Shashishekhar Gavai

The lonely mountain wearing a temple for a crown , rises 2500 feet from the plains around as you get close to your destination , an hour’s drive from Vadodara . There are no signboards informing you that a UNESCO World Heritage site lies ahead . Entering Champaner town you see fortifications of the old city standing stoically amidst the hustle and bustle of a scruffy subtopia indifferent to the history around it . The surroundings improve as you move on to the well maintained road that takes you up the mountain of Pavagadh and brings you to Hotel Champaner Macchi . Its location is excellent . The rooms are without frills but large and reasonably clean with air conditioning . The restaurant has limited vegetarian fare and service is average . This is as good as it gets in a government run hotel .

The hotel staff are only vaguely aware of the world heritage status of their town , bestowed on account of its historical monuments . But they speak enthusiastically of the Mahakali temple which sits on top of the mountain and which can be accessed either by the ropeway starting close to the hotel or on foot . Almost everyone who comes to Champaner is on a pilgrimage to the temple which is one of the ‘Shaktipeeths’ . There are also some interesting Jain temples . But visitors coming principally for the historical monuments are few as I was to discover .

As I checked out of the hotel the next morning I asked the manager if he could find me a guide with good knowledge of the monuments .The manager very helpfully made a few calls and tracked down a guide who would meet me outside the Jami Masjid .

The guide – a slight , bearded young man , introduced himself as Narendra Modi . Really ??? I couldn’t resist some gentle leg pulling , including gratuitous advice on a healthy diet that would increase the size of his chest to make him worthy of his illustrious name . He then disclosed somewhat sheepishly that his real name was Narendra Parmar but the nom de guerre and physical resemblance to the great man helped business . The resemblance eluded me but I did see a savvy Gujarati entrepreneur.

The Solankis and Khichi Chauhans had ruled over this part of Gujarat from the Pavagadh mountain . Mahmud Begada , Sultan of Gujarat captured it in1484 .The story goes that he executed the Hindu Raja who had refused to convert but spared the son who did , conferring upon him the rather grand title of Nizam ul Mulk . Mahmud proceeded to build an impressive city with magnificent palaces and ornate mosques at the foot of the mountain . He then moved his capital here from Ahmedabad . The city flourished but its glory was short lived……..its prosperity was its undoing . The Mughal emperor Humayun sacked Champaner in 1535 after which the capital was moved back to Ahmedabad and the city went into rapid decline . Today Mahmud Begada’s Palaces are in ruin . It is his mosques that survive and make Champaner-Pavagadh a UNESCO World Heritage site .

Constructed of red sandstone the mosques are remarkable examples of the regional Islamic architecture of medieval Gujarat . Hindu influences are evident in the ornamentation of these muslim places of worship including exquisitely carved sun , lotus and torana motifs.These are most visible in the grandest of the mosques in the archaeological park , the Jami Masjid . The monument is reputed to be among the most beautiful mosques in India.The other major structures include the Sahar ki Masjid and Kevada Masjid , the latter accessible only by a dirt track .

As I complete my tour it strikes me that I have not encountered any other visitor . Guide Narendra Modi tells me that October is off season . Just a while back I have seen quite a few tourist vehicles and people around the ropeway station connecting the Mahakali temple . What could be the reason for the apathy towards these monuments ? Godhra is only a short distance away . Have the fissures created by those horrific events earlier this century distanced even inanimate objects from people? I haven’t been here long enough to be able to find an answer. The guide has told me in hushed tones that the presence of hindu motifs may be an indication that the monuments were temples converted to mosques by the invader . Perhaps a lot of people would like to believe that , rejecting the evidence of syncretism .

Mahmud Begada’s India was a place where constant wars and religious zealotry and strife were the norm . But that was medieaval India and its rulers and people were creatures of their time . We who claim to live in enlightened times should have learnt our lessons from the many follies of history . Apparently we haven’t ! Yet the seamless weaving of two different cultures in the syncretic architecture of the mosques of Champaner tell you that two different bands can still make beautiful music together . I move on to my next destination .

Indians speak with pride of their 5000 year old civilization . But the emotional and cultural bonds of the average Indian to his heritage rarely extend beyond the Vedic age . His consciousness does not often accomodate the advanced Indian civilization that preceded the Rig Veda by a thousand years and more . This may be so because its earliest iconic discoveries , Mohenjo Daro and Harappa , lie in today’s Pakistan .

