Fresh from my trip to Ayodhya, I followed Lord Rama’s footsteps to Prayagraj. He had taken a dip at Triveni Sangam and visited Bharadwaj Muni’s ashram before travelling to Chitrakoot where he spent 11 years of his exile. On my last visit, the city was called Allahabad. I was there for the Maha Kumbh Mela in 2001 and 2013 and now, just in time for the Magh Mela. 2024 being a leap year, the month-long mela stretched for 52 days from 25 January till 8 March. Even in the winter haze, the tent city for pilgrims sprawled across the sandy flood plains of the Ganga as far as the eye could see.
While the riverside Akbar Fort was out of bounds due to renovation, the massive banyan tree, Akshayvat, was open to pilgrims. Constructed in 1583 over forty years, this was the largest fort built by Mughal Emperor Akbar. The purpose was strategic – better administration of the Indo-Gangetic plains and to bolster revenue. Shehzada Salim, later Emperor Jahangir, revolted against his father Akbar in this very fort in 1600 before their reconciliation. He chopped the Akshayvat and hammered a hot cauldron on the stump of the banyan tree so that it never grew again. Yet, within a year, the tree bore shoots and regrew to its gigantic form. Its stature as Akshayvat or the ‘Immortal banyan tree’ was reinforced.
Revolt seems a recurrent theme in the DNA of Prayagraj. The beautiful tombs at Khusro Bagh hide a story of brutal succession – relations between Jahangir and his first son Khusrau soured so much that Khusrau’s mother Shah Begum died by consuming opium. Khusrau was blinded and imprisoned here before being laid to rest. Jahangir’s third son Khurram (Shah Jahan) rebelled against his father after the Battle of Jhunsi in 1623. In 1658, Aurangzeb proclaimed himself as Mughal emperor, chased his three brothers from Allahabad Fort and imprisoned his father Shah Jahan in Agra Fort. Control passed over to the British in 1764, when the combined armies of Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, Nawab Shuja-ud-Daulah of Awadh and Nawab Mir Qasim of Bengal lost the Battle of Buxar. Shah Alam II was imprisoned in Akbar Fort and a historic treaty was signed here between him and the British in 1765.
This was a turning point in Indian history as the East India Company evolved from a trading company to an administrative authority in India. Later, Allahabad became a centre for the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny with the Sixth Native Infantry stationed at the fort rebelling against the officers and Khusro Bagh served as the headquarters of the mutineers for ten days. On 1st November 1858, Lord Canning read the famous proclamation of Queen Victoria, ending the rule of the East India Company and everything was moved under the control of the British crown. For one day, Allahabad became the capital of India! The Proclamation Pillar still stands at Minto Park.
Deep in the bylanes of Daraganj, home of famous Hindi poet Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ stands the magnificent WelcomHeritage Badi Kothi. I was lucky to be staying in this 600-year-old haveli, built for Perumal Agarwal, the son-in-law of Akbar’s treasurer Todar Mal, one of the Navratnas or ‘nine jewels’ of Akbar’s court. Five architects from Jaisalmer were commissioned to build the opulent Perumal ki Kothi, as it was known then, a stately mansion suffused with intricate carvings. The edifice was so beautiful that a la Taj Mahal, the architects’ hands were cut off to prevent them from replicating such a magnificent architectural feat for anyone else. Their tombs are located adjacent to the building and their spirits are propitiated before starting any work in the kothi.
Perumal Agarwal’s property was divided between his three sons – the eldest Amarnath Agarwal inherited Badi Kothi, the middle brother got Manjhli Kothi and the youngest brother’s building was Chhoti Kothi. Rumours abound that Amarnath Agarwal served as a spy for the British and was given the title of ‘Rai’. Rai Amarnath Agarwal owned the first steamer in Allahabad and was the head of the zamindar union. His whole family passed away in a mysterious road accident at Agra in the 1950s. His grandson Durgesh Agarwal sold the kothi in 2017 to Ranjan Singh, whose great grandfather Thakur Satnarayan Singh was a munim (accountant) in the kothi.
Ranjan’s son Aman gave me a personal tour of the kothi, built out of the best sandstone procured from Mirzapur. The lower portion was the oldest and the upper sections were added 250 years ago. While renovating the kothi, seven tijoris (safes) were found – the biggest safe had wheels and was at the lowest point at a depth of 40 feet. The chamber is narrow with no doors and the safe could not have been brought in later. It’s believed wealth from the safe bore the cost of construction of the haveli, which came up around it. Currently, the safe serves as a reception counter! It’s said tunnels connected Badi Kothi to the other two kothis and Akbar Fort.
