Of Ganesh Bagh, Devangana and the forgotten history of Chitrakoot

A frieze from Ganesh Bagh

Its been a while since I updated my blog. Am myself at loss to explain the reason for the same but if given an opportunity I have the capability to waste an entire lifetime dreaming and reminiscing about things of little or no importance. Past few weeks were spent in this kind of stupor and as the sun begins to relent a little over the city of Lucknow, I once again find myself pining for the fresh air and clear skies of Bundelkhand. While I have indeed done a couple of posts on Banda, the world knows little of the treasures hidden in Chitrakoot. Till 1997, the district now known as Chitrakoot formed part of Banda district and since the very beginning (Banda had been the headquarter of Bundelkhand Agency districts organized by the British way back in 1811), Karwi had been the seat of a Joint Magistrate.

One such illustrious Joint Magistrate, whose named is etched in the annals of history was, Henry Edmund Cockerell of the Bengal Civil Service, who perished in the insurrection in the town of Banda on the 15th June 1857. He was 27 and was buried in the cemetery at St George's Church, Banda. Today while the region makes headlines for dacoits and farmer's suicides, the power and wealth of the erstwhile rulers can be estimated from the decade long case which dragged in the British Courts over the distribution of 'Banda and Karwi Booty'. And not just that, the town of Kirwee in New Zealand's Canterbury county was named after this ancient town by retired British Army colonel De Renzie Brett.

There has never been a day when we have not been reminded of the palatial Joint Magistrate's residence where the Collector currently lives. On some days, I can not help but reminisce about the mango blossoms, the ripe jack fruits and the rose-ringed parakeets- my fondest memories of Karwi. To us, the charm of the place was not merely on grounds of its religious importance (as the forest where Lord Rama, Lakshmana and Sita spent their years in exile), but also because of the sheer natural beauty of the place and the endless opportunities for explorations it afforded us..

    

The spires of the Ganesh Bagh

Speaking of explorations, not many tourist itineraries mention the magnificent Maratha ruins of Ganesh Bagh. A quick peek into the history of the place throws up the name of Peshwa king Vinayak Rao who built this place in the early 1800s possibly as a sporting retreat. It is also common knowledge that Karwi was a strong bastion of Marathas till the began to cede their territories to the English over time in pursuance of the Treaty of Bassein (1802). Today, despite being a ASI 'protected monument', while the complex has fallen into a state of disrepair, the sheer grandeur of the surviving buildings is more than enough to overawe and stun the rare visitor. The temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, the seven storeyed step-well, the chhatris overlooking the temple pond, the colonnaded courtyard and the richly sculpted walls of the complex bear a silent testimony to the splendor of the bygone days.                     

Glimpses of the beauty of Ganesh Bagh

As one goes further down the road from Ganesh Bagh past the Collectorate and the newly built District Hospital, one finds oneself being drawn closer to the blue hills which surround the entire countryside in Chitrakoot. As the road slowly begins to wind, it gives the feeling of visiting a hill station in India and sometimes when low clouds float close to these hills, one wishes the moment could last forever.True to the feeling it evokes, these low spurs of the mighty Vindhyas are known as Devangana (courtyard of Gods) Ghati locally. The sunset and sunrise are a joy to watch from Devangana and rarely would one get to see such a beautiful star-lit sky as the one we saw!!!

Yet another hidden treasure of the district we could not stop thinking about for days on end is a dilapidated but richly ornate Shiva temple in the village Char, around 4-5 kms from Karwi. Unlike Ganesh Bagh, this temple still has its sanctum sanctorum intact and is still in use for religious purposes.  Strangely though, some people even refer to it as 'Aurangzeb ka Mandir'. While the architecture clearly conveys Chandela origins of the temple, what seems plausible though is that the temple could have been spared destruction by Aurangzeb. Today however, even that can not be claimed given the poor condition in which the priceless sculptures are lying strewn about in the temple complex. The temple has not been afforded any 'protection' by any conservation /restoration agency and whatever little survives to this day, is the handiwork of the sadhus and the local villagers alike. 

