12.01.18 Our Madhya Pradesh Tour Report – 4th and Final Part

On the first day of our stay at Bhopal, we decided to see the important places within Bhopal and use the last day to visit Bhimbedka and other sites outside Bhopal.

Our first stop was at Taj-aul-masjid, one of the three largest masjids in the world, the construction of which started in 1887 during the time of Nawab Shah Jahan Begum. 

Taj-aul masjid

Taj-aul masjid

From there, we went to Hanuman Tekre, a small hillock on top of which a beautiful Jain temple had been built. One could either drive the car all the way to the top of the hill or use the rope car. We used the latter. 

From Hanuman Tekre, we took a public bus to People’s Mall, probably one of the latest entertainment centres in Bhopal. For a small entry fee of Rs.50 one could spend the whole day here. We were quite impressed about the mall, with its exquisite entrance hall, multiplex theatres, various miniature replica of several important structures from all over the world – Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Eiffel Tower, British Parliament, Statue of Liberty, and so on. The accompanying pictures will speak it all, no need to describe them.

It looked as though the entire mall is constantly under development. Please remember, it is not a mall for shopping.

From People’s Mall, we took another bus to the famous Birla Mandir. On the way, we were caught in a terrible traffic jam which lasted for more than 2 hours around the areas closer to the railway station, Hamidia Road, Nadra Bus Stand. And these areas form the border of the old and new Bhopal. Eventually, we learnt that traffic jam was a regular feature in Bhopal in these areas. Hardly any police was there to solve the problem. There was complete chaos and ‘free for all’ traffic. I also noticed that in such a sensitive place with several side roads, junctions, markets and shops on either side there were very few traffic signals to regulate the traffic. The behavior of the public, driving cars and two wheelers compounded the problems, for the most part.

As it got very late after visiting the Lakshmi Narain Temple we were mentally tired and so returned back to the hotel hoping that we would be visiting the two important ‘talab’s (lakes) the next day, which, unfortunately, didn’t happen.

On the last day of our trip to Madhya Pradesh, we had arranged for a taxi to take us from Bhopal to Sanchi, Udaigiri Caves, Bhojpur Shiva Temple, and Bhimbedka Rock Shelters. All these places were stunningly beautiful in their own way.

Sanchi Stupa belongs to the 3^rd century, commissioned by the Emperor Asoka.

Udaigiri rock caves represent some of the oldest surviving rock caves, belonging the Gupta period of 5^th century CE.

In Bhojpur, the Bhojeswar Temple dedicated to Lord Siva belongs to 11^th century. The temple commissioned by the King Bhoja is incomplete and houses the 18 feet tall Shivling. The temple, its location in a vast expanse of open area, and Shivling were very impressive. A lot of tourists and devotees were seen in and around the temple. 

At a short distance from the Bhojeswar Temple there is another historic Jain temple.

One can see the 18-feet tall statue of Lord Shantinath, with two other smaller statues of Lord Parshvanath and Lord Suparshvanath. There is evidence to show that the main Lord Shantinath’s statue was commissioned by the King Bhoja. As we went there after the lunch time, the temple was closed. We could only view the Jain statue through the grilled gates.

As we were in a hurry to reach Bhibedka before it got dark we didn’t visit the Parvathy cave and remains of Bhoja’s royal palace.

When we reached Bhimbedka, it was past 4 pm. In fact, the urge in me to visit Bhimbedka rock shelters only culminated in our visit to Madhya Pradesh. I had read on the internet that these rock shelters belong to the ‘paleolithic’, ‘mesolithic’ and ‘historic’ periods. They exhibit the earliest traces of human habitation in the Indian Subcontinent. Containing more than 750 rock shelters spread over 10 kilometers there are evidences that they were home to the ‘homo erectus’ some 100000 years ago. On some of these rock shelters there are cave paintings which are at least 30000 years old. These paintings represent themes like animals, early hunting, and dancing.

As you enter the area you will find yourselves in the ‘auditorium’ cave, a significant structure, and the largest one. We walked through quickly some 12 rock shelters of different shapes and sizes.

It was really getting dark and the park was to be closed soon. Probably, one needs the entire day to visit all the rock shelters. They have properly paved the path at least to those we had visited. We have no idea about the other hundreds of shelters. Visiting Bhimbedka rock shelters, incidentally, became the most memorable experience of our MP tour. Of course, baring aside the visit to Bheda Ghat Marble Rocks at Jabalpur.

I felt that probably we should have come to Bhimbedka Rock Shelters first and reversed our route - Bhopal to Bhimbedka to Bhojpur to Udaigiri to Sanchi and then back to Bhopal.

