Monsoon Magic in Mandu

Aeons go back and forth in the mystical aura of Mandu, says Subhayu Mishra

As raucous day trippers from Indore and Dhar thin out on an Independence Day evening, we turn into a by-lane of Mandu. A languor of dusk leavens from the grass-green quilt. The pond, to our right, spiked with water-lily buds will wait for tomorrow's monsoon light and 600-year-old domes fade like ghosts on either side as we walk. Mandu, on ancient Vindhyachal in Madhya Pradesh, is awash in rain.

I am with Bhiru, a lad all of ten, who does handstands in a blink, climbs like a lizard on columns of a crumbly mosque and dives without a ripple into the bottomless Sagar Talao. They are a motley gang of urchins from small, scattered shacks that puff smoke, perhaps from lean fires that run inside. They brake their giggles as I look.

Perched atop a plateau of the verdant Vindhyas, where its west face falls away into 'Kakra Khoh', or deep ravine, Mandu emerges from the hills by a separation of both terrain and history. In just one lane you can wander into half a dozen motifs of medieval architecture. Like the Mosque of Malik Mugith which was constructed using Hindu masonry but replete with turquoise tiles and Islamic calligraphy lacing its arches. The Tomb of the Wet Nurse is symmetrical and desolate but what takes your breath away is the incredible geometry of the Caravanserai - an antique, unabridged edition of the modern motel. The old gate keeper creased like handmade paper turns keys in a rusty iron padlock for a smile and next we are in its yawning courtyard - unkempt, spread-eagled and buttressed by stone walls over 20 feet high. Rows of desolate rooms file past and the air hangs, trapped for centuries where the weary travellers would have rested. Meanwhile red-wattled lapwings strut on the roof and the drizzle comes back to blessed skies.

Next morning we drive across the relief of Mandu to its far south as a monsoon sun blanches the air and giant baobab trees rise grotesquely out of nowhere. Rupmati Pavilion greets you up from the southern hillock of the plateau. Spaced out, windy enough for you to be careful, I walk the terraces of Rupmati's pavilion looking out at distant Narmada. This is Baz Bahadur's labour of love. Defeated in a battle, he lost his appetite for war and its ravages, turning to the pleasures of music and Rupmati's voice. A romance that was to be snuffed out by Akbar's forces in the sixteenth century. Rupmati - beautiful in legends and gold in her voice - ended her life when her lover's slayer tried intruding her heart. They say on some nights, you can hear her plaintive notes far below at Baz Bahadur's palace where he might have sat and looked amorously as her songs would waft in from the far pavilion under a full moon. We have to leave their ghosts now, for the greater part of Mandu's history.

Mosque of Malik Mugith (right) dusk descends on the tomb of the wet nurse

Between 700 years from the ninth to sixteenth century, kings and warriors lie stacked on each other making the mosaic of Mandu. From the early attempts in sixth century by a local ruler at some fortifications, which Sanskrit inscriptions reveal, and the tenth century rise of the Paramaras in Malwa to Hoshang Shah's reign and the Mughal flags that fluttered thereafter, this plateau has been a stage for historical drama. The digs have unearthed tales of about a dozen dynasties. Laden with palace intrigue and poison, wars and captures, Mandu or ancient Mandava, has quietened with fatigue from all those years of turbulence.

We drive northward to an imposing array of domes and minarets where the residual architecture of the tenth century Paramara dynasty melds with Islamic structures. The sky and arches flutter with hundreds of swifts and dusky crag martins. On the right, 84 ornate Paramar columns file like soldiers in three rows where the poor could eat and rest. Hoshang Shah's tomb shares the same square of grass. Perhaps the greatest of all Mandu rulers, his 27-year reign turned Mandu to the royal capital and bedecked it with some of the most inspired architecture. His tomb is a simple, symmetric monument that caught the eye of connoisseur Shah Jahan and is believed to have been the birth-stone of Taj Mahal. White of marble, between the red-stone Paramar columns and pink-bead domes of Jami Masjid, Hoshang Shah's tomb houses a cavernous main hall of faultless lines and arches. The only note of elaborate artistry is the fine grill-work or 'jali' that filters sunlight on to the tomb of the king. Jami Masjid with its open quadrangle, and a magnificent pink sand-stone masonry was also built by Hoshang Shah. Said to be influenced by the Great Mosque of Damascus and taking three years to complete, it stands on a raised pedestal with tiny cells that used to house visiting clerics. A gate leads out to the Ashrafi Mahal or "Palace of Coins". A school of theology, it was later turned to a tomb by Muhammad Shah. The complex once held a marble mausoleum and a seven-storied tower which have since collapsed. A Sunday flea market, below bright awnings of yellow, red and blue, blares away next to the stoic stone walls of Jami Masjid.

Further up north, the royal enclave near the Munja Talao has a spread of magnificent palaces in lucid lines and a beautiful sparing architecture. Ghiyath Shah a bohemian who took to the pleasures of cuisine and women but rebuffed liquor, had amassed a harem of fifteen thousand courtesans and a posse of Turkish and Abyssinian women bodyguards which, needless to say, would have frolicked in the opulence of the palaces. The Jahaz Mahal - long enough to look like a ship - with two lakes flanking on either side leads to a curtain of stone - fish scaled - that falls over the edge of a tank. As water runs over, the fish scales act as filters, netting a catch of sand and soil. The Hindola Mahal ahead doesn't swing but simple, angular pillars present an unstable view. Lichen green beams on the roof used to hold royalty swinging in exaggerated hammocks below. At a vantage balcony called the "Nahar Jharoka", the royalty used to watch tigers which, our guide informs, were plenty in these parts. We walk past the royal kitchen to a beautiful well - Champa Baodi - tiered with baths and bathed by a breeze from the lakes. There is this intricate, underground network of corridors with an escape route by boat, should the enemy enter the palace precincts. A pond heron examines itself in the water in front of the sad ruins of Jal Mahal, cotton teals crisscross the reeds, black coots flash white 'tilaks' and white-breasted kingfishers fluff out water from their last dive.

The guide has done his time: it’s 400 rupees in all. We roost with the birds as last light of the day falters in the water. Cormorants cut the sky, water birds swim to the safety of reeds, a frog croaks in endless echoes and the last questions of bulbuls go unanswered. Bhiru and his gang huddle. A wick lamp is the only sign of a hut at the far end.

We cycle after dinner, along the ridge on the west, getting tense when dog barks relay at various depths. We cycle in the morning, through fields, dome-spotting all along. Spotted doves ponder foolishly, a pheasant-tailed jacana boasts of his plumes. Bulbuls, mynas, parakeets and babblers start a great racket. We stop near smaller domes - they are everywhere, every 400 feet or so. These were ancient Mandu's telephone relays and like muezzins or phantom drummers, a footsoldier would have relayed the kings' edicts to the next post. That is how Mandu's ambient history too has travelled. Told and retold, passed like family hand-me-downs, washed every monsoon where domes, daubed with mildew and bird shit, grow like enormous mushrooms, with its simple people scattered over meadows, Mandu is a trance of love.

Meanwhile, Bhiru and his friends are also growing. They too will weather, discarding childhoods on the way, much like their ancestors on this coronet of the Vindhyas.

I take in the air one last time.

(All pix: Subhayu Mishra)