01.01.2018 Our Madhya Pradesh Tour – Part I - Khajuraho

In this report, I will try to confine myself to our impressions on the places we visited rather than information about them. For those who are interested in detailed information, I had found very useful information about Khajuraho in the website: www.khajuraho-india.org

After our overnight stay in Bhopal we boarded an early morning train and reached Khajuraho, after a boring 7 hours journey. Without any breakfast, without any lunch. The train passed through some of the most barren terrains and villages. Outside the Khajuraho railway station, autorickshaw drivers swamped and surrounded the incoming passengers with offers for drop at hotels or sightseeing. It was difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat, among them. However, one driver who was persistent with us managed to get our agreement for a drop in the hotel and a trip around the Khajuraho temples – a 22 kilometer circular ride - for three hundred rupees. His name was Ramesh, and eventually, he turned out to be a good fellow. Our hotel was located just in front of the Western Group of Temples.

After we had dropped our baggage in the hotel and after we had a sumptuous north Indian Vaishnav lunch in a bhojanalay, Ramesh took us to a number of ancient temples – formally called the Eastern Group of temples and Southern Group of temples - like Chaturbhuja temple, Dulha Dev temple, a group of three Jain temples – Shantinath, Parshwanath, and Adinath – Javari temple, Ghantai temple, and Vamana temple. 

Chaturbhuja Temple

Chaturbhuja Temple

Delha Dev Temple

Shiv linga with thousand lingas on it

Jain Temples

Jain Temples

Vamana Temple

Jain Temples

Ghantai Temple

During the Light and Sound show

All these temples are located outside the little town, in remote locations. All these temples are protected and maintained as ancient World Heritage structures by the ASI. In almost all the temples, many of the sculptures had been disfigured during the military expeditions of Islamic invaders. All of them had exquisite carvings and magnificent temple towers, but all looked similar representing the architecture style of early 2^nd millennium during the rule of Chandela kings. There was no worship or pooja in any of these temples.

There were very few visitors in all these temples. One could spend any amount of time in each of these temples according to one’s taste and availability of time. All these temples were maintained very neat and clean. During our visit, Ramesh also took us to one of the handloom showrooms who had displayed exquisitely colored sarees made of bamboo fibres, a popular favorite of many tourists to Khajuraho.

As it became dark at around 6 in the evening, we were dropped in the hotel for rest. There was a light and sound show (Sun-et-lumiere) in front of the Western Group of temples. The tickets were priced at Rs.250. We bought the tickets for the show. However, the whole show appeared a damp squib, at least to me.

In the early next morning, we started off by walk to the Western Group of temples, which was less than about 200 meters from our hotel. Mist and fog had covered the entire open space in front of these temples. Melodious ‘Rudram-Chamakam’ and other divine chanting went on over the loud speaker, and it reverberated in the whole little town and market place, creating a kind of electrifying and exalted feelings. We first had the darshan of Sri Shankar Bhagawan in the Mahadev Temple. Here, regular poojas go on to a massive Shiv Ling.

After that, we visited all the Western Group temples – Lakshmi temple, Varaha temple, Lakshmana temple, Parvati temple, Nandi temple, Viswanath temple, Kandaria Mahadev temple, Jagadambi temple, and Chitragupta temple. There are no worshipping in any of these temples. There was a moderate crowd of visitors in the early morning. This is where some of the world famous Kamasutra sculptures – tiny, small and big - can be found on the outer walls. I have no words to adequately describe the beauty of these temples for their architecture, very fine carvings, sculptures, the temple towers, their symmetry, and what not. You can look at some of the pictures I took and understand their beauty. These temples, I learn, were made of sand stones. Here too, a number of sculptures were disfigured, yet the overall structure has survived the Muslim invasion, and wear and tear and neglect over time.

Shankar Bhagawan

Western Temples

Western Temples

Varaha Temple

Minute carvings on the Varaha 

Sculptures on the wall

Sculptures on the walls

Sculptures on the wall

Sculptures on the walls

Erotica on the walls

Sculptures on the wall

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There were folk dance shows and yoga-meditation classes that attracted a lot of foreign tourists.

Khajuraho is a ‘must-visit’ place for people who love to see ancient structures. I felt happy that a long time wish to visit this place got completed.

After our breakfast, Ramesh took us in his autorickshaw to Bhameeta, a place at around 12 kilometers distance from Khajuraho and put us in a bus that took us to Satna, for a paltry Rs.150. The bus looked a vintage model, yet ran very efficiently. The roads were superb, considering the difficult terrain. We passed through the famous Panna Tiger Sanctuary on our way. From Satna, we took the train to Jabalpur as we had reserved a ticket in the Varanasi – LTT Express.

For the popularity and fame of Khajuraho, the commuting to and from there could have been better; there is not much of a regular public transport to Khajuraho, excepting the trains reaching over there. For that matter, it appears that Madhya Pradesh government doesn’t seem to have a regular State Transport Corporation or Department to run public buses in most places in the State. After second thought, I felt that probably the government had been saving thousands of crores of rupees, year after year, by not running buses. However, no one seemed to complain about this.

My second report will be on Bheda Ghat Marble Rocks near Jabalpur and will appear in a day or so, after the New Year gaze and glaze had subsided. 

Please send your comments on Facebook or e-mail: neelkant16@yahoo.com

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.