Impressive stone sculptures from the temple at Char

Having seen other Chandela temples in Bundelkhand, while one could always consider them capable of imparting life like fluidity to stone sculptures of gods and goddesses, till the day I saw it in Char, I could never imagine an entire Kalash with coconut on top being sculpted in stone with impeccable symmetry (bottom right)!! I wish I could fit in all such awe-inspiring sculptures in this single blog post, but the pictures will never do justice to their actual beauty.

In fact, while writing about the formidable fort of Kalinjar, I had wondered why despite being such an important shrine of Lord Shiva, it has not yet emerged as one of the top Shaivite destinations in the country. Today, while writing this post, I  once again realized, not just Kalinjar but most of the temples in this region are dedicated to Lord Shiva and if visitors start trickling in, perhaps the authorities too will take note of these hidden gems. 

While Amish's Shiva trilogy is quickly lapped up by readers across the country, one hopes these forgotten relics too will get their due one day for whatever reasons it might be. 

“Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,things standing shall fall,but the moving ever shall stay.” 

― Basava 

(The Lord of the Meeting Rivers: Devotional Poems of Basavanna)

Of Thana Fatehganj, stories of dacoits and a Chandela temple!

Just as  things were beginning to look up after the Bhatta-Parsaul imbroglio and and I was looking forward to settle down in my life in Noida, before the sun could set on 30 June 2011, I received the marching orders for Unnao. People in office were jubilant and could not stop congratulating me for the first charge of a district, the happiest moment in a civil servant's career. I, however, as is always the case with me, was too dazed to be able to comprehend and react. The district headquarters of Unnao are a mere 50 km from the Lucknow airport and mid-way between the cities of Kanpur and Allahabad. In terms of connectivity,  few districts in UP have had it so good. 

Being unhappy over such frequent change of places, I had little option but to book the ticket for Lucknow. Before however I could hang my boots in Noida and could handover my responsibilities officially, the orders were cancelled and I was instead posted to Banda. The same notes of congratulation immediately turned into sympathy and regret and few even advised me to scuttle the order by proceeding on leave. The advice was flowing in thick and fast and the impression I was given was as if I had been sent in exile to some dacoity-infested forest land where life is uncertain and for a woman even more so. Surprisingly, even in the administrative quarters, people with considerable experience consider Bundelkhand (especially Banda) a kind of punishment and merely bide their time. There was little one could do and without any pre-conceived notions in my mind, I arrived in Banda on the sultry afternoon of 4 July, 2011.  

Growing up in Delhi, the sense of space and time, given the remoteness of Banda was a liberation of sorts and the first time I looked at the rivers, the fields and most importantly, the low hills, I knew nothing could have been better! Even today, looking back at our time in Bundelkhand, me and A wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.  Yet in an important Election Commission meeting, to my utter surprise and dismay, a senior official was furious at the state machinery for posting a woman in a dacoity-infested land and for him given the past incidents in the area, Assembly elections were doomed to be anything but peaceful!! No wonder, the policies for the development of this region are often made with the same pre-conceived notions and thanks to our media's sensitivity (read sensationalization) isolated incidents become forever entwined with the image and character of the people of a place.

It was with this background that I was presented the story of Thana Fatehganj (Village Dadwa-Manpur) where dacoits are believed to rule the roost and people (read government officials) are afraid to go even in broad daylight. It was here on the fateful day of 23rd July, 2007 seven policemen were killed by the dacoits in an ambush near Kahlua Mafi forest and since then fear  and insecurity loom large in the minds of the residents of nearby villages of UP and MP. Sporadic incidents of dacoity and murder continue to happen and the area has been traditionally infamous as a stronghold of dacoits all over the country. Surprisingly, while naxal-infested districts have well equipped Thanas (police stations) all over the country, this Thana which covers a large geographical area doesn't even have a boundary wall and a regular electricity connection. Needless to mention, the remoteness and poverty of this place have rendered it unviable even for our state run BSNL to erect cellphone towers and connectivity therefore, is as much a matter of chance as life and its related necessities. So much so for the development!

