the trip - part II- aurangabad ke bad

actually i don't even remember when exactly we reached the western ghats i guess it was sometime after mhow. we saw a sign board which said. "GHAT ROAD STARTS" looked weird but ya the terrain around us changed. we where going uphill at places hills where being cut from the centre to make way for the NH-211. that's the road we where following after dhule. it looked a bit sad to see such beautiful hills being turned to dust by a huge system made of man and machine working hours at stretch to make way for the 4-lane highway. i'm sure after a year when we drive past the same road we would have forgotten all about the hills and will be appreciating the beauty of human engineering. such hippocrates we our. the next big town on our way would be sholapur. the day was well spent as the drive was wonderful and i was happy to have a car with high ground clearance. roads where mostly under construction and really bad at places, good testing ground for the car. though the driver i.e. me did not get too see much of the landscape while dealing with such roads whatever he could see the place was beautiful. while crossing the villages one could see groups of kids as well as grown up having tied ropes to thick branches of tree made a makeshift arrangement for a swing not once or twice but for kilometres one could have seen such a thing. probably it was some kind of a celebration for the newly arrived monsoon who knows what and why but it looked so beautiful to see people swinging and feeling merry. by now one can see the shift in clothing and colour of the skin from where we started our journey. the skin colour was much deeper and richer now. clothes where deeper and livelier in colour. our aim was to be at sholapur by sunset which we managed well, we took a short break next to a large lake on one end of the city. sat next to it for a while and decided to proceed to bijapur which was around another 100kms. the drive was smooth by now. and we reached bijapur by 7:30 pm. the total count for the day was around 565kms. the city took us up a bit by surprise, wide roads, big markets, nice restaurants and what not. we had enough options to stay almost checked into hotel pearl a brand new hotel with clean rooms good restaurant. at the last moment we decided to venture out a bit more before checking in. got back in to our car and started looking out for the karnataka tourism guest house, have heard they are generally good and have a charm of there own, they may not have the best of the facilities but surely have a strong character of their own. we drove all the way to the cities main market, i was looking for a shop to buy some socks and chappals which we found, did some shopping and once again started looking out for the tourist guest house. with not much difficulty we found Hotel Mayur Adil Shahi (named after the adil shahi rulers of bijapur.), a bit of an old structure with some renovations/additions for sure. big rooms. big attached toilets. attached balconies. and lawn. what else was required we immediately wanted to check in as the place was cheap and good. we where asked to come after a while as there was some wiring problem in the room and the guy where to lazy to fix it. we thought in the meanwhile we will look for a place to eat, though we had no hopes of getting something interesting. on our way as we where asking people about eateries on gentleman very authoratively suggested a place called hotel ambika maratha that too to have biriyani out there. it took us a while to find out hotel ambika maratha opposite bukhari masjid. once we found the place we knew that we had made a mistake. it was a dingy basement to a much cheaper hotel. just nothing was proper over there including the gentry. we did have a choice to try some other place but decided to rather be adventurous and dine there. and thats one decision i am thankful to myself that i took against all odds. soon the biriyani was served and what a biriyani it was. we where speechless till the last grain of rice and last bit of mutton was left on our table. one of the most amazing biriyani i ever had. note down the address "hotel ambika maratha opposite bukhari masjid" a must place to visit if you are in bijapur and even if you are not in bijapur. drove back to Hotel Mayur Adil Shahi to be lucky enough to get a room, the balcony was small but proved to be a good place to sit and chat up a bit. i am already over excited thinking about tomorrow morning, first thing tomorrow we gonna visit gol gumbaz. visiting this place had been a dream for a long time. soon the night past by and we where standing outside the gate of gol gumbaz amidst morning walkers.

i guess residents from near by locality take ful advantage of the lovely lawns of around gol gumbaz. we past by the small administrative buidling which i think also houses a museum (though the small building was not that small just that it got dwarft by the colossal gol gumbaz).



