Ruins, Rocks and Stars II

We return to the guest house in anticipation. This is by far the clearest sky we have ever seen. The Bear, the Crow, the Hunter, the Whale, the Scorpion and many others are engaged in a most amazing celestial dance. Hercules and Perseus stood proud while Cassiopeia was sitting haughty on her chair. Hidden everyday of our quotidian lives by the lights of Mumbai, in Kutch the curtain is finally off and we can see the universe. This is the place where you can visualize infinity, touch it and feel it.

Infinity immediately also reminded us of our empty stomachs. We had a wonderful home cooked dinner by the caretaker. He was genuinely pleased to serve - not used to many people everyday. This was by far the least busy place he had been posted to in Gujarat - except in November when people dropped in for long and tiring daytrips from the Rann Festival. His pet dog strolled around with a large thorny collar. This is for protection from wolves, he helpfully explained, they go straight for the neck.

We decided to rest our tired backs. At 2.00 am, I finally realized I could not sleep. Disturbed by all the silence, I stepped out and glanced up, standing in hushed silence. I woke up the the other two also and we stared together in disbelief. There, right up above us was the most awe - inspiring celestial specimen, our galaxy -  the milky way, shades of wafting cotton rising in the night sky starting from the swan and encompassing the archer, Sagittarius. Binoculars could detect here a vast treasure of nebulae, clusters - blobs and patches in the night sky where stars held congress, new ones were forming and old ones flickering  out.

You can see the lightest of stars and this was the way they were visible 4,500 years ago in the land of the Harappans. It seems almost surprising, how long humans took to reach astrology. The ancients experienced divinity daily, night after night in fixed patterns from the shimmering Pleiades, Honeycombs and Butterflies to the gigantic cotton ring of the Milky Way. Linking this to inconsequential human fate was but a tiny leap.

At 4.00 we finally decided this was enough. We woke up later than planned the next day to visit the ancient city. Raojibhai, the ASI appointed local had promised to take us around. Unlike most other ASI caretakers, Raojibhai knew the site like the back of his hand. He could understand common sense archaeology and had worked with R.S. Bisht when the site was being excavated in the 90s. We could also see him showing villagers around.

A brand new plastic signboard directed us to the 'castle' - past two gigantic reservoirs. The Sarasvati was already in it's dying phases when Dholavira was erected. The residents here knew the value of water. Two fresh water streams fed the city and their water was stored all around. To this day, Raojibhai informed us, in the monsoon the streams could feed the city.  





Right now though, the reservoirs were the reserve of the jungle rat - not the grey sewer bandicoots roaming a city but the brown rats of the the Kutchi desert. The archaeological digging was deep and had rendered the soil soft - the rats had easy pickings.

Archaeologists had graded the occupation of Dholavira into various stages, however, even untrained eyes could recognize two - the early city dwellers and the later squatters. 

The early city dwellers lived in an amazingly planned city with a central authority. The 'king' would have been living on a raised platform - with a grand entrance - enough to awe any oncoming traders and the general citizenry around. The 'bailey' and 'middle town' housed probably the aristocracy and noblemen. Here, gems were fired, pots were made, grain stored and bazaars held whose precise right angled streets survive even today. These city dwellers dug wells, trained water to their large stone - carved tanks at which experts still wonder, executed a sewerage system unparalleled for years to come, made truck loads of steatite beads, fired carnelian, agate and all sorts of precious stones and were experts in stone buildings living amongst mud brick building contemporaries.

Then somewhere around 3,500 years ago these people disappeared, quite suddenly if we consider archaeological timespans. Why and how is still a matter of speculation that troubles archaeologists to this day. Some blame the environment, others a the fall in trade and still others point to unsuspecting immigrants. Some dinosaurs, fit to be under archaeological study themselves, blame invading Aryan armies.

The second phase of squatters could perhaps make sense of the ruins that lay around them, the way we do today. They were of limited means - using the earlier wells and tanks, building round huts on top of the 'citadel' ruins, transforming early drain covers to welcome mats and letting their sewerage out what was once the main entrance. The signs of early occupation and the conveniences of traditional life - water, dry land, sufficient stone would have attracted them in the first place and had given a second lease of life, though a fumbling and heart-broken one, to this ancient land.