We boarded a late night train – Hazrat Nizamudeen to Chennai Duranto - which came a full 4 hours late due to delayed start from Nizamudeen on account of fog in Delhi. We whiled away our time in the Upper Class Waiting Room in the railway station in the meanwhile.

Await my concluding remarks tomorrow.

30.12.2017 Introduction to my Madhya Pradesh Tour Report

A note of caution: Though I have written and published three books of short stories I am a novelist basically, and so, brevity is not known to me.

Probably, a tiny spark of desire to visit Madhya Pradesh got impregnated in my mind during 2015 while writing the 5^th Volume of my book: I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT … INDIA, ITS STATES, AND IMPORTANT CITIES, which concerned about the Central India, including Madhya Pradesh. While collecting information on Madhya Pradesh for the purpose of the book I stumped upon some information about, among other places, Bhimbedka, in MP, where some 10000 years-old human paintings have still survived under the rock shelters. The desire must have been lying dormant for long until quite suddenly, during November, it grew into gigantic proportions. Fortunately, for me, whenever I am in India, the second half of December is always a dull period, with no activity, due to all round closure of schools and colleges.

In my house, I represent the kinetic energy, wanting action, movement, and commotion, and my wife stands for potential energy, wanting stability, balance, and peace. While I wanted to make the tour to Madhya Pradesh she wasn’t that keen. But, as it always happened, she gave in to my emotional blackmailing and agreed for the tour. Not that she doesn’t like sightseeing, but she has recently developed a habit of concerning more and more about health – present and presumed. So, my gratitude goes to her for agreeing to make the trip. God bless her.

Something similar had happened earlier too. Sometime in late 2013, I was reading Dan Brown’s INFERNO. As I read the extensive description about Florence and its various theocratic structures, suddenly I felt I must visit Italy, specifically, Florence. After some hard bargaining with my wife, we made a very happy trip to Italy during March 2014, and I felt fulfilled.

Coming back to our Madhya Pradesh tour, once we decided to make the tour, I started looking at places to visit. Madhya Pradesh is a very vast state, but thinly populated. I had visited several parts of the State during the early 1990s, as part of my official work, and I had noticed that several parts of the State were primitive in development and public conveniences. But I knew things have changed a lot over there since then.

We decided to limit ourselves to Khajuraho, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Indore, and Bhopal. Though it might look a bit convoluted, the crisscross journey across the State became inevitable as I insisted on visiting the Marble Rocks along the Narmadha River, near Jabalpur. And we were both happy that I insisted on passing through Jabalpur too. Our itinerary broadly fell like this:

Chennai to Bhopal (by train)

Bhopal to Khajuraho (by train)

Khajuraho to Satna (by local public transport) and from Satna to Jabalpur (by train)

Jabalpur to Ujjain (by train)

Ujjain to Indore (by public transport)

Indore to Mahabaleshwar and Mandu (by public transport)

Indore to Bhopal (by public transport)

Bhopal to Sanchi, Udaygiri, Bhojpur, and Bhimbedka by a hired taxi

Bhopal to Chennai (by train)

Taxi was a convenient option everywhere, but we decided to use public transport wherever possible. And it was not inconvenient.

We left from Tenkasi on 16^th December evening and returned back on 29^th morning. All hotels were booked through the internet through either MakeMyTrip.com or Bookings.com or Goibobo.com. The hotels we booked were decent, centrally located, easily accessible, comfortable, and quite economical. For me, the internet is almost a demi-God. Grants you anything you want!

The trip was quite hectic as we were constantly on the move. Yet, we enjoyed the whole trip. We enjoyed decent north Indian food everywhere. Adharak ka chai was uniformly great everywhere. Fortunately for us, there were no hiccups anywhere during our trip. All meticulously planned and realized.

My overall impressions about Madhya Pradesh can be summarized as follows:

     1.      Most places were very neat and clean. ‘Swachh Bharat’ advertisements were there on every wall at many places. We could see public toilets everywhere. Very commendable. Proper roads have been developed in all the places we visited. The people were very simple and helpful.

       2.      The people in the rural areas appeared genuinely poor. One could see large groups of people traveling with headloads of what, I don’t know, everywhere. Incidentally, Madhya Pradesh has the largest percentage of Adhivasis (Tribal people), who were illiterate or only semi-literate, and very innocent. We passed through several small villages during the trip.

       3.      On casual conversation with fellow travelers while traveling and a few public, we got the impression that the day to day State administration is as inefficient and corrupt as any other State.

       4.      The weather was cool during the night, but the days were quite warm or hot.

Await a couple of more reports on the details of the places we visited and our impressions about them.