Journey to Mahakumbha 2013 - -Orchha

There was a Bunela king Rudra Pratap Singh, once came on the banks of Betawa river, in MP. Its the same royal family who also built fort of Jhansi, the Chandeles.
We had just seen the fort of Jhansi, which is scented by the bravery of a Maratha girl Rani Laxmibai, but now was the time to see the art and architecture of one of the most powerful kingdoms in India.
So the king along with his hunter dogs arrived on the banks of the river. And after lookng at some movement in some bushes on the riverbank, he in the local language, prompted his dogs to hunt down the prey/animal, if there is any, and he uttered words "Urchha",and the dogs ran in the woods.But to his surprise the dogs stopped barking and there was silence, then his excellency himself walked in to the jungle, and instead of any deer there was a Rishi, who was already been distrurbed by the kings dogs.The furious Rishi, with all his godly might and agony, was about to curse the king, but king surrendered and bowed to the Rishi's feet. With such honesty, humbleness of the king the rishi, instead of giving any "Shaap" to him, gave a "U:Shaap" and oredered the king to establish an empire in the region and name it with words he uttered first after entering the territory. It was "Urchha". and the kingdom came in to existent as "Orchha"
A 15 minutes long story, which we heard from a guide in Orchha. They have a very speacial way of narrating the story.

This area is highly rich in terms of ancient monuments. There are many great sights to see. The speacial one is Chaturbhuj Temple. The mandir shikhar and kalas is approximately 100 to 125 mtrs tall from the base. The rarest of the architecture. Again a multistoried buidling with narrow staircase to get to the height. As I entered the Sabhagriha of the temple I saw 4 small balconies at the roof Sabhagriha, a curious me, instantly asked a question to a local guide, "what are those small balconies for?", He said those are the areas from where Kings and the queens were welcomed by showering flowers on them. What a nice idea that is.

We met a local guide there, Manoj Sen,a localite, however he had been facing issues speaking hindi with, sudden he started speaking French with some french tourists and they also spoke with him. After some time he told us that he is a multilingual person and can speak french,German, Spanish, and some Asian languages. From him we came to know that people other than UK and USA are the oldest visitors of these monuments.

Then we moved to see the fort of Orchha. Again a multistoreied buiding, with hell lot of surprises. The "Tatbandi", The bedrooms of Raja and his wives. The natural color paintings in the bedroom of Rani Ganeshi bai and the king. These paintings are said to be 500 yeras old. There we could see almost every colour that we see now a days.

While I was viewing the fort, I recalled the forts of Sahyadri. The forts built by Satvahan empire and Raja Shivaji. And realised why it was difficult for Mughal to beat Shivaji and Marathas. The main strenght of Hindvi Swrajya was these forts of Sahyadri. Unlike forts in central and North India, our forts are atop the tallest mountain in the visible range. The greatness of Marathas is in these forts. How difficult it had been for our "Mavales" to build such unbeatable forts. And what is our youth doing on these forts. They drink, dance and booz on our forts. Last year I happened to trek Harishchandra gad, and to my surprise and fate of all Gadpremi and nisargpremi, I must tell you that Harshchandragad has now becoome a dustbin. People go there with plastic bottles,plastic bags, plastic glasses, plastic plates and come down the fort leaving all these plastic things behind on the firt itself, which has made such an amazing fort a dustbin. Once 15 years ago, when we trekked it with College(12th) mates, we collected each and every piece of plastic and burried it, but this time when I saw the situation, it would require almost 100+ volunteers to work couple of days to clean the fort. Alas..

But the good thing about Orchha and overall MP tourism dept is that they have maintained the monuments. The surroundings of the fort and temples is plastic free. Yet We could see some along roadside.

I am intentionally not uploading all the photos of Orchha. And I must say, its a must see place. At least we Indians should see and feel the height of Chaturbhuj temple and the great heights of of culture, art and dedication.

Also my perception about our forts have changed greatly. The respect towards Sahyadri forts and Raja Shivaji and Maratha "Dharkari and Warkari "has increased in great extent. I felt really proud that I belong to a land where the forts are really touching skies, Gaganchumbi, Abhedya, Ajinkya, full of bloody wars with enemies, martyrs,victories and memoirs of a warrior who challenged might Mughals,Nizam and Adilshahs and killed many of them.

 

Journey to Mahakumbha 2013 --- Jhansi of Rani Lakshmibai

Journey to Mahakumbha 2013  --- Jhansi of Rani Lakshmibai

     We drove almost 100 kms and came across East west corridor of great Indian national highway project. The road is world class.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North-South_East-West_Corridors.svg)

There are such six great Indian highways, which were started by Atal Bihari Vajpaye led NDA govt. Thanks to them.

