A small humble name-post in bright yellow paint boldly marked in black welcomes you from across the railway track, to this small city, not; a village, growing more inwards as you move, Orchha.
What made a clear threshold for it, is this very tiny, (I am still looking for a rightly proportioned word for it) railway station. It does not have any of the banal, active and normally expected thoroughfare around it. Not even any sense of a rush affair. It passes wide and above the essentials of keeping up with the pace. No haste to any calling. It just exists in a slumber.
Moving ahead, you are engulfed into a green tunnel of a entwined dry and dense leafy cover encasing a roadway like an Alice's Wonderland. Almost making it feel like a hole into the wilderness. Like an invader from yester days, you plunge into this jungle. One can see just as far and long, and then, thump! Gets back to feeling like a lone explorer or a traveler on their own, trying to get somewhere ahead.
A friend and I are travelling in this rickety auto-rickshaw with a classic old bollywood song playing in the backdrop. Air gushing in from sides and making us feel more like a part of a heroic friendship saga in a village. In the honor of our travel story and for her expected excitement for the love-filled mention - my friend and my name have six common letters and they rhyme, to an extent that people usually call me by her name if they don't get it correct before being told again.
And moving on, we take a glance of the silver lining to our countryside-like view -
The rising peak of Chaturbhuj Temple.
The temple dedicated to Vishnu is revered for the same meaning of its name, Chaturbhuj where 'chatur' चतु: meaning "four" and 'bhuj' भुजा meaning "arms" which literally translates to "one who has four arms". My companion on this trip and I would recommend to have a a few good hours (preferably not too sunny ones- as the expanse is clear of any shading. We had enjoyed the same on a winter noon.) to spend in this complex just absorbing the view of the old lands and cityscape and the nothing less than, and in the true sense of the word - magnificent profile of the Orchha Fort. [:to follow in the next part]
As we walked towards the temple, after getting down from our super-frolic auto ride, we got magnetically attracted to the small but bright marketplace with local houses and small temples, on the road leading to the temple plaza. There were little locally made jewelry, religious bands and idol souvenirs, brassware home-decorative accessories, ultra-attractive different powder colors kiosks and sweets shop selling prasaad for offering at the temple and some cows to not miss, ofcourse. Spending some time in the bazaar talking to the locales, making their living from the sales, just connected us to the present set-up to this history weaving place. Completely immersed in the experience we skipped the chance to take a picture of it. (A google image below-left reflects the idea)
A steep set of steps lead to the pedestal of the high temple ground, creating a space for many visitors for clicking selfies and pictures with the background of the city showing below.
The small multi-foiled arched windows atop the ornately detailed gateway hellos us with the layers of old plaster scathed to show up the filler bricks of this ancient structure.
The central volume of the temple opens out a huge space under a false internal dome, beautifully plastered in lotus petals motifs below the main spire, with the shrine of Radha Krishna view from the entrance. This space is supported on top by vaulted arches with underneath arcaded openings to different halls called mandala on all sides around the shrine. These form a cross layout in the top view which is commonly believed to be similar to the typical christian basilicas' layout.
These halls had raised platforms and terraces with arched profiled external views. We had some good and easy time of sitting on one of these, talking about the place, taking dramatic photographs and looking at the green field and Orchha Fort in front of us.
We next make our way walking through the narrow sublimely interlinked roads. Without having to ask we just keep moving forward by signs of distant views to eventually to get to our next story base. And we see a map for just that! The interesting names of places listed on the board got us to brisk walk inside instantly! We did not take off on the actual movement path along the map instead, just walked freely to watch which history chapter unveils itself to us while we discover the layers of spaces in the whole of the campus.
Orchha is one the Indian places that has been proposed by ASI (Archeological Survey of India) in the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and for good reason. It is a place of abundance of cultural and visual treat of historical significance. Built in the 16th-century by Bundela Dynasty’s famous King Rudra Pratap Singh, Orchha boasts of a mix of Bundela as well as Mughal style of architecture, owing to the closeness between the King of Bundela Dynasty, and the then Mughal emperor Jahangir.
We enter the complex to find ourselves in a massive entrance plaza with a ticket & souvenir shop by Incredible India and a re-adapted hotel in the old monument, Sheesh Mahal. The glimpse of the monument soaring high above us, left us to imagine the quality of grandeur and finish, this place would have held ages back. Beautiful reverie it was!
