I spent my most of the life so far in Bundelkhand and Uttranchal region of the Uttar Pradesh. These two places are common in so many aspects. Both regions are having a different but rich Cultural and Traditions. And both places are India's most under developed regions. On one hand Bundelkhand region is famous for its historical background, the Uttrakhand region is known for its scenic beauty and India's most prefered tourist place. Uttrakhand is situated on the Himalayas and a cold place whereas Bundelkhand region is known for it extreme hot season during summer and extreme cold during winter season.
 

Bundelkhand - the area defined by the craggy Vindhya Mountains, which stretch across southern Up - was carved by the ninth-century Chandella Rajputs into a mighty kingdom that included Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh. Today, it abounds in relics of the past - the colossal astrologically aligned fortress at Kalinjar, the Chandella capital of Mahoba, the Vaishnavite pilgrimage centre of Chitrakut, and the fortified town of Jhansi, scene of epic nineteenth-century resistance to the British. However, the sheer difficulty of the terrain, and the all but unbearable heat in the summer, make this the most difficult region of the state to explore.

The entire region of Bundelkhand is full of historical events. Even after 50 years of independence, this region is still under developed so despite of some very good tourist places like Khajuraho, Orchha, Jhansi, Chitrakut, Kalinger , etc  this place has not come up very well on tourist map of India. In fact this region gave so many poets, writes to the world like Tulsi Das, Rashtra Kavi Maithili Sharan Gupt, Vrandavan Lal Verma, Maha Kavi Keshav to name a few. Maharaja Chatrasal is known to every house due to his bravary. This region was work place for freedom fighters like Chandra Shelkhar Azad, and Rani of Jhansi, Laxmi bai , during 1857 freedom struggle.  In entire Bundelkhand, there are about 100 forts that are not maintained at all by the government departments.

In fact, the labyrinthine hills and valleys along the border with Madhya Pradesh are also the most difficult region to govern, and even today are home to infamous bands of  outlaw dacoits. Many of these brigands have become folk-heroes among local villagers, who shelter them from the almost equally brutal police force. The most celebrated in recent years was Phoolan Devi, the "Bandit Queen", who, as revenge  for being raped, massacred the men of an entire village in 1981, eventually surrendered to the police, and was released in 1994. She is now active in politics. The past couple  of years has seen the rise of a fledgling and uncertain movement for a semi-autonomous region of Bundelkhand, separate from both Up and Madhya Pradesh.
 
   

Unless you harbour a passion for seventeenth-century forts, you'll find the rail- and  road-junction town of Jhansi, located in an anomalous promontory of UP that thrusts south into Madhya Pradesh, unremittingly dull. Most visitors only stop long enough to catch a connecting bus to Khajuraho, 175km further southeast in Madhya Pradesh.

Until 1742, Jhansi was a sleepy satellite village of the Bundela capital at nearby Orchha, 18km southeast. When the local Raja died without a male heir in 1853, the British enacted the controversial Principle of Lapse to wrest control of the town from his widow. Four years later, resentment at this colonial opportunism bubbled over into a full-blown rebellion, sparked off by the Mutiny at Kanpur. Once the uprising had been put down by the British, they handed Jhansi over to Maharaja Scindia in exchange for Gwalior, in 1861, then reclaimed it 25 years later.

In common with many former British cities, Jhansi is divided into two distinct areas: the wide tree-lined avenues, leafy gardens and bungalows of the Cantonment and Civil Lines to the west, and the clutter of brick and concrete cubes, narrow lanes, minarets and shikharas of the old town to the east.

Dominating it all from a bare brown craggy hill, Jhansi fort (daily dawn-dusk; Rs0.25; Fri free) is the obvious place to head if you've time to kill. Built in 1613 by one of the Orchha Rajas, Bir Singh Joo Deo, it's worth visiting primarily for the views from the lofty ramparts - down to the densely packed old town on one side, and out across a dusty maidan and the Cantonment to the other. The legendary Rani of Jhansi was supposed to have leapt over the west wall on horseback when she escaped from the British - if so, she must have had a pretty unusual horse. Inside the fort are a couple of unremarkable temples, plus an old cistern and the ruins of a palace. The only other attraction is the bizarre model of the 1857 siege of Jhansi fort recently installed beside the main road on the south slope of the hill. An accompanying interpretative panel recounts the story of the battle in very colourful English. 
   