     We landed in Jhansi, and went straight up to the fort which is immortalized by bravery of Rani Laxmibai. We intentionally hired a guide, who narrated the story of Rani Laxmibai and her bravery. Showed us the ‘Buruj’ from where she jumped down the hill with her adopted son on her back and escaped to keep up the “ swatantrata ka hunkar”. The heroic act not only inspired male soldiers but also a platoon of ladies “ Durga sena”.

          There is a palace which is know as Panch mahal, is a five storied building, the last one is destroyed by the british rulers, but for the roof they(british) have used big,fat iron gurdles which are quite visible. However as we go downstairs we can not see any kind of reforcement mechanism for remain four floor of the palace. The architecture is amazing. The structure is perfect with ample flow of fresh air, light, easy entrance and exit. Some hide out areas have also  been built in the mahal, in case of any emergency or enemy attack. We call it “Bhulbhulaiyya”.

          The british were overpowering in the particular battle just because of backstabbing done by her own brother in law, brother of her husband. Otherwise needed not to jump down from the Buruj.

          This fort has been built by Panna king Veer singh. And is still intact. This king belongs the Bundel royal clan. The history of handing over the fort of Jhansi and 1/3rd part of his kingdom to Marathas made us feel proud. Marathas helped this king a battle against muslim mughal and it was won by Marathas. Since then Marathas were ruling this land of Jhansi.

However it was the Bundele clan who ruled these lands for more than couple of centuries. They also built group of temples and palaces in Orchha.

Ohh.. Orchha !    

It’s the same place which we were in the afternoon

Lets go to Orchha…

 The Heron flying and competing us on the AB road 

 The green farms which I talked about in the first part

 The east west corridor highway

 Panch Mahal

 Interior of Panch Mahal, the fourth floor

 Taking stairs to get to the third floor

 The complete view of Panch Mahal

 This is where she jumped down

 Place to hang criminals

 The jail

 Baradari, the rang mahal

My journey to Mahakumbha 2013

Even though I had been thinking, talking about going to Kumbh since couple of months to family and friends, I was not sure if I would certainly do it.  Everybody appreciated my idea of visitng Kumbh on bike, and finally I got company.,Shashank Joshi, He wished to accompany me during the journey. But the idea of riding bike all the way long till Kumbh Mela wiped out by his and my family memebers, so with the fear fear of loosing freedom, loosing control of our journey we zeroed on Joshi’s car. We had planned to leave for kumbha on 3^rd Feb 2013, but left for on 2^nd itself, so we had one extra day in our travel bag and Joshi’s instantly pushed the thought of visiting Jhansi and Orchha. I welcomed the idea and we changed our route to Prayag.

            Initially we had planned to go via Bhopal à Jabalpur à Katni à Allahabad, but we continued on NH3 from Indore and headed for Jhansi. It added almost 3 more hundred kilometers in drive that to very average conditioned road from Dewas(MP).

As we left Nashik behind , we were amazed by the condition of the road. The road from Nashik till Indore is top class road. We could drive smoothly even at 100 kms/hr. So instead of going via the planned route we continued on NH3, post Dewas this road was referred as AB road, don’t know the reason why the name was given as AB road. But this AB road is a single lane road with very heavy traffic.

One thing I missed about MP. Forget the recently developed Indore city, as we drove along this road we could hardly see bare piece of land. Where ever we turned our focus, it was only green land with  farms of Gehu and chana. And my perception about MP started to change. Land is highly fertile with proper irrigation system. Inspite of this we could see “Shettal” in huge numbers. There wasn’t a single, even a small hill, all land is plane, with no fences, no bandhs, and no nongreen material.

So we headed to Jhansi, the earlier night we failed to locate proper lodging place, and we heard from some truck drivers that the region was bit dangerous to drive at night as decoits might hunt you down. This is one reason. Second is the condition of the road was not so great especially when we had driven on NH3, Third we had decided to drive at nights. With all these reasons we towed ourselves to a Shudh Shakahari Dhaba, to to our surprise they offerd us special Egg dishes. We had dinner. The time came to pay for the food and to our and your as well surprise for dinner of both of us the bill was only 124 Rs. You might not miss what I am trying to highlight the difference in cost. The “Mahagai” in “Maharashtra”

We stayed there and slept in the car itself along the AB road. Next morning we had to reach Jhansi. With the thought in the mind about what made the Mughals to intrude to Deccan if they already were ruling such a prosperous land. May be the answers were in tomorrows journey.

We started driving early in the morning from Guna to Jhansi……