Ujjain

Ujjain was Avanti when the Buddha was alive, a capital on the trade road between the Ganga plains and the western ports. It is one of Hinduism's seven sacred cities, the seat of the legendary King Vikramaditya, whose era is still used in the Hindu calendar, and the city of Kalidasa, the greatest poet of classical Sanskrit, who wrote its evening streets into his verse.

For Indian astronomers it was the prime meridian: longitudes were counted from here for well over a thousand years, and in the 1720s Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur built one of his Jantar Mantar observatories on the Shipra. The Shipra itself is the city's spine, and every twelve years it hosts the Simhastha Kumbh; the next is due in the spring of 2028.

Mahakaleshwar is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas and the only one whose linga faces south, towards the direction of death, which it is said to rule. Its defining ritual is the Bhasma Aarti, performed before dawn, when the linga is anointed with sacred ash to the sound of drums and conches. Since 2022 the temple has been approached through Mahakal Lok, a long corridor of sculpted panels and statues of Shiva's stories. Kal Bhairav, the city's fierce guardian, is famously offered liquor, which the priest pours to the deity's lips.

Ujjain eats like Malwa: poha with jalebi and sev for breakfast, dal bafla — baked wheat dumplings broken into dal with ghee — for lunch, and bhutte ka kees, grated corn cooked with milk and spice, from the evening stalls. Malpua and rabri finish everything off, especially around the temple lanes.

Book the Bhasma Aarti only on the temple's official website, well in advance — slots sell out weeks ahead — and ignore anyone outside offering passes. There is a dress code for those entering the sanctum: dhoti for men, saree for women; check the current rules when you book. Ram Ghat at dusk, with the lamps on the Shipra, is gentler than the main temple. And try the Harsiddhi temple's twin lamp-towers on festival nights, when they are lit all the way up.

This is one of India's busiest pilgrimage towns, and you are a guest at other people's most important moments. Do not push in queues, do not photograph inside the sanctum, and avoid buying passes from touts — it raises prices for pilgrims who cannot afford them. Keep flowers, plastic and soap out of the Shipra, which already struggles to flow through the dry months.

Pilgrims who come to Mahakal at dawn often go on to the other great city of Shiva: Varanasi, older still, on the Ganga instead of the Shipra, where life and death are just as openly conducted at the water's edge.