Deep in the heart of Bundelkhand, in a remote region 150km west of Allahabad and 53km south of Banda, the abandoned star-shaped fortress of Kalinjar looks down on the Gangetic Valley from the final escarpments of the craggy Vindhya Hills. Little remains of its huge fortifications, save sections of battlements around the rim of the high forested plateau. Overlooking the dusty town of the same name, much of the fort has been reclaimed by dry shrubby forest, populated by monkeys. Once grand avenues are now rocky footpaths that wind through the few remaining dilapidated buildings.

Possibly one of the oldest forts in India, referred to by Ptolemy as Kanagora, Kalinjar may have started life as a hill shrine before it was converted into a fortress; now devoid of military significance, it is once again becoming a place of worship. Kalinjar is known to have been a stronghold of the Chandellas (ninth to twelfth centuries AD), the creators of Khajuraho, who left their mark in stone sculptures around the temple of Nilkantha, below the western battlements. This strategic location attracted repeated Muslim onslaughts; Mahmud of Ghazni laid unsuccessful siege in 1023, Qutb-ud-din-Aibak destroyed several temples in his conquest of 1202, and Humayun spent fifteen years trying to capture the fort. After Sher Shah Suri, who temporarily wrested power from the Moghuls, died when an exploding shell ignited gunpowder as he attacked Kalinjar in 1545, his son went on to take the fortress. Even the British occupied it for a while, before its strategic importance was finally exhausted, and it was left to decay.

Each of the seven gates, sheltered by barbicans, that pierces the walls of Kalinjar symbolizes one of the seven planets. Steep steps lead straight up from Kalinjar village, in the valley at the northern base of the fort, to the main gate, known as the Alam Darwaza. To the southeast, an unkempt boulder-strewn road gradually climbs across the hillside to approach the southernmost Panna Gate, where rock carvings depict seven deer. Beyond Lal Darwaza to the east, the Bara Darwaza or "Large Gate" is flanked by two iron cannons. Beneath it, in the artificial cave of Sita Sej, a stone couch dating from the fourth century holds some of Kalinjar's earliest inscriptions.

Colossal rambling battlements provide sweeping views of the Gangetic plain to the north and the Vindhya hills to the south, hiding the crumbling remains of a fortress that is almost 1.5km long. Tracing the faint marks of the old avenues, you arrive at its heart, littered with roofless and devastated buildings. Kot Tirth, a ceremonial tank with stone steps, is the largest of several bodies of water on the plateau, and still in frequent use by villagers and pilgrims. Above it, beyond a small Hanuman shrine, stands the well-preserved palace-like Raja Mansingh Mahal. Further west, beside the bougainvillea-fringed road that passes the PWD bungalow, the small British graveyard holds a monument to Andrew Wauchope, the first Commissioner of Bundelkhand. Paths through desultory woodland head to a gate overlooking the western flank, where steep steps flanked by rock carvings wind down from the massive stone battlements to the temple of Nilkantha - the "Blue Throated One", an epithet of Shiva. Although the temple has lost its roof, its mandapa (forechamber) sports some beautifully carved stone pillars. Its main shrine is housed within a cave - a lingam, worn smooth over centuries. Trickles from the rocky hill drain out near the neck of the image, keeping it perpetually wet.

To the left of the main shrine, within the temple compound, a five-metre-high low-relief rock carving, of primeval intensity, portrays Bhairava, the wrathful emanation of Shiva as Destroyer, sporting four arms and brandishing weapons. A gap in the retaining wall provides access to the steps back down to the village. Above the pool of Bhairan Kund, adjoining the temple, a walkway leads along the face of the large stone buttresses that fall in tiers from the edge of a plateau to a point where rainwater seeps into a cave. Steps hewn into the rock allow bathers into the flooded interior, supported by carved pillars dating from the Chandella period. Although the cave is no longer than 10m, swimming in the deep water beneath its low roof is an eerie experience.

The large sprawling town of chitrakut standson the banks of the Mandakini,128km southwest of Allahabad and 116km east of Mahoba. Together with its twin town of Karbi, 8km east, Chitrakut, known also as Sitapur or Chitrakut Dham, is a major Vaishnavite pilgrimage centre. In the Ramayana,Rama, his wife Sita, and his brother Lakshmana, sought refuge in a forest that covered this entire area, after being banished from Ayodhya.

