HIMALAYAN RAILWAY
REGAL ENGINE

PROVENANCE: WEST BENGAL
STATUS: WORLD HERITAGE
ANTIQUITY: 1881
CENTREPIECE: A 1917-BUILT TEAKWOOD SALOON, ITS OLDEST POSSESSION

Out of the dense white mists around Hill Cart Road, emanates a reluctant chugging sound every morning, and then, as you wait among the hills, slowly comes a train that looks like something "out of a little boy's Christmas stocking". Three tiny compartments, the middle with curtains and ornate ceilings-for first class travellers-and a tiny steam engine are what constitute Darjeeling's toy train. Now, some of them have diesel-powered engines that have slightly diminished their charm. In spite of the dismissive name, it is one of the most important means of transport along the steep inclines of the Himalayan region and a marvel for the rest of the world. Books have been written on how Franklin Prestage, Agent of the Eastern Bengal Railway, decided the Hill Cart Road, the only link between Siliguri in the plains, and Darjeeling at 6,812 feet, was not enough to cope with increasing traffic (in 1881) and proposed a two-feet gauge railway as an alternative. Thus started a project that was to involve building a railway line to unprecedented heights-Ghum, at 7,407 feet, is the highest railway station in India and the second highest in the world. Building along the world's tallest mountains isn't easy, and the line has three loops and six Z reverses. Over 70 per cent of the stretch are curves, with the rail tracks and the road crisscrossing each other at 177 places. There is only one steam engine in service now, plying from Kurseong up the hills to Darjeeling, and the train is mostly populated by rosy-cheeked children who jump in and out of slow moving coaches (at the speed of 8 km an hour) for fun. The train itself, in its quaint splendour, with coal in its open case, a crown around its chute, polished stars on its head and a placard grandly proclaiming it the royalty of the Himalayas, goes full steam ahead.

-By Swagata Sen

MARINE DRIVE
SUNSET BOULEVARD
Sea-water fountains and water walls are part of a Rs 150-crore facelift, but will the now dying palm trees survive?

PROVENANCE: MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA
ANTIQUITY: 1935-1940
A.K.A.: QUEEN'S NECKLACE
NEW NAME: NETAJI SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE ROAD

From its inception on reclaimed land in 1935, when Consulting Town Planner W.R. Davidge's 1921 plan envisaged incorporating wide, open spaces into residential and commercial land-use, to now, Marine Drive, or Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road, stands as Mumbai's most recognisable 3km stretch that encompasses all that is the city of endless opportunities and glittering dreams. From its ubiquitous Victorias that clip-clop on its paved pathways and wait at traffic lights alongside gunning super-bikes, to the silently purring Mercedes Benzes that drive sedately to the luxury hotels lining the boulevard, it has stood witness to a city that may pause for breath but never sleeps. Architect Claude Batley had once called it "a rather badly fitting set of false teeth", but today Mumbai's Miami Mile is all set for a facelift in a proposed Rs 150-crore makeover. But some things can never change. The Art Deco apartments that line the drive hark back to when Mumbai's wealthier classes began to build across the four blocks of Back Bay reclaimed land in 1929, allowing them an unrestricted view of the beloved sea. A breakaway from all things Victorian, the buildings asserted modern universal values. Along with the buildings, the city's earliest concrete road was also laid, enduring till today, part of every Mumbaikar's rain-drenched fantasies.

