CULTURE TOUR: Saving the caves includes using eco-friendly buses (above)

When Paolo Pobbiati, an Italian globetrotter with a fondness for historical architecture, made his seventh trip to India this year, he was an anxious man. He was bringing his wife along and the prospect of showing graffiti-slurred monuments reeking of urine to a fledgling enthusiast was frightening. But at the Ajanta and Ellora caves in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Pobbiati was in for a surprise. The ancient Buddhist cave complex, hewn between 5th century b.c. and 5th century a.d. and one of the 13 World Heritage Sites in India listed by unesco, has been given a face-lift by the Central Government. Rusty old signs, shabby kiosks, contemporary murals of hearts and arrows and dumps full of cigarette packs and dust-blue gutkha sachets have been removed and many of the delicate cave frescoes that were hidden under centuries of soot have been cleaned. A Sulabh toilet complex has been put up nearby so that the smell that wafts is of fresh rainwater and damp forest loam. And hawkers no longer nudge your arms. "I am rediscovering the art of ancient India in these new surroundings and some of the paintings have become visible after hundreds of years," says a thrilled Pobbiati. He and his awestruck wife plan to come back with their kids.

The new-look Ajanta is part of a grand government project to synthesise culture and heritage with tourism and civic governance. Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) conceived the Ajanta-Ellora Conservation and Tourism Development plan in 1991 and the project was sent to Japan for the all-important low-interest funding. Since 1993, Rs 109 crore have flowed in to make Ajanta beautiful, while for the 32 Ellora caves the restoration of the exterior is completed.

BEFORE A soot-covered mural in Cave 10 in Ajanta before restoration

AFTER: Careful work on the fresco and the icon has regained its past glory

For tourists like Pobbiati, coming by flight will be more comfortable: the tarmac of the Aurangabad airport has been extended for big charter flights. The 107-km road to the complex, where troglodyte monks meditated amid frescoes depicting the life of the Buddha, has also been widened. Traffic is terminated 4 km from the Ajanta caves at a tourists' compound which has a shopping zone and five restaurants. The buffer zone is a no-development area like the 500 m circle around Ellora caves. Euro-I environment-friendly buses spewing nothing but filtered air take tourists to the mouth of the caves.

Visitors can ramble down a pathway along Waghora river to the most ancient caves and even go to the point down the gorge from where British officer John Smith first saw the caves in 1819. The idea is to give the tourists maximum view of the complex but preventing excess load on caves 1 and 2, which have the most beautiful but fragile paintings. To see these paintings clearly, cool fibre optics light have replaced torches and hand-held lamps.

MTDC's development plan for the second phase is of Rs 500 crore. An information-cum-documentation kiosk attached to a medical centre will be built. There will also be a museum of mural replica so that tourists can take pictures of the frescoes without disturbing the originals. Nearby heritage monuments like the 13th century Daulatabad fort, 17th century Bibi ka Maqbara, the Pitalkhora caves and 30,000-year-old Lunar Crater site, will be spruced to international standards to lure the tourists to stay longer.

But, as everything else in India, there's a flipside. While MTDC is developing an 800 sq m tourist park around Ajanta, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is neglecting the conservation of Ellora frescoes, made between the 5th and 11th century a.d. ASI claims that conservation work is in full swing-blocking the seepage and landscaping of the adjoining regions. But a visit to Ellora reveals that bats, breeding mosquitoes, wasps, silverfish and hundreds of arthropods have made it their home. Two Japanese art historians researching the relationship of Buddhist, Jaina and Hindu art are eager but the place stinks so much that they have to tie scarves around their nose and frequently dash out of the caves for gulps of fresh air. But Hiraoka from Nagoya University in Japan is a resilient woman: "No art historian working on Asian art can ignore its greatest wonder even if it is smelly or inconvenient." Tourists can never be as committed.

Historians express concern on ASI's selective conservation. Professor R.S. Morwanchikar of Aurangabad's Babasaheb Ambedkar University says that the heritage sites in the Central Government's plan are crumbling, pointing at the foliage-strangled dome of Bibi ka Maqbara and the collapsing walls of Daultabad fort. "Spending money on beautifying the area around the caves will be useless if there is nothing to see inside the caves in a few decades," warns Morwanchikar.

The cleaning of the paintings became controversial when a few frescoes were ruined beyond repair. Careless scrubbing of the walls, covered by soot from oil lamps used by Buddhist monks, damaged the images instead of restoring them. The work was stopped in 1998 after protests by art lovers. Art historian Walter M. Spink, who has been studying these monuments, feels that the root of the problem is the official confusion that mistakes cleaning for conservation and conservation for cleaning. Manager Singh, chief of ASI's chemical branch at Ajanta, blames it on the lack of skilled, knowledgeable and sensitive staff. Ask K.K. Swarnakar, assistant chemist at Ellora, who is struggling with just six workers to clean up the site. "I have no magic wand or power to carry out conservation work without proper help," he says.

MTDC expects tourists to swell. But if conservation of the monuments does not keep up with plush resort-building, it's likely that this will remain just a monumental dream.