At last, after a great deal of contemplation and planning we visited Orchha and Khajuraho. Just four hours from Delhi, Orchha is a small town near Jhansi. Embedded in history, telling stories of the past in different ways, providing you distinct dimensions of what happened, to whom and when it is a small 'monument' town. Full of monuments - palaces, temples and cenotaphs - of those who could build to afford it, it also, in a sense, tell us about those who built them. While we are told stories of the Kings, their embeddedness in Hindu religion but also a comfortable and subservient relationship with Mughals, it also asks us to think of those forgotten people who gave shape, size, dimension and aesthetics to the place and its monuments.
The palaces are full of paintings, which tell us about the religious inclination and obsession of the kings. And temples have paintings which would tell you how the famous revolt of 1857 was seen from there, being in vicissitudes of Jhansi.
It is a place where we found few Indian tourists and more of foreign tourists. The reasons may be ample. There are innumerable temples, some of them stand isolated, alone amidst forests, where no one goes. There are others who beckon you with their massivity.
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