On one of the steps of the citadel's entrances, taking us to a large rectangular 'stadium', we came across a large tin shed filled with rubble. Around it could be seen the signs of earthquake. One of the pillars was tilted. We stopped by the tin-shed and called out to Raojibhai who had walked ahead by now. He looked back, smiled and told us a story of astounding bureaucracy. When the site was being excavated in the 60s, the archaeologists found a specimen without comparison in the history of the subcontinent. We could almost imagine the conversation:

"Wow! Let's take this to Delhi !'

"And how do you exactly plan to do that ?"

"Load this on a truck.."

"And if the truck driver gets too drunk or too smart..."

"I get the drift.. we can't risk that!!"

"Yup"

"So if we don't take it to Delhi. What do we do ? We can't just leave it lying here. It's too precious for that."

"Lets just cover it with plastic, lots of mud, stones and build a shed around it."

So there, in that shed lay the largest inscription of the Indus-Sarawati Civilization we had ever seen. Three metres and 10 characters long, it was carved in gypsum on wood and had served as a large signpost over the stadium visible from all 'middle-town' and even the 'lower town', while the wood had decayed over time, the gypsum characters remained embedded in the ground.


Source: The Dholavira Signboard

I and Sohil walked around the site a bit while Frenil captured random Kutchi birds in his camera. The archaeologists in their zest had created another class division infested replica on the ground. Brick houses for senior archaeologists and mud-huts for the students - all unused since 2005, when the last season of excavations had happened.

The site museum was surprisingly well kept, with artifacts, pictures and also a polished ancient wood fossil - around 180 - 140 million years ago when this fossil was tree, Dinosaurs still roamed in India, the Himalayas were yet to be born, Madagascar was a small boat trip away and the Deccan traps with their giant volcanoes had yet to rock peninsular India.

Overwhelmed, we left Dholavira and headed to Bhuj, on to the next leg of our journey. On the way back to Rapar, we passed the Little Rann Sanctuary and with a large car and clicking cameras, disturbed a family of Neelgai resting peacefully, that ran away kicking dust into the air.

Ruins, Rocks and Stars I

(Warning: Lots of rambling ahead of a trip in May 2012)

We could see a weakly swirling mass of dust in the foreground with bits of paper and plastic. "That's a twister", pointed out Frenil and with it started our trip. A trip to explore one of the hidden gems in India's western corner - the great ruins at Dholavira, located between the large white salt flats of the Rann.

After three failed attempts at planning the trip and being muscled out of the tatkal reservations, we finally managed to snare the last three sleepers in a bus to Bhachau. Our morning was spent in Ahmedabad, the city of 24x7 eateries and the Siddi Sayyid's Jali. The Siddi's are African communities in India, mostly slaves brought in by monarchs - a digression for another day.

Ahmedabad is curiously small and surprisingly clean for a Mumbaikar. The Sabarmati riverfront, forever under construction, is emerging beautifully. Camel carts dot the sides of the bridge.  Narendra Modi posters are ubiquitous. On a side note, purely from posters, his personality cult seems far behind those of our competing UP leaders.

Around 50 - 100 kms outside the city, our horizon starved senses could feel a singeing 360 degree view. We were on wide plains. Though the Rann had yet to start, it was sending us feelers. On both sides were large salt pans, fed by small creeks, arms of the sea that burrowed landwards. This was where most of India's kitchens sourced their taste. Far afield were the outlines of almost endless windmills churning in tireless beauty. Wagons upon wagons of rail were carrying containers and coal. A signboard indicated their provenance as Kandla  and Mundra Port. Our bus left us on the gates of Bhachau - and trundled onward to Bhuj. Our cab, a Vertio, or a Logan if you prefer original names, had been chasing the bus for half an hour. We saw the twister as we got into the Logan.

