A Luxury Train Journey through Maharashtra, India

A Burmese psychic once told me that I was an Indian prince in my previous life and in the same breath he said I must have been a bad prince because I was reborn as a woman in this life. He added insult to injury when he further opined, “ It is better to be born as a snake than a woman.” Charming man. I take his pronouncement with a large pinch of salt, though admittedly I am very drawn to India – its food, culture, music and dance among other things.

I have been enthralled by the Taj Mahal, enchanted by the pink city of Jaipur, mesmerised by Mumbai, delighted by Delhi and thrilled by a tiger safari in Kanha National Park riding on an elephant. The call to India beckoned once again and I embarked on an amazing odyssey to explore the state of Maharashtra in western India, on a luxury train journey on the Deccan Odyssey across the Deccan Plateau. It is an unforgettable journey, travelling in style in the footsteps of the Maharajahs.

The Deccan Odyssey has been proclaimed as a ‘train journey where you travel like Indian royalty.” It lives up to its reputation. The gleaming royal blue carriages, each attended by their own butlers, carries its pampered guests through the state of Maharashtra from Mumbai to Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Goa, Kolhapur, Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik and back to Mumbai. At every station we stop, we are treated like royalties with dancers and musicians to welcome us while women, clad in beautiful saris, give us jasmine and marigolds.

We pass through rustic un-touristy towns and witness an amazing religious festival in Nashik where hundreds of pilgrims perform spiritual cleansing rites on a sacred river.

On the way to Ellora Caves, we call at Daulatabad Fort, a dramatic fortress built in the 12th century. Perched on a hill over 600 feet on the Deccan Plateau, it commands a formidable position over the plain, heavily fortified by 5km of thick wall protected by spiked gates and encircled by a moat once infested with crocodiles. The massive main gate is peppered with deadly iron spikes to prevent elephants, the beast of war in ancient times, from ram-raiding it. As we venture down the ramparts and secret passages, I could feel the energy of ancient warriors resonating through the magnificent fort and pictures of battle scene flash through my mind or… was it the heavy lunch of curry and wine playing tricks in my head?

The Ellora Caves are a series of monasteries, temples and chapels hewn out of rocks on the cliff face of the Chamadari Hills. It was built between 350AD and 700AD by Hindu, Buddhist and Jain monks and funded by various kings and wealthy merchants, who regarded this act of charity as gaining karmic merit for their next lives. It is an exquisite example of cave temple architecture with elaborate façade and intricate carvings depicting the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses, the Ramayana epic story and statues of Buddha and Jain sages. There are 34 famous temples on the site of which 12 are dedicated to Buddhism and five have wall paintings. The meticulous detail of the rock carvings and engineering skill of these ancient builders, who could carve an entire cliff face into temples of art, is spellbounding.

The Ajanta Caves are no less impressive. It was discovered in 1817 by some British soldiers on a tiger hunt. Like the Ellora Caves, the 30 caves are entirely carved out of rocks between 200BC and 650AD and dedicated to Lord Buddha. It was the centre for Buddhism where students and followers reside to study the teaching of Lord Buddha.

The cave temples were built in a horseshoe-shape cliff by the River Waghora which flowed along the bottom of the ravine and backed by the mountain behind and are divided into prayer halls, dwelling halls and monasteries. The cave paintings and carvings, some of which are very well preserved, depict the life and incarnation of Lord Buddha. Figures of Bodhisatvas, enlightened beings, are etched in fine detail at the entrances of the dwelling halls. They also portray the civilisation at the time with exquisite paintings of kings, queens and slaves, animals, flowers and other mythical figures.

The Deccan Odyssey passes through the best heritage and historical sites of the state unfolding the splendour of India. The train pulls up in Mumbai on the last day of the journey. It is a fitting end to an incredible journey.

Mumbai epitomises the ever-changing face of India where ancient heritage and modernity weave seamlessly into a social fabric of living culture. It is built on a cluster of seven islands and is the glamour capital of India and home to Bollywood film industry, the largest film producer in the world. The British have left many beautiful colonial buildings and monuments as their legacy, especially the magnificent railway station Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus which was built in 1888 in a splendid Victorian Gothic architectural style with turrets, glass dome and intricate stonework. It was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO. Other outstanding buildings are the grand town hall, the Prince of Wales Museum and the famous Gateway to India monument, by the harbour front, that commemorates the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to India in 1911.

One of the most bizarre tourist attractions is the city’s Dhoby Ghaut – a low tech laundrymat where every item of clothing is hand washed by men in a surreal giant open-air slum-like enclosures. Laundry of every kind festooned on washing lines. They offer the service to households for 2 rupees per item. While the high-tech towns like Bangalore and Pune are fast becoming the world’s IT centre crunching numbers on computers, here, with not a calculator in sight, let alone a computer, laundry is done by man and it is said that they are able to deliver each fresh laundry load to every household on their list without ever making any mistakes.

Same goes for the hundreds of tiffin men who deliver home-cooked lunches stored in tiffin carriers to offices on their bicycles after collecting them from various homes. It is a famous sight in Mumbai to see these men battling through the heaving traffic at lunch time, their bicycles laden with tiffin carriers, heading to their designated offices. The tiffin men, reputedly, have never delivered to the wrong person or lost any tiffin carriers in the process - except on the odd occasion when beggars would steal their load off guard.

India can be maddeningly frustrating at times but its charm and awesome heritage casts a spell on its visitors. And like the Emperor’s Clothes, only soul-searchers and lotus eaters will see the magic of this ancient land, now heading into the 21st century, slowly but surely to become one of the most important economic power-house of the future. But India is too steeped in religion and tradition to lose its charm or value. Good old fashioned customs will never be lost to modernity. The Dhoby Ghaut and the tiffin men say it all.

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19 August 2008