Roads less Travelled: Barobar caves and Mountain man path

May 30, 2023

With a special reason to celebrate a hot summer weekend, we set out on a road trip to a couple of unusual destinations.

The first, a set of ancient caves carved out whale rocks, the Barabar caves, said to be the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India dating from the Maurya Empire (322–185 BCE). The caves look like a couple of conjoined-twin whales from the top and has three carved out cave sets with a large hall and a small room each, inside. What impressed me was the shine of inside walls, a distinct polish, that has endured centuries; and still reflected ones images quite clearly. For comparison, I took a photographs of the inner polished wall and an external hard surface, and was impressed by the difference.

The last time I thought of visiting this place was twenty years ago, but was advised not to venture into left wing insurgent territory. Thanks to much better governance and law and order prevailing in Bihar, visiting this place no longer posed as a security threat. Despite that, possibly due to soaring temperatures outside, there were only a handful of visitors. The guard who coupled up as a guide was extra happy to see us, and took pains to explain the features of the caves.

Google maps aerial view of conjoined-twin whale caves

From the top: riding on the whales

Main entrance

the third entrance

Inside: 3 sets of large caves with an inner room

the rough surface of a rock close by

the polished inner wall of the caves

reflections of my daughter and me inside the cave

side view of the whale rock

nearby terrain

Please check this twitter post of Tourism Dept, Government of Bihar, for ariel views of the site:

https://twitter.com/Bihar_se_hai/status/1696330215935578270?t=wVXH_gdXBJ3E7RfJ1MKfTQ&s=08

The second place was a road carved out of a mountain entirely by one man's effort. In a place called Ghelor in Bihar, Dasrath Majhi, desperate after his wife's death due to a mountain in between his village and the hospital, set out on an unusual mission to carve the road through the rocks. The feat earned him the moniker of "the Mountain Man". When we visited the place, it was quiet and without any tourists, with the merciless sun scorching the terrain, and I could only imagine the extreme effort put in by this one man with a mission. Incidentally, there is now a movie on the man and may be worth a view.