest (southern) entrance gate to the Stupa, as the national emblem of India.

I shall stop this rant and shall provide the customary slideshow. I hope you like the pictures.

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

The next and hopefully the last part of this travelogue shall take us to Indore, and to Mandu – the site of some beautiful Mughal architecture from Medieval India.

a Time Travel through Incredible India – 3 : Cave paintings of the early man

After the visual treat that was the Narmada valley, we leave Jabalpur and move on to the capital city of Madhya Pradesh – Bhopal.

Now there isn’t really much to see in Bhopal except for a couple of really huge lakes, which have given Bhopal, the name – city of lakes. However Bhopal is close to two extremely important tourist spots, both of which are important enough to have been declared as World Heritage Sites.

The first one is far less known than the second, but is equally as enchanting in a different way, and forms the content for this post. It is only 45 kilometers to the south of Bhopal, but the road conditions are bad enough to make a Humvee think twice before venturing ahead. Which affected our rattly old Chevy rather badly, for the information – resulting in two consecutive punctures.

 This place is known as the Bhimbetka, and it is home to some of the oldest cave paintings known to man. Ten thousand years or more ago, these rocks were shelters to the early man, and in his .. er … past time (?) the early man painted on the walls of these rock shelters. Overlapping and superimposition of paintings imply that these rocks were used as canvas for art by different people from different periods – from the Upper Paleolithic, through the Mesolithic and Chalcolithic periods, right up to the early historic to the very recent Medieval age.

The amazing thing about these paintings is that they weren’t etched into the stone. Rather, they were painted, and given that they were painted, it’s a wonder how the paintings haven’t fallen prey to erosion and other natural processes. In fact, recent marks made by the Archaeological Survey of India on the same stones, only 60 years back have faded and discoloured.

These rock paintings were discovered by a VS Wakankar in 1957 when he saw some unique rock formations while traveling by train. Hundreds of such rock shelters where discovered of which fifteen caves have been opened for sightseeing.

Most of these paintings depict  animals like bison, boars, horses, lions while others depict the culture of the early homo sapien, their festivals, rituals and the like. It really is marvelously, considering the fact that at this juncture in pre-history, the early man was coming out of an animal-like existence and learning the art of self expression in the form of art, that which has survived till today. I am embedding a slideshow here, do click on the slideshow and view the photos in all their glory in picasa. They really are incredible.

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Also, the name Bhimbetka comes from Bhima, the strongest of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata – during the Pandava’s 12 year exile, Bhim had apparently resided in this region – and hence Bhimbetka – the seat of Bhima.

That is it for this post. The next post shall take us to Sanchi, also 40 odd kilometers from Bhopal, in another direction – the home of the historic Stupas and the iconic Ashok Stambha, the national emblem of India.

a Time Travel through Incredible India – 2 : A Boat Ride through a Marble Palace

Our next stop takes us to Jabalpur – 227 km to the west of Amarkantak and some 70 odd km from the National Fossil Park at Ghughua – which we covered in the previous post.

There is nothing spectacularly historical or archaeological in this city – but what sets this city apart is its proximity to one of the finest river valleys in the country – that of the Narmada. We’ve all read about the Narmada in our geography books – how it’s the traditional boundary between North India and South India, and how it’s one of the few peninsular rivers to flow westwards from its source in Amarkantak (which you might recall from my previous post) to the Arabian Sea, through a valley between the Vindhyas (to its north) and the Satpura (to its south) range.

Quite close to the city of Jabalpur, is a place called Bhedaghat in the Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, where the Narmada carves out a gorge through rocks made out of pure marble. And the breathtaking beauty of this marble-valley is one of the primary reasons that has helped tourism flourish in this state,

There are two ways of experiencing the marble rocks – both of which are splendid in their own unique way. The first is by taking a cable car and getting a bird’s eye view of one of the best portions of the valley – with a beautiful waterfall to boot. The second way is a 50 minute boat ride down the valley and  getting “up close and personal” with the rocks.

The boat ride through the valley revealed some beautiful natural marble “sculptures” – which are mostly figments of human imagination, humourous nevertheless when explained. I have included some of them in the slideshow below.