Vijay, the friendly steward, gave a demo of the old locking system using a horizontal bar of wood behind the main door that slid out of a cavity in the wall. Doors and safes had antique Chubb locks. Before the advent of electricity, mashaals (torches) were used for illumination. During India’s freedom struggle, secret Congress party meetings took place here. The kothi housed a printing press that published incendiary freedom literature and during a British raid, it was thrown into the well to avoid discovery. The renovated well had different manifestations of Dwadash (twelve) Madhav; the nagar devtas of Prayagraj carved on its walls. The British later used the kothi as a tax collection office and a grilled chamber served as a jail that has a lethal RRR style hunter on display. The doors were studded with gold plates, which the British looted while leaving. Lining the walls are black and white photos of Tagore, Nehru, Shastri and an old Ramleela procession in Allahabad, shot from Badi Kothi.
Steps from the reception lead up to Room 109, which has a gaukha or ventilator from which the owner Rai Amarnath Agarwal could spot anyone approaching, from the comfort of his bed. I was clearly in august company; Room 102 was where 16th century Bhakti poet Meera Bai stayed – it had a small basement for meditation that could be shuttered with a stone slab. Poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore stayed in Room 108 and never consumed food prepared by anyone else. The room had an antechamber that served as a kitchen where Tagore cooked his own food, and a small library adjacent to the room. Room 205 is known as Shastri Suite. Though Lal Bahadur Shastri was born and schooled in Mughalsarai with a simple paternal home in Varanasi, he had a close association with Allahabad. Story goes that he came as a toddler with his parents for snan at Triveni Sangam during Magh Mela but got lost in the crowd. His parents lodged a complaint at Sangam Police Chowki and when they got news of a child crying in a boat, they rescued him from cowherds whisking him away. After higher education at Kashi Vidyapeeth in Varanasi in 1925 (a degree in philosophy and ethics earned him the honorific title ‘Shastri’), he studied at the University of Allahabad, during which he stayed at Badi Kothi for four years. In 1957 and 1962, he won the assembly elections from Allahabad and raised the slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ at a rally in Allahabad district during the Indo-China war.
There’s another Shastriji associated with Badi Kothi. Every day at 8 pm, Pandit Arjun Sharma or ‘Shastriji’ walks in for his evening recital. An eighth generation musician, he plays the veena and is one of the few musicians in India to play the rare Katyayani veena. Sit near the large chauki (bed) to appreciate music in an intimate setting. There’s a painting of Mata Rani at the in-house shrine, made by Rai Bahadur Agarwal. It is said that if you have a bath at 4 am and chant the Gayatri Mantra seven times you’ll feel the presence of the goddess in the room. The hotel is vegetarian and rustles up delicacies like tehri (veg pulao) and nimona (green pea curry). For authentic local flavours, have breakfast of kachori-sabji and dahi-jalebi at Netram Mulchand and sweets at Heera Halwayi in Civil Lines. In the evening, at the busy Pandit ji ki Chat, savour aloo chat, tamatar chat, fulki (golgappa) and sakoda (spicy curry with palak fritters). Grab the best motichoor laddus at Bhagwan Das Prahlad Das & Sons on Zero Road, en route to the old quarter of Loknath to try namkeens at Hari Ram & Sons and lassi at Raja Ram Lassi.
Triveni Sangam is just 1.5 km from Badi Kothi. Though e-rickshaws ply through the narrow bylanes, it’s a 20-minute walk to the ghats for the 7 pm Ganga Arti near Pontoon Bridge 2. I walked past the temple of Veni Madhav, the nagar devta (town deity) of Prayagraj. The twelve Madhav temples are at various localities – Bindu Madhav near Draupadi Ghat, Manohar Madhav in Johnston, Chakra Madhav near Arail, Srigada Madhav near Cheoki, Padma Madhav near Deoria, Sankathar Madhav near Jhunsi, Shankh Madhav at Munshi’s Garden in Chhatnag, Akshayvat Madhav in the middle of Ganga-Jamuna and Sri Aadi Madhav in the form of water at the confluence of the two rivers. Daraganj is also home to the Anant Madhav and Asi Madhav Nagvasuki shrines. It is believed that the merits of a holy dip at the Sangam for kalpvasis or those who undertake a month-long spiritual retreat by following 21 rules, is obtained only after circumambulating the twelve shrines, a practice that supposedly began in Treta Yuga by Sage Bharadwaj.
