Gwalior

The city takes its name from the ascetic Gwalipa, who in legend cured a Rajput chief, Suraj Sen, of a disease at a pool on the ridge; the chief built the first fort on the rock in gratitude. Inscriptions on the plateau go back to the fifth and sixth centuries, and an inscription of the ninth century in the fort's Chaturbhuj temple records one of the earliest uses of zero as a written number. The Kachchhapaghatas, then the Tomars from the fourteenth century, held the fort; Man Singh Tomar, who ruled around 1500, built the Man Mandir palace and patronised music at his court.

The fort's height and sheer walls made it one of the most fought-over places in northern India. Delhi's sultans, Sher Shah Suri — who died besieging Kalinjar after taking Gwalior — the Mughals, who used it as a state prison, the Jat rulers of Gohad and the Marathas all held it in turn. The British stormed it in 1780 and again later, and in 1857 it saw some of the last fighting of the rebellion, when Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi was killed near the city; a memorial marks the site.

The Scindias, a Maratha dynasty, ruled Gwalior state from the eighteenth century and made the city their capital, building the new town of Lashkar below the fort — the word means camp, from the army encampment it grew out of — and the Jai Vilas palace in 1874. It remained a princely state under the Scindias until it acceded to the Indian union in 1947. Gwalior became part of Madhya Pradesh in 1956, and has since grown into an industrial, educational and administrative centre of the northern part of the state.

Music is the city's proudest claim. The Gwalior gharana is considered the oldest of the khyal traditions of Hindustani classical singing, and its teaching lineage runs back to the court of the Tomar and later the Scindia rulers. Tansen, one of the great figures of Indian music and a musician at Akbar's court, is buried beside his Sufi teacher Mohammed Ghaus; the December festival held at the tomb is among the most important events in the Hindustani calendar.

The city's culture is layered in the same way as its monuments. Jain worship has been continuous for centuries — the cliff figures below the fort are visited and anointed rather than merely looked at — and Hindu temple festivals, Sufi observances and the Maratha inheritance of the Scindias all sit side by side. The family remains prominent in national politics, and their palace is both a museum and a private residence.

Everyday manners are those of northern Madhya Pradesh: hands joined in greeting, shoes left at thresholds, hospitality offered quickly. Hindi with a Bundeli and Braj flavour is spoken, wrestling and kabaddi have a following alongside cricket, and winter is the season for weddings, the trade fair and the evening bazaars around Maharaj Bada.

About 1.1 million people live in Gwalior, spread between the old bazaars of Lashkar, the cantonment at Morar and the newer planned districts between them. The city works as a regional centre: government offices, colleges and universities, a large hospital complex, the railway and the army all provide employment, and industry includes textiles, engineering and the manufacture of ceramics and pottery. Agricultural trade from the surrounding Chambal districts passes through its markets.

The Chambal country to the north has an old reputation for ravines and banditry, now largely historical, but the wider region remains poorer than southern Madhya Pradesh, and migration to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur for work is common. Air quality in winter, water supply from the Tighra reservoir and traffic on the roads that squeeze past the fort ridge are the recurring municipal problems.

The daily rhythm is early: markets and tea stalls open at dawn, offices and schools run through the morning, and the hottest hours are quiet. The evening brings crowds back to Maharaj Bada and the City Centre malls, and in winter to the trade fair ground, which turns into a fairground at night. The fort ridge is visible from much of the city.

Gwalior eats the food of the north Madhya Pradesh plateau, closer to Braj and Bundelkhand than to Malwa. Breakfast is bedai — a fried bread stuffed with spiced lentils, served with a thin potato curry — or poha, flattened rice steamed with onion, mustard seed and turmeric and finished with crisp sev, coriander and lime, usually with a coil of hot jalebi. Kachoris, samosas and pakoras fill the rest of the day, sold from the same shops.

The city's best-known product is gajak, a sesame and jaggery brittle beaten into papery layers; it is made from late autumn through the winter and sold in slabs and rolls in the bazaars, with the neighbouring town of Morena claiming an equal share of the reputation. Other sweets come from reduced milk: peda, barfi and imarti, along with rabri in the cold months. Lassi and sugarcane juice are the hot-weather drinks, and thandai appears at Holi.

Main meals lean on wheat rotis, dal, and vegetables such as pumpkin, aubergine and gram greens, with kadhi as a standby; dal bafla appears at feasts, the plateau's version of Rajasthan's dal baati. Meat is eaten less than in Lucknow or Bhopal, and much of the old bazaar is strictly vegetarian, but Morar and the areas around the tombs have kebab and biryani shops. The newer restaurants in City Centre serve the usual Indian-Chinese and South Indian range alongside North Indian staples.