Vistas of great beauty and exquisite architecture

Khajuraho, is Madhya Pradesh state's most famous monument, but it is often approached from Delhi or Varanasi. My partner and I might have also chosen this route, bypassing the state entirely, had not a Sri Lankan friend highly recommended that we pause at three rarely visited sites — Mandu, Sanchi and Orchha — on our way to Khajuraho.

Mandu first came to prominence in the 12th century, but its golden age belongs to the 15th century when under the prosperous and peaceful rule of the great lover of good food and beautiful women, Ghiyath Shah, the architecture of Mandu reached its peak. The monuments of Mandu derive from a unique school of Islamic architecture that flourished between 1400 and 1516, the Afghani school. The buildings are elegant yet simple and were the inspiration for the Taj Mahal.

The place where one stays contributes a lot to one's enjoyment of the sites. The Madhya Pradesh Tourist Development Corporation's (MPTDC) cottages were situated on the edge of a tank, a range of hills rising up in the distance. Mandu, was known to its rulers as the 'City of Joy', and sitting on our verandah, looking at the variety of bird life around the tank and village children splashing in the water, I could see why it had acquired this name.

We had arrived at the beginning of the hot season and the Kesuda trees with their bright orange flowers were in full bloom, splashes of colour, vibrant against the rapidly browning vegetation. These flowers appear for only 20 days before the spring festival of Holi. They are soaked in water and people use this orange water and powder during this exuberant holiday to fling at each other.

The sites of Mandu were a little scattered and so we rented bicycles, enjoying the natural beauty around us, the village life, as we cycled leisurely from site to site — Hoshang Shah's elegantly simple marble tomb; the Jahaz Mahal palace with its cool, breezy, domed pavilions and elaborate bathing pools, where Ghiyath Shah kept his 15,000 courtesans; Rupmati Pavilion from which there is a sheer drop of 300 metres to the gently curving Narmada Valley below. Here we watched a truly spectacular sunset, patch after patch of the valley being swallowed into darkness like someone going around a great room extinguishing lamps. This hilltop pavilion epitomized what made Mandu my favourite place on this trip — exquisite architecture with vistas of great natural beauty.

We arrived at Sanchi after an arduous bus journey that took up the whole day. By the time we reached the MPTDC Travellers' Lodge we could barely support the knapsacks on our shoulders. We entered a dim, deserted reception hall. After a while someone appeared, looking utterly surprised, as if they had no expectation of visitors. Another delay while he fumbled around for the register and then we were finally taken to our room. 

After the clean, airy rooms of Mandu, this was a shock. Dirty, dingy curtains, dustballs in the corners, mildew on the walls. With trepidation I pushed open the toilet door. A layer of grime lay caked on the sink, cobwebs filled windows, and there in the centre was my all-time toilet terror — the squatting pan. As I stood there in dumbfounded dismay, as if to cap it all, the electricity went off. 

Sanchi became a pilgrimage site after Emperor Ashoka erected a polished stone pillar and a stupa here midway through the 3rd century B.C. The Great Stupa that presides over the other monuments is not only one of the finest surviving Buddhist monuments but also one of India's earliest religious monuments.

A set of steps led up a steep incline to a platform, from which we could see golden wheat fields in the valleys below and mountain ranges in the distance. Before us was the Great Stupa. As we walked towards it, the first torana came into focus, the details of it growing clearer and clearer until we were before it and stopped in wonder. Supposedly the work of ivory craftsmen, every inch of these eight-metre upright posts with three curving cross bars was carved with humans, gods, goddesses, animals, birds and symbols. The reliefs depicted scenes from the life of Lord Buddha and his six predecessors, as well as Ashoka spreading the faith and various Jataka stories, all in animated detail. 

Since the four toranas around the Great Stupa were what we had really come to see, I expected to be done in an hour. Yet as I walked around, the detail was so fantastic, that after I was done and glanced at my watch the morning had passed. There was so much detail in these four toranas that I actually returned in the evening when the sun was setting and the toranas were now a deep ochre colour. As I began my evening perambulation, a group of pilgrims arrived from the Sri Lanka Maha Bodhi Society and their chanting as they went around the stupa was a lovely compliment to the viewing once again of these magnificent toranas.

Orchha was founded in the late 15th century by the Bundela dynasty who had been pushed south by the Sultan of Delhi. On an island formed by a bend in the Betawa River, this site proved to be an ideal spot from which to control the region. This deserted medieval town with its weed-choked, crumbling monuments has a real ghostly feeling to it. Tall spires, cone-shaped domes and elaborate turrets make it look for all the world like a lost fabled land out of a Hollywood movie. 

At Orchha, given our bad luck in Sanchi, we decided to treat ourselves to a night in the royal apartment in the Sheesh Mahal Palace. The suite was ridiculously large for two people. We walked around in humble silence looking at the expensive statues and curios so casually strewn about, the antique furniture, the stucco work on the ceilings. 

I flung open the toilet door. What lay before me was a chamber the size of our bedroom in Sanchi. A marble bathtub large enough for five took up an entire wall, across from it was a sink embedded in a slab of marble the size of a large desk. Then I saw the toilet commode. It had been built on a structure that projected right out from the building. Large windows on all sides provided a panoramic view of the ruins and surrounding countryside. 

