History is created by historians. Not by events or reality. As a keen student of human history, I have visited almost every publicised excavation site. And I have often come back with the feeling “this doesn’t feel true”.
Whether it was Damascus, Amman or Jerusalem – the so called old world doesn’t feel that old.
A couple of years ago, sustainability leaders Pradip Keishan and Chetan Agarwal took us on a guided tour of the aaravallis near Faridabad. We visited a place called Mangar Bani. The Mangar Lalit hotel stands near it.
The forest has been destroyed by invasive species which have killed every other. Real estate mafia has purchased every available piece of land. Yet in the middle of it all stands a small patch of forest, almost untouched – a forest worshipped by the locals. Superstition has it that anyone who cuts a tree would be cut to pieces. Over the years it has become a place of worship.
When teams like ours started visiting the place, a cave was discovered in the middle of the forest. One that was carbon dated to be a 100,000 years old.
It is older than Mohenjo Daro. Older than the Indus civilisation. These are less than 5,000 years old.
And it is there for anyone to see. When I visited this, it was eerily similar to the untouched forests of Chitrakoot. Where Lord Ram spend twelve out of his fourteen years in exile. It was also similar to the landmarks in Bodhgaya – where the exact point at which the chariot led by Lord Krishna and holding Arjuna stands to this date. 8000 years later. Nearby is the place where Lord Mahavir Jain and Gautam Buddha walked their talk. A good 2500+ years ago.
There is nothing that feels made up. It is not really much of a tourist location. Fables and mythology meet reality here.
It somehow doesn’t feel like that in England where I was told Newtons apple fell. Or in the garden of Adam and Eve – they don’t feel genuine.
What I see in India feels real. And not just to Indians.
India is probably the most undermarketed tourist location in the world. But maybe that is what has let it maintain its true nature.
Not everything needs to be a business. Chitrakoot should maybe just be.
Not as a centre of religious tourism but as a forest – eight thousand years old – and untouched by the western model of mismanagement.