Most of Chitrakut's religious and leisure activity revolves around the small, charming, and very central Ramghat, where boats with electric-blue mattresses and pillows create a pretty picture against a backdrop of ashrams and ghats to either side of the narrow, slow-moving river. Half-hour boat trips cost around Rs2 per person or Rs12  per boat. Among the pilgrim shops and cafes nearby are several temples, such as the new Tulsibedi, dedicated to the poet saint who apparently spent time here. This was built on the site of an earlier shrine, located in an extended cave up an alley off the ghat. Steps above the ghat lead to the Math Gajendranath Shiva temple, and its picturesque river views. Taking a rickshaw beside the Mandakini to Sitapur enables you to see several more riverside temples, as well as waterfront ghats much like Ramghat.

Pilgrims to Chitrakut traditionally perform the Parikrama, or ritual circumambulation of the wooded hill of Kamedgiri, 3km southwest of town. On its course around the base of the hill, the five-kilometre path passes numerous temples and shrines, including the big Kantanath Swami temple, which holds a modern image of Rama and Sita and a more venerated monolithic stone image, black and embellished with large eyes. A long flight of stairs at the Hanumandhara hill shrine, 6km east, leads up to a large image of the monkey god Hanuman, a companion of the trio from the Ramayana.

Several further shrines linked with the Ramayana are tucked away in the region south of Chitrakut. The major Janki Kund temple ("pool of Janki", Janki being another name for Sita) is just 2km south of Chitrakut on the Satna road, on the border with Madhya Pradesh. This rocky pool was where Rama's wife bathed in the Mandakini; a path above it leads through a complex of ashrams and shrines to a small footbridge that crosses the picturesque river to the wooded far bank.

Further down the main road, 2km south, a path through a similar complex of ashrams leads to the large flat rock of Sphatekshila, protruding onto the river, where Sita used to sit. It supposedly bears the impressions of the feet of Rama which you are advised not to step on. This idyllic spot, with its ghats surrounded by large trees, and woods on the other side of the river, powerfully evokes the legend of the vanvasi - the forest dwellers that the exiled Rama, Lakshmana and Sita became. Overlooked by dramatic rocky cliffs where the river Mandakini emerges from thick forest cover, Sati Anasuya, 14km south of Chitrakut, is by far the most beautiful of all the holy sites. 
 

Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of a principality called Jhansi in northern India, led an uprising against a takeover of her homeland by the British. She became a heroine and a symbol of resistance to the British rule.

Lakshmi Bai was born around 1830 into a wealthy, high-caste family. She was named Manukarnika,  which is one of the names of the holy river Ganges. As a young woman, she learned to read, write and debate. She also learned to ride horses and use weapons while playing with her adopted brothers. She accepted the name Lakshmi Bai when she married Gangadhar Rao, the maharajah of Jhansi and became the Rani (short for maharani, the wife of maharajah) of Jhansi.

Gangadhar Rao was between forty and fifty years of age at the time of their wedding. This was his second marriage. His first wife died without producing an heir. The new Rani of Jhansi gave birth to a son, but he died when he was three months old. Subsequently, Damodar Rao, Gangadhar's relative, became their adopted son. In 1853, Gangadhar Rao died.

The Governor-General of India, the Marquess of Dalhousie, announced that since Gangadhar Rao left no heir, the state of Jhansi would be annexed by the British Government. The British rejected the claim that Damodar Rao was the legal heir. According to Hindu law, little Damodar Rao was Gangadhar's heir and successor. In the Hindu religion, a surviving son, either biological or adopted, had an obligation to perform certain sacrifices after his father's death to prevent his father from being condemned to punishment or hell. The refusal of the British to acknowledge the legitimacy of Rajah's adopted son caused a serious consternation in the local population. Rani appealed her case to London, but that appeal was turned down.

Not wishing to give up her kingdom, Lakshmi Bai assembled a volunteer army of 14,000 rebels and ordered that defenses of the city itself be strengthened. Jhansi was attacked by the British in March 1858. Shelling of Jhansi was fierce and the British were determined not to allow any rebels to escape while Rani was determined not to surrender. The British noted that the Indian soldiers fighting them showed more vigor than they ever had while following British orders. Women were also seen working the batteries and carrying ammunition, food and water to the soldiers. Rani, herself, was seen constantly active in the defense of the city. Jhansi, however, fell to the British forces after a two week siege. A priest from Bombay who witnessed the British victory, said that what followed were four days of fire, pillage, murder and looting without distinction. He said it was difficult to breathe due to strong smell of burning flesh. British historians, on the other hand, suggested that while four to five thousand people died in battle, the civilians were spared. The Rani managed to escape on horseback under the cover of darkness and within twenty-four hours rode over one hundred miles to the fortress of Kalpi. Several other Indian rulers joined the rebel forces there. It is believed that the Rani was influential in convincing the others to go on the offensive and seize the fortress of Gwalior. This maneuver was successful and helped rally the rebel forces together.