The cities and settlements of the Harappan civilization , however , extended beyond the Indus valley in Pakistan and covered parts of Afghanistan , north western and western India and possibly even further . Excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) post – independence , uncovered Lothal and Dholavira in Gujarat , Kalibangan in Rajasthan and Rakhigarhi in Haryana , The most spectacular of these is Dholavira which lies on an island in the Rann of Kutch .

I drove to Dholavira from Rajkot – a six hour journey that takes you through landscapes that change from urban to rural to virtual desert . In the final stretch are large tracts of salt disappearing into the distance on either side of the highway . These would be transformed into marsh with the coming of the rains . And in this land , along the edges of the road , walked a woman , her colourful rural attire contrasting joyfully with the arid backdrop . She walked gracefully , with a load on her head , minus footwear but a mobile phone in one hand with earphones in place . Welcome to 21st century India…..how I wish I had captured that image on camera !!!!!

There are just a handful of places to stay around Dholavira . Your best bet is the Toran Tourism Complex located within convenient distance of the archaeological site . It boasts a dozen huts in terms of accommodation but little by way of quality and service . It helps a great deal if you have checked in with minimal expectations . This is after all a government owned facility .

Dholavira dates back to 2650 BCE . To place its antiquity in historical perspective , the origin of Dholavira is as distant in time from the founding of Chandragupta’s Mauryan Empire as the latter is from the establishment of the independent Indian state . The archaeological site occupies an area of about 120 acres . In its heyday Dholavira was a principal city of the Harappan civilization and with a population of about 50,000 souls , one of the greatest urban centres of its time . It was inhabited for over a thousand years but finally abandoned around 1400 BCE , about the time the Vedic age was beginning .

The mound that hosts the archaeological site rises a hundred feet as you face it . Layers of dust and debris accumulated over it during 3500 years of abandonment , concealing it completely until discovery during our times . It was then excavated laboriously , layer by layer , until its wonders lay exposed . A lot of course still lies below,to be unearthed perhaps sometime in the future .

A visitor to Dholavira would do well not to expect grand palaces or intricate sculpture . Instead the mind should be allowed to comprehend the genius of the people who conceptualized the city and built it . What a tremendous leap of imagination would have been required in those pre historic times .

There were only a handful of other visitors as I made my way through the excavations to the top of the mound . This was the “Citadel” with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside . It was here that the ruling elite resided and administered the city . There are no vestiges here of any grand mansions but only of what must have been modest dwellings . There are however structures of an ingenious water supply and drainage system here .

A level below is the perfectly geometrical layout of streets ,shops and residential quarters of “middle town” where merchants and artisans lived and conducted their business . Continuing from here and encircling the mound were several huge reservoirs , three of which have been fully excavated , into which flowed water diverted from nearby rivers as also harvested during the rainy season . Beyond this was the “lower town” where the bulk of the population lived , growing crops and raising livestock .

With its advanced infrastructure and the precision of its civil engineering , this was a city any modern day architect or city planner would have been proud to have designed . Even Mesopotamia and Pharaonic Egypt , the other two great civilizations of the time , did not possess a city to match the civic infrastructure of Dholavira. Rome would have it ……. about 2500 years later !

History will not shed light on the cultural , social , economic or political canvas of anything as ancient as Dholavira . It is archaeology that lends a helping hand . There is no evidence of royal palaces or magnificent villas . On the other hand you have a well planned city with impressive civic infrastructure available to all citizens .This suggests a fairly equitable society with an enlightened ruling class . No Sultans,Maharajas ,or Czars here.

The small but well maintained museum adjacent to the site houses a treasure of artefacts from the excavation including Harappan seals , beads , bangles , jewellery , statues , jars , metallic tools , weights…….These articles point towards a culturally advanced society . The absence of weapons of war in the unearthed artefacts in Dholavira and other Harappan cities suggests a society at peace with itself and with its neighbours .

The most interesting find at Dholavira is a large “signboard”,once placed above a city gate but now fallen on the ground and displaying 10 characters of the Harappan script . It may be an indicator that a significant percentage of the population may have been literate . The script has defied several attempts at deciphering and remains a mystery . Those involved in these efforts include scholars as well as charlatans . One of the latter has even gone public on the net claiming success . According to him the “signboard” is actually a gravestone and carries the name of the deceased who lies buried underneath . After a series of complex and unintelligible calculations this “expert” concludes that the dead individual is one Champak Hiralal Chachad . Unless he’s being facetious this “expert “needs to be institutionalized in a psychiatric facility.

