Time Travel

This journey felt like six or seven days of constant time travel. I was moving from one era to another, while still trying to stay present in today’s world—negotiating the chaos around me and within me, yet slowly sinking into the stillness and beauty of the places I was visiting.

Most of the time, we forget that when an experience is truly at the centre, it is also tiring. It exhausts you—not just physically, but mentally. You start thinking about the vision these makers must have had. Not just the money or resources, but the imagination and courage to build something that could stand for centuries. Whether it is Khajuraho in the 11th century or Maheshwar in the 16th, these places still stand with the same dignity and strength, carrying their legacy forward.

What I am sharing here is my attempt to speak about that vision—about how our ancestors knew how to dream, and how that way of dreaming still quietly travels through generations, including us today.

It’s 5 a.m. at Assi Ghat, and you are drawn into a pool of people who have been standing for hours to be part of the serene and pious Ganga Aarti. This was my very first introduction to the world of Banaras.

It will remain a forever-special memory.

More to come.

I only knew the word Banaras.

It appeared in videos and photographs, but I was never fascinated by it, nor did I imagine myself going there. The farthest and most cherished memory I associated with Banaras was Banarasi paan—something I had always wanted to taste. More importantly, there was the documentary on Bismillah Khan, where he speaks about how Banaras, its ghats, and the Ganga shaped his understanding of life, art, and ultimately the music he created. That stayed with me quietly.

Our journey to Banaras was accidental. After an IndiGo flight cancellation due to bad weather, we rerouted ourselves from Lucknow to Varanasi. That bus journey will always be remembered for two reasons: the dense fog on the road and the driver repeatedly asking locals for directions to reach small interior stops.

Because of my beloved Tiwari ji, I stayed in a 150-year-old bungalow for two days. Those days were beautiful—memories in themselves.

My day in Banaras began at 5 a.m. with the Ganga Aarti at Assi Ghat. After the aarti, we planned to visit Kashi Vishwanath Temple. A Rapido rider casually asked if we needed a drop. We said yes instantly and hopped on.

That rider, Suresh ji, slowly became our informal local guide. He took us to all the accessible entry points of major temples so we wouldn’t get lost in the tiny, beautiful lanes of Banaras. His dedication, commitment, and sincerity in helping us experience the city the right way is something I will carry with me for a long time.

We first visited Tulsi Manas Temple, where the entire Ramcharitmanas is inscribed on marble walls. At the centre stands a calm idol of Ram, Lakshman, and Sita. From there, we went to Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, followed by Kaal Bhairav Temple, Durga Kund Temple, and finally Kashi Vishwanath.

What struck me deeply at Sankat Mochan and Kashi Vishwanath was that phones are not allowed inside the temple premises. You are entirely with yourself as you walk through long queues. When you finally catch a glimpse of Kashi Vishwanath, there is silence—a moment of quiet satisfaction, of simply being there.

For me, the highlight was the Nepali Temple, also known as the Pashupatinath Temple, located within the Kashi Vishwanath premises. Its mud walls, intricate wooden carvings, and beautifully designed window panes facing the river create one of the most serene experiences in the city.

This is also where a difficult question arises. When we speak of beautifying and redeveloping the ghats, what essence of the past are we really carrying forward? Only a few fragments of that past now remain. Banaras seems to be moving towards a change—whatever the reasons may be—and in that process, something fragile and lived-in feels at risk of being lost.

Post lunch, we planned to go boating on the Ganga. It got delayed, but we eventually made it. While on the boat, a realisation dawned on me—the vastness within. Perhaps everything resides within me, just as everything seems to reside in the Ganga. The water, the fog, the beauty—Ganga is beyond explanation. It is a feeling. A lived experience.

Soon, I realised that the Ganga is what makes this entire system of faith, belief, and bhakti more bearable, more human. Otherwise, Banaras—Kashi, Varanasi, whatever you choose to call it—exists in a constant tension between business and devotion. One needs emotional awareness and strength to walk these ghats.

Food, of course, became inseparable from the experience. The malai lassi, kachori–puri, and finally the Banarasi paan will always remain highlights of what I ate there. We ended the day with dinner at Bati Chokha, a fancy restaurant away from the hustle of the ghats. The food was abundant—perhaps too much. By the time I reached the end of the meal, I had lost the ability to taste it all. Still, it felt like a fitting pause to a long, layered day in Banaras.

