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Magazine
Roundabout
Carved by the ages
HUGH AND COLLEEN GANTZER
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At Bhedhaghat, the rock formations sculpted by a roaring Narmada make for a magical trip.
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Photo: Hugh and Colleen Gantzer
Hemmed in by the cliffs: A boat ride down the Narmada along the Marble Rocks.
He was balanced at the edge of a high crag, poised to leap out.
He wasn’t more than nine years old, his slight body glistening with water. Behind him the great Narmada roared down a cliff: white, foaming and angry, its titanic rage filling the air. Far below, at the base of the cliff on which the boy stood, the river coiled and twisted in vicious green currents, tearing its way through the gorge. And hundreds of visitors, dotting the crest of the cliff stared at the boy, fascinated. Then, one of them threw in a coin. It spun, catching the light between the fanged rocks of the gorge, spinning in the fury-filled void. But, before it could touch the water, the boy leapt. He flew out like a bird, then became a slim human dagger, plunged into the seething maelstrom
Our eyes were glued to the spot where he had vanished into the swirling river.
We held our breaths, convinced that no one could survive in that roiling turbulence. Then a little black head appeared bobbing in the rippling muscles of the river. A cheer spread across the gorge as the lithe body pulled itself onto the foam-slicked rocks and began to scramble up to his high perch again. It had been a virtuoso death-defying performance, all for a few, flung, silver rupees. And he was ready to do it again and again and again.
Religion and spectacle
We wondered how much he made every day, and for how long he’d be able to do it as his muscles, bones and joints hardened and stiffened. Would he become one of those itinerant vendors sitting on rocks on both sides of the path leading down to the falls, selling trinkets, or unsightly cure-alls “from the jungles”, or packets of fried gram and peanuts? Or would he become another saffron-robed and bearded mendicant reading from an old book, his bowl placed conspicuously in front of him, or even a blind beggar playing a stringed instrument and singing evocatively? Spectacle, commerce, religious fervour and anguish blend and merge here like oil-slicks refracting on a wet road: one doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins.
We walked up and away from the kaleidoscope of the foaming falls, into the small hamlet of Bhedhaghat. Boys played cricket and there was the eternal chip!-chip!-chip! of sculptors’ hammers and chisels. Icons and statues, waiting to be possessed and consecrated into idols, stood expectantly on both sides of the road. Brightly-lit stores offered us “Wine glasses of alabaster and onyx, lucky Ganeshas to bring good fortune, wall-plaques ... costs nothing to look, welcome-in, welcome-in.” The picturesque patter of tourist-traps the world over. We bought a little Ganesh from a stall where a mother combed her daughter’s luxuriant hair. This little statuette would be added to our growing collection of images of the Elephant-headed god from all over India.
Magical marble
At the base of the sloping sculptors’ road was the river landing where visitors massed like bright, wind-blown petals waiting to board the oared boats for a magical trip through the awe-inspiring Marble Rocks. The professional boatmen are called Naviks and their livelihood is being endangered by an avaricious coterie of civic officials who were misusing a high-speed Search & Rescue motor-boat for tourist trips. Heaven help tourists if their boat capsized or was sunk!
Ramesh, our Navik, had a superb line of commentary in verse, full of humour and insights. The rocks are of many colours: white, gold, blue-grey, pink and black. Through the verbal lenses of Ramesh’s quirky poesy we saw black wrestlers on white marble, a leaping horse, a legendary cave of a mythical mendicant, and the setting of many Bollywood romances. “It is 650 feet deep here” intoned Ramesh sepulchrally as if warning us of scaled and ravenous monsters lurking below! The current got stronger and stronger, powered by the fury of the approaching falls, the gorge narrowed, the hives of wild bees hung black and ominous from the crags. If we disturbed them they would descend on us like a swarm of avenging harpies. Another boat crossed us, borne on the sinews of the swift current. The white cliffs hemmed us in like the clasping hands of a Titanic River Goddess. Our boatmen were varnished with sweat, their muscles corded, battling against the current. We turned back and rewound our journey through the river-sculpted gorge of the Narmada. The day trip through the Marble Rocks is magical. The moonlit journey, we were assured, is fantabulous!
We don’t doubt it, but that melding of fantastic and fabulous would apply with equal measure to the unroofed circular shrine, crowning a hillock, in the hamlet of Bhedhaghat. It is now an archaeological monument but, in its heyday, it must have been a Tantric shrine dedicated to the worship of the Mother Goddess, Shakti, in all her feminine forms. It’s called the Chausath, the 64, Yogini shrine. In the centre of the inward-facing gallery is a high plinth holding a living Siva shrine. Like Lord Siva, the yoginis are likely to have been pre-Vedic deities in spite of what the ASI’s descriptive board says.
Traces of a cult
In, or around, the 10th century, Madhya Pradesh seemed to have had a strong Shakti cult. Interestingly, one of the yogini sculptures is depicted standing on a figure with the tight curls associated with Buddhist or Jaina icons. This could, possibly, indicate that a resurgence of the sensuous worship of the Mother Goddess resulted in a suppression of the other two austere and non-theistic creeds.
Clearly, there are more concealing mists in Bhedhaghat than those created by the thundering Dhuandhar Falls of the Narmada.
Quick facts
Getting There: By Air or Rail to Jabalpur and then about 25 km by road to Bhedhaghat.
Accommodation: MP Tourism’s Motel Marble Rocks and a couple of other budget hotels.
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