But on a serious note , if indeed the Harappan script is deciphered , the achievement will rival the cracking of the Egyptian hieroglyphics following the discovery of the Rosetta Stone at the end of the 18th century.The veil over so many mysteries of India’s oldest civilization may finally be lifted .

As I struggled with a rather uninspiring meal at the Toran complex I wondered what the Dholavirans would have been eating a few hundred yards from here , a few millennia ago . It can only be assumed that a wide variety of staples , lentils , fruits , vegetables , spices and animal protein were available to people of the Harappan civilization . But there is clear evidence of the consumption of wheat , millets , peas , aubergines , mustard . ginger, garlic , turmeric , cattle and chicken.So if you had a wood fired chulha going , boiled some rice,roasted a roti on a clay tawa , made ‘bharta’ of roasted aubergines with a tadka of ginger and garlic in mustard oil , accompanied by a dal of soaked dried peas tempered with turmeric and mustard seed……Voila ! you have authentic Dholavira recipes going back 4000 years . Non vegetarians could do a chicken curry the same way . The Gujarat tourism department could perhaps instruct Toran to offer ‘Bharta Dholavira ‘ and ‘ Chicken Harappa’ on their menu . I will be more than happy to waive my intellectual property rights .

The following morning I set out on a tour of the Rann . I visited a fossil park behind which extended an incredible sea of salt as far as the eye could see . The salt crystals crunched under my feat as I walked over it . Driving further I stopped at a temple situated between a village and a camp of the Border Security Force(BSF) . As I parked myself on the temple wall to admire another view of the Rann , a BSF jawan with a rifle slung over his shoulder came and sat near me . We got talking . He was from Kerala and was doing a year long tour of duty in the Rann . His unit was responsible for patrolling a section of the border with Pakistan which lay a few kilometres in the distance . No , unlike some of his other assignments on the borders , there was no eyeball to eyeball confrontation here with the enemy , he explained , He spoke of his adversary , the Pakistan Rangers,without hostility – they were doing their duty just as he was doing his . He had a wife and two children back home in Wayanad and was eagerly awaiting a posting to a family station so that they could join him . In the meanwhile he hoped that his assignment here would pass without incident . A soldier on the frontline , he clearly understood the consequences of war unlike jingoistic “Patriots” conducting glorious battles against the enemy from the comfort of their homes or the safety of political pulpits . The people of Dholavira would have shared the sentiment of the jawan .

Dholavira beckoned again that last evening . The sun was setting as I walked around the “citadel”. Not a soul was in sight except a flock of birds flying in formation . A gentle breeze wafted over the silent stones . The magic of the place was compelling . For a fleeting moment I felt the presence around me of those mysterious people who had built this amazing city , had lived in it and were long gone . And I thought if indeed there ever was a ” Gujarat Model ” it was this ……… over 4500 years ago !!

Straddling two countries India and Bangladesh ; lying across the delta formed by three mighty rivers emptying into the Bay of Bengal ; and spread over a massive 10,000 square kilometres , it is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1987 . Welcome to the Sundarban , the world’s largest mangrove forest . Its hundreds of islands are in a constant state of flux – some dying , new ones taking birth . The sea in and around it devouring its land and then regurgitating it . Nothing perhaps symbolises the impermanence of everything in such a grand manner as Sundarban .

Sundarban is nature’s child and its gift to man . Yet neither nature nor man has been kind to it . A cyclone in 2007 is estimated to have decimated forty percent of Sundarban . And man’s depredations here follow the same pattern as elsewhere – a proposed coal fired power station in Bangladesh is expected to further harm this unique heritage .

I reached the Godkhali jetty on a wet September afternoon at the end of a three hour drive from Kolkata through rural Bengal . The road terminates here and travel onwards to the islands of Sundarban is only by boat . After some negotiation I boarded the boat which would take me to my hotel on Gosaba island after giving me a flavour of the jungle .

The owner had described the vessel as ‘ houseboat’ . It was more appropriately a floating hulk of wood with very rudimentary facilities . Climbing precariously with the support of an old tyre dangling from the side of the boat , I stepped gingerly onto the ‘lower deck’ . This served the dual purpose of a bedroom and the engine room . The ‘beds ‘were crude wooden platforms along the hull with none too clean mattresses dumped in a corner . I suspected they were also smelly but did not venture to verify . The engine was a ‘jugaad’ – a concoction of spare parts which somehow worked . On the upper deck a few plastic chairs lay scattered and the latrine at one end was literally a hole in the floor . But what impressed me was the young ‘Captain’ who deftly steered his boat with his foot and accelerated with a piece of string .