My only introduction to Khajuraho was through school textbooks—poorly printed images of temples, a few lines about the 11th century, and then we moved on. Later, as we grew up, Khajuraho entered conversations differently. It became known through posters, half-seen images, and casual remarks. Slowly, it was reduced to a place associated with Kamasutra postures. The more hidden and misread the idea became, the more curiosity it generated. I was no different. Years ago, my understanding of Khajuraho too came largely from those images.

Eventually, that curiosity faded. What replaced it was something else. I began to realise that Khajuraho is, above all, a stunning example of architecture—of space, light, rhythm, and an imagination that dared to build something no one else had attempted. It is remarkable that something built in the 11th century disappeared from maps and popular memory for so long. And yet, Khajuraho was never entirely lost. A community lived around it. One temple remained active. Worship continued.

That made all the difference.

On an extremely foggy morning, we began our visit at Matangeshwar Temple. A man was sweeping the temple floor while singing verses from the Ramcharitmanas. His voice, the fog, and the sound of the broom moving across stone came together in a moment that completely held me. The way he worked, the way he sang, the way he surrendered to both his task and his god felt deeply moving. I paused there, simply observing

With that stillness, we entered the Western Group of Temples, guided by Patel Sahab—who became a mentor, a narrator, and a companion through the landscape of Khajuraho. Information about who built which temple and when is easily available. What mattered more was learning how to look. Again and again, he reminded me to move beyond the narrow framing of Kamasutra imagery and to see the larger vision behind these structures.

As you walk around Kandariya Mahadev Temple, something begins to shift. You dissolve into the space. You no longer stand outside the sculptures; you feel surrounded by them. Every posture feels deliberate. Every figure carries a story that remains relatable even today. There is nothing exaggerated or mystical about it. It is deeply human

Across the temples, the same ideas repeat themselves—birth, life, social order, desire, discipline, and the movement towards stillness. The scale is overwhelming, yet the precision never slips. To imagine such ambition, and to repeat it with such care across so many structures, feels exhausting even now.

Later, a visit to the Adivart Tribal and Folk Art Museum added another layer to this understanding. Life-size reconstructions of Adivasi mud houses, built with immense care, spoke of ways of living that can no longer be revived—only remembered. Sitting there, I found myself thinking about where we come from, where we stand today, and where we might be heading.

What stayed with me most strongly was the realisation that Khajuraho survives not because it was rediscovered, but because it was never completely abandoned. If the community had left, if worship had stopped, it might have remained a mystery even today.

Khajuraho stayed because someone stayed with it.

A community lived here. Worship continued.

That continuity is what still holds these temples together.

You are truly tired when you exit Khajuraho. Not just physically, but mentally. There is too much to take in, and the desire to encompass everything within a short span only adds to that exhaustion. Perhaps it is greed—the need to see and absorb as much as possible—that leaves you drained. Even then, the journey continues, and you begin to wonder how prepared you really are for what comes next.

From Khajuraho, a car journey of less than two and a half hours brings you to Orchha—a town founded in 1531 CE by Rudra Pratap Singh, the first ruler of the Bundela dynasty. Once the capital of Bundelkhand, Orchha unfolds like a larger-than-life imagination of Bundela royalty. Palaces, temples, and fortified structures immediately suggest how vast and prosperous this place must have been during its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries. Even without knowing every detail, the scale alone tells its story.

Walking through the palace complex—especially the fort area that includes Jahangir Mahal—you notice traces of royal blue still visible on the walls. Built to honour the visit of Jahangir, this palace reflects Orchha’s complex relationship with the Mughals: tense at times, strategic at others. Mughal influences appear in arches and symmetry, while Rajput pride asserts itself through scale and elevation. Even hints of later Gothic influence surface in structural details. Yet, despite these layers, the architecture remains rooted in the local ethos, pulling you into an era of honour, power, and royal confidence.

On the ground floor, beyond the fading blue, fragments of wall paintings still survive. These remain visible today largely due to preservation efforts by the Madhya Pradesh government. For anyone interested in painting, architecture, or how colours and patterns carry memory, this space is worth lingering in. It quietly narrates a story of refinement, loss, and endurance.

After nearly five hours of walking through the palace complex, you enter the Chaturbhuj Temple—a massive structure originally intended to house the idol of Lord Ram. Dedicated to Vishnu, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Krishna, the temple’s scale within the city feels almost improbable. Yet what stays with you most is its unfinished intention. According to local belief, Ram refused to be installed here. As a result, another temple emerged nearby—the Ram Raja Temple—where Ram is worshipped not merely as a deity, but as a king. Here, state authority and devotion merge, and royal protocol becomes part of daily worship.

