My Dreams and Passion

I am blogging about my dreams and passions for the Club Mahindra#DreamTrails activity at BlogAdda. You can get a Club Mahindra Membership to own your holidays!

I am a History buff and from this love emerges the love for travel, art and culture. If I could just travel to all the places rich in history (which is almost the entire world!!) I think I would be the happiest person. I know I would barely be able to cover all the places I would want to visit in my lifetime, but the journey is so full of wonder that I don’t mind leaving it incomplete.

This is all about time travel, only going backwards. As I enter monuments frozen in time, I cannot resist caressing the walls or the pillars. I shut my eyes trying to recreate a moment from the past. I feel a deep sense of longing for that era. Every image in an ancient place of worship, a boudoir in a palace, a palace garden, each of these has a story to tell and I really would love to have been a part of all that.

Imagine being a part of the bustling Meena bazaar during Shahjahan’s time in the Red Fort premises which is now like any other flea market. Imagine Fatehpur Sikri where Akbar held council with the navratnas of his darbar, or his discussions on Deen-e-Ilahi at the Ibadat Khana. Old Forts and underground tunnels almost resound with gunfire.

While in Kurukshetra in Haryana, I stand under the huge peepal tree where Lord Krishna delivered the Bhagwad Gita to Arjuna before the Kurukshetra war, trying to imagine the scenario. A little ahead lies the Bheeshma Kund , a water body created by Arjuna’s arrow to quench Bheeshma’s thirst and as I dip my fingers in it I love to feel that I am a part of that story. Whether it is mythology or history, it is a part of our past and it grips me.

As I tour the Ajanta caves I try to look into the lives of monks and their daily routine. I try to see how the artists went about painting the walls in darkness filling them up with exquisite scenes or sculpting a majestic profile of the Buddha.

It is really an exciting and enticing moment to be sharing history going back hundreds or thousands of years.

History for me is not gone, it is close at hand. One needs to feel it and make a connection. As I travel, I love to interact with people asking them about their past and the changes in their environment in the past few decades. I am attracted to  art that each place speaks of which varies from the way houses are made, to the dress they wear, moving on to their culture including language and food.

It is a never ending romance that I share with travel, art and culture and with the time I have I hope my passion makes my life rich and meaningful.

Travel Tales

To Ajanta...

After Aurangabad, I set out for the Ajanta Caves. Took about 3 hours as I had taken the longer route via Daulatabad and Khuldabad (where you can visit Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb’s tomb). I climbed some steps cut into the hills, took a turn and there the panoramic view of the caves spread out nestled amidst such beauty! 

The View

30 caves cut out from the steep Sahyadris with the Waghora river curving below. And this was done from 200 BC till 650 AD when this area was abandoned. The last few caves have been blocked probably for safety reasons. I began my exploration from the 26^th cave, the last one that tourists are allowed to access. Only thing missing was a detailed write up on every cave. It would have made things easier instead of relying on the guides who earn their living giving the historical background of the caves which sometimes are quite imaginative!! Though Ajanta is known for its paintings, the sculptures is not to be overlooked.

Chaitya

 Though Ajanta is famous for its paintings based on the life of Gautam Buddha and the Jataka tales, the paintings are fast disappearing and what is left is difficult to see in the dark. Some lighting arrangements have been made though. Five of the caves here are Chaityas or temples and the other 25 are Viharas or monasteries.

There is a story to the present state of paintings. Apparently an Italian team was called in for restoration work on the paintings in the 1920s. With the best intentions, this team with their experience in their country, coated the paintings with shellac as a protective covering. Unfortunately, over the years, shellac darkened in the hot and humid climate and the luminosity of the paintings was lost. Removing the shellac is proving to be difficult for ASI. 

The ceiling and wall paintings - or what is left of them

Besides, the lakhs of visitors who visit the caves increase the humidity levels. People are also known to be uncaring and go about touching the paintings. Both of these are reasons we might not have the paintings for long.

Also, centuries ago, when the artists completed their work, the monks inhabited these caves for prayers, studies and living. The oil lamps and incense they burnt, covered the paintings with soot. Now after excavation, the soot is being removed and experts feel this is harming the paintings underneath. 

Bodhisatva - Padmapani

Bodhisatva -Vajrapani

Caves 1, 2, 16 and 17 are the ones where some paintings are still intact. These just show us how much of this wonderful art we are missing today. The entire caves were filled with paintings too exquisite to be described. The walls and the ceilings glowed with yellows, reds, whites, blues, greens and blacks. All the colours were mineral based except for the black which came from lamp-black.

The murals depict Buddha as a youth, as a prince, as a monk and finally as an ascetic surrounded by people and nature and I was glad to be there to just take in all this beauty. This just cannot be explained so easily. I wonder at the dedication of the artists who spent hours in the dark caves, perhaps using metal sheets and water to reflect sunlight onto the walls or even using lanterns to help them paint, reaching every nook and cranny and the ceilings, filling them up with their dedication and love.