HAPPY VALLEYS
THE CENTRAL INDIAN STATE IS A PLACE FULL OF SURPRISES— WHERE EVEN THE TALLEST TALES SEEM TO COME TRUE
Rediscovering Madhya Pradesh; revving it up in the Pangi Valley; and up close with the silverbacks in Rwanda
MADHYA PRADESH: IT’S India’s biggest secret. It lies there, hidden in plain sight, in the middle of the country. It’s bigger than most Indian provinces, in fact until 2000, when Chhattisgarh seceded, Madhya Pradesh was by far the largest Indian state. It’s still as big as a country. A little bigger than Britain, a little smaller than Poland. It has more forests and natural parks than any other Indian state. It doesn’t have the snowy peaks of the Himalayas but it is chequered with the hills and plateaus of the Vindhyas, India’s most ancient mountains. It still bristles with the palaces and forts of more kingdoms than ‘ princely’ Rajasthan ever had.
I spent a week touring as much of the state as I could, from the northern fringes of the Bundelkhand region to the capital Bhopal in the Malwa plateau. By the end of the week, I was bursting with secrets of my own but perhaps I should keep them to myself. Would you really believe me if I said that in a few short days I had climbed India’s oldest mountains, traversed several kingdoms, witnessed an orgy, stalked a tiger, eaten the world’s best ( and cheapest) gourmet burger, had tea with a pretender to the House of Bourbon, and a beautiful Bhopali Begum, stepped inside the perfectly preserved dwell- ings of India’s— and quite possibly the ancient world’s— earliest artists? I didn’t think so. No wonder there’s a conspiracy of silence about Madhya Pradesh.
It’s quiet on the Ken river at dusk. Even the irrepressibly chatty Englishman sharing my boat seems to have run out of anecdotes. There’s a fish owl, still as a statue, on the branch of a gnarled jamun tree, and a serpent eagle scanning the river marshes with stealthy patience. There’s a brave fisherman perched on two sticks that span the hollow centre of an inflated tyre. A crocodile slides off a rock and disappears with a terse ‘ plop’. There are cormorants holding out their wings to dry and a flock of them flickering through the air in a V formation. A silent V, of course. We slide over the smooth water and snake through narrow overgrown channels. You can hear the marsh grasses susurrate against the hull. Even they seem to be saying ‘ Shh!’ Delicate spider lilies crane their long stalks and peer into the boat inquisitively. As we turn back and the boatman eases us upstream again, the sun hovers just above— and below— the horizon, its guttering flame mirrored in the glassy river. And suddenly the sky and the water fuse into a single blue- grey
screen. The illusion is broken only when a pied kingfisher dives vertically through it leaving a brief splash at the bottom of the frame. I almost expect to see its reflection in the sky. When the boat finally scuds onto the sand we wobble off it and onto the soft shore, exchanging complicit, intoxicated smiles. It’s a fact that we just got high together, and I feel like we now share an unspoken oath: We must never speak of this again!
In the evening, I warm myself around a crackling fire with my fellow conspirators at our stylish eco- resort, the Sarai at Toria. The Englishman is back on form, a charming but comical caricature of the ‘ Old India Hand’, murdering the pronunciation of Indian place names as only an Englishman can. “Oo Dai Po”, he says ( Udaipur), “Ban Da Ga” ( Bandhavgarh). This is his third visit to Sarai Toria, I learn for the fourth time. His wife rolls her eyes apologetically. We’re having our drinks with Joanna and Raghu who created this property and run it through the winter months. There’s also A. J. T. Johnsingh, a grand old man of Indian wildlife conservation, who’s visiting as a guest of the forest department in the nearby Panna tiger reserve. Drinks loosen tongues, and soon everyone is sharing their MP secrets for my benefit: the abandoned Rajgarh palace nearby which was used as a set for Mira Nair’s colourful Kama Sutra, the ancient hilltop citadel of Ajaygarh, 40 km away, the Italianate Baladeoji temple in Panna which “looks more like a cathedral”, the little- known
Despite all the polite interest we express at the abundant herbivores, there’s no escaping the VIP: the tiger at the Panna reserve
jewel of Chanderi, a small town studded with medieval monuments, the Pithambara temple in Datia, where many of India’s most notorious politicians seek occult solutions to the dilemmas of democracy. I will see many of these remarkable places over the next two days but as the bonfire dies down I’m already regretting the ones I will miss.
