"Ateet Mein Dabe Paav" (Feet Buried in the Past) is a remarkable travel essay by the noted Hindi journalist and writer Om Thanvi, included in the Class 12 Hindi (Vitan) supplementary reader. The essay records the author's visit to Mohenjo-daro, the great archaeological site of the Indus Valley Civilisation in present-day Pakistan. The title is deeply suggestive: the author's feet literally walk on a city that is buried in the past, and his imagination walks through the lives of a people who lived more than four thousand years ago. The essay is a meditation on time, history and the mysterious life of ancient cities.
Mohenjo-daro, whose name in Sindhi means "Mound of the Dead", is one of the largest and most advanced cities of the ancient world. Built on the banks of the Indus, it was a masterpiece of urban planning - with wide streets, baked-brick houses, a covered drainage system and public buildings. Om Thanvi walks through these ruins with wonder, describing the streets where ancient feet walked, the wells that provided water, the bathing pool, and the everyday objects - seals, toys, pottery - that bring the past alive. For him, the ruins are not dead stones but a doorway into the lives of people who were remarkably modern in their civilisation.
For Class 12 students, "Ateet Mein Dabe Paav" is important because it combines travel writing, history, archaeology and personal reflection. The essay shows how a journalist's eye for detail and a writer's imagination can transform an archaeological site into a living story. It also raises questions about heritage and memory - how we lose the past to development (as with Harappa's ruins destroyed during railway construction) and how the traces of ancient greatness still speak to us across the centuries.
Om Thanvi was born in 1957 in Phalodi, in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. He is one of India's most respected journalists, editors and writers, known for his long career in Hindi journalism. He has edited major Hindi newspapers and has been a columnist and commentator on social and political issues. His writing is marked by a deep engagement with the concerns of ordinary people, a commitment to democratic values and a sensitive, literary style that goes beyond the usual boundaries of journalism.
Thanvi's work includes columns, essays and reports on politics, society and culture. He is known for his balanced, humane and often reflective treatment of complex subjects, and his prose is admired for its clarity, wit and observation. As an editor, he has shaped public debate in Hindi on some of the most important issues of modern India, from communalism to development, from democracy to the rights of the marginalised.
"Ateet Mein Dabe Paav" shows a different side of Thanvi's craft - the reflective essayist. In this piece, the journalist's power of observation is turned to the past, and the result is a lyrical and thoughtful account of Mohenjo-daro. The essay reveals Thanvi's belief that history is not a dead subject but a living presence, and that walking among the ruins of an ancient city is a way of touching the deepest roots of human civilisation.
The essay opens with the author's arrival at Mohenjo-daro. He is immediately struck by the meaning of the place: a city that was once a great centre of civilisation is now a field of ruins, its name meaning "Mound of the Dead". Walking through the site, the author's feet step on the same streets where the citizens of the Indus Valley walked thousands of years ago. The title captures this feeling - the past is literally beneath his feet, buried in the earth.
The author then describes the city's remarkable planning. Mohenjo-daro was not a haphazard settlement; it was a planned metropolis. The streets ran in straight lines, crossing at right angles. The houses were built of baked bricks of uniform size, and many had wells and bathing areas. The city had an elaborate covered drainage system, with manholes for cleaning - a level of sanitation that was lost for millennia and only rediscovered in the modern world. The author is amazed that a city so ancient could be so modern in its arrangements.
Walking through the ruins, the author encounters the traces of daily life. He sees the great bathing pool, the granaries, the seals with their mysterious script that has never been fully deciphered, the toys of children, the pottery and the ornaments. These small objects are more eloquent than grand monuments, because they connect the ancient people to ordinary human life - the same joys, work and play that human beings have always known. The author reflects that civilisation is not only about kings and wars but about how people lived, washed, worked and played.
The essay also includes a note of sorrow about the loss of heritage. The author recalls how the ruins of Harappa, the twin city of Mohenjo-daro, were largely destroyed when the British built a railway line in the nineteenth century, using the ancient bricks as ballast. What survived of the past was lost to what was called "development". The author's essay ends with a reflection on the mystery of Mohenjo-daro's decline - a civilisation that was mature, planned and prosperous, yet disappeared - and on the enduring value of remembering and preserving the past that is buried beneath our feet.
The central theme of "Ateet Mein Dabe Paav" is the living presence of the past and the value of remembering it. Om Thanvi shows that Mohenjo-daro is not a collection of dead stones but a doorway into the lives of a remarkably advanced people. The essay's message is that history is not remote and irrelevant; it is the ground on which we stand. To walk where ancient feet walked is to understand that human beings of every age have faced the same questions of how to live, work and build together. The ruins teach us respect for the achievements of the past.
The second theme is the fragility of heritage. The essay laments how Harappa's ruins were destroyed by railway construction, and it reflects on how much of the past is lost to neglect, greed and careless "development". The message is that preserving heritage is a moral duty - the memory of the past must not be allowed to crumble. At the same time, the essay celebrates the mystery of the Indus Valley civilisation: a city that was mature and planned, yet declined and disappeared. This mystery reminds us of the impermanence of all human achievement and the humility we should feel before time.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Mound of the Dead (in Sindhi) |
| Location | On the Indus, in modern Pakistan |
| Planning | Straight streets, right angles, baked bricks |
| Sanitation | Covered drainage with manholes |
| Daily life | Seals, toys, pottery, ornaments, wells |
| Public buildings | Great bathing pool, granaries |
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Om Thanvi |
| Genre | Travel essay |
| Subject | Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Valley Civilisation |
| Theme | The living past, heritage and impermanence |
| Sorrow | Harappa's ruins destroyed by railway construction |
| Style | Observant, lyrical, reflective |
"Ateet Mein Dabe Paav" is a lyrical and thoughtful journey into the heart of an ancient civilisation. Walking through the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Om Thanvi discovers that the past is not dead but alive beneath our feet - in the straight streets, the covered drains, the toys of children and the seals of a script that still refuses to give up its secrets. The essay teaches us that civilisation is measured by how ordinary people lived, and it warns us against the careless destruction of heritage, as happened at Harappa. For the Class 12 student, this essay is a beautiful introduction to the art of travel writing and a reminder that history is not a distant book but the very ground on which we walk.