Aurangabad

The city sits on an old route across the Deccan, and the region around it was inhabited long before the town existed: the Ajanta caves were cut from about the 2nd century BC, the Ellora cliffs from the 6th century AD, and the Yadava dynasty ruled from the rock fortress of Devagiri, later Daulatabad, until the region was annexed by the Delhi Sultanate under Alauddin Khalji in 1308. Muhammad bin Tughluq made Daulatabad his capital in 1327 and ordered the population of Delhi to move there, an experiment abandoned within years.

Aurangabad itself was founded in 1610 as Khadki by Malik Ambar, the Ethiopian-born minister and general of the Nizam Shahi sultanate of Ahmadnagar, who laid out its water supply and defences. The Mughals took it, and the city was renamed for the emperor Aurangzeb, who made it his base for decades of campaigning in the south and died in the Deccan in 1707; he was buried at Khuldabad. The marble tomb of Bibi Ka Maqbara was raised in the 1660s for his wife, and the ring of gateways and the Panchakki mill date from the same era.

After Aurangzeb's death the Nizams of Hyderabad held the city, and it stayed under Hyderabad rule until the state was absorbed into India in 1948; the city passed to Bombay State in 1956 and the Marathi-speaking Marathwada region became part of Maharashtra in 1960. Industry arrived from the 1970s with the Waluj and Chikalthana estates. In 2023 the state government renamed the city Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar after Shivaji's son, a change that was long debated and is now the official name, although the older name remains in wide use.

Aurangabad is a meeting point of Marathi and Deccani Muslim culture. Marathi is the language of the state and of most residents, but the old city has spoken Dakhni Urdu for centuries, and mosques, dargahs and Sufi shrines stand among temples across the district. The result is visible in the food, the music and the calendar, where Ganesh Chaturthi processions and Ramadan nights fall in the same year and often in the same streets.

Weaving is the city's craft tradition. Himroo, a fabric of silk and cotton woven with patterned brocade motifs, is associated with Aurangabad and said to descend from the court textiles of the Tughluq period; Paithani saris, with their tapestry-woven silk borders of peacocks and lotus in gold thread, come from Paithan to the south and are worn for Maharashtrian weddings. Workshops in the city still weave both, and bidri metalwork inlaid with silver is sold in the bazaars.

Marathwada's identity is bound up with Marathi saints and the Varkari devotional tradition, whose pilgrims walk to Pandharpur, and with the social reform movement of B. R. Ambedkar, after whom the city's university is named. Hospitality is formal and tea is offered at every meeting; visitors are expected to dress modestly and to remove shoes at shrines of either faith. The naming of the city is a live political subject, and both names are heard in daily conversation.

About 1.2 million people lived in the city at the 2011 census, making it the largest in the Marathwada region and one of Maharashtra's bigger urban centres. The economy rests on three legs: manufacturing in the Waluj, Shendra and Chikalthana industrial estates, where cars, motorcycle parts, pharmaceuticals, seeds and beer are made; tourism built on the World Heritage cave sites; and government, education and trade for a large agricultural hinterland.

Most residents live in the newer northern and eastern suburbs rather than the walled city, commuting by two-wheeler and autorickshaw along Jalna Road. The old quarter remains the commercial and wholesale centre, busiest in the morning and again after dark. Marathwada is a dry-farming region of cotton, sugar cane, pulses and mosambi citrus, and the fortunes of the countryside are felt in the city's markets.

Water is the constant issue. The district depends on the Jayakwadi reservoir on the Godavari, and in poor monsoon years supply to households is rationed to a few days a week; drought, farm debt and migration for work are recurring problems across the region. Air quality, traffic on the expanding arterial roads and the pressure of visitor numbers at the cave sites are the other subjects of local debate.

The dish most associated with the city is naan qalia: mutton on the bone cooked with a dense mixture of Deccan spices into a thin, dark gravy, eaten with naan baked in a tandoor. It is said to have been fed to Mughal soldiers and is still made at old kitchens in and near the walled city. Alongside it come biryani in the Deccan manner, seekh and shami kebabs, and, during Ramadan, haleem — wheat and meat pounded for hours into a thick porridge — sold in the evening by the gates.

Maharashtrian home cooking is the other half. Bhakri, a flatbread of jowar or bajra, is eaten with pithla or zunka of gram flour, a dry vegetable dish, raw onion and a sharp chutney of garlic and red chilli. Bharli vangi, small aubergines stuffed with coconut and peanut masala, and the Marathwada style of mutton rassa are regional standards, and thalis in the town's canteens serve them with rice, dal and pickles.

Sweets are simple and rich: shrikhand, strained yoghurt with saffron and cardamom, eaten with puris; puran poli, a flatbread stuffed with sweet lentils and jaggery for festivals; and jalebi and pedha from the bazaar sweet shops. Mosambi juice from the district's citrus orchards, sugar-cane juice, lassi and strong milky tea are the everyday drinks.