The Sarai at Toria is at its most beautiful in the early morning, its meadow of tall Kaon grasses [ Setaria italica], dusted with frost, the ochre walls of the guest cottages glowing in the crisp early light. But there’s little time for this idyll as I clamber into an open- topped jeep and wrap myself in a warm blanket. It’s tiger time. As we enter the gates of the Panna sanctuary, only minutes away we receive the customary disclaimers: there’s never any guarantee of spotting one of the 23 big cats ( or their 14 cubs) now resident in this reserve, and we should keep an eye out for everything else: chinkaras, chital, sambar, boars…. It’s sound advice and it’s not long before the sightings begin, starting with the elusive and well- camouflaged boar. The deer follow, notably an extravagantly horned sambar stag surrounded by his harem. As we wheel through the forested slopes and on to the grassy plateaus and back again we cross paths with other jeeps, the guides exchange the latest gossip: a pug mark was spotted somewhere, alarm calls were heard from monkeys, from sambar, from peacocks. Soon we can hear them too. And despite all the polite interest we have expressed at the abundant herbivores, there is no escape from the jungle’s celebrity culture. We chance upon a solitary SUV and I can see Mr Johnsingh inside. It’s a forest department vehicle, says our guide. They always have the latest information on the tigers. And so like hard- boiled paparazzi we tail one VIP to find another. It pays off within minutes. Just metres ahead of our vehicles is a young male sauntering along the jeep track with all the careless
“You can call me Bourbon on the rocks,” the last king of France tells me at his home in Jahangirabad, Bhopal
elegance of a film star. We hold our breaths and then break into a flurry of photography. The jungle VIP both ignores and indulges us, his fabulous body rippling beneath his stylish fur coat. Then he looks over his shoulder at his plebeian stalkers. We clutch our blankets and cameras with expressions of star- struck excitement on our faces. He returns a glance of surpassing indifference and strolls away imperiously towards the forest, a poem of nonchalance. A line from Kipling’s Just so Stories comes to mind: “I am the cat who walks by himself. All places are alike to me.”
I wish I could affect a similar insouciance but as soon as I get some signal I know I’m going to be texting my friends to say, “I saw a tiger!” I never could keep a secret.
***
Sex orgy!” the man says, and I nod dutifully. Shading my eyes with my palm, I stare up at the scene. Sure enough, a multitude of supple brown bodies are entwined in diverse acts of congress, both horizontal and vertical. It’s 7 am: a bit early for orgies and to be honest I want to get back to Sarai at Toria for a late breakfast. But I need to be professional and so does the man. After all we’ve just met and struck a deal for Rs 600. “I will show you everything,” he promised.
And so it goes. “See, oral!” “Look! Masturbation.” Man and horse. Woman and dog… He points out subtler details too. “See, his hand on her back is in gyana mudra ( the gesture of enlightenment). He is experiencing the void, or shunyata, because of orgasm.” A group of Korean tourists catches up with us, a bristle of index fingers extended in the universal mudra of look- at- that.
Khajuraho on any given morning.
“India is a land of contrasts,” my guide rattles on. “As you know, these erotic sculptures are not really part of our culture…” He must have seen my eyebrows rise but he knows what he’s doing. “Back in those days, in the 10th and 11th centuries, too many people were retreating from the grihastha life, their marital duties, so the Chandela kings commissioned these sculptures to remind their subjects of their obligation to procreate.” He has a punch line ready: “Of course it’s a different matter that now we have a population of more than a billion.”
***
Only 1.5 million of them live in Bhopal and they live in wildly diverse circumstances. Of all the sights I’ve seen in MP, this
city is the most beguiling and challenging. I am installed in the whitewashed colonial splendour of the Jehan Numa Palace, a property owned by descendants of the royal family of nawabs ( and more frequently begums— Bhopal was famous for its queens) who ruled here until 1947. I wake up in the mornings to the rumble of racehorses galloping on along the track that circles the hotel and after a swim, propelled by a stab of luxury- guilt I seek out a humble autorickshaw to begin my sightseeing. The driver is a bit of a character and apparently a frustrated comedian. “Myself Muzzafar Mian Tapori,” he says, “Bhopal ka original third- class rickshawalla.” It’s a clever opening gambit: he’s made me laugh too much to haggle over the fare. It’s also my first taste of the uniquely self- deprecating braggadocio for which Bhopalis are famous. Soorma Bhopali, the much- loved character from Sholay, is arguably an archetype of this local style. Having coffee with a local journalist who clearly loves his city, I hear that Bhopal is becoming very popular as a location for Bollywood movies. “Production costs come down a lot if you shoot in a B- class town,” he says with ironic pride.
My tapori rickshawalla takes me on a whirlwind ride through the rise and fall, the triumphs and disasters, the beauty and the squalor of this bewildering city. We zip along the broad lakefront boulevard that everyone calls ‘ VIP road’ ( it leads to the airport) and we skirt the sinister silhouette of the chemical factory that set off the deadly gas leak in 1984. I visit the staggeringly large Mughal- styled 19th century mosque the Taj- ul- Masjid where I’m enraptured by the orientalist tableau of hundreds of young boys memorising the Quran in a cavernous prayer hall hung with crystal chandeliers while the morning sun slants through the arches. We stop at a cluster of whitewashed palazzos by the lakeshore, which are a puzzling confection of European and Indian elements. Called Shaukat Mahal and Sadr Manzil, they are in a limbo between preservation and neglect. In the courtyard of Sadr Manzil, I find a classic Mughal Diwan- i- aam, a royal hall of audience, and a warren of shabby offices of the municipal bureaucracy. At the even grander Shaukat Mahal next door, the courtyard is cluttered with an eclectic mix of disembowelled jeeps in various states of restoration. There are Suzukis and Mahindras of recent vintage but also some old Fords and even a Soviet GAZ 69.
