Having heard only good things about Bhopal and its environs, which include Sanchi and Bhimbetka, I decided to check out the action there. By now I’ve become used to taking a Shatabdi at six-ish in the morning (recent ones to Lucknow and Ajmer). But what I have still to get used to is to have elbow and knee jostling battles with the person sitting next to me. Thanks to my rather aggressive neighbour, the 8 hour journey to Bhopal was, shall we say, pretty eventful.
Anyway, while engaged in this tussle, I read up on the city. Its known history goes back to the 11th century when Raja Bhoj built a lake here. The name of the city is supposed to be a corruption of ‘Bhojpal’ (Bhoja’s dam) or ‘Bhojtal’ (Bhoja’s lake). The city, capital of Madhya Pradesh, is known for its lakes, begums, and sadly, for the industrial disaster in 1984.
Begums? You ask. Yes Begums. For over a hundred years, the city was successively ruled by women. Starting with Qudsia Begum in 1819 right upto Begum Kaikhusrau Jahan in 1926. Many of the landmarks of Bhopal were built during their reign (including Mosques and educational institutions). The story of the Begums has an interesting Pakistan / Cricket / Bollywood connection - at the time of Independence, the daughter of the then Nawab (Hamidullah Khan) opted to go to Pakistan (her son Shaharyar Khan later became Pak’s foreign secretary and was also chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board). Anyway, because this lady decided to go to Pakistan, her sister Sajida Sultan became the titular head of Bhopal in due course. She was married to the Nawab of Pataudi (himself a cricketer, and the father of M.A.K. Pataudi). So Saif Khan and Soha Ali Khan are the grandchildren of the Begum of Bhopal!
Ok, back to the city itself. It gets its distinctive character from two major lakes – Upper Lake and Lower Lake. The former is rather big, and surprisingly clean, and a great place for people watching. You’ll see couples in those boats shaped like swans (!), or families digging into their ice-creams, or people from the boat club canoeing (coxless fours anyone?). But more than people, I enjoyed watching the sunset from there. I plonked myself at an MP tourism bar called ‘Winds and Waves’ that is on a terrace on a hill overlooking the lake. Beer and Kebabs was an excellent way to watch the slowly setting Sun accompanied by the changing colours in the sky. It was good to be away from the heaving sighing city - I enjoyed it so much that I was there again the next evening!
The city has a sizeable Muslim population and some of the major landmarks are the Mosques that dot Bhopal. The biggest of these is the Taj-ul-Masjid (‘Crown of all Mosques’), supposedly the largest stone mosque in Asia. The building was started in 1877, during the reign of Shahjahan Begum, but was never completed due to lack of funds. Construction resumed more than a hundred years later in 1977! Close-by is the Moti Masjid – looks a lot like, though it is much smaller than, Delhi’s Jama Masjid. This mosque was built in 1860 during the reign of Sikandar Jahan, also known as Moti Begum, hence the name.
One of the places I had read about, and wanted to visit, was the ‘Masjid Dhai Seedhee’ (‘Mosque of Two and a Half Steps’ – the name, naturally, comes from the two and a half steps that lead to the Mosque). When I asked the concierge at the hotel where I could find this mosque (my guide book did not reveal the location), he looked at me and said, “Aap Bhopal pe koi survey kar rahein hain?” (Are you doing a survey on Bhopal?). He was obviously fed up of the questions I’d been asking him over the last few days on the sights of Bhopal and how to get to them.
The concierge raised a blank. He asked a few people and they all had not heard of the Mosque. I asked a few auto-wallahs and all of them also came up with a ‘huh?’. So I guess I was destined to go away from Bhopal without seeing this Mosque. Finally one gentleman near Taj-Ul Masjid told me that it was across the street in Hamidia Hospital. And sure enough there was a sign at the entrance of this hospital that proudly proclaimed this Mosque to be a) the oldest in Bhopal (1716) and b) the smallest in Asia!
History? Check.
Bharat Bhawan had been recommended to me as a must-see place. This centre for performing and visual arts, which is by the upper lake, is a great place to hang out – which is exactly what I did there. I even caught a nice play (Bakri: satire on Indian politicians) one evening and the next day went for a jazz/classical music concert by a rather intimidated looking French duo. In the middle of one rather intense movement (piano and trombone) a kid in the crowd (yes, people had come with their young ones!) decided to mimic the performance on the stage. It was to the musicians credit that they carried on despite this out-of-tune-rendition by the kid which was accompanied by giggles from the audience!
Culture? Check.
