Walking back to once upon a time...

The place felt familiar. Data gleaned from books, travelogues, chronicles, documentaries, movies, and serials flooded my mental eye. The excitement of seeing it all in person, even if only for a couple of hours, was palpable.

As our eyes scanned the red walls, towers, and ramparts, a young man impressed upon us that it would be wise to cover centuries of history in the company of an expert. He introduced us to a calm, composed, and confident senior who would conduct the tour. 

The elderly guide led us through the palaces and the courtyards. Most of them were not accessible to the sightseers. We walked in the periphery of the haloed premises, all ears to his lores.

He spoke with a flourish, which made me visualise Jodha Bai as the pampered wife of Akbar, ruling the roost in every nook and corner of her palace in Fatehpur Sikri. One could almost hear the Bhajans in the empty hall, which once housed a Krishna temple, and see her water the bare Tulsi planter placed outside. The two royal bedrooms on the first floor, which flanked the square of the queen, were only seen from the ground. Yet, one could feel the breeze from the river cooling one of them during summer and the sunrays toasting the other chamber in winter. The dysfunctional fountain there seemed to have trapped the dulcet voices of Tansen and Baiju Bawra lest it spill over! The aroma of a royal Rajasthani cuisine seemed to waft from the window screen of her personal kitchen. 

The sales pitch rose as an unkempt ground was identified as the famed Meena Bazaar patronised by the queen to support women entrepreneurs. The sun-kissed patio metamorphosed into a flamboyant spot where royalty would play games of Ludo and chess using maidens as pawns. The sacred Chishti, where she prayed for progeny, radiated piety. As we ambled into the long corridor where her highness dispensed justice in petty cases, it felt eerie to see the tombs of the dead who could have been her audience once upon a time. The queen’s penchant for hide-and-seek in a special vestibule became fascinating when we were shown the shallow cavities in the walls where the ladies would deposit their tinkling ornaments before playing the game.

The cherry on top turned out to be a white turret at a distance in the slopes of Aravali, which was identified as the tomb of her elephant that carried her as a bride from her parental home with fanfare to her husband’s abode!

 The captivating stories compelled the mind to remain all ears, and they are likely to linger on languorously in a time capsule that was, “Once upon a Time.”