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The boat traversed the backwaters at a leisurely pace , almost hugging the edges of the forest . A group of five young men from Kolkata was also on the boat and was already imbibing from a bottle of whisky which was offered to me politely……and which was declined equally politely as the afternoon hour was somewhat ungodly . The authorities had denied them permission to stay on board for the night and they were disappointed . I thought they were lucky given the condition of the sleeping quarters and the latrine .

Forests in India and elsewhere enchant and even embrace you .They invite you to enter them , touch them , connect with them . But Sundarban is not similarly tactile . There is something forbidding , sinister about it . The monotony of the mangroves and the nets that cordon them off from the backwaters only add to the feeling .

I spotted a lonely deer , diverting the Kolkata group momentarily from its bacchanalian preoccupation . On quizzing the loquacious but helpful ‘ First Officer’ about the nets , he explained that they stretched for several kilometres along the forest facing inhabited islands to prevent the tigers from swimming across and attacking livestock and even humans . Because the Sundarban tiger is not the gentleman or the lady tiger that you encounter in other forest reserves . It is apparently larger and kills humans pro actively , even climbing on to boats in the night . Hence the famous rear facing masks worn by villagers who venture into the forest for their livelihood . I wondered how effective the masks would really be in discouraging a ferocious and intelligent predator . Contemplating the moving silhouettes of the forest and wondering about its pitiless denizen , I am reminded of Amitav Ghosh’s Hungry Tide where he so masterfully recreates the mystery , the menace and the unpredictability of Sundarban.

After a three hour ride I find myself at the hotel jetty on Gosaba island . An unpleasant surprise awaits me . The sleepy old man at the reception says there is no booking . My producing documentary evidence is of no avail – it appears the hotel has terminated it’s arrangement with the online booking site . I offer to pay cash or cashless and sort out the matter later with the booking site . Another surprise – the hotel does not welcome solo travellers – l had heard of hotels denying accomodation to couples without a marriage licence . But a harmless senior citizen travelling on his own ? I demand to speak to the manager . He is equally adamant . I ask him why solo travellers were not welcome . After some humming and hawing he comes out with it . Hotels in Sundarban are reluctant to accept lone customers because a few have committed suicide in their rooms . Rather ghoulishly I think this adds yet another dark and mysterious aura to Sundarban .

I denied most vehemently that I had any plans to do Hara Kiri . For good measure I added that I was a retired senior government officer , implying that such luminaries did not do themselves in .The flawed logic of my argument somehow appealed to the Manager Mr Kashi and he checked me in . He perhaps understood babus better than I did despite my long years as a civil servant . He must have figured out that a bureaucrat becomes so adept at saving his own skin that he would scarcely be tempted to take his own life .

It was off season and I was the only guest in the 36 room hotel.Manager Kashi was outside my door as I poured myself a drink . The man was quite cordial after having convinced himself that I would not bring infamy to his hotel by hanging myself from the ceiling fan . I offered him a drink which he declined saying that he had high cholesterol . He asked me what I was drinking . On being told it was scotch whisky he changed his mind and asked me to pour him some . Obviously the ambrosia from Scotland is good for cholesterol – Scotch Whisky Association should take note for their future promotional campaigns.

Kashi told me that he had visited the forest interiors over 400 times but had sighted a tiger only on 14 occasions – a success rate of about 1 in 30 . No wonder I had not seen any . But hardly surprising considering that there are just about 200 tigers in an area the size of a a fairly large Indian district . Furthermore tourists are restricted to a small area around Sajnakheli in the huge national park . Thus unlike other tiger reserves in India the chances of sighting the animal are fairly remote . On the other hand , according to Kashi , you would encounter large numbers of illegal immigrants in areas around Sundarban .They had seeped in though the delta over the years and continued to do so .The Indian Border Security Force is too thinly spread over land and water to prevent the incursions in any effective fashion . But the economy in Bangladesh is doing well and this may well be a more effective deterrent than fences and guards .

It was a Bengali meal that evening . The dal , bhaat , aloo poshto and begun bhaja was embellished with delicious fried Rui fish , fresh from the hotel’s very own ‘ pukur ‘- pond in plain english , Kashi also tempted me with a ” fantastic ” fish curry if I stayed for lunch the following day . Regrettably I had to return in the morning after breakfast . The ferry from Gosaba island to Godkhali where my driver awaited me , cost two rupees . Now what do you get for that princely sum these days ? Not even a trip to Sulabh shauchalaya !!!!!

N