I closed the toilet lid, sat down and gazed around me. To one side was the Raj Mahal with its raised balconies, domed pavilions and turrets. On the other was Orchha's most admired monument, the Jahangir Mahal, built as a welcome present for the Moghul Emperor Jahangir when he paid a state visit — hanging balconies, domes encrusted with turquoise tiles. In the far distance the huge pointed shikharas of the Chatturbuj Mandir soared high above the village of Orchha with its pretty white and blue houses, and even further in the distance on the banks of the Betawa River a solemn row of pale brown domes and spires, the cenotaphs for the 14 rulers of Orchha. 

As far as rooms and toilets go, I was in heaven.

Concluded

Helping hand at Watersmeet

By Alfreda de Silva 

I had lost touch with Lorna since her pioneering days of campaigning for the upliftment of the marginalised. The days when she was the Founder-President of the Housewives Association of Sri Lanka, whose efforts motivated the association to build the low-cost Watupuluwa housing estate with 230 houses in Kandy.

That was the time when she raised a cry for a return to the indigenous foods of this country, such as grams, yams, cereals, leaves and gourds. 

Through her inspiration and zeal Kola Kenda became and still is a nutritious hot food supplement in a number of schools both urban and rural, and in towns and villages, where the Kola Kenda cart trundles along.

The car sped along the hot white road of Mutwal, with its close clustering houses and slums and took a turn which suddenly brought us face to face with the sea close to the building complex, with its well-kept lush garden and a glimpse of a ship on the far horizon. It is a vast place built on lands cleared of slums. At one time the sea had seasonally flooded the ground floor. 

Lorna had seen a band of road workers digging up Armour Street for renovation. The rubble from there transported to the site had helped build a low dyke. The sea no longer intrudes. 

The property belongs to the De La Salle Brothers Community, with whom she collaborates in the training complex, a charitable organization with a large paid staff, working in the slums of Colombo North, on education and health. 

The imposing Conference Centre has lodging facilities and two restaurants. All monies made from the Centre and catering, support the programmes. 

Lorna talks of the many influences that moulded her to care for the helpless and needy. Foremost among these was Dr. Mary Rutnam whose work with the Lanka Mahila Samithi proved that rural women who had some exposure to earning and learning and middle class living, were quick to grasp facts about food and health habits, from this sector. 

She also mentions her uncle, the revered and renowned Canon Lucian Jansz, whose selflessness was an example to the younger generation of her time. 

Who built the sprawling Conference Centre and training complex, each in its separate space with no intrusion of one or the other? Lorna herself has been the architect, plumber and bricklayer, in a manner of speaking. Every bit of it has been designed by her, during a long season of dreaming. 

The training complex has kitchens which teach the making of foods as varied as jadi and chocolate. 

Among its many teaching departments are a bakery and carpentry section. Courses include tailoring, masonry, plumbing, electricity, waste-control, budgeting, re-cycling, hair-dressing, needle- related craft, skills like embroidery, patch-work, toy-making, flower-making, leather work and upholstery - all income- generating activities. 

Included also are subjects like cane work, laundering and pottery making. Cultural subjects such as Spoken English, dancing, singing and drama also figure in the curriculum. 

No one in this place works for nothing. They earn while they learn. Thirty women from Mannar had completed their training and received their certificates before returning home. Thirty more were expected from Batticaloa. 

The Janasaviya sends 50 students at a time, for 10 months of training. Hostel facilities are available for all of them. 

Funding for the work comes from donors in various parts of the world, including this country. Men, women, boys and girls are all part of these learning programmes which aim at the development of the total person. 

Lorna focuses very specially on the woman, the mother in the home and her resourcefulness and ability to cope; her quickness to learn about home management and things like waste disposal, pure drinking water and nutrition. 

One of the reasons for the increasing crime rate is the mother's absence from the home, especially when she accepts jobs abroad. Boys who take to crime and roam the streets are transformed by the learning of a skill they can relate to. "There are no street children," she says, "only children on the streets." 

"Immersed as I have been in the urban, marginalised environment of the poor, I see, not technical, but basic skills as the survival kit for these vast numbers," declares Lorna. 

The Watersmeet Training Centre caters to the total personality of the students. A meditation centre on the ground floor, by the sea has four pillars for the four main religions of the land - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. A respect for each other's religions is clearly seen here. 

Then there is the long sun-filled hall on the first floor, with emblems of the four faiths as its focal point. It is called the temple and is used for inspirational and religious observances, meetings and award ceremonies. 

Lorna, who emigrated to Australia in the seventies returned some years ago to work in a voluntary capacity here. 

Her two daughters, Tamara and Dale, who live in Australia support her programmes with financial contributions. 

A plaque in the premises of the Conference Centre carries these words from Lorna: "With love to a country that gave me the best years of my life." 

There was quiet in the temple, purposeful activity everywhere and the sea-water endlessly sloshing near the trees' edge at this remarkable place. 

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