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

This completes the Jabalpur chapter of this travelougue. Next up, Bhopal, and cave paintings of the early man and the iconic Ashok Stambha at the Sanchi Stupa.

a Time Travel through Incredible India – 1 : A walk in a prehistoric park

This is part one of a three (or more) part tour-de-excellence through MadhyaPradesh, the very heart of the Indian subcontinent.

Indeed, when I set out for this journey, little did I know that this would turnout to be one of the most incredible travelling experiences I’ve ever been on -which is a significant thing, considering that Jammu-Kashmir and Keralaare the only two states in India that I haven’t been to. So, I was bothapprehensive yet expectant of the “wonders” that I would behold inthe course of ten odd days.

 With this and the next few blog posts, I wish to recount the experiencesthat I have had in the past few days, and hope to take you, the reader down tothe very beginning of life on earth, to the roots of the present day homo sapien and some astonishingmilestones of Indian culture – which still affects our day to day life in the21st century.

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Our journey begins on the road, aboard a rattly Chevrolet Tavera, atAmarkantak. Amarkantak, situated in Madhya Pradesh, close to the MP-Chattisgarhborder is home to some of the oldest Shiv temples on the planet. These are someoutstanding works of art, dating back to 1000 AD – all sculpted out of stone.One look at the temples and one is compelled to wonder at the craftsmanship ofthe artisans who toiled with pickaxes and shovels and craved these brilliantarchitectural masterpieces, which have stood the test of time and seen medievalIndian history unfold alongside them.

Amarkantak is also of geographic importance as the source of the greatNarmada, which cuts through the rich igneous rocks of the Deccan plateau,between the Vindhya and the Satpura ranges, and empties into the Arabian Sea inGujarat. Also, merely a couple of kilometers away from the source of theNarmada is the source of the Son river. What is startling is that the entirewatershed region is such, that within a couple of kilometers, the altitudevaries so much that, the Narmada flows westward  towards Gujarat, and thatthe Son flows North East-ward to join the Ganga in the great Northern Plains.

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Leaving Amarkantak behind us, we travel westward, towards Jabalpur -National Highway 22. We cross the two towns of Dindori and Shahpur and thencome to a fork and turn left. 14 kilometers down this road and we come to oneof the most amazing, yet little known places in India. In fact, it’s the onlysuch place that we have in our country, and even outside India, very few ofthese exist.

The National Fossil Park Park.

The National Fossil Park at Ghughua, is a rare, an extremely rare example of an entiretropical evergreen forest being petrified over millions of years – resistingall forms of biological decay while at it. Carbon dating has estimated thatthese plant fossils date back to the late Cretaceous and the early Tertiaryperiod in the geological timescale. That is more than 65 million years ago.Which is, well, a hell lot. Considering that dinosaurs had just becomeextinct then, and that the closest ancestor to the modern man was still manymillions of years away.

These fossils are predominantly of the prehistoric date palm and banana.This treasure trove of natural history was unearthed by a Dr Dharmendra Prasad,the statistical officer of the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, and afterrealizing the significance of this natural wonder, the Government of Indiadeclared this as a National Park in 1983.

Geological studies on the fossils excavated have proved several theories ofcontinental drift. The fact that the fossils are predominantly of evergreenplants imply that 65 million years ago, this region of India enjoyed a warmhumid climate with plenty of rainfall all year around. Also, the discovery of anumber of eucalyptus tree fossils have verified that the Deccan plateu and presentday Australia (which have eucalyptus forests to this date) shared the samelandmass – that of the ancient Gondwanaland. Seeing the fossils -million-year-old plants turned to stone – over the years – lying where theyonce stood, witnessing the evolution of planet earth happening all around them- the changing landscapes, new species appearing and dying out, the earlyprimates first learning the art of working with tools, the discovery of fire,the appearance of the first homo sapien– is exciting enough to send a shudder up one’s spine!

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

After a surreal experience, which I’m thankful to have witnessed, we boardour rattly old Chevy and head to Jabalpur.

