Lesson learnt

I hated my history teacher in school. Matilda Miss she was. I thought she was partial to the other kids. I thought she knew the text book verbatim, nothing more. She wouldn't draw maps marking kingdoms of Indian rulers. She had a strong Malayalee accent that I then made fun of (imagine finding out that Ashwamedha sacrifice had nothing to do with pipes and "hoses"). The two of us were proudly part of the mutual hatred society.

Eventually I hated history too.

Hence it's not my fault that I mistook the Shanti Stupa in Bhuvaneshwar to be something we learnt in our history books. I wasn't the only one though. My friend hopefully had her reasons to forget her history lessons too. The two of us climbed up the stairs looking for the 4 lion headed pillar and the "Satyam-eva-jayate" inscription, only to find a simple Buddhist temple.

Like I said, this was the Shanti Stupa, not the Sanchi Stupa in Madhya Pradesh with the Ashoka Pillar.

However, there was some element of history about this place. It was here that King Ashoka repented after the Kalinga War. This much we remembered.