The palace complex, Chaturbhuj Temple, and Ram Raja Temple together reflect a form of governance where power, faith, and architecture were inseparable. Restoration work across these sites continues today, and the effort to maintain Orchha’s legacy is visible everywhere. It will be interesting to see how this preservation shapes the town in the years to come.

Later, you walk towards the Orchha Chhatris, cenotaphs built along the Betwa River in memory of Bundela rulers. These chhatris reveal how death, kingship, and memory were deeply intertwined in Rajput culture. Grand in scale and carefully maintained, they leave you with admiration for the skill involved—and a quiet sense of pride in the cultural lineage they represent.

Ending the day with boating on the Betwa River feels like the right closure. After hours spent immersed in royalty, architecture, and layered history, the river gently pulls you out of that world, offering stillness before you move on.

Madhya Pradesh is often called the heart of the country, carrying layers of prehistoric, historical, spiritual, and cultural life. Within this landscape, Khajuraho holds a special place for its artistic and historical grandeur, but it is also a land of knowledge that continues to evolve. One of the most significant contemporary interventions here is the Aadivart State Museum of Tribal and Folk Arts, conceptualised by the Department of Culture, Government of Madhya Pradesh.

The museum presents life-size houses, objects of daily use, and cultural practices of the seven major tribal communities of the state—Gond, Baiga, Bhil, Bharia, Korku, Kol, and Saharia—along with representations from its five cultural regions: Baghelkhand, Bundelkhand, Malwa, Nimar, and Chambal. What struck me was not display alone, but intent. Aadivart feels like an honest attempt to preserve cultures standing on the edge of disappearance, without stripping them of their authenticity.

This is a place where one must sit down and reflect—on what we are losing, and for whom preservation really matters. The routines of daily life, the relationship with nature, and the purpose embedded in ordinary acts felt deeply instructive. As our connection with nature is slowly rewritten, almost erased, this loss feels personal and collective.

While walking through one of the houses, a woman applying cow dung on the floor casually said to me, “Yeh to kaccha ghar hai, humein pakka ghar banana hai.” That sentence stayed with me. It holds the tension between aspiration and loss—between what we want to become and what we might leave behind.

Aadivart, like a river, shows how memory can still flow—quietly inspiring those who arrive willing to look, listen, and rethink what preservation truly means.

Every night, as the goldsmith lanes shut down around 8:30 p.m., another life slowly comes alive at Sarafa Bazaar. As the night progresses, food stalls take over the road, setting up right below the nameboards of jewellery shops. What follows is a kind of roller-coaster journey through food.

Almost everything you crave is available here—freshly made, simple, and served with care. You never stop at just one dish. One leads to another, and then another, until you realise the joy is not only in eating, but in moving through the street, tasting bit by bit. Eventually, the craving settles, leaving behind a feeling of being full, satisfied, and carrying a memory that stays long after the night ends.

The idea of ending this journey on the banks of a river naturally led me to Maheshwar. I was more than excited to see the Narmada for the first time. For years, I had heard people speak about what happens when you see Maa Rewa. Standing there, I realised every word was true. Narmada flows with a kind of compassion—holding everything, embracing everyone, without asking for anything in return.

Bathing in the river at Maheshwar was a moment I will carry for life. The water felt pure and honest. Each dip brought silence—deep, grounding silence. Perhaps this was the stillness I had been searching for throughout the journey.

The flow is constant. It carries something forward and leaves something behind. Even when we drop something, something else is given away on purpose. All of this is part of the same story that you and I belong to. And yet we keep trying to make our own story, forgetting that, in the end, it is only us. 

अंतर के पट खोल देख लो, ईश्वर पास मिलेगा।

हर प्राणी में ही परमेश्वर का आभास मिलेगा।

सच्चे मन से नहीं पुकारा, कैसे आएँगे भगवान॥ 

I believe that community lies at the centre of everything. When you step back and look at these places from a wider view, you begin to see many systems working together—people, economy, faith, belief, commitment, and society. All of them have held these monuments, these works of art, these expressions of life, for centuries.

On one side flows the Ganga, on the other the Narmada—both carrying a deep sense of vastness, calm, and stillness. That same feeling slowly enters you as you walk through these spaces. These places have far more to offer than dates, names, and historical facts. Those questions become small. What matters more is what they do to you.

They make you pause.

They make you sit with yourself, even in the rush of seeing so much in so little time.

They invite a quiet conversation within—something that rarely happens in newly built spaces.

And maybe that is why these old places still feel so alive.