Our chatty driver filled us up on facts: we were going around 140 kms beyond into the heart of Kutch, which gets its names from 'Kachhbo' - Gujarati for tortoise. If you look at the map, Kutch looks like an inverted tortoise shell. Driving through a gate that welcomed us to the Harappan heartland of Dholavira (Dholavira -  122 km), you could sense an eerie quiet. Few vehicles passed us by. After Leh (which I have seen) and the Northeast (which I have not), perhaps Dholavira is one of the few roads to nowhereland in India. The last outpost Rapar, where the BSF camps, is still 76 kms away. Here you can stock on a limited paraphernalia of modern life. We got a cup of tea and a day's stock of fruits - just in case. 

The small island is Kadir Bet and around it is the sea / white salt flats (Courtesy Google Maps)

The salt flats up close

The Rann is a vast salty desert, India's very own Uyuni. Some call this the mouth of the Saraswati. This river, like a dying parent, over the last 6000 to 4000 years, partitioned its water to the Indus and the Yamuna. The sea claimed what the river abandoned and the delta turned into a desert. In the Rann, every monsoon, the sea, full of salt, brims onto the flats and with water, migrate birds - by the thousand. Flamingoes, pelicans, egrets and bird-watchers of all variety flock the place. In summers, the water starts drying and leaves in its wake miles of crystallized salt. This sublime whiteness is bordered by small pickled fish. It's so salty that the fish and insects do not decompose. Hordes of bird feathers lying on the shore stand testament to their avian owners.This year, it rained hard and it rained long. In April, the Rann was yet drying with parts of it becoming giant mirror.

Pickled fish of the Rann

Dholavira is located in an island, the ‘Bet’, between this salty madness. Around you, signs of hinterland abound. Old men are herding goats in the traditional dresses and old women, many-a-times wonderfully tattooed all over, cross your path. The younger men dispense with the dresses and the women with the tattoos. We overtake bullock carts pulled by frighteningly large and hefty bulls with intimidating horns. One look and you understand why many cultures, including perhaps the Harappans, thought of bulls as the ultimate alpha males. The bigger houses in the scattered villages or hamlets are made of stone, the smaller ones are circular huts, essentially unchanged for thousands of years.

We reach the government guest house Toran, surprisingly well maintained but completely empty. The guest book tells us we are the second group of vistors to dare venture here in the sweltering April heat. November to February are busy months - remember the bird watchers? Around the complex we see the modern ruins of a great plan to turn this place into a tourism hub. Remains of a fountain, an amphitheater, an earmarked area for a handicrafts bazaar lie abandoned. The hotel, however, has tasteful rooms modeled on traditional round kutch huts and has, with some measure of irony, thatched roofs.

With some time on hand, we try taking the car to the nearby Park and fail miserably. On the advise of the site caretaker, we hire a local jeep used on farmland. While the jeep was about to start, a small boy, around 6 - 7 years old, a bundle of energy with green eyes and shining teeth jumped in. He was going the same way and was visibly excited on getting a ride. Sohil spoke with him along the way. This boy was delivering tea, food and a strong stick to his brother who lived an almost permanently pastoral life. The stick was to keep away wild animals (wolves?). He would return in the morning with goat milk. These here, I thought, were some of the last pastoral communities of the world. 

Also visible with the agro - pastoral life was abject poverty. Having seen and heard a little bit of the Indian countryside, I found the level of poverty here to be, if we search for a word, more endurable. In the middle of nowhereland, it had access to an excellent motorable road, a school to the 7th class and 24 hour electricity connections - if you could pay for it. This was definitely not the state I had seen  in Bengal about an year ago. While returning by car, others started discussing in kutchi. The topic was of rising farm wages, not so high prices for produce, lazy labour and so on and so forth. They were chatting on progress and one thing of concern was education - grassroots aspiration and capitalism asserting itself ! As an interesting aside, you sense them converting a lot 'S's into 'H's, like 'Samjho' was 'Hamjho' - a fragment perhaps of a Central Asian ancestry (remember Sindhu = Hindu). 

As we returned, the slimmest of all moons was setting in twilight. Orion, the hunter was visible on the western  sky. 

We return to the guest house in anticipation. This is by far the clearest sky we have ever seen....