-By Kimi Dangor

SOMNATH TEMPLE
SYMBOLIC SURVIVAL
The temple has been razed to the ground sixtimes in the past 1,000 years, The last in 1706

PROVENANCE: SOMNATH PATAN, GUJARAT
REBUILT IN: 1995
SIGNIFICANCE: ONE OF 12 JYOTIRLINGS MENTIONED IN THE RIG VEDA

For the last ten centuries, its name has been linked with that of the invader Mahmud Ghaznavi. But few know that the iconoclast was only the first to vandalise Somnath. The fourth attack on Somnath in 1401 by Muzaffar, grandfather of the founder of Ahmedabad, Ahmadshah, was most memorable. A 16-year-old and newly married Rajput chieftain, Hamirji Gohil of Lathi, sacrificed his life defending Somnath-his cenotaph still stands at the entrance. Legend has it that Lord Som (moon) was cursed to wane by his father-in-law Dakshprajapati for being partial to one of his 27 daughters whom Som had married. As a result the moon started losing its shine. To shrug off the curse, Lord Brahma advised Som to do penance in the Prabhas region (the area where Somnath is located) and appease Lord Shiva. As Som realised his aim, he requested Lord Shiva to grace the Prabhas area with his permanent presence. Thus the temple came to be known as Somnath or the temple to protect the Moon God. In its latest and seventh incarnation completed in 1995, the temple built in the Solanki era style, bears testimony to the power of creation always being greater than the power of destruction.

-By Uday Mahurkar

CHITTORGARH FORT
RAJPUT RAMPARTS
The fort has seven gates, was ransacked thrice, and returned to the Mewar royals by Jehangir in 1616

PROVENANCE: CHITTOR, RAJASTHAN
ANTIQUITY: 700 AD
SIGNIFICANCE: IT WAS THE CAPITAL OF MEWAR RULERS, INCLUDING SISODIAS, FOR 900 YEARS

Even its walls tell tales. Of Rana Ratan Singh, who spent years looking for Padmini and then fighting to death to save her from Alaudin Khilji; of Padmini, leading a band of 13,000 women to their deaths; of Meerabai devoting herself to the love of Krishna; of Maharana Pratap Singh refusing a treaty with Akbar and the comforts of his Udaipur palace to wage a war to win back a ruined Chittorgarh. Ensconced within the 28 sq km of the city is a 37 metre tall tower built by Rana Kumbha to commemorate his victory over Malwa's Mahmud Khilji in 1440; Kirti Stambh dedicated to the first Jain tirthankar, Adinath; the Padmini palace; and even a deer sanctuary. The fort atop a 180 metre high hill, once a seat of power for Mewar, stands tall and proud. Ruins rarely reveal how encompassing the reality was but Chittorgarh Fort, which was steadfast while other Rajput states brokered peace, is more than a mere echo. Having witnessed the sieges of 1303 by Khilji, 1535 by Sultan Bahadur Shah, and 1567 by Akbar, it remains a hidden jewel in India's tortuous medieval history. Akbar's attack, a deadly aggression that saw the death of 30,000 people, saw Maharana Udai Singh moving the capital to Udaipur, never to return to the city his predecessors had once proudly inhabited.

-By Rohit Parihar

BHAKRA NANGAL
POWERHOUSE EFFECT
The dam has a catchment area of 56,980 sq km, of which 37,050 sq km lies in Tibet

PROVENANCE: PUNJAB
ANTIQUITY: 1963
SIGNIFICANCE: IT HAS NURTURED THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC GROWTH OF NORTH INDIA

An idea triggered by the leap of a leopard. In November 1908, Lt Governor of Punjab Sir Louis Denn was traveling from Shimla to Ropar via Bilaspur when he saw a leopard leap across the river Sutlej that led him to build a dam at the spot. A year later, a committee surveyed the spot and drew up a plan to build a dam at the cost of Rs 3.72 crore. Though the project was shelved, the idea never died. In 1948, after Independence, the proposal was revived. For eight years after construction began in 1955, 13,000 workers, 300 engineers and 30 foreign experts worked round-the-clock to complete the dam named after the village Bhakra. As many as 151 men lost their lives working on the 222.55 ft high engineering marvel, the highest in Asia and the second highest in the world at the cost of Rs 283.90 crore. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who inaugurated the project in 1963 memorably called Bhakra "the new temple of resurgent India"and "something tremendous, something stupendous and something which shakes you up when you see it." Roughly 50 to 60 per cent water in the dam comes from melting snow. With two power houses of an installed capacity of 990 mw and a massive irrigation potential, Bhakra has been a trend setter in power generation and contributed to the Green Revolution in Punjab. It is also a byword for independent India's self-reliance.