The complex then opened up to this majestic scale of multi-tiered projections with the beautiful composition of pavilions (/chhatris) at corner junctions and central points, making the entire view perfectly look like a kingdom's palace court which it was; Jahangir Mahal.
Fine latticed windows on the upper floors is said to be the viewing place for the females residents, a feminine undermining practice common in the conservative gender divide of the times.
The connecting galleries on the upper floor overlooked the entire palace and its lattice of steps, small balconies and pavilions altogether, to a jaw-dropping view!
We were, on our tour inside accompanied by a guide who was a walking Wikipedia to our springing curiosity. He had worked in many tourist locations in India as a Tourist Guide.
We roamed around the galleries making surprise discoveries of small rooms leading from the interconnected open courts. One such maze of narrow steps took us to the Raja Mahal.
The palace has staying rooms of the king and queen, and has elaborate murals of social and religious themes of gods, mythical animals and people.
The ceiling and wall paintings in other areas like dining and main halls had different depictions of battlefields, marriage celebrations, mythological stories with various avatars of Vishnu shown in interesting forms. The faded paint reflects the age of the place and how it is still able to communicate so much to the living generation. It also had small secret passageways of steps in case of an attack escape.
The decorative floral murals and motifs have been restored to an extent by the archaeological authorities and have a great story showcased with old original elements like in the Hammam (bath). The floor had designed channels of water with spouts, built with an inlaid underneath drainage system. This small hall had the original ring hooks to hang the cover fabric to conceal the space like curtains.
At the rear, the palace has a small temple and leads to an elaborate gateway with a stark resemblance to that of the Chaturbhuj temple; the grandeur multiplied here with the exquisite stone carvings and intricate sculptural works.
This opened towards a terrace with a panoramic view which defines the city with its main natural features. The view goes beyond the reach of eyes. Structures of monuments in their ochre shade highlighted in the green cover of the natural landscape, dissected by the flowing waters of the Betwa river, touching the bright blue skyline. Breathtakingly vast!
This viewpoint encapsulated a wholesome topographical canvas of the city, dotted with the tightly tied remains of the bygone eras.
The journey was followed on to reach our next must-visit place, visible to us in distance with a number of temple-like spires rising high. It also had a surprise of two more of our friends joining us to do the remaining leg of our exploration. We move around the Kanchana ghats of Betwa river to now drive inside the vast floral cover which was visible in our bird's eye views. And see the group of monuments - Chhatris on the opposite side of the bank.
These were not temples! The bulky proportioned structures were cenotaphs! Dated from 17 and 18th century, the cubical base with explicit islamic features of arches and domes had a riveting mix with the spires in temple architecture style. The hybrid style explains how the alliance of Mughals and Bundela rulers were merging in the built-forms as well.
The cenotaph includes one of Bir Singh Deo's, a Bundela chieftain, who is believed to have been given a Mughal patronage for the protection he offered to Prince Salim, fleeing Agra to rebel against his father, the Mughal emperor, Akbar.
The story goes like, he had decapitated Abul Fazl who was sent by Akbar to capture Salim and offered his head to him which upon receiving infuriated Salim to the extent that he went back to Agra and reconciled with his father.
The interesting facts call that the Bundelas were fierce Rajput chieftains who ruled out of their hidden city of Orchha and the word Orchha means "Hidden".
Atop the roofs of these structures, roost a colony of Indian Vultures. One doesn't notice them at first as they blend into the ornamentation of the spires and parapets like medieval gargoyles, stern against the sky. They cannot be missed for their huge numbers here, despite their massive population decline across the country!
I read from an online internet source on Orchha that "in the first-ever vulture census recently in Orchha Sanctuary, 125 vultures of four species and their nests have been found. These include 50 indigenous vultures, 63 White Backed, 9 Egyptian and 3 King Vultures and migratory Cinereous Griffon Vulture, which comes from Himalayas.)"
And that wrapped up our quite unexpectedly interesting tour around this small, literally "hidden" town of Orchha, and we got back with huge huge recommendation for people, to visit this historically abundant, naturally rich place!
AND WITH THAT, WE WAVED OUT TO THE PLACE A HEART-FILLED GOOD BYE FROM US, TRAVELERS -
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