When they go to the dentist and say it’s the jamun tree

When I told Mrunmayee I was going to Bhubaneswar, she invited me over to her place. However, I had just one day free for taking in the sights, and in a city crammed with Kalinga architecture, I had no intention of spending that precious day indoors. So I told her I was more interested in sightseeing, and invited her to tag along. As soon as I finished outlining my (admittedly rather hectic) itinerary, she suddenly remembered a dentist’s appointment. “Why don’t you come over after you are done with sightseeing,” she said. I ask you! Is this the famous Indian tradition of hospitality?

Most of my day was spent gawking at ancient temples. At 43 degrees Celsius, to walk barefoot on the superheated stone floors of temple complexes out of architectural and not religious interest takes a special kind of faith.

I had a relatively easier time at the twin hills of Udaygiri and Khandagiri, situated a few kilometres west of Bhubaneswar. The hills are honeycombed with caves carved out by Jain monks in the 2nd century BCE. When I went there, I found to my dismay that the overzealous Archaeological Survey of India had numbered the caves. I hate it when they do this to me. It arouses in me an uncontrollable need to start with Cave 1 and proceed in order, not stopping until I’ve seen every single cave.

The worst instance was at the Kanheri Caves in Maharashtra, where after a 9 km noontime walk through a forest in the height of summer, I reached the hill to find myself confronted with 109 caves, all numbered. These were meditation cells for Buddhist monks, so they were spartan and all rather similar. Still, I had no choice but to clamber all over the hill, visiting every last godforsaken cave. In one secluded cave, I came upon a young couple having sex. The bed-couch-table-kitchen routine must get tedious after a point. I suppose a 3rd century Buddhist cave is the next logical choice.

Udaygiri is also famous for the Hathigumpha inscription: a 2166 year old inscription in the Brahmi script on the brow of a cave, eulogising the Kalinga king Kharavela. There was a plinth with a translation of the inscription, which I liked better than the more commonly-cited translation. It had phrases like “he throws the city of the Musikas into consternation” and “with their coronets rendered meaningless, with their helmets cut in twain”. I like translations that retain the flavour of the period and context.

A monkey once wrote that a lawnmower takes 24 hours to go from Bhubaneswar to Calcutta. Being the canny traveller that I am, I took a train instead, and it took me 7 hours to get back.