-By Ramesh Vinayak

AJMER SHARIF
SHRINE OF SECULARISM
5,000 devotees visit the Sufi mosque every day, and the annual Urs attracts 15 lakh people

PROVENANCE: AJMER, RAJASTHAN
BUILT IN: 1545
ALSO HAS: AN EXQUISITE, MARBLE MOSQUE BUILT BY SHAHJAHAN

Syed Mohammad Fakhar Jamali Chisti, 25, is a young khadim (attendant) at Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti's tomb. He, like 1,500 others, is carrying on his ancestral tradition of taking devotees around for prayers and maintaining the dargah. Having grown up around the shrine's medieval narrow lanes, he seems almost defensive about it. "One of my cousins is pursuing engineering and another-besides studying-is modelling in Mumbai," he says. And the family also knows a farmhouse. Unlike him, the Dargah is suspended in time. Built by Humayun, it embodies the Sufi tradition founded in India by Chisti, who arrived in Ajmer at the age of 52 in 1190 AD when Prithviraj Chauhan's power was at its peak. Two years later, the Afghan raider Mohammed Ghauri defeated him, the last Hindu king of India. Ajmer remained Akbar's war capital to defeat the princely states of Rajasthan and legend has it that the emperor travelled on foot from Agra when his son Salim was born. For centuries, the dargah has played host to Mughal emperors (Jehangir is said to have offered a cauldron big enough to cook food for 2,500 people), an English empress (Queen Mary visited in 1911 and built a roof over the tank), and modern celebrities, big and small. Pilgrims are allowed right upto the mazhar and that is enough to achieve one's heart's desire.

-By Rohit Parihar

BOMBAY STOCK EXCHANGE
MONEY MATTERS
Rs 4,350 crore is the average daily turnover of stocks traded on the BSE

PROVENENCE: MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA
BUILT IN: 1981
MOST RECENT HIGH: 12,611.71 POINTS ON MAY 11, 2006

India's equity cult emerged rather restfully 131 years ago when 22 brokers got together to begin trading under the shade of a banyan tree in Horniman Circle, with a princely investment of Re 1 each, opposite the Town Hall of Bombay. In 1875, the alliance was formalised under the Native Share Brokers' Association and Bombay Stock Exchange earned the proud distinction of becoming the first stock exchange in Asia. In January 1899, the association hired a trading hall in Dalal Street at Rs 100 a month but when it went broke, Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit bailed it out. In gratitude, the trading hall was named after him. The membership fee? Rs 15 then. Now? Rs 1 crore. The imposing Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers, the shorthand for India's commercial capital was built only in 1980 and occupied a year later. A circular annexe known as the Rotunda was built in 1992, becoming the new home of the trading hall. Just a year later, the iconic structure was forever emblazoned on the nation's psyche when terrorists targeted it on March 12, 1993. The judgement on the case is currently underway. The Jeejeebhoy Towers was only slightly damaged and trading resumed after the weekend break. The biggest bourse in terms of listed companies and market capitalisation is also, clearly, the bravest.

-By Malini Bhupta

NATHULA
GATEWAY TO CHINA
Among the highest mountain passes in the world, Nathula is at 14,400 feet in the Himalayas

PROVENANCE: SIKKIM-TIBET BORDER
CLOSED IN: 1962
OPENED IN: 2006
MADE FAMOUS BY: COLONEL SIR FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND WHOSE INCURSION TO LHASA OPENED THE DOOR TO THE ROOF OF THE WORLD IN 1903

