Once fortified and majestic .... |
Orcha had its glory period. Orcha has occupied a significant spot in history. It has also been a scenic beauty, with jungles, hillocks and a river to boast of. God too has decided to settle down beside the regular temple to teach a lesson to level the ego of the King from those times.
Orcha is going through a tourism boom.
Foreigners abound in season time. Locals with with luggage on head walk around visiting temple, hardaul baithak, hardaul samadhi, remembering the legacy of the bygone era. They are the sincere tourists.
mysterious tree near hardaul samadhi |
Sun setting over hardaul samadhi |
Orcha is gaining religious importance. There was a time when it would be difficult to find someone to ring the bells in Shree Ram Raja Temple during aarti. Now uncontrollable masses gather there at specific times of the month to seek blessings.
Orcha is also decaying. The following was observed and noticed during the recently concluded Ram Navmi.
- Opium (Ganja) is freely consumed on banks of Betwa.
- The chatraps are used as liquor den wherein drunkards drive in and empty bottles from late evening.
- There have been incidents of call girls imported to entertain guests.
- Vehicles move vigorously and with continuous honking.
In a beautiful gathering of Ram lila there were masses burning cigarettes and bidis and chewing paan. There were town girls/ladies in little skirts laughing with derelicts, drunkards.
In the keshav Mahakavi sammelan, organizers had to chase away kids from front of stage, rest of the area was occupied from villages from neighbourhood villages and districts, the so called teerth yatries not poetic aficionados. They simply sleep in the open, take bath in the morning in the polluted Betwa and get darshan of the God.
At about 10 PM when sincere poets are rendering their poems the people are scampering to collect their few puries and sabzi. They keep the food on the organizers chairs and eat and organize their own personal kavi sammelan.
There are regular thefts in the neighbourhood. There was one in the temple premise too. There are specialist thieves who look out for couples seeking privacy in historical monuments and torture them to release money.
The political party leaders deflect the ground reality and are only concerned to make as much before their tenure ends. A national phenomenon. Cannot blame Orcha alone for same.
There is tourist police too. They simply warm their chairs in the evening of their duty.
A village now with crime patterns of a city.
A ticking time bomb.
Comments