It was here on a routine visit to Thana Fatehganj, my fellow SP, G,  invited me to the Memorial police has built in the memory of those who lost their lives in 2007. The fact that the area is surrounded by low forested hills on all sides and is scarcely populated must have been of strategic advantage for the dacoits who are known to inhabit the forests nearby. Today, the Memorial stands on the spot of the encounter in the middle of nowhere and bears a silent testimony to those who have laid down their lives fighting for  an unknown cause in this inhospitable terrain.

The road leading to the temple

Having reached that far, the police officer in-charge-of-the-station requested us to also visit the  ruins of a nearby old temple  locally known as Bilariya Math. The road (dirt track) leading to the temple was  a narrow and desolate one. The only people we saw on our way to the temple were a motorcyclist and the staff at the nearby forest check post. I specifically noted the presence of the check-post thanks to the visible accumulation of a large number of historic carved stones and figurines in its compound. Hopefully, the relics will not be conveyed any further than that. Surprisingly however, there was a government school just opposite to the temple and on enquiring it was found that on rare occasions when the school opens, the only person who comes to teach the kids is a poorly paid  ill educated matriculate tutor hired by the school-teacher!

The temple was reached by a flight of stairs  while its 'shikharam' can be seen from a good distance.  The stairs were in a good state of repair but a huge number of artifacts and figurines lay strewn about. The temple chowkidaar (watchman) hired by ASI (Yes! its a protected monument) only appeared after fifteen minutes or so and was completely nonchalant about the existence of the monument altogether. Without any insistence whatsoever and certainly none in material terms, he seemed easy if we were to carry any number of artifacts or carvings along, as long as we could bring our own mode of transport!

The single shrine which stands intact today is richly carved and bears striking similarity to the temples at Khajuraho. At some point of time, the temple must have formed part of a larger temple complex given, the foundations and perimeters of certain other structures are clearly visible even today. The temple offers superb views of surrounding countryside and must have been an idyllic location for prayers and devotion. The carvings seem to confirm the Chandela period origins of the structure and hence the similarity to the ones at Khajuraho. 

The view from the temple

Across the temple on a nearby hill top are said to be the ruins of Madfa Fort with a pancha-mukhi rock-cut sculpture of Shiva. Legend has it that both Kalinjar and Madfa, situated atop nearby hilltops, were built on the same night. The team of artisans on both forts had a bet going as to who will finish the fort first.It was decided the one who finishes first will light a torch and the other will immediately stop work. It is said that the artisans in Kalinjar dropped their tool and lighted  a torch to find the same. However, the torch was misunderstood by the team at Madfa, who immediately stopped work and the fort remains incomplete till date.

Thanks to good light, I could click some pictures of the temple even with my obsolete 2 MP camera- phone. That very day, I found a very old District Gazetteer of the undivided Banda District in my husband's official library in Chitrakoot. Even the document mentions a Chandela temple in the village Dadwa-Manpur. However, the temple rarely finds mention in any discussion of the region anymore. It is not even a temple in the truest sense of the term any longer given an empty sanctum sanctorum which it seems could not stand the ravages of time..

Even today when I look back at villages like Dadwa-Manpur, I wonder what hope and future do the residents have. In  a place where basic amenities of health and education are still a far cry and people's horizon are limited, forget girls, even boys must be finding it difficult to imagine a life different from those of previous generations.I even remember stories of people turning down alliances from villages which lack a 'pucca' road or houses which do not have  a cemented floor. In Banda, people do not marry into a family or invite those in marriages who lack a fire-arm. I knew of several such villages in Banda and Chitrakoot which continue to languish in a time warp and have little to build their dreams on. There must be thousands of such villages all over this country, each with its own set of 'dacoits' to live with and each with its own unheard prayer of a better future for their children. I hope things will change for better in my own lifetime and place like these will witness development in real terms but till that happens, remote villages such as this will continue to be infested by dacoits of ignorance, illiteracy and poverty..

“Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.” 

― Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters)