tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44200688551132950282024-03-26T19:10:42.949+05:30Pixelated MemoriesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger221125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-43447408762321151692019-07-02T05:22:00.000+05:302019-07-02T05:26:09.593+05:30SUNY-Oswego/STARTALK collaboration (2019)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Pixelated Memories was featured in a series of educational videos on ancient Indian science and architecture. These were developed jointly by State University of New York (SUNY-Oswego), University of Maryland, ESHA Foundation and US National Security Agency as part of STARTALK Program, an effort to internationally promote several languages (including Hindi) and their vernacular sciences.</div>
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The collaboration project was the brainchild of Prof. Dr. Alok Kumar of SUNY-Oswego and involved detailed research about the history, architecture, religious significance and scientific underpinnings of several monuments in Delhi and Rajasthan.</div>
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Even though it was pre-decided that each of the two videos that Pixelated Memories will feature in will introduce only one monument/concept and will only be 5-10 minutes long, it nonetheless required two days of hectic shooting at the Qutb Complex, Delhi. It was an exhilarating experience, though disconcertingly intimidating, being under cameras and strobe lights for the first time!</div>
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Here are the videos –<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-WT_ZXoiM7A" width="620"></iframe></div>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sFHxFkzuUNs" width="620"></iframe></div>
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<b>Access the complete lecture series here –</b> <a href="https://startalk.umd.edu/public/AuthenticMedia_IndianScienceTechnology">STARTALK Authentic Media on Indian Science & Technology</a></div>
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<b><b>Access articles </b><b>relevant to </b><b>the monuments discussed here <span style="text-align: justify;">–</span></b></b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2012/10/iron-pillar-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Iron Pillar, Delhi</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2012/12/qutb-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb Complex, Delhi</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2012/12/qutb-minar-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb Minar, Delhi</a></li>
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<b>Media mentions <span style="text-align: justify;">–</span></b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/nasa-funds-programme-to-produce-videos-to-teach-hindi-through-indian-scientific-innovations/articleshow/69837267.cms?from=mdr">Economictimes.com - <i>NASA funds programme to produce videos to teach Hindi through Indian scientific innovations</i> (June 18, 2019)</a> (sic)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/nasa-funded-programme-hindi-language-indian-scientific-innovations-1551095-2019-06-18">Indiatoday.in - <i>NASA funds programme to teach Hindi internationally through science-themed videos</i> (June 18, 2019)</a> (sic)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.oswego.edu/news/story/professor-joins-team-produce-science-themed-videos-teach-hindi">Oswego.edu - <i>Professor joins team to produce science-themed videos to teach Hindi</i> (June 17, 2019)</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://rstv.nic.in/nasa-funds-programme-produce-videos-teach-hindi-indian-scientific-innovations.html">Rstv.nic.in - <i>NASA funds programme to produce videos to teach Hindi through Indian scientific innovations</i> (June 18, 2019)</a> (sic)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/nasa-funds-programme-to-produce-videos-to-teach-hindi-through-indian-scientific-innovations/article28042878.ece">Thehindu.com - <i>NASA funds programme to produce videos to teach Hindi through Indian scientific innovations</i> (June 18, 2019)</a> (sic)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/nasa-funds-programme-to-produce-videos-to-teach-hindi-through-indian-scientific-innovations/articleshow/69837496.cms">Timesofindia.com - <i>NASA funds programme to produce videos to teach Hindi through Indian scientific innovations</i> (June 18, 2019)</a> (sic)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/science-technology/nasa-funds-programme-to-produce-videos-to-teach-hindi-through-indian-scientific-innovations/789655.html">Tribuneindia.com - <i>NASA funds programme to produce videos to teach Hindi through Indian scientific innovations</i> (June 18, 2019)</a> (sic)</li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-85975743396927818132017-08-24T19:02:00.002+05:302021-02-12T13:37:54.828+05:30Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, Rajasthan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Out of the city and over the hill, into the spaces where Time stands still,</b></div>
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<b>Under the tall trees, touching old wood, taking the way where warriors once stood;<br />Crossing the little bridge, losing my way, but finding a friendly place where I can stay…<br />Cast away care and come roaming with me, where the grass is still green and the air is still free.”</b></div>
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<b>– Ruskin Bond, Anglo-Indian poet-writer</b></div>
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Formidable waves of humanity, ceaselessly twirling and whirling, crashing on themselves and spontaneously disintegrating, each individual a particle capable of heading into a million unique directions. No wonder my heart palpitates as I stroll along the platforms at Old Delhi railway station. Though travelling is an addiction, nothing makes me feel more vulnerable, more disoriented, than the very thought of heading into the unknown amidst a surge of faceless, restless crowds.<br />
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I wonder if this is how Bruce Wayne felt when he embarked on his momentous journey from Gotham City to learn about the ways of the cruel and corrupt world prior to becoming Batman. Why am I thinking of Batman? Because certain scenes in the movie “Batman: Dark Knight Rises” were shot with Mehrangarh Fort, the impregnable Rajput stronghold where I was headed, in the background.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdt-koEtko71nw65DmiB6PD326hAPJa8n7CsOuxSi0syC94JBAmjPhmiZjKNMDuQC8jSod2GLqCi2svm0B4S68I72HebLcNK-xjrXtSs2REfC0_zzdIiewEuqu7aPyOnvdbNq4bREu_OEg/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252823%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdt-koEtko71nw65DmiB6PD326hAPJa8n7CsOuxSi0syC94JBAmjPhmiZjKNMDuQC8jSod2GLqCi2svm0B4S68I72HebLcNK-xjrXtSs2REfC0_zzdIiewEuqu7aPyOnvdbNq4bREu_OEg/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252823%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Mehrangarh - Enormity emerging from the mountain</span></b></td></tr>
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It is impossible to think Rajasthan and not visualize the expansive Thar Desert and moustachioed Rajputs – mighty horse/camel-mounted warriors adorned with priceless jewels, vivid red and yellow turbans flamboyantly perched on their heads against the brown-gold desert background, and fierce swords and daggers glinting at their sides. Though now reduced to a fraction of their erstwhile illustriousness best epitomized by the BSF's camel regiments, the Rajputs draw inspiration from their history which is replete with numerous instances of prodigious valour and extraordinary nobility of character.</div>
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There is little concurrence among historians regarding the Rajputs’ origins, and genealogical records are incomprehensibly comingled, but it is conjectured that they are descended from an agglomeration of warrior classes among Scythian, Kushana, Hun and Gurjara invaders who poured into the country from the North-West, conquered vast territories, consolidated politico-economic power (at the cost of numerous tribes indigenous to Rajasthan and the North-West) and gradually assimilated into Hinduism and its allied institutions (such as caste system). Unfettered with tethers of history (or plausibility!) and endowed with matchless poetic imagination, their royal bards conceived fabulous pedigrees to affiliate them to mythical Mahabharata and Ramayana heroes (“Chandravanshi/Suryavanshi”) and intermittently also reconstructed and interpolated mythological legends to claim genesis from sacrificial fire (“Agnikula”).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRo_VgBbJjrbOg2eetbhd5gp-xfN_-MsTwKfbHQi6wbeNoWjZY7hkW4_HBSY6M0NbEimR47_MwqTwtMSGRFXSWwnUY9GSy6HqcylsI6kvJDtwRNLiHaXR4vbDwRJnqwg6z0HGlNJU_DPs/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRo_VgBbJjrbOg2eetbhd5gp-xfN_-MsTwKfbHQi6wbeNoWjZY7hkW4_HBSY6M0NbEimR47_MwqTwtMSGRFXSWwnUY9GSy6HqcylsI6kvJDtwRNLiHaXR4vbDwRJnqwg6z0HGlNJU_DPs/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Embodying unparalleled imagination - Phool Mahal facade</span></b></td></tr>
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Fast forward eight centuries, our tale begins with the Rathore kingdom of Marwar, established in AD 1226 by Rao Sihaji/Sheoji (reign AD 1226-73), grandson of Maharaja Jaichandra of the Gahadavala Dynasty of Kannauj. Maharaja Jaichandra, the most distinguished sovereign of his time, is remembered even today because of his vituperative enmity with Raja Prithviraj Chauhan of Delhi-Ajmer which allowed Shihabuddin Muhammad Ghuri and Qutbuddin Aibak to overrun Northern India and establish the Delhi Sultanate in AD 1192 (more details here – <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/11/quwwat-ul-islam-mosque-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, Delhi</a>). Kannauj fell barely two years after Delhi, compelling Maharaja Jaichandra’s descendants to seek refuge in the desert wilderness of “Marusthal/Marudesa”, the “Land of Death”, as Rajasthan was then known.<br />
