Central India's Best-Kept Secret

OR someone whose only reference point for Bhopal was Soorma Bhopali from Sholay, there's precious little we knew of the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

- PRIYA GANAPATHY & ANURAG MALLICK

A statue of Raja Bhoj greeted us at the airport, which is named after him. The 11th-century Parmar king who ruled over Malwa built a series of dams and Bhojtal, the artificial lake constructed by him—still the largest lake in Madhya Pradesh. The city that developed around the lake became known as Bhopal.

The area came under the Gond dynasty between the 14th and 18th centuries. In 1707, Gond Queen Kamalapati enlisted the services of Dost Muhammad Khan, an Afghan mercenary, to avenge her husband's assassination. Dost was a Pashtun in the Mughal army, who became a soldier of fortune after Aurangzeb's death. The region around present-day Bhopal was gifted to him as jagir, which he skilfully expanded into a princely state. Unlike the Persian-Turkic origins of most medieval Muslim dynasties, Bhopal stands out as a rare principality with Afghan roots.