Motilall Lakhotia, a hardy 80-year-old Marwari, who runs hotel Tashi Delek in Sikkim's capital Gangtok, remembers the arduous mule treks via Nathula-the path of the listening ear-half a century ago. His hands froze till he couldn't grasp the reins of his mule. "It was good business," he reminisces. Trade was hugely profitable-merchants earned up to three times the production costs. Lakhotia hawked construction material, utensils, blankets, eatables and even jeeps and Ambassador cars, knocked down and shipped on mule-back, in Lhasa. Trade on the fabled Silk Route halted soon after the Red Army inflicted a crushing blow on the unprepared Indian army in 1962. It would lead to nearly four decades of hostility across the barbed wire. But a lot has changed in the four decades with the two Asian giants deciding to reopen the pass in a sign of thawing ties earlier this year. The narrow paths, which in Lakhotia's day saw members of opposing mule caravans battling to death, have given way to tarred roads. Mao has been replaced by posters of Tibetan scenery. India has subtly taken down the signs pointing to "enemy territory". Lakhotia's clan is back in business. While the Chinese side brings yak tails and yak hair, goat cashmere, wool, goat skins, horses, borax, butter, salt and, yes, silk. Indian merchants cart watches, bicycles, shoes, farm implements, clothes, coffee, tea and spices. Anything else wouldn't look fashionable on the Silk Route.

-By Sandeep Unnithan

SABARMATI ASHRAM
WHERE TRUTH LIES
The museum at the ashram has nearly 35,000 books and over 34,000 manuscripts, apart from 6,000 photographs

PROVENANCE: AHMEDABAD, GUJARAT
BUILT IN: 1917
SIGNIFICANCE: HOME TO MAHATMA GANDHI AND HIS MANY EXPERIMENTS FROM 1917 TO 1930

"This is the right place for our activities to carry on the search for truth and develop fearlessness. For on one side, are the iron bolts of the foreigners, and on the other, thunderbolts of Mother Nature." This is how Mahatma Gandhi described the site of Sabarmati Ashram when he first visited it in 1917 to assess if it was suitable for his work. On one side of the ashram was the Ahmedabad jail and the other side was the Sabarmati river. The Sabarmati Ashram was home to Gandhi from 1917 to 1930. His many experiments, from ambar charkha to traditional agro-farming, started here. Various buildings inside the ashram-the Hridayakunj where Gandhi stayed, the Nandini guesthouse and the Udhyog mandir, home to many of the Mahatma's experiments-are strong reminders of India's freedom struggle. A new museum, designed by Charles Correa and housing a library with nearly 35,000 books and an archive with over 34,000 manuscripts and 6,000 photographs, was added to the ashram in 1963. Gandhi left the ashram in 1930 on his march to Dandi vowing to return only after India attained Independence, but as circumstances would have it, he couldn't. Today, the ashram signifies the universal truth: while fighting external oppression, the struggle for internal cleansing must go on.

-By Uday Mahurkar

JEWELS OF NIZAM
STUDDED WITH HISTORY
A pair of bracelets has 270 diamonds and 22 emeralds. a belt sports 245 diamonds.

PROVENANCE: HYDERABD, ANDHRA PRADESH
ANTIQUITY: PLACED IN VAULTS OF MUMBAI'S MERCANTILE BANK IN 1948
CURRENT RESTING PLACE: SALAR JUNG MUSEUM, HYDERABAD
CENTREPIECE: JACOB DIAMOND

As the 400-odd daily visitors shuffle their feet to peer through the gleaming showcases in the green chandeliered hall, the last proud owner-Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh and last Nizam of Hyderabad-looks down from a life-size portrait in the Salar Jung Museum. The exquisite collection of 173 pieces of rare value is estimated to cost about Rs 2,500 crore. The centrepiece is the amazing uncut Jacob Diamond, one of the seven biggest in the world. Twice the size of the legendary Kohinoor, the 184.75 carat diamond was mined in Africa in 1867, bought by the sixth Nizam, Mahboob Ali Khan, in 1891, and used as a paperweight by his son Osman Ali Khan. It gets its name from a Shimla trader who sold it to the Nizam's family. Necklaces, turban ornaments, earrings, armbands, belts, cufflinks, buttons, rings, arm and feet ornaments worn by the royal family abound in a treasure trove for which the Indian Government paid Rs 217.81 crore to the Nizam's family after the Supreme Court-following a 16-year legal battle with the family-decided to accord it national heritage status in 1995. On display at the National Museum, Delhi, in 2001, these were shifted to Hyderabad, appropriately enough for what was once the capital of the 224-year-old Asaf Jahi dynasty.