Retro Jeeps are a peculiarly Bhopali obsession. Back at
the Jehan Numa Palace I’ve seen the elegant princess who owns the hotel speeding down the driveway in an immaculate WW2- era Willys. “Jeep mechanics have the status of artists here,” my journalist friend told me. “And every second mechanic says he supplies Jeeps to Bollywood stars.”
But by now I’m becoming a connoisseur of Bhopal’s tall stories. There’s a particular magic to these fables delivered with a twist of irony and a kernel of truth. One of the first stories I heard was about the storytellers themselves. ‘ Patiyabazi’, they called it. The culture of hanging out on the stoop or ‘ patiya’ of buildings in the evenings to play chess and spin elaborate fabrics of gossip and rumour and politics and humour. Sometimes called batolabaazi ( telling tall tales) it was said to be an authentically Bhopali thing. In the ‘ State days’ when Bhopal was a kingdom, they said, the begums had their own network of spies to keep track of the Patiyabaazi. So where can I see this? I asked. “Oh no,” I was told, “when they widened the streets a few years ago they demolished the patiyas. It’s all over now.” But that’s just another story. Late one night, sipping a glass of Bhopal’s signature drink, the creamy sweet- salt Suleimani chai, I stumbled on a timeless street party of three pairs of chess players ringed with fans and hecklers, all crowded around the patiyas of a palace wall at Iqbal chowk.
And call me a batolabaaz but I really did eat the best burgers in the world in Bhopal. I’d heard about them from a friend who called them ‘ Bun Kebabs’ and then I found an address from a local blog called ‘ Beyond the Gas…’ It was full of recommendations for local delicacies and assurances that terrible service was ‘ part of Bhopali tradition’, “Jhilli Mian ke bade ke bun ke kabab in Chatori Galli,” I said to Muzaffar Mian Tapori and of course he knew it well. He drove me to a narrow side alley in the crowded Imampura quarter and a smoky nondescript shack with no signboard. There were small flaky patties charring on a wide pan while the fluffy buns were being seared along the rim. I asked for a plate and was served six, along with a side of onions, fresh mint and coriander chutney. The Bun ke kababs really were a revelation: spicy, crisp and tender. Jhilli Mian wouldn’t let me leave until I’d eaten all six.
It’s also true that I met the ‘ last king of France,’ alive and well in the Jahangirabad quarter of Bhopal. I’d heard t he stories about him, with some scepticism of course but again, Muzaffar Mian knew the place, so off
Jeep mechanics have the status of artists in Bhopal, a journalist friend tells me. And every second mechanic says he supplies Jeeps to Bollywood stars
we went. And soon I found myself on a very baroque armchair, sipping tea with Mr Balthazar Bourbon, a descendant of a 16th century French prince who made a career at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Mr Bourbon was proud of his family’s long and colourful history in India. Less so with the media frenzy that erupted a decade ago when a European genealogist announced that thanks to that distant ancestor from the ‘ senior branch’ of the Bourbons, Balthazar himself was the rightful heir to the French throne. “It was very confusing,” he told me. “But I’m not looking for any title. I’m an Indian.” More than that, it seemed to me, Balthazar Bourbon was a true Bhopali, who knows how to laugh at himself. By the entrance of his home he has installed an ornate fleur- de- lis and the inevitable pun in brass letters: ‘ House of Bourbon.’ “You can call me a ‘ Bourbon on the rocks,’” he says with a broad grin. He loves that joke.
The next morning I took an excursion to Bhimbetka, a Unesco- certified world heritage site an hour’s drive from the city. This is a complex of extravagantly sculptural rock formations on top of a hill with a panoramic view of the Malwa plateau. There are enormous hollows carved by an ancient river into even larger quartzite boulders and they bear the mark of human habitation over many centuries, going back as far as 30,000 years ago. Many of these rock shelters have been decorated with paintings of hand impressions, scenes of battle, dancing figures and wild animals. The rock formations themselves are a delight. Their impressive scale and curvaceous exaggeration reminded me of nothing so much as the ‘ organic expressionism’ of some of Frank Gehry’s most fanciful creations. I’m not sure you can call a rock shelter architecture but it’s not hard to imagine the delight of the complex’s first inhabitants at finding such a spectacular space, complete with cosy living quarters, storage niches, generous performance space and plenty of comfortable sitouts and patiyas to relax and tell stories on. And then I spotted one of the best- known rock paintings on the walls of a particularly striking formation called the ‘ Mushroom rock’. The painting depicts a tiny and very animated human figure running away from the snout of an elephant- sized boar with horns on its head. This charming image has been identified as ‘ Period II, Mesolithic’ and is generally captioned ‘ Mythical boar’. But I knew at a glance that I had stumbled upon the earliest archaeological evidence of Bhopal’s enduring tradition of magical realism.
I’m not sure you can call a rock shelter architecture but it’s not hard to imagine the delight of the complex’s first inhabitants