When the entire country celebrates Akshaya Tritiya today, a nondescript UP town will stay away from the festivity just as it has for the past two centuries.<\/p>\n
Talbehat, located between Jhansi and Lalitpur, follows a tradition that dates back to the rule of Mor Prahalad (1802-42). Some young village women picking foliage for an Akshaya Tritiya ritual were kidnapped and raped by the ruler’s men inside the Talbehat Fort.<\/p>\n
This incident and the possible outrage it caused ensured that this particular festival fell off Talbehat’s chart. Instead, a new ritual came into being – that of men demonstrating their respect for women by touching their feet, irrespective of caste. Beyond gestures, that kind of respect is a value Modern India would do well to If a traveller were to spend a while in Talbehat, he would be able to see a nugget of the town’s past that is now quite well-concealed. The fort of Talbehat, which predates almost all other buildings here, is built on a hill towards the east of the town. Though rampant construction has obscured it from the main road, the fort has preserved its medieval charm behind high walls.On entering the fort, a short walk reveals a lake on the other side. A few years ago, its expanse was large and the waters a deep blue. The drought experienced in Bundelkhand over the last two years has impacted the lake as well. This water body has a deep connect with the town. In the language of the Gonds, who originally controlled the area, ‘Tal’ means lake and ‘Bihat’ stands for village. According to local oral traditions, there was a severe drought in the area centuries ago. Brahmins fasted and did penance, eventually performing a human sacrifice which is believed to have caused water to come out from the earth, resulting in the formation of the lake.<\/p>\n
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When the entire country celebrates Akshaya Tritiya today, a nondescript UP town will stay away from the festivity just as it has for the past two centuries. Talbehat, located between Jhansi and Lalitpur, follows a tradition that dates back to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15958,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957\/revisions\/15958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15957"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianewsnet.com\/marathi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}