Part two of our journey – the enchanting marble rocks of the Narmada valleyin Jabalpur will be taken up in the next post. 🙂

walking into Mordor

I have been pouring over Google Maps for the past few days, for finding routes and more interesting places to visit in Madhya Pradesh. And then this idea propped in my mind – the result of which was rather hilarious.

I love these tiny Easter Eggs Google keeps planting in arbitrary places in their products. ❤

Brillaint, ain’t it? 🙂

Also, Merry Christmas to everyone.

Tintin!

I haven’t written about Tintin in any of my 140 odd posts on this blog, and I’m dreadfully sorry for that. A great deal of injustice indeed, to what had pretty much been the holy grail of my childhood.

It started out in first standard, with my father and I, together reading Red Rackham’s Treasure, and it slowly grew into an obsession that occupied the better part of my 12 years of school life, in which I read, re-read, re-re-read till I knew virtually every single panel on each of the 22 books by heart. From random addresses of the houses of minor characters, to the number on the licence plate of a random car that appeared in some random panel in some book.

When Tintin was announced for the big screen last year, I was to put it mildly, apprehensive. To put it not so mildly, I was waiting for it like this:

Yeah. I scoured the internet for news, for trailers, teasers and the sort, and kept talking about it to my friends and of course, with my father, who is as much of a Tintin fan as I am. Also, the fact that it was Spielberg himself who’d be directing the movie, did little to restrain my enthusiasm for the same.

Now finally, after quite a few weeks since its launch (regrettably so), I had the chance to watch the movie. In all of its three dimensional brilliance.

From the very beginning, what you notice is the incredible, absolutely mindblowing graphics. At first glance one would mistake it for reality. Just that the characters give it away owing to their facial characteristics which have been religiously maintained to respect Herge’s caricatures in the books. Even with that constraint, the facial expressions, reactions and overall cinematography is so life like that it’s creepy. I ain’t the movie buff, but the few movies I have seen, I haven’t seen better motion capture technology in any, and that’s a fact.

Second, the story. Blind Tintin lovers will hate this bit, because what they’ve done is lift sections from three different books and made one story out of it all – kinda weird, because The Crab With The Golden Claws in reality has absolutely no connection to the epic Secret of the Unicorn + Red Rackham’s Treasure saga. But whoever’s distorted the original story, and rewritten the one filmed, has indeed done a brilliant job. Now before you go all Where’sYourFaithInTheOriginal on my arse, hear me out.

For one, the original story had an enormous coincidence in that Tintin bought the same Unicorn that had the history connected with his friend Haddock’s ancestor. I respect Herge’s story, inspite of the coincidence, because, well, it’s Tintin. What Spielberg, very cleverly showed, was how Tintin first buys the Unicorn, then gets involved in the whole racket surrounding it, which brings him to meet Captain Haddock. Added to that is the revelation that Mr Sakharine is actually the descendant of Red Rackham the pirate himself. This leads to a brilliant climax where Captain Haddock and Sakahrine duel just as their ancestors had duelled two hundred years ago aboard the original Unicorn. (Oh did I forget to add spoiler alerts?)

To be honest, I loved this story a wee bit more than the original.

The entire Bird brothers incident has been done away with, including the brilliant chase in the Marlinspike Hall cellar which was so artfully shown in the comic strips. I was hoping to see all that animation there, but halfway through the movie I realized they would do away with that to keep the new story line. But no issues, there were several thrilling chase sequences in the movie, which more than just made up for that one lack. The naval battle between the Unicorn and the pirate galley has been depicted marvelously, as has been the rendition of the sea plane flight sequence right up to the crash land into the sands of Morocco.

Humour prevails throughout the movie, reaching peaks when the Thompsons make a fine mess of things, and during Snowy’s hilarious antics and (mostly successful) attempts to help Tintin. Particularly funny was Haddock burping into the seaplane fuel tank, and his alcohol laden breath giving the engine enough juice to make it ashore.

However, I did miss the funny Captain Haddock. I missed his assorted compendium of swear words. I do agree, they are better read than heard, but a funnier Haddock, would indeed have made the movie more complete than what it currently is.

All in all, a brilliant movie. A spot-on, albeit distorted story; insane graphics; cliff hanging suspense, riddled with rib tickling humour. And an amazing climax.

Go watch it.