A dip at Sangam is incomplete without a darshan of Lete hue Hanuman ji near the fort. According to legend, while returning victorious from Lanka, Lord Hanuman felt tired and Sita Mata asked him to lie down on the banks of the Ganga at Prayag. The temple is about 700 years old and was built by the king of Kannauj. It is believed when Mughal soldiers tried to remove the sculpture, it sank deeper, resulting in the shrine being located at a lower level. A story lurks behind every turn at Prayagraj. The Nag Vasuki temple goes back to the lore of Amrit Manthan. In his kurma (tortoise) avatar, Lord Vishnu formed the base on which Mount Mandarachal was placed and Vasuki the snake was used as a rope to churn the cosmic ocean. The two ends of the snake were held by the Devas and Asuras respectively, and though it yielded many treasures, the churning chafed the skin of the serpent and he was healed only in Prayag. After killing Ravana, Lord Rama is believed to have prayed here to atone for his sin of killing a Brahmin. Adjacent to Nag Vasuki temple is a unique supine sculpture of Bheeshma lying on a bed of arrows during the Mahabharata War – it is the only temple dedicated to Bheeshma Pitamah in the country.
The town has a smattering of sights like Anand Bhavan, the 1927 home of the Nehru-Gandhi clan and Swaraj Bhavan, where Indira Gandhi was born. Within its walls great decisions were taken. Near Bharadwaj Park is the garden where freedom fighter Chandrashekhar Azad took cover behind a tree before he chose to shoot himself rather than surrender to the British. The architectural legacy of the British includes the Gothic All Saints Cathedral, Public Library, Allahabad High Court and Muir Central College or Allahabad University with its magnificent blue dome.
The old quarter of Daraganj was named after wrestlers who practice kushti in the akharas. Besides Ramnavami, Daraganj also hosts a unique marriage procession called ‘Mugdar ki Baaraat’, where the groom is the mugdar, a heavy wooden exercise tool used by Indian wrestlers. To the accompaniment of blaring music and revelry, the ‘groom’ is decked up and paraded through the lanes. The tradition started in 1936 during British rule when there was a ban on playing Holi and people were afraid to leave their houses. To rally the populace, local wrestler Sitaram Pandey strutted out with his mugdar, singing Fagua, the folk song sung during Holi. Emboldened, people followed him and Holi was played with homemade colours made from flowers of tesu/palash (Flame of the Forest), a custom that continues to this day.The town has a smattering of sights like Anand Bhavan, the 1927 home of the Nehru-Gandhi clan and Swaraj Bhavan, where Indira Gandhi was born. Within its walls great decisions were taken. Near Bharadwaj Park is the garden where freedom fighter Chandrashekhar Azad took cover behind a tree before he chose to shoot himself rather than surrender to the British. The architectural legacy of the British includes the Gothic All Saints Cathedral, Public Library, Allahabad High Court and Muir Central College or Allahabad University with its magnificent blue dome.
The old quarter of Daraganj was named after wrestlers who practice kushti in the akharas. Besides Ramnavami, Daraganj also hosts a unique marriage procession called ‘Mugdar ki Baaraat’, where the groom is the mugdar, a heavy wooden exercise tool used by Indian wrestlers. To the accompaniment of blaring music and revelry, the ‘groom’ is decked up and paraded through the lanes. The tradition started in 1936 during British rule when there was a ban on playing Holi and people were afraid to leave their houses. To rally the populace, local wrestler Sitaram Pandey strutted out with his mugdar, singing Fagua, the folk song sung during Holi. Emboldened, people followed him and Holi was played with homemade colours made from flowers of tesu/palash (Flame of the Forest), a custom that continues to this day.
FACT FILE
Getting there:
Fly direct from Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun and Lucknow to Prayagraj Airport, located 12 km from the city at Bamrauli.
When to visit:
The Maha Kumbh Mela, held once in twelve years, will be held from 29 Jan to 8 Mar, 2025.
Where to Stay:
WelcomHeritage Badi Kothi
Veni Madhav Street, Daragunj
Grand Continental Hotel
13, Sardar Patel Marg, Civil Lines
Hotel Kanha Shyam
22/1, Strachey Road, Civil Lines