i stood there for a while trying to believe in what i could see. coming from delhi a city full of historic monuments and countless tombs, never had i seen a tomb such in size. gol gumbaz in pictures does not look much grander than humayun's tomb, luckily they are never pictures next to each other. a structure as large as humayun's tomb can be easily be hidden behind gol gumbaz, such it the size of the structure. the building is squarish in shape with a massive dome on top whereas outside on all four sides are octagonal minarets. step inside to see the worlds second largest dome which does not have any pillars to support.



one may get a sprain in his neck while stretching it to admire the whole thing. in one corner is a small board saying "way to the echo gallery" do take it seriously and start your journey towards the echo gallery by entering that small door. the door leads you to some stairs and the stairs lead on to more stairs and the process repeats itself almost till you drop dead. in between some flights of stairs will be a small bench to sit and catch you breath. as i said do take this sign seriously as the stair end into a space (sort of a balcony in the periphery of the dome). the smallest of a sound can be heard at the other end. and each fraction of sound bounces back ten times as clear as the original one, in simpler words every sound echoes back ten times. step out of the balcony into the outer periphery of the dome under the open blue sky stand next to the top of the octagonal minarets which look like small monuments by itself.

















take a walk on the terrace and we could spot the jama masjid rising like a jewel in the busy cityscape at a distance from here,

one should take out time to pay a visit to the mosque though we couldn't as we had plans of hitting hampi the very same day. traced back our way out, had our breakfast of poha and chai at the canteen within the gol gumbaz compound.

the sun was just warm enough to be enjoyed. soon we will be heading towards hampi.

the trip

part-1 (dilli to aurangabad)




no clue where the thought got inspired from, but finally i hit the road on the 24th of july with the idea and intention of driving down to kerala in my car. the odometer said something like 19,752kms. start point was gurgaon at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. my rough calculations said the entry point in kerala would be somewhat 2,500kms away. so no hurry, wanted to see things while i move down south. decided to follow the nh-8 for just a short while and then switch over to some not so smooth but much more scenic roads. stopped after crossing jaipur to have our lunch it was already past 4 o'clock. next we planned to stop at ajmer to meet keshav's family for a cup of tea. keshav was accompanying me for the next few days actually almost the entire first half of the journey then he would fly back from ernakulam on the 4th of august. after are tea break at ajmer, it's always a delight to meet his family, saw their new house, got a sneak preview to the under-construction work for uncle's forthcoming exhibition at jehangir art gallery, bombay.




from their we took the NH-79 to chittorgarh. we reached chittorgarh at around half past ten that night. took refuge in a modest lodge called Hotel Bhagwati.


they had decent terrace where we sat to slowly sip a small peg of teacher's scotch, before we finished our first round it started drizzling and we had to cut short our drinking plans. early morning we drove in and out of the fort, spending around an hour or so.







that was no good thing to do. it's massive fort one needs to pay it some respect by spending atleast a day over there. we followed NH-79 leading us towards madhya pradesh from rajasthan. on our way we crossed ratlam (which reminds me of kareena kapoor in jab we met) we took the mhow bye pass and took on NH-3. so far the roads where narrow and not so smooth. suddenly we reach a 4-lane highway it was a brand new road and traffic was negligible. the landscape was lush green, green not like the dark rich green but light pleasant leaf green. we didn't know what to do stop and enjoy the landscape or keep driving at the top speed to enjoy the recently inaugrated highway. next 100kms was blissfull. by now the sun had set. as we drove through sendhwa and shirpur i guess we where on the edge of madhya pradesh and entering maharashtra. by night we reached a place called dhule around 200kms short of aurangabad. found out a place called swagat logde for the night and dined at a nearby dhaba whcih served us beer along with the dal-roti (had to pay a bit of a premium for the service though), the dal was really good so where the roti's. time to hit the sack having a long days journey ahead. ellora caves was next target. after a while where crossing a place called chalisgaon acting very intelligent we took the bye-pass to aurangabad, this was the biggest disaster of our trip soon we realised the road was no road just a collection of big potholes, and big meant really big. a stretch of around 10kms took around and hour or more i think couple of times i drove on the 3rd gear rest was all 1st or 2nd gear drive i'm sure you can imagine what the place was like. once we where out we took a break for a cup of over sweet tea and some snacks. actually we tried a bit of all the snacks available in the shop.






gaining back our lost energy we headed towards ellora caves by now we figured out that ajanta and ellora caves are not neighbouring each other rather at a distance of more than a 100kms. just before ellora was a small temple and baoli called the ahilyabai holkar tank. it came like pleasant surprise out of nowhere. small but pretty place to take some pictures. soon we where at ellora, parked our car and took a guided auto rickshaw trip which would give us a glimpse of some of the caves though not all of them. the first cave we visited had a beautiful water fall next to it and the cave no. 29 known as sita-ki-nahani














it was a hindu temple with extremely impressive carvings inside, built in the 8th century. the sculptures where huge touching almost the ceiling of the caves at places nice soft light was falling from some very high openings on the roof of the cave. along with the light was trickling down drops of water which would echo in the caves as every drop would touch the ground. on the right side was a passage leading to a path leading us to the next set of cave crossing the waterfall. our next visit was cave no. 32 a jain temple built around 10th century.






















the temple is a double storeyed structure and the star attraction seems to be a large monolith elephant. next to it is a large monolith pillar. after spending some more time inside we realised that what is the biggest attraction of this complex where some painted panels fit enough to be picture poscards for maharashtra tourism. even the pillars where very intricately carved. we skipped a lot of the caves coming our way and headed straight to the cave no. 16 it was unbeleivably big people around where looking tiny and thats not all the entire temple is carved out of a single mountain, it is not made in bits and pieces. how could dare imagine something so wild. apparently it took around 200 years to finish the task, looking at the temple 200 years seem less a time taken. whats most important is that it is there for real. no picture can capture the magic, still i tried to shoot some pictures. the temple dates somewhere around 6th to 7th century, locally known as kailasha. not getting into details browse through the pictures it may give some understanding of the place.













back in the car we start driving towards aurangabad suddenly i notice a board giving directions for aurangzeb's tomb did i misread something. not really it soon struck me that the mughal ruler spent his last few years in the deccan so logically his tomb should be around, took a quick u-turn and reach the place which was just a couple of kilometres of the track. a modest looking structure reflecting aurangzeb's modest lifestyle. there is a mazaar and next to it a dargah. everything around is simple and minimalistic unlike tombs of his ancestors who believed in grandeur some of which can be seen in delhi the seat of mughal power.










soon we drive into karnataka and are impressed by their style of road direction boards on the highway. they exactly know how to promote tourism through the road signs and surely make life easier for the travellers unlike maharashtra who can't think beyond bombay or the so called mumbai. in karnataka the road signs had small graphics depicting temples, mosques, wild life etc along with the name of places. it was nice to see how organised they are and the place i.e. the landscape was beautiful it was green all around the plains merging into hills as we go up the western ghats.

soon i'll be on the road.

the feeling is sinking in. i'm reallising what i'm about to do.
Cruising the road had always been so easy. Something is pulling me
back home this time...

--
sudip bhattacharya (9810680705)

ghost rider

saturday morning I decided to go. woke up a friend at 6 o'clock. He reached my home by 9 o'clock by 9:15 we were on the road. Took the highway i.e. NH8 till daruhera from there took a left for alwar crossed alwar. after alwar we stopped at a dhaba for our brunch of rotis, daal, and gatte ki sabzi. the daal and the gatte ki subzi both where heavy on spice and chilli thats the way it is in rajasthan, you always need spices to make your mouth water in the dry region like this. after the brunch we were standing at turning point and as always in life we had two choices the easy and shorter one and the not so easy and longer one. like heroes we chose the longer one which seemed to be more exciting as it was a drive through sariska. as we drove we met some nilgais, cheetals (spotted deers) and sambhars. not to forget loads of peacocks, peahens, langoors and other breeds of monkeys. as luck was on our side we could get some close look at the deers.