It wasn't long, however, before the British forces determined to win Gwalior back. A fierce battle ensued. Rani was in charge of the eastern side of defense, however she lost her life on the second day of fighting. The British won back Gwalior. Rani's body was given a ceremonial cremation and burial by the faithful servants. Sir Hugh Rose, the commander of the British force, wrote later, "The Ranee was remarkable for her bravery, cleverness and perseverance; her generocity to her Subordinates was unbounded. These qualities, combined with her rank, rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders." A popular Indian ballad said,

In Samvat 1706, in the house of the Bundela chieftain, Champatrai and his wife Lalkunvari, Chhatrasal was born. Even from his childhood, separated from his parents, he made up his mind to struggle against the tyranical rule of the Mughals. With the blessings of Shivaji - the Maratha warrior, he was determined to fight for the independence of Bundelkhand; and after his meeting with Mahamati Prannath, Chhatrasal became strong and powerful. Just as Guru Ramdas showed the way to Shivaji so did Mahamati Prannath give guidence and true knowledge to Maharaja Chhatrasal.

Chhatrasal came to Mau, a place near Panna, to meet Prannath after being told by his nephew Dev Karanji who met Prannath in Ramnagar. He was highly impressed and became his disciple. When Maharaja Chhatrasal came to meet him, before going to fight a battle, Prannath gave him his own sword and covered his head with a scarf,  saying, "You will always be victorious. Diamond mines will be discovered in your land and you will become a great emperor." Shri Chhatrasal, with a few soldiers fought the Mughal army many times and always won. The people of Bundelkhand regarded this as a result of Mahamati Prannath's blessings.

Chhatrasal told his queens that God had personally come to them and they must go for his Darshan. Chhatrasal himself held the palanquin carrying Shri Prannath and brought him to his palace. He then spread his turban and the queen her saree to welcome Mahamati, they dressed him in royal attire and paid homage to him. Chhatrasal gave his all to Shri Prannath and stood with folded hands as Mahamati summoned the neighboring kings and crowned Chhatrasal as the Emperor of that area.

Having been blessed with both spiritual enlightenment and earthly wealth, Chhatrasal became an irritant to Aurangzeb. They fought eighty battles and Chhatrasal won nearly all of them. Aurangzeb learnt of Shri Prannath's support to Chhatrasal and eventually died a disappointed man. Meanwhile Chhatrasal became a terror for Aurangzeb.

Prannath spend the last eleven years of his life in Panna. During this time Maharaja Chhatrasal established an ideal kingdom. By that time, many communities like the Sikhs, Rajputs, Bundelas, and Marathas had organized themselves against the Mughal rulers. A famous poet named Bhusan has written about Chhatrasal that his kingdom had spread all over and no one wanted to fight him. Hindus and Muslims lived like brothers and shared in religious functions. Scholars and poets were well looked after. Just as the people tortured, by the cruel Kans, took shelter in the peaceful Braj, so did people tortured by Aurangzeb's cruelty take shelter in Bundelkhand where Chhatrasal reigned supreme.

Prannath was not only the religious Guru of Chhatrasal; but he guided him too in political, social, and economic matters. It was by being granted the boon of finding diamonds in Panna by Swami Prannath that Maharaja Chhatrasal became prosperous.  With the blessings of Mahamati Prannath, Chhatrasal raised his arms against Mughals and was able to make the land bordered by the rivers Jamuna, Narmada, Chambal, and Tons; into an independent realm of Bundelkhand.

After Mahamati Prannath, the entire responsibility of promoting faith fell to Chhatrasal.  Like the Buddha's disciple Emperor Ashoka; Chhatrasal was a talented missionary.  Chhatrasal endeavoured to promulgate the Krishna Pranami Religion of Mahamati Prannath, abroad and at home in India.
 

Southern Group: Duladeo Temple: Dedicated to Lord Shiva, the highlights of this temple are the sensuous images of the apsaras, and other exquisite sculptures. Chaturbhuj Temple: This temple sports a huge, elaborately carved image of Vishnu in the sanctum.