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Scattered around the
countryside or engulfed by the urban sprawl are many hidden treasures
of Indian culture. At Chachhrauli in Haryana is an ancient fort with
artistic murals, a part of India’s fast-disappearing heritage.
India has it famous
forts, the monumental ones where memorable events from the country’s
history were played out. History full of battles, intrigues and
romance.
Yet India has hundred
more forts scattered around the countryside or virtually engulfed by
the urban sprawl which no one visits any more and scarcely anyone can
remember the legend surrounding the fort – if indeed legends
there ever were. If you drive north out of Delhi on the frenetically
busy G.T. Road, the urban sprawl gradually gives way to light
industry which in turn yields to agriculture – miles of
rape-seed and wheat fields, bullock carts, dusty roads and turbaned
farmers. At Karnal, you leave the G.T. Road and the truck bumps its
way into another small, crowded, noisy town, and you have reached
Chachhrauli, Haryana.
Chachhrauli,
formerly the capital of one of India’s 562 princely States,
boasts a busy station, a grain market, banks and hardware stores, but
it also has vestiges of its princely past – the ruling family’s
samadhi (memorials) and their
forts and palaces, now housing offices. At the turn of the century,
the Raja of Kalsia built for himself a large, sprawling fort with a
throne room, a khazana (treasury) and reception rooms and he had the
whole fort painted with murals. Long forgotten artists painted every
inch of the fort’s walls with flowers, birds, Indian courtly
scenes and also rather incongruous modern views of railway stations,
trains churches and Europeans. It is hard to believe that the mural
painters of Chachhrauli had actually seen churches and railway
bridges, so they probably based their art on illustrations from books
and magazines.
In 1940 the fort was
donated by the Kalsia family to the town of Chachhrauli for its use.
Inside the fort, the local authority established two schools, the law
courts and several municipal offices. The fort again became alive,
this time with children’s voices and office gossip and (almost
certainly), legal battles. When I first visited Chachhrauli almost
ten years ago, the fort and its murals were in a fairly good state of
repair but, over the years, time and use have taken their toll and
today the walls are crumbling away taking with them their paintings
of peacocks and princes and trains.
In a burgeoning country
as vast as India, everyone, has his own idea on what is or is not a
priority for India – health, education, housing, industrial
development, military build-up – all of which are debated, the
problems tackled or shelved and so the nation’s busy life goes
on. Sadly, what is clear is that in all this struggle for resources
and priorities, India’s tangible, historical legacy is often
ignored, and quietly disappears, as no-one has the time, or the
money, or the inclination, to shore up walls, or protect documents,
or preserve fabrics, or restore paintings.
Chahhrauli Fort is
visibly crumbling away, and as it falls, a very small piece of
India’s history goes with it. How many more Chachhrauli’s
are there? How many more pieces of the Indian cultural jigsaw puzzle
must be lost before someone, anyone, decides that India’s
history is not just Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, but that is also the
mosaic of dusty villages, tin temples, havelis and wall paintings of
trains?
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