Unheard, Unseen, Unkept...The Story Of Numerous Indian Monuments

It's New Year's Eve. Peak holiday season. In sight, a towering palace. What's missing? People!

The palace is at Datia, an hour's drive from Gwalior. Known as the Bir Singh Deo Palace, it is a seven-story structure representing a fusion of Mughal and Rajput architecture. It is believed that the palace was built by the namesake ruler of Orchha, Bir Singh Ji Deo, to welcome Jahangir. It was used only for one night when the Mughal emperor's entourage made a pit stop at the palace on their way to Orchha, about 50 kilometres from Datia.

For the palace, little has changed since. Uninhabited then, forlorn now. No tourists, no guides, no signage, and little sign of activity except for a lone ticket seller in a small cabin outside the palace. Inside the palace, banners with India's logo for the G-20 are the only telltale sign of recent human presence. 

Domestic travel is back with a vengeance, but it seems to be mostly limited to a few popular tourist spots.

"National, state, and local apathy and corruption, vandalism, lack of awareness, high encroachment around these sites, and limited food and lodging options—, all continue to hold back tourism to numerous such sites in Madhya Pradesh," said Jitendra Kumar Ricchariya, a licenced guide in nearby Orchha.

The state accounts for 3.8% of all domestic tourist visits in 2021, according to the India tourism statistics for 2022. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh alone accounted for nearly half of all domestic tourist visits in 2021, at about 47%. Before the onset of the pandemic, in 2019, too, the three states made up over half of all domestic tourist visits, at nearly 55%.

"Trendy leisure domestic destinations this year were places like Kashmir, Goa, Udaipur, Andaman and Nicobar," said Aloke Bajpai, chief executive officer and co-founder at Ixigo, an online travel portal. Cultural destinations like Varanasi saw more than a 50% rise in search queries for train travel this year, while Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh witnessed one of the highest comebacks with more than a 200% increase in train search queries for summer travel, he said.

According to the India tourism statistics report, the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, and Qutub Minar account for approximately 30% of all domestic visits, both before and after the pandemic. This is despite the presence of 144 centrally protected and ticketed monuments by the Archeological Survey of India.

Centuries after it was built, the Taj Mahal remains an eternal symbol of love. Around the palace at Datia too, the guides at Jai Vilas' palace enthrall visitors with stories of unparalleled luxury. A favourite among visitors is how elephants were made to walk over the Darbar hall's ceiling for seven days to test if the ceiling could take the weight of two custom-made crystal chandeliers that weighed 3.5 tonnes each, making them the largest in the world. Orchha, with its revered temples, needs little else, while at Khajuraho, local guides tout the temple complexes to have been the best PR for Hindu religion.

Unfortunately, most of the monuments, like the palace at Datia, have no such claims to fame, falling further into obscurity and oblivion.

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