“It has not rained in Champaner for 2 years, and then it rains like this. When it rains…” the guide’s voice trailed off mournfully.
About 20 pairs of suspicious, skeptical eyes looked at the muddy, slushy path that seemed to worsen as it wound its way to apparently nowhere. But according to Manoj, the guide, the path led to 2 mosques, one of them with the most beautiful embellishments imaginable on its walls.
Maybe Manoj did not sound convincing enough, or maybe it was the mud, but most of the owners of those eyes decided to forego seeing those two mosques. But some did agree to go with the guide and see the mosques. I was one of them.
Our tour group was in Champaner for a 2-day visit. We had arrived that morning from Mumbai to a cloudy, rainy and wet day, in the wettest rainy season that Champaner was experiencing in a long time. We were to see the ruins of the medieval city of Champaner, which included many mosques in various stages of restoration or disrepair, depending on one’s point of view. I wondered how many we would be able to see with the heavy rains having made the access roads paths almost impossible to negotiate. (There are reportedly 18 such mosques, and we managed to see about 5 of them.)
Continue reading “The Indo-Islamic mosques of Champaner”
And I finally saw Stonehenge for real at 11 am at on a wet, grey and rainy day in July 2009. Instead of elation and joy at having finally seen my “childhood dream”, my first reaction was one of intense disappointment — I had expected towering stone slabs rising up to the skies, but all I saw was a cluster of stony protrusions on a plain, featureless landscape. Added to this disappointment was the persistent rain that had followed me from London, leading to a perfect set-up for the much-anticipated visit to Stonehenge turning into a disaster.
My Favourite Things 