Maheshwar Unveiled: Culture, Sarees, and Riverside Splendor

Cows, a fort at the river, and loads of sarees – welcome to Maheshwar!

It was one of those days where you just don’t want to get up… But Maheshwar was calling, a small beautiful town at the bank of the Narmada river.

The bus boarding point was just 2 min away from the hotel and I reached it well on time. 5 min after the scheduled time, I called the number just to be sure. Yes yes, all punctual, in 5 min. 2 min later I saw the bus. Passing by. Without stopping. WTF?

I called the guy again (he was only from the agency, not on the bus) and told him what happened. After 2 min I get a call from the conductor, yelling at me in Hindi and telling me to come to some other location. I frantically tried to stop every auto I saw until I finally found an empty one. Since I couldn’t understand half of what the conductor said, I just gave the phone to the auto wala so that he could yell at him instead.

They luckily waited for me so the journey could finally start.

The bus dropped me at the small town of Kasrawad and I managed to find a local bus right away to Maheshwar. I was seriously lucky: it left only 10 min after I arrived and I had no clue where to get it even. Another 20 min and 25 INR later, I reached Maheshwar.

The first thing to do was: eat! There was a dhaba with kachoris, samosas, jalebi, bhutte ki khees and what not. Can’t say no to a kachori, can I? 🙂

Walking to my hotel, the first thing I noticed was how well-fed all the animals – especially cows – were. They obviously belonged to people and were not random stray cows. It was so nice to see, usually, my heart breaks with every starving cow I meet (not to mention dogs). That’s how it’s done, India!

My hotel was really modern and quite nice. My only regret: I later got to know that there’s a hotel with nice tents overlooking the river called Narmada Retreat. There are only two hotels with river views, the other one being an overly expensive one in the fort. Anyway, my hotel was good too, and at least I didn’t have to worry about mosquitos which would definitely be an issue at the river 🙂

Around 2 pm, I ventured out to see the fort. The sun was once again killing it and I just felt like staying back in the hotel. It was a nice walk and I really liked the colourful houses with cute balconies. Maheshwar is only a town so it has a bit of a villagy vibe with all the cows on the street, women carrying stuff on their heads etc.

I reached the ghats where lots of people took a bath in the Narmada river. Even I felt like jumping in there in this heat… that would’ve been a sight. I do love these ghats.

The 18th-century fort was beautiful, with sculptures and carvings all over and two beautiful mandirs.

I especially liked the colourful sanctum where the idols were even dressed up. I hadn’t seen this kind yet.

Close to the fort is the Rehwa Society where you can watch women weaving the famous Maheshwari cotton-silk sarees, shawls, and other handloom products. Unfortunately, it was closed on Tuesdays so I missed out on that. Instead, I went to a couple of saree shops a bit up ahead of the fort and tried some of them.

I shortly visited the small museum in the palace (or rather a large house) of Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar, a really impressive woman I had never even heard about before. She became the ruler of Malwa in 1767 after her husband, father in-law and the even son passed away. Not only did she become a great ruler under whom the kingdom with Maheshwar as capital flourished and was quite ahead of her time, she even went to battle herself – as a woman in the 18th century! Her life story is a quite interesting read. 🙂

I took a lunch break at the cute veg restaurant Labboos. I tried Kaju Curry, basically cashews cooked in gravy, a really nice veg dish, and perfect for a picky eater (vegetable hater) like me.

After lunch, I took a boat tour to the sunset point at the waterfall which was absolutely beautiful. It first passes the ghats, fort, and temples, and leaving the town behind, one finds himself surrounded by mere nature. One of the benefits of going in off-season is that I had the sunset point all for myself.

My next stop was supposed to be Mandu but I had no clue how to get there. Since I had to get to Indore on the same day, the best way was by cab. Lucky for me, all these boat guys he connections and my “captain” picked a guy up on the way who was doing such trips privately. I compared it with the cost of professional cab companies and it was only half the price! So it was decided and I hired the guy for the next day.

Since I had read so much about Maheshwari sarees and being a saree-lover in general, the last thing on my list for the day was saree shopping. After I had almost given up and only bought one rather cheap but somehow cute one, I found an amazing shop, Tana Bana Maheshwari Handloom, with unique designs. I right away fell in love with an indigo tie and dye saree which could’ve easily been in a Fabindia collection. Needless to say, I bought it right away.