Ellora and Ajanta

25 DECEMBER
" Be Clean, Be Quiet, Be Respectful" reads the prominent notice in the dirty hallway of this Muslim Gentleman's hotel ... But we are woken at 6am this Sunday morning by a cacophany of male shoats and screams reverberating round the empty halls. SHAHID!! HASSAN!! AMIR!! Off to an outing and no concern for their neighbours!
Our Christmas gift... there's a room at the Sri Maya! We move, breakfast gleefully on the balcony and hit the bumpy road to Ellora. We arrive, assaulted by touts ..... postcards, Ellora guide books, maps of India, miniature cave carvings 'here Madam, just looking, just looking!' Swarms of families, kids, just looking, just looking. The Kailash Temple... almost too magnificent to be true, hewn out of the rockface in AD 700, believed to have taken 7000 men 150 years to build!.... splendidly ornate, awe-inspiringly beautiful. Enormous sculptures, Shiva dancing in the Cosmic circle, Boar-headed Vishnu, all manner of voluptuous Devis and half human creatures, surrounded by a hundred elephant heads. Tales of the Ramayana, Mahabarata and adventures of Krishna line the dim collonades. It is unbeleivable ...... and unbeleivably packed, 'photo please, photo please' at every corner... Corinne, the tall blonde one, steals the limelight to grace the albums of every Indian family! While I lurk in the shadows trying not to get caught.
As we move away from the baroque extravaganza of the Hindu temple , the Buddhist caves begin to get more austere.In a dark hall sunlight flickers on a serene central statue sitting under a huge domed ceiling, the inside of a gigantic rib cage? The heat outside is stiffling, but inside it's cool and slightly damp. The earliest caves have only a Stupa to represent the Buddha. The Jain caves have amazing intricately carved lace-like columns and austere naked statues of the standing Mahavira. The scope and magnitude is quite overwhelming, 32 caves in all, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain, 3 religions sitting side by side for over 5 centuries, the monks and holy men of all three working simultaneously on these caves, a testament to India's history of religious tolerance.
As the sun is setting we go to the Muslim Fort Daulatabad, "The City of Fortune" build on a 200 m high hill that had been known as Devagiri, the Hill of the Gods. Now we're even more the object of attention as we climb past the intricate 'Chand Minar', Tower of the Moon and through the massive walls and barbed doors of this moated fortress. School kids are entranced by us, boys want photos, babies stare over their father's shoulders, wide-kohl-eyed. One mad Sultan built this fort and marched the entire population of Delhi 1100 km south to make it his new capital... many died on the way, and those that survived slowly slunk back north to Delhi, leaving the fort sitting red in the embers of the setting sun.
26TH DECEMBER
On the road to Ajanta we're stuffed in the backseat of our 'Classic Tours' bus with Rafael, an American Jew and a spiritual councilor living in Jerusalem for many years. We had 3 hours of conversation about India, religion, gods and gurus. What is it, this spiritual counciling? the modern doctor of the soul? One of his clients works with traumatized war victims, a job which often puts her in an emotionally and depressed state... with meditation he works to bring her back to balance. He has been involved for many years with Jewish mystical teachings, something I know very little about. Although he said it was hard to explain simply, ones life becomes structured around a complex set of practices, but the highest teaching sees the divine in every aspect of daily existence. This sounds familiar, Imran was saying the same thing about Sufism a few days ago. I wonder why the world has such severe religious clashes when ultimately 'all roads lead to the same God' and in so many cases religions do sit side by side without violence. Gandhi was known for embracing all religions in his search for Truth. "For me the different religions are beautiful flowers from the same garden, or they are branches of the same majestic tree. Therefore they are equally true, though being received and interpreted through human instruments equally imperfect."
Rafael had been to visit 'Amma', one of the few female gurus in India. Known as the 'hugging mother', her darshan or blessing consists of giving thousands of people hugs in all night sessions. Her 'gift' was recognised in childhood, her parents being afraid of it, wanted to disown her and there were many attempts on her life. She is said to have healed a leper by licking his wounds.
At last we arrived in Ajanta, 2 hours late... I bargain with our special 'tour manager' to allow us more time at the caves.... reluctantly he agrees to an extra hour. First we must line up in the midday sun for the special(?) 'pollution free buses', then wait for our jumpy little tour manager to get the tickets. THe bees swarm around ... touts, tourists, coachloads of school kids, families, milling, oggling, hassling ....
Once inside the 'Maharanis' are carried up on chairs with 4 pole bearers, but mere mortals like us must climb the steep steps to the caves. Long lines to see the major caves, much pushing and shoving and smelly feet! We see the first few then the renegade gringos break away promising to return by 4pm.
These caves pre-date Ellora, 30 in all, cut into the rock around a horseshoe shaped ridge between 200BC and 65AD. The oldest ones, some of the earliest buddhist caves in which a footprint, a stupa or a wheel of Dharma represents the Buddha.... incredible to believe today but Gautama Buddha asked his followers not to make images of him. In the gloomy caves Ajanta's famous fresco-like murals radiate a warm antique saffron and rusty brown with a golden hue. Jataka tales, scenes of princes and kings, the Buddha and his disciples, a princess surrounded by her attendants. It seems almost sacreligious that these caves are packed with noisy indian families disturbing their centuries of silence, but their serene beauty admonishes my haughty condescention .... 'these caves are their birthright not yours!'
As we move round the horseshoe the crowds seem more dense, the afternoon heat more intense, the 'hellowhatsyourname' more relentless. We check the watch, it's time to start back, wading through the sea of people... oh for a sedan chair! Reaching the parking lot we start to panic, where is our bus?? so many of them, what was it called? .... are we stranded? At last to our relief we spot Rafael and the renegade group of Calcutta Indians, waiting patiently in the bus. It's 4.15, it's 4.30 .... we wait... and wait... beginning to mumble our complaints. At last around 5pm our 'tour manager' saunters up with the rest of the group, grinning! We're about to say something when a voice comes from behind in a thick Indian english " What dee helll dooo yooo tink yooo are dooowing Yaar!" then our Calcutta lady looses it, the tour manager soon looses his grin as all hell is let loose in a tirade of Hindi! She's furious and won't let up as we all pile onto the bus. We're off toot sweet... belting through the backstreets and jumping over the bumps and watching the clock since we have a nightbus to Mumbai at 8pm. Suddenly the bus slows down and stops, everyone shifts uncomfortably,what now! the boys in the backseat tell us a car has broken down and we're going to tow it! ... I stride to the front of the bus and in my best queen's english address the tour manager " Excuse me, but some of us need to get back for the night bus to Mumbai" "yes, yes, just one moment maa'm," ..... "we need to leave NOW!" ..... Madame Calcutta starts clapping, THANK YOU! she announces as the door slams shut and at last we're back on the road to Aurangabad.