The journey started with a snag.  Sunil had told me to pick him up at the foot of a certain flyover on the Ring Road on the way to the Nizamuddin Railway Station.  But I did not find him there.  Vehicles rushed by and the auto-rickshaw driver got restive.  I decided to try the next flyover – and found him there. We had not perhaps chosen the spot with too much care. 


 
We reached Jhansi in the wee hours. It turned out to be a cheerful day, thanks to the previous night’s drizzle.  At school, our Hindi teacher used to make us recite Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s rousing ballad, khoob lari mardaani/ voh to Jhansi wali rani thee.  Jhansi existed in my mindscape because of its rani, Laxmibai. 

 The youthful guide at the Jhansi fort told us that the town got its name from the monument.  Its proud builder, Raja of Datia, trying to win his spouse’s approval showed it off to her from the window of their palace.  But the rani dismissed the sight as jhaain see – mere tuft of a shadow - and gave the emerging city its name, Jhansi. 

 The Jhansi’s queen that Subhadra Kumari Chauhan sings of came much later.  There are varying conjectures whether this spirited lady was born in 1828 or 1835 (our guide preferred the later date), or was married to the middle-aged Gangadhar Rao in 1842 or 1848 (the guide said the year was 1848, when she was barely thirteen), or whether astride her horse she had actually jumped from the ramparts of her fort with the infant pretender to the throne tied to her back (the guide insisted that she had).  What mattered to us was the memorabilia of Laxmibai, Rani of Jhansi, present in every nook and cranny of the citadel.  More real than the stories told about her.  There was Lord Ganesha’s temple where her nuptials were performed with Gangadhar Rao. The Panch Mahal where she spent her connubial years wore rather a sad look, and so was the garden where she used to relax with her consort, watching theatrical performances by courtesans. Yes, the sight of the execution spot opposite the Ganesh temple which the devout rani persuaded her husband to discard sent a shiver down my spine. And there lay the Karak Bijli (Hindi for Lightening Thunder); the historic gun which our guide said could not annihilate her foes because of her scruples not to use it in a direction where the wily enemy had taken a stand behind a Hindu temple and a Muslim tomb.

 We left Jhansi but not before paying obeisance at St. Jude’s cathedral, a much revered shrine to the apostle of lost causes.  Was Jhansi such a lost cause to the British of the era, I pondered.

 A five hours drive got us to Khajuraho.  Evening was setting in.  There was a touristy pomp about the place.  A couple of foreign tourists waved to us happily from their perch atop a tree.  We waved back.  Gradually, a veil of darkness spread over everything, light and diaphanous: grabbing one’s attention to the sights to be seen rather than concealing them.  The light and music show held inside the complex went on to heighten the effect.  But the day’s journey had taken its toll.  We decided to come back in the morning.

 Our intention was to soak in the Khajuraho experience without any blandishments; raw as it came to us.  So we said a firm no to the guide who approached us the next day.  The weather was just fine and cloud-filtered light bathed the scene in earthly colours.  Our first stop was the larger than life idol of the Varah avtara, which despite the vast number of figurines carved all over its body stood its ground with as much defiance as only a full blooded boar could manage in its natural habitat. 

 The temples that stood round a broken arc before this idol were awe-inspiring in their size and execution.  But their magic lay in detail, in figurines and statuettes which adorned the walls.  There were deities.  There were animals – elephants, camels, horses, boars, monkeys.  And there were people.  Here, workmen were trying to hoist a heavy rock on a thick pole.  There, a portly personage reclining on what looked like a push-back executive chair (talk of ergonomics!) was hectoring a group of bearded men.  A pretty damsel was being relieved of a thorn in the sole of her foot by an attendant, the latter miniaturized in proportion to his station in life.  The bag this man carried seemed no different than a vanity bag a girl may carry any day to her office. A hunter pursued a boar till his horse triumphantly pinned down the wild beast under its hoofs.  A well endowed woman participating in an orgy, her heavy necklace askew on her bare bosom   had both her hands on her eyes.  Was she being shy or peeping self-consciously on the goings-on?  A royal elephant wrapped its trunk round the legs of a man and crushed his head under its massive foot.  Toil, the hum drum of day-to-day life, fun, lust and violence – the cornucopia of human existence: it has been there ever since the times of the great Chandelas who reigned a thousand years ago.  If only stones could breathe!

It was well past mid-day and we had a long way to go.   The car air conditioner must have laboured extra hard to fight the hot and humid weather outside.  We stopped at Naogaon for lunch and after an hour’s rest were on the road again for our next destination, Orchha.  The surrounding area did not have much to commend itself to a casual visitor.  Though diminutive bushes abounded, there were hardly any tall trees on the edges of the road.  The sameness of the scenery left us sleepy.  During one of those dozing spells I heard the driver muttering that we were passing through the Chambal ravines. But the significance of his remark did not register well either with me or Sunil.  The realization that we had passed through the region which was once infested with dacoits came to us much later.  The day-light was growing soft now and there was a change in the terrain.  I requested the driver to switch off the ac and opened the window.  Just when the journey had taken an interesting turn, we crossed an ancient gate and found ourselves in the precincts of Orchha township.

Orchha boasts of two landmarks.  One is the temple dedicated to Ram Raja, reputedly the only one in the country dedicated to Lord Rama in his persona as a king; and the other is a palace that was specially built to receive the Mughal emperor, Jehangir.  It is said that Jehangir stayed in this sprawling mansion for just one day. 

 As we alighted from the car at the nail-studded gate of the palace, a frail looking youth volunteered to show us around.  The monument and the museum attached to it were closed for the day.  But this did not daunt our would-be guide.  “Open the gate, we have visitors.”  He asked the guard rather lordly.  The guard refused to oblige him.  “You don’t know who I am!”  Our escort tried to bluff his way in.  “But who are you, eh?”  The guard called his bluff.  The young man gave his name, his parentage and even the mohalla where he lived.  “Come any other day, son, but be sure to come during the set timings,” the guard told him dismissively.  

 
Walking back, I uttered an inanity commiserating with the lad.  But perhaps there was no need, because he sallied forth in his self-appointed role of our guide as if what had happened a while ago was of no consequence to him.  “This palace,” he began confidently, “marks a very important event in the history of India.  When Prince Salim rebelled against his father, Jehangir, you know….”  “But was not Prince Salim the self-same person who assumed the name of Jehangir on ascending the throne?”  I asked. “O, yes, indeed, he was,”  he conceded readily, “now to continue with the story….”  The story is too well known.  Prince Salim had rebelled against his father, Akbar the Great.  Pursued by the imperial forces, the prince sought refuge with the ruler of Orchha and the two became friends for life.

I asked the man if he could take us to Ram Raja’s temple.  Wary of the rebuffs he had already received, he said we would have to wait till 8 PM when the aarti began.  This we could ill afford to do as there was a train to catch for Delhi around 10 the same evening.  So with a heavy heart we said goodbye to the Orchha youth and his king, Ram Raja.