-By Amarnath K.Menon

TAJ MAHAL
ICONIC IMAGE
A team of 20,000 artisans worked for nearly two decades to build the Taj

PROVENANCE: AGRA, UTTAR PRADESH
ANTIQUITY: 1545
TRIVIA TRAIL: THE FOUR MINARETS OF THE TAJ ARE ANGLED 88 DEGREES OUTWARDS TO PREVENT COLLAPSE DURING AN EARTHQUAKE

When the bereaved fifth Mughal emperor Shahjahan commissioned the spectacular marble mausoleum for his wife Arjumand Bano aka Mumtaz Mahal, he intended it to be unique-so inimitable, argues legend, that he lopped the hands of the craftsmen who built it. Now, it means everything from tea bags to Donald Trump's garish monument to Mammon, the marble-domed Trump Taj Mahal casino resort. Is brand Taj doomed? Not in Agra. Emerging through the winding queues of raucous tourists, doorframe metal detectors and pat-down security checks, the Taj hits you like a diamond-tipped bullet. Just as it does to over a million visitors each year who brave the heat, touts, beggars and an ugly host city to bask in its glow. Everything you've heard about the serene onion-domed octagonal marble structure, probably the world's most beautiful building, is true. Embedded in a sprawling green Mughal Garden on the right bank of the Yamuna, the complex is a splash of colours. Thousands of artisans laboured for nearly two decades to fuse diverse styles-Persian, Indian and Turkish-in a testament to symmetry. Mosaic work with delicately inlaid precious stones and vining floral themes, Quranic inscriptions and four minarets, each 42 metres high, flanking the spectacular central dome. For a funeral shrine, the Taj Mahal is pretty celebratory. "The Taj must be seen," Salman Rushdie says, "to remind us that the world is real, that the sound is truer than the echo, the original more forceful than its image in a mirror."

-By Sandeep Unnithan

PRITHVI THEATRE
STAGE LIGHTS
Around 65,000 people visit the prithvi theatre every year and the average audience per show is about 80 per cent of the capacity

ANTIQUITY: 1944
PROVENANCE: MUMBAI
SIGNIFICANCE: IT OFFERS A NON-PROFIT SPACE TO NURTURE TALENT

When Prithviraj Kapoor came to India from Peshawar as a 21-year-old, he started what would have a great influence on the development of theatre and cinema in the country: Prithvi Theatre. Set up in 1944 as a travelling theatre group of 150 actors, stagehands, cooks, writers and technicians, they performed plays like Deewar, Pathan, Ghaddar and Kisan for 16 years throughout the country. Prithviraj's ultimate aim was to build a theatre which would provide amateur groups with professional facilities, but his dream remained unfulfilled in his lifetime. Six years after his death in 1972, though, his youngest son Shashi Kapoor and daughter-in-law Jennifer Kendall gave shape to "Papaji's" dreams and launched Prithvi Theatre as a non-profit performance space to nurture talent. Jennifer's last words were "the lights in Prithvi must keep burning", a poignant moment noted in Prithviwallahs, a book penned by Shashi Kapoor and film-writer Deepa Gahlot. In its 28 years, Prithvi has played a major role in promoting Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati drama in Mumbai. The 200-seat theatre holds over 400 performances a year, by over 50 groups and hosts an annual Prithvi Festival-an event, started in 1983, that theatre-goers across the country look forward to.

-By Kimi Dangor

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