https://www.cntraveller.in/story/time-travelling-through-the-heart-of-india-madhya-pradesh-bhopal/
Dawn blurs velvet at Bhimbhetka. The pitch admits a diamond glimmer, then softens. Here are veils of sandstone, sculpted by aeons of wind and water into loops, swirls, crevices, narrow pathways. An eruption of birdsong and animal calls, and some place deep inside your consciousness begins transmitting an insistent signal to seek out safety. Those gut feelings presage these most ancient rock shelters in the world, from where our earliest ancestors zig-zagged towards the present day. The rising sun reveals the verge of human history. In its World Heritage citation, UNESCO says Bhimbhetka “reflects a long interaction between the people and the landscape, as demonstrated in the quality of its rock art [which] appears to date from the Mesolithic Period right through to the historical period. The cultural traditions of the inhabitants of the twenty-one villages adjacent to the site bear a strong resemblance to those represented in the rock paintings.” It is an understated way of saying the site represents an unbroken civilizational strand stretching past the dawn of recorded time. By now, we all know to be wary of absurdly inflated claims about India’s “glorious past”. But when it comes to Bhimbhetka, believe the hype. Here, separately remarkable factors converge: unrivalled scale, extending through at least 750 separate shelters which spill over 10 kilometres; dazzling arrays of carvings and paintings created over many thousands of years; the undisturbed proximity and living presence of the very peoples whose ancestors crafted these testaments. Above all else is sheer, frankly incredible antiquity. The excellent *Encyclopedia of Stone Age Art* says Bhimbhetka is “four times older than the Blombos Cave art [in South Africa] the next oldest site of Stone Age art. Geological investigations of the prehistoric sites by renowned archeologists have established that this rock art pre-dates the Acheulean culture of the Lower Paleolithic era, and must therefore date from at least 290,000 BCE. However, once more advanced dating methods become available, it is conceivable that these petroglyphs will turn out to be much older - perhaps originating as early as 700,000 BCE.” Those are mind-boggling dates, when you consider the Harappan era began in 3300 BCE, and the palpable weight of all those years makes walking into Bhimbhetka an unforgettable, travel experience. Millenia unravel with each step: depictions of ceremonial parades yielding to more primal drawings of rhinoceros and bears. Then just palm-prints. Eventually you arrive at the smoothed cupules that are the single oldest artworks created by mankind. I did not anticipate their impact. They pierced to the core of my being, leaving me shaken. We headed directly back to Bhopal in wordless silence. By this point in our trip, several days after arriving in Madhya Pradesh, *Conde Nast Traveller India*’s Contributing Photographer Arjun Menon and I were already accustomed to the unexpected. We are travel veterans who have visited scores of countries – our last trip together was to Nagaland – and tend to being cocksure about what can be expected in India. But from the moment we arrived at its first-rate little airport, Bhopal confounded us. It was improbably clean, traffic moved without interruption, the signage was excellent, and everyone was supremely well-mannered. We kept waiting for the fatal flaws to be revealed, but that never happened. Realization slowly dawned this is an India that works, hidden away in plain sight in the geographical heart of the subcontinent. In his landmark, gorgeously written 1983 book *Answered by Flutes: Reflections from Madhya Pradesh*, Dom Moraes says “the Bhopal area has always been haunted by life. Plants, animals and people have inhabited it since prehistory, then, generation by generation, gone back into the black and fertile soil. Glaciers and wind once carved out the landscape: the glaciers melted and turned into rivers, the rivers dried up and left few relics. The effect of all these evanescences is to populate the countryside around the city with a host of memories of the Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim dynasties, enshrined in myth and, sometimes, in stone. The memories travel back beyond the frontiers of known history, to when the Bhopal district was a place without a name.” Those impressive annals are punctuated by two significant inflection points. The first occurred 1000 years ago during the rise of Raja Bhoja (he ruled from 1010 to 1055), who physically altered the landscape by building a massive earthen dam across the Kolans river to create the Bhojtal (Upper Lake). This cultural catalyst, is described by Sheldon Pollock in his magisterial *The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India* as “the most celebrated poet-king and philosopher-king of his time, and perhaps of any Indian time.” Bhoja’s heyday had long passed when the foundation stone of modern Bhopal was hammered in place by the Pathan adventurer, Dost Mohammed Khan. In the words of his descendant Shahryar Khan – who migrated to Pakistan as a small child, and served as the former Foreign Secretary of that country - this “buccaneer of a man…arrived in Bhopal at the head of the Mughal military contingent but with the steep decline immediately after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 