I don't remember which train we picked for our onward journey;I think it was one of those that go to Delhi from Bangalore but the journey took around thirty-six hours. We reached to Bhopal after sunset. Yes, I remember it was dark. There wasn't much that happened in the train worth talking about. Well, may be not. We h
ad a family as co-passenger, actually a lady with couple of kids. We bought the daily newspaper from the hawker in the morning. Apart from the update, we thought we could use it as the table-spread for dinner/lunch. The lady had different plan. When she saw us folding the paper after we read through it, she asked for that. 'This village lady can read in English? Education system here is so evolved?',I wondered. As soon as she took the paper, her kids snatched that from her, of course not for reading it. She managed to recover three-fourth of it after some time and she asked us if she could keep it. She reasoned, she wanted to read them undisturbed after reaching home. Being encouraged with her interest in reading, we enthusiastically said yes; not having a paper to clean the seat after lunch was less of an issue. But the surprise came when the lunch trays were delivered. She took the paper that she kept so nicely and spread it for her and her kids. We saw them dirtying the papers and then her cleaning the place with the left-out of the papers and then throwing them out of the window without a glint of remorse.The newspaper served its most useful reason of its existence at that point.
Madhyapradesh was among the poorest of the states with large part of its ares covered under natural forest. Bhopal was a small town and one auto rickshaw came with helping hands , took our bags and delivered us to Hotel Mayura, the ITDC hotel in Bhopal, quite spacious but lacks the glitter of a good hotel. Mostly local politicians filled up the hotels, people coming from other parts of the state to visit the capital, the power centre of politics. People are laid-back but happy; very helpful, candid and unsuspecting. they ask you name and the place where you are coming from but as soon as they hear that you are from different state, their curiosity vanishes.
Saachi is 20 kilometers from Bhopal and you could hire taxi or take the MP tourism bus from the city centre. We thought we could afford the luxury of taxi for such a short journey. Sanchi, before excavation was some local landlord's property and many of the stone pieces were taken by people to their homes before the ASI took the charge of maintaining thhis heritage place. Sanchi was one of the Buddhist university during Mauryan era. It is told that it could take thousand resident scholars and students during its peak time.
The magnificent Sanchi Stupa was built by the Emperor Ashoka during his early days. The architecture still amazes you with its symmetry, its awesome stone-engravings and sculptures on the walls. It is unarguably one of the must-visit and well-kept treasures of ancient India. This post contains some of my shots taken on this place. The last shot shows the expanse of the area and the layout of the main residence area. [the story will continue..]
