Part 4 Dholbaha

The wheel of Time turns,

Slowly but surely it turns.

Raising cities on its upturn,

Reducing them to dust on its downturn.

       Dhobaha stands as a mute testimony to this

.

       When Ushaakka and I were planning our Punjab trip, we came across Dhobaha on the official Punjab Tourism site.  We read that excavations in Hoshiarpur district had thrown up evidences that the region had been inhabited from the Paleolithic period. Also there was evidence ( artifacts) of settlement(s) during the Indus Valley Civilization period and 1000 year old artifacts of  Gandhara Art had been found.  ‘Among the sites, most well known is Dholbaha.  Evidence has been found of a flourishing temple town that existed between 700-1200 A. D.’. This fired my imagination and Ushaakka soon caught my enthusiasm.

       ‘The Indus Valley Civilization’ was the first chapter in Class 9 history, I had taught for ages. To make the topic more interesting, I had shown my students various short documentaries about the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Memories of my visit to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt further strengthened my imagination. I pictured Dholbaha to be a place where people (under the supervision of archeologists) were busy digging. There would be short exposed walls made of sun dried bricks which were the foundations of the houses that once stood there, the foundation of the temple around which the town had grown- in fact there was no end to my imagination. (I think I was influenced by movies about British/American archeologists going on excavating expeditions to Egypt or South America.)

       Vaman bhavaji contacted Jeet Travels (a travel agent) in Amritsar, gave a list of places we’d like to visit in Punjab and asked him to draw up an itinerary for us. So just imagine our disappointment when he replied that he had not heard of Dhobaha, in fact nobody seemed aware of the place.  Vamabhavaji wrote back saying that we had read about it on the Punjab Tourism site and we were very keen on going there. When we got our final itinerary, we were happy to note that Dholbaha was included.

      At Chandigarh, we discussed the itinerary with Mr Devi Singh, our driver. He said that he’d never heard of that place, he had not taken any tourist there, but “Aapko jaana hai tho le jaayenge. Lekin poochna padega.”

       The first thing we did after checking in at Hoshiarpur was ask the manger of our hotel about Dhobaha. He, though living in Hoshiarpur, had no clue as to what we were talking about. Vamanbhavaji showed him pictures from the tourism site on his mobile, but still we drew a blank.  As is common, when we were talking, others came over to ask questions and  give their view. One of them said that there was a person from Dholbaha working in the hotel. We were most excited on hearing this. The manager told us to go to our rooms, freshen up and by then he’d send for the Dholbaha man (as he was being referred to) and we could talk to him.

      The Dholbaha man was also quite excited that we wanted to visit his town He questioned us to how we had heard about it. He then told us that yes, that there were some ’toota phoota’ things kept there and it was said that they were ‘prachin kaal ke’. He gave us the directions to reach Dhobaha and he spoke to Devi Singh too.

    We (including Devi Singh) set off in great excitement. At last we had met someone who not only knew about this place but actually lived there.  I was visualizing excavation pits and lots of ancient and pre-historic artifacts.  

      After driving for a long time and travelling about 70 km, (wondering if we were on the wrong road at times) we finally reached Dholbaha and  Devi Singh stopped the car near an old, rusted iron gate.  We got out of the car and reality struck and I was brought down to earth – there were no temple ruins, no excavation pits.  On asking, Devi Singh told us that this was exactly the place as directed by the Dholbaha man. We entered through the gate and walked up a dusty, mud path to a flight of stone steps leading up to a stone buiding.  We went up the steps to the building. Devi Singh too accompanied us.  “Mai bhi dekhoo ye kya hai  jisse dekhne ke liye aap itna pooch-taaj karke aaye hai.” 

      The building (if it could be 

called as such) also appeared to be ‘toota-phoota’. It was a big room with just the walls- no ceiling, no flooring, no windows or doors. There was a big banyan tree growing in the centre of the hall. At the entrance to the building was a notice stating that the building and all things in it belonged to the Punjab State Government and a fine of Rs 5000/- would be levied if anything was desecrated. There was not a soul in sight, though we saw a small shed like room with locked doors and a dog outside it.

       We entered the hall and were astounded by what we saw. Lying around (actually kept neatly in rows) were beautiful artifacts – pieces of lintel carved with flower creepers, panels carved with elephants, dancing girls, birds etc. small figurines of women, small panels depicting a yogi sitting in the lotus position with a snake round his neck another similar one, with no snake but a trishul- obviously Shiva, and attractively carved bases and capitals of pillars.  As we wandered around admiring and taking pictures, a man suddenly appeared. He introduced himself as the curator of the museum. He was extremely surprised to see us. He said that no tourist ever comes there and wondered how we had heard about this place. We told him the whole story and he was impressed by the keen interest we had shown. He said that it saddened him that very few people today had any interest in our history and heritage. He took us around and when asked about the excavations told us that it had been stopped. Some ashram claimed that the site of the excavation belonged to them and had sued the archaeology department. Now the matter was under litigation and the court had passed a stay order. He pointed to a  small fenced in area behind the museum (construction stopped due to the stay order) and said that, that was the excavated temple and we could visit it.  He requested us not to post the pictures of the artifacts on any social networking site, the reason being lack of security at the museum and the pieces were all quite small. Anyone could easily walk off with one or two. (He was not aware that the Tourism Department had posted attractive pictures of these very same artifacts on their site.)

   

     He then took us to the shed-room, and unlocked the door. That was real treasure house. It had a few, but extremely lovely pieces. These he kept under lock and key as they were the best of the finds and very valuable.  One was the face of a woman, which I immediately recognized as belonging to the Gandhara School (teaching features of the various schools of art and setting questions on it stood in good stead). The curator confirmed my guess and told us that the face of the woman, carved in white granite, was found in a farmer’s house. Pieces were turning up while ploughing the land. He then narrated the history of Dholabaha. There had been settlements in the region from the Paleolithic age as the land was fertile and had plenty of water.  Long back, there was a mighty flood which washed away the town. The survivors (if any) did not return and slowly over centuries Dholbaha got covered with the silt brought down by the rivers and got converted into a flood plain.  The land regained its fertility. Hundreds of years later, people once again settled here and the present town of Dholbaha came into being.  Recently, the Dhobaha dam has been constructed near here for irrigation purposes. The reservoir, spread over acres of land has covered and drowned land which was rich in history. So those sites of civilization are lost to us forever. 

     We thanked him for everything and he thanked us for visiting Dholbaha. We were glad that we had taken the trouble to question so many people about Dholbaha. It was worth the trip. It made us proud to think of the riches we have literally lying around and sad that so few people including our government is interested in preserving them. The artifacts are left in the open to the vagaries of nature; there is no write up about the history or culture and heritage of this lost settlement. Shockingly, there is no security for these invaluable pieces and so much is spouted about preserving our culture and heritage and tradition, and not letting it be tainted by western influences!

       Dholbaha, once a flourishing temple town, is today a small, forgotten hamlet known only to a few historians and archaeologists.  If the litigation continues, it might soon be forgotten by historians and history too.