he was left rudderless [and] with the aid of extreme valour, frequent treachery and amazing daring, had carved out a niche for himself in the region by acting as a protector to vulnerable Rajput fiefdoms.” At that time, indigenous peoples (the direct descendant of the artists of Bhimbhetka) dominated the region. Their queen Kamlapati – aka “Gond Rani” – sought Dost Mohammed’s backing to face off against her rivals. Part of his fee was the village that became Old Bhopal, and after his patron died he annexed the rest of her territories. From that point through the middle of the 20th century, first under the suzerainty of the Nawab of Hyderabad, then as tributary state of the Maratha kingdom, and a “princely state” during the British Raj, the Pathan’s descendants administered an exceptionally enlightened state. This is the astonishing story of the Begums of Bhopal. “You have to realize this has always been – and will definitely remain – a woman’s dominion,” says 31-year-old Sikander Malik, gesturing all around him with his eyes and hands to signal his entire world. Ever since Arjun and I had disembarked, everyone we asked about the city’s history returned to the same refrain, “you must ask Sikander.” Profoundly steeped in Bhopali lore, Malik reminded us that four Begums had reigned for 107 years, and if their predecessor Mamola Bai was included, women had dominated the “queendom” for 157 of its 241 years, “they shaped our history and culture, and passed on those values to the rest of society.” The impact of these remarkable women extended far beyond Bhopal borders. Qudsia Begum was the first Muslim woman in South Asia – and arguably the world – to make the jurisprudential case for her right to rule, and passed on the throne to her daughter. She also set the pattern of choosing when and where to wear purdah. Her successors funded education extensively, in Bhopal and beyond. For example, Begum Sultan Jehan was the founding – and still the only female - Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University. The legacy of these progressive Begums might have continued in independent India, but Abida Sultaan chose to go to Pakistan instead. Her son, Shahryar Khan writes with great admiration in *The Begums of Bhopal: A Dynasty of Women Rulers in Raj India* that his mother “was tough, sporting, headstrong and principled – modelling herself on Sikander Begum, her great-great-grandmother. She was a fearless crackshot (having bagged 72 tigers) and an outstanding sportswoman, playing polo, bicycle polo, hockey (with men), cricket, squash, and inventing roller-hockey which she played on the hallowed marble floors of Minto Hall. She became All-India Women’s Squash Championship in 1948 – the only time she competed – and also learned to fly a plane.” Khan was writing at the turn of the new millennium, when his mother was still alive (she died in Karachi in 2004, at the age of 88), and describes her with devoted poignancy, “she was also an accomplished musician, an expert on the harmonium, but also adept at playing the sitar, table and piano. She is a devout Muslim who knows the *lafzi-tarjuma* (the word-for-word Urdu translation) of the Quran by heart and is a fervent supporter of a liberal, tolerant Islam that she fears has been hijacked by illiterate and politically motivated mullahs.” Abida Sultan’s migration had consequential reverberations. Her sister Sajida, who was married to the Nawab of Pataudi, took over titular rule after their father died. Meanwhile, the post-1947 states of Bhopal, Vindhya Pradesh and Madhya Bharat were merged in the gargantuan Madhya Pradesh (it was split again decades later, when Chhattisgarh was cleaved away) with Bhopal as its capital. Then, in 1984, the world’s deadliest industrial accident took place when 42 tons of deadly toxic gas escaped from the city’s Union Carbide factory to poison well over 500,000 people. Bhopal became synonymous with disaster. “Our city’s reputation has never really recovered from that catastrophe,” says Faiz Rashid, the personable 40-year-old hotelier, and great-great-grandson of Sultan Jehan Begum. We had been enjoying the evening in the wonderfully pleasant terrace restaurant of his family’s first venture into the hospitality business, the Jehan Numa Palace Hotel which opened in 1983. We feasted on an endless array of delicacies based on recipes from the royal kitchen. Excellent jazz music played in the background. The table next to ours was filled with an unexpectedly raucous group of Ivy League professors. This too was not what we had expected from Bhopal. Rashid and his Jehan Numa team are one substantial reason that Bhopal is now – albeit quietly, and under the radar – one of most rewarding destinations in South Asia. He told me, “There is a lot of passion and love that goes into implementing our projects. The involvement of the family into every small detailing is what makes us unique and different to larger and more structured chain hotels. We ensure we pass down our rich heritage and culture through all the projects that we implement. Over the years, we have created a nice blend between heritage and luxury that world travelers are looking for.” The aspirations and achievements of this boutique hospitality brand come into sharp focus at the understated, stunning Jehan Numa Retreat on the outskirts of Bhopal, which also comprises a spa, riding track, extensive vegetable