soon we where out of sariska after a nice jungli drive. another 40kms or so to bhangarh. where you can see ancient row houses with wide roads. Just that no one lives there unlike gurgaon.



the legend says bhangarh is spooky, there is a long story attached to the same but i'm not too sure. couldn't see one. none the less if ghosts exist this would be a perfect place for them to stay.

no humans to disturb their after life stay. the place is almost like a resort for the spooky types. got a nice old mossy kund like a luxuruies hamam for the spooky ones. surely the spooky ones don't get allergic or skin disease. loads of langoors for them to keep entertain, they don't need cineplexes i think. no clue what they eat probably nothing. nice rows of houses for a pleasurable stay.






though the houses don't have roofs, but who cares. we may but they prefer roofless houses i guess. The road with the roofless row houses leads to a temple and the palace. Infact there are two temples in the complex. One can walk all the way to the top of the palace.


We decided to turn back midway, i wasn't carrying my asthalin and didn't want to take chances with my breathing problems as i was already huffing and puffing by merely half the climb. the palace was deserted like everything else. as we could not see the inhabitants with our naked eyes. it takes special power to see them. the mandir was a nice find, some locals where having a lunch party.



people where sitting in rows and having subzi-pooris being cooked just outside the temple. i think this is the right purpose the temple to be a community centre.

right outside this temple was the kund with the mossy water.

probably people think it to be some sacred water as they where taking dip into it. behind the temple where the big kewda trees for some reason their was a sign outside the complex warning people against tinkering around with the trees. they are really big but i'm not too sure how old they are.


maybe a few centuries old. or maybe the ghost hang on to the branches of the trees in the night. soon we where out of bhangarh and on our way to ajaibgarg or ajabgarh. as the name suggests even this place had a garh (fort). we drove through the ghost town of ajaibgarh. Leaving the fort of ajaibgarh on our left.

took some pictures of the town which had houses on both the sides of the road but all of them were locked from outside, and mostly seemed to be out of use for a longtime how long i'm not to sure about. from






there the road took us to pratapgarh. a short tea break and photosesion at pratapgarh





and back to NH-8 near shahpura. just before hitting the highway we stopped at a dhaba to have allo parathas. And back home by 10 o'clock for dinner.
just hoping i hadn't been carrying one of the ghost in car... who knows whats in store.

few steps inside the earth

this place had been hanging somewhere in the top 5 positions of my travel wish list. been planning to go there for almost a year, that is since i saw the 15kb picture of the numerous steps of chandra baoli. the steps looked so graphic surely not like a piece of architecture but rather a drawing from escher's sketch book. the internet could not be of much help in throwing much light about the place or even it's location. all it said was Abhaneri is situated on the jaipur-agra highway around 60kms from jaipur. the confusion was that none of the maps i refered to had this name written on them. probably it's too small a place to be mentioned. anyways for me it made absolute sense to venture out on the jaipur-agra road and try finding this place. even people in jaipur were of no help. the name abhaneri sounded greek to them.



finally on a nice clear winter sunday morning i started on the agra road from jaipur, after around 30 odd kilometres some old gentleman in a filling station did confirm the existence of the place called abhaneri. the first ray of hope i could see. yes i am on the right track. the road was empty and wide. driving at the 5th gear was an easy game. the sun was rising and created hues of purple and mauve's all over, and a thin layer of fog could be seen on the adjoining mustard fields. after driving for around 80kms from the outskirts of jaipur i reached a place called sikandra crossed the toll booth over there and took the left turn from the chowk around 4.5kms ahead reached the pilot chowk and turned right. a narrow village road leads to abhaneri. as i reached the place the sun was showing it's first orangish glow. and it looked splendid as it created a halo around the spire of harshat mata temple.