I managed to get to the most recommended places to eat in Bhopal – Jahan Numa Hotel (an old Palace converted into a luxury hotel) and Hakeems (a hole in the wall kind of ‘restaurant’). Both had immensely tasty food (even though they were on opposite ends of the monetary spectrum).
Food? Check.
Bhopal is a convenient base to make day trips to Bhimbetka and Sanchi from. My first day trip was to Bhimbetka. Or rather, I should say, was an attempt to get to Bhimbetka. The site is about 45 kms south of Bhopal. As my cab got to Obaidullahgunj (about 8 kms from Bhimbetka), we noticed a long queue of trucks on the road. Since the road was really narrow we couldn’t leapfrog over them. After a bit of poking around, we found out that the ‘queue’ of trucks was over 10 kms long.
‘We cannot reach Bhimbetka’ was the cab driver’s immediate verdict, ‘and even if we do, we might not be able to come back.’
‘Phir kya karein?’
‘Sanchi jaa sakte hain’
I agreed, even though I had Sanchi pencilled for the next day. So we drove back to Bhopal and then went North-East (crossing ‘Tropic of Cancer’ on the way) to get to Sanchi (about 50 kms from Bhopal). Sanchi is on a hill-top - before we drove up the hill - I had a nice, heavy lunch at the surprisingly good MP tourism restaurant on the foot of the hill.
As I entered the Sanchi complex, I was immediately impressed by how neat, clean, and well maintained the site was. The stupas / monasteries were well sign-posted and there were lovely, clean, well-trimmed green lawns all around –with an enclosure for rabbits and ducks. One could hear peacocks in the distance and, since the site is on a hill-top, one gets a 360° view of the lush green surrounding countryside. I immediately knew that I was going to enjoy my time here. Which I did.
The site was commissioned by Ashoka in the 3rd C BC when he got 8 stupas built there (of these, three survive). Subsequent additions were made at the site by the Sungas, Satvahanas, right upto the Guptas. The stupas contain relics of Buddha or his disciples. Stupa no. 1 is rightly called the great Stupa – it is a large structure (I won’t bore you with dimensions) and has 4 beautifully carved entrances (toranas) which had fallen down during restoration. – these toranas show episodes of Buddha’s life (from the Jatakas) - there were initially no representations of Buddha as during the early growth of Buddhism – the master was never represented in human form – he was always shown in allegorical form – as a tree, or a wheel...
Sanchi lay in ruins for centuries but was re-discovered in 1818. However, there was considerable damage done to the site after that by archaeologists (who wanted to get to the relics) and nearby villagers. The restoration (beautifully done) was carried out in the 1910s.
The site is dotted with Ashokan pillars (there is a beautiful capital in a nearby museum), ruins of monasteries and temples (one of which looks like a Greek temple with columns).
I left there feeling really happy at how well ASI had maintained it. I can, for
the record, confidently say that this was by far the best site I’ve seen in India (so far!).
A couple of days later, I decided to make another attempt at getting to Bhimbetka. Fortunately this time there was no snaking queue of trucks (more on snakes later). Bhimbetka is famous for its (rather old) rock paintings. I (wrongly) thought that there were caves at Bhimbetka (like the ones at Lascaux in France) - but there were no caves here but rock shelters – some historians say that these shelters were inhabited even 1,00,000 years back. However, there are paintings on the walls of these shelters that are definitely 12-15,000 years old. These shelters are supposedly the earliest traces of human life in India. Because of the kinds of paints that were used, and because they were made on niches and inner walls, the paintings have survived remarkably well. Some of them date back to the Upper Paleolithic Era (I read that up!). They show all sorts of ‘scenes’ – hunting, dancing, and religious scenes. There are lots of animal / human figures and these have given historians lots of clues about life in those times. Seeing those paintings got me thinking about how insignificant our individual lives can be. I was in a Sartre / Camus mood when I started wondering why all the guards there had large lathis with them. When I asked one of them, he said it was to keep the animals away. Noting my suddent discomfort, he added, ‘and snakes and cobras too.....’
I made a hasty retreat from Bhimbetka.
I had been having an internal tussle about whether I should go to the Union Carbide factory. For three days, the part of me that didn’t want to treat it as a tourist spot got the better of the part who wanted to have a look at the monstrosity that caused one of the world’s worst industrial disasters. But on the last day, I thought to myself, I’d probably never get an opportunity to visit the factory again, so might as well. I did reach the gates of the factory but then I just could not get myself to go inside. So I quietly had a look at the small memorial outside the gates and the innumerable posters / graffiti denouncing Union Carbide / Dow Chemicals.
A sobering end to an enjoyable visit to Bhopal.