and herb gardens, and brilliant food with an emphasis on home-grown ingredients and traditional recipes. Rashid told me “most of our hotel chefs are trained at our homes to ensure we are able to pass down old family recipes and showcase them in our menus. This makes the food at our hotels different to others and we are able to preserve tastes and techniques that have been passed down through generations. As the days went by, Arjun and I became increasingly beguiled by Bhopal. It was a city of singularities, piled up one on top of another. There is no other state capital in India nearly as green, with the further attraction of the lakes gleaming in the background. Every day was great weather, and we kept on stuffing ourselves with different versions of the city’s favourite breakfast and snack food, poha-jalebi. One day we visited the giant Taj-ul Mahal mosque, the largest in South Asia (and quite possibly the entire continent) and another was spent exploring Bharat Bhavan, the Charles Correa masterpiece of an arts and culture centre. Everywhere we went, the people of this incredible city showed us how much they love their home, and demonstrated its prized culture of graciousness. When I asked him about why it felt so different from every other city across the Hindi-speaking regions of the country, Sikander Malik thought for a while, and then told me, “Bhopal is civilized because its people really believe in manners and upbringing, even more than education or any other kind of achievement. They say tarbiyat is more important than taleem. We may be poor in some ways, but not in kindness, decency, emotional and social support. This is a city which has not yet destroyed its soul.” >From the first day that we travelled in to explore the city, Arjun and I kept discussing why Bhopal seemed so unlike the other parts of India that we’ve visited. We thought it was the aggregated presence of so many unusual factors: ancient roots, composite cultures, the ameliorating Begums, accident of location, an exceptional diaspora. But then we visited the Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum, which forced us to conclude there’s something inexplicable going on beyond any such explanations. It really shouldn't add up, but here’s the truth: three untrained amateurs – none of whom have any indigenous ethnicity – have together built one of the great institutions of its type anywhere in the world, which is without question the best museum in India. “I think the great secret that we have is that none of us actually think of this place as a museum,” says Nidhi Chopra, who is responsible for this marvellous achievement along with the curator Ashok Mitra and Chandan Singh Bhatti of the Bharat Bhavan. She told me, “there are thousands of objects here but they don’t represent memories but living traditions that still survive and flourish all over Madhya Pradesh. What has happened here is something miraculous, as the artists themselves worked together to make our larger-than-life installations. You like it, but that’s because our indigenous people are so amazingly talented, and have so much to offer the rest of India and the world.” Walking through the tribal museum is like entering the brain of Salvador Dali, or perhaps Tim Burton. Scale has been used to disrupt, entertain and inform: thousands of talismanic clay lamps undulating like sand dunes, a metal bracelet blown up from wrist-size to wagon-wheel, everywhere totems of birds and animals. It’s beautiful and humbling, and spilling over with smiling artists from diverse communities: Bhil, Gond, Bhariya, Muria, Kolku, Kol. Its catalogue aptly says “the path of a tribal museum is like a double-edged sword as its main aim is to understand and project all the aspects of tribal life to a civil society which has not only adopted an entirely different form of development, but regards it as inevitable. We have strived to prepare a platform where these diverse waves of society come face to face.” On the last full day that Arjun and I spent together in Madhya Pradesh, we travelled out of Bhopal to another UNESCO World Heritage site, the Buddhist stupas of Sanchi that date back to the Maurya and Gupta empires starting around the 3rd century BCE. It was a crisp, clear day and we enjoyed the drive through picturesque fields of ripening mustard and wheat. Then the Great Stupa came into view, absurdly larger than either of us had anticipated, looming pristine and intricately carved against the clouds, and our voices hushed in spontaneous unison. Here was yet another wonder of the world, that was first commissioned by Emperor Ashoka himself. There are elements to the Sanchi stupas every schoolchild in India is familiar with: the four lions of the Ashoka Pillar, sturdy elephants and pot-bellied dwarves, reliefs from the Jataka Tales. But no text book or documentary can possibly convey the sublime, multidimensional harmony of the whole. The Great Stupa is one of the oldest stone structures in the subcontinent - built over 1000 years ago - but its powerfully visceral, here and now. I found that Sanchi uncannily invoked serenity, as though all my unspoken questions had been resolved. It felt like I had been attached to the umbilical cord of the universe, and then it became very hard to leave. Madhya Pradesh had become home. (Note: the printed version of this text in this month's edition of CNT India is almost 1000 words shorter)