undoubtedly the temple was much interesting than what it looked on the net. those 10kb pixelated pictures don't justice to the place. actually no picture can do justice to such beautiful places. well here am i witnessing the beauty of this village temple.





a short walk of just a couple of minutes takes you to a small fortress kind of thing, actually it's the outer wall of the chandra baoli, walk in through the stone gateway take a left or a right and there you are. who can imagine that out of the blue in this almost unknown village one could see such a baoli.



it's old, the water is mossy, the walls are greyish but it's so beautiful. the sun rays are yet to enter the depth of the baoli. it was not as big as i expected but surely more magnificent than my imagination.






i started walking down the steps and after a while it was like walking down a maze. not that you will get lost or anything still the structure gives the feeling of an illusion. archaeological survey of india has a decent collection of sculptures around the baoli inside the compound. but once there you would like to see nothing else but admire the architecture of the baoli. the steps are narrow one needs to be careful. once you are half way down the stairs it's like standing inside a deep pit, as if walking down towards the core of earth. i guess absence of sunlight was also making it look a bit mysterious. lucky enough there is a fence and beyond a point you can't go down the steps so no need to be scared of falling in the baolis mossy water in a cold winter morning. the place is neat and clean barring some pigeon shit around the walls.



it's nice to sit there for a while and keep admiring the baoli, when you are actually so few metres deep inside the earth and can see the ground level much above where you stand. yet again my camera can't do justice of showing the beauty of the place, but surely they should be able to inspire a person to make the trip. on one side of the baoli there are arches and below them in the niches are sculptures of mahishasur mardini and ganesh not clearly visible as they are at a distance on the other side of the water and inaccessible. my zoom lense worked as a binocular and gave me a closer look at the sculpture.



mahishasur mardini



ganesh

once done with admiring the baoli one should just walk around have a look at the carved pillars, arches, the little temple and the ASI conserved sculptures.











once you are over with all this take a short walk through the village,









have a cup of tea by the road side and move on...
...leaving behind a thousand years old baoli. a baoli which would have been the centre of technology, the centre of society, the centre art. a baoli which would have been the provider of water and centre of life.

reflections

things which are beautiful remain beautiful, even after some distortion and they make other things look interesting by their aura. yesterday i tried looking at some insignificant objects under the glory of jama masjid. and as i said jama masjid made everything else look interesting and beautiful. took a walk from the chandni chowk metro station to jawahar hotel. and on my way i kept collecting pictures of various objects with reflection of the mosque on them. even a small puddle in chawri bazaar jumped into life with the reflection of the spire of the masjid.




the junk of a spare part dealer started making artistic sense once i saw the reflection in a horn hanging there. the upturned mirror got lit by the magic of the mosque.



once in that area almost every where you can see the aura of that mosque, it's deeple embedded in every nook and corner of shahjahanabad. just that one needs to have the will and intention to see it.





surely for the past few centuries the mosque must have been enlightening people by reflecting in their day to day lives.

firozshah kotla

surely a fifty years back it would have been a splendid place for a picnic. things have changed since then, so has the concept of a picnic. what else could have one asked for than a vast open area, with some old monuments scattered here and there. a jami masjid to pray for the peace of mind and soul. and if things go too hot you find nice shade of trees in the well maintained lawns. kids can run around while the grown ups can play badminton. enough space for playing hide and seek. no scarcity of water as there is a nice baoli in the complex. though some say it's haunted but who knows. one can admire the ashokan pillar for it's size and sheen. how did that guy dare make such structutres so many hundred years back. the pillars haven't yet lost it's shine or is it a dull version which amazes us. but as i said picnics are no more in vogue. people prefer spending the sundays in a mall or watching a movie. things have changed. all you can find now in these monuments are couples who can't find solace anywhere else. they are desperate to be with each other and if luck strikes would like to go a step beyond a casual embrace. thats what you see over here. no more picnics. no more appreciation. no more of the kids playing. only hollow walls providing space for a few couples to embrace each other. i still hope to see a family picnic maybe sometime in yet another visit.