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Like most ancient kingdoms, Marwar too traces its origins to murder and mayhem – first that introduced by Muhammad Ghuri's fanatic expeditions, then the cold-blooded mass murder committed by Rao Sihaji to eliminate those very Brahmin chiefs who persuaded him to settle with them in Marwar. Recognizing the precariousness of their existence as the Turkish Muslim armies rampaged across the whole country north of Vindhyas, piecemeal decimating and devouring kingdom after kingdom, Rao Sihaji’s sons decided to refrain from endeavouring to re-conquer Kannauj and instead began cementing their control over Marwar through a policy of territorial aggression, politico-economic consolidation and marital/military alliances.<br />
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One such alliance was forged by Rao Chunda (reign AD 1394-1422), 11th in line from Rao Sihaji, by marrying his daughter Rani Hansa Bai to Maharana Lakha Singh (reign AD 1382-1421) of the Sisodia kingdom of Mewar, thereby perpetually interweaving the convoluted histories of the powerful houses of Marwar and Mewar. Rao Chunda also overran Mandore and therein raised the capital of Marwar.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrGD87wM971iut9oa8-pNuH7Bq_wKzJIvssCYr1ff9lWamkqcL9LIWy_H9bcrg4_bOKbw9tQF-0uXJMixiKg58tM8pCj-SLozSU8d7EZRTdiA_fcAhyphenhyphenD2GjM_ovHKycLNPOqtRG6jyt8U/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrGD87wM971iut9oa8-pNuH7Bq_wKzJIvssCYr1ff9lWamkqcL9LIWy_H9bcrg4_bOKbw9tQF-0uXJMixiKg58tM8pCj-SLozSU8d7EZRTdiA_fcAhyphenhyphenD2GjM_ovHKycLNPOqtRG6jyt8U/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Juxtaposing intangible cultural heritage against architectural brilliance -</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Jhanki Mahal facade</b></span></td></tr>
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Following the demise of Maharana Lakha in AD 1421, Rao Chunda dispatched his son Rao Ranmal (reign AD 1427-38) to Mewar to assist Rani Hansa Bai in undertaking the administration on behalf of her minor son Maharana Mokal Singh (reign AD 1421-33). Together the brother-sister conspired to exile Rana Chunda, eldest son of Maharana Lakha (from another of his numerous wives), despite the fact that he had without a second's hesitation surrendered his crown and inheritance in favor of his younger brother, thereby earning the sobriquet “Bhishma of Mewar” for his virtuosity and worldly renunciation.</div>
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Even after his ascension as the 15th sovereign of Marwar in AD 1427, Rao Ranmal continued officiating as advisor not only to his nephew but also after he was assassinated to his juvenile son Maharana Kumbha (reign AD 1433-68). His own sister however had him slaughtered with his retainers at the hands of Rana Chunda (whom she recalled in distress) in AD 1438 when it became apparent that he intended to transplant the Rathore clan to Mewar and would not relent even if he had to obliterate his grandnephew in the process. His bloodlust not quenched despite massacring 700 Rathore horsemen in the ensuing butchery, Rana Chunda ferociously pursued Rao Ranmal’s 24 sons and expelled them from their capital Mandore where thereafter he headquartered forces led by his own sons Rana Kanta and Rana Manja.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7xoCG2j97o0j6Wx0RuWkeRBr5qrMmvwfQPRdNAIoIrpS_twyZQDzJXwMv5MkScCoc9DzBjQOW-XPQjM2-VoIOCpMTNClDU5mrzoljq3alFBo7zqyNGrK8Nzocvgn4vBxuYQjSJfJ-V6F/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7xoCG2j97o0j6Wx0RuWkeRBr5qrMmvwfQPRdNAIoIrpS_twyZQDzJXwMv5MkScCoc9DzBjQOW-XPQjM2-VoIOCpMTNClDU5mrzoljq3alFBo7zqyNGrK8Nzocvgn4vBxuYQjSJfJ-V6F/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Epitomizing elegance - Jhanki Mahal facade</span></b></td></tr>
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The celebrated tales of the house of Marwar and the city of Jodhpur begin in earnest with this sudden politico-administrative upheaval which witnessed the emergence of Rao Jodha (reign AD 1438-89), son of Rao Ranmal, as the unchallenged leader of the Rathores despite vitriolic opposition from his brothers and continuous harassment from the fierce armies of Rana Chunda.</div>
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But though he was an exceptional warlord who quickly re-consolidated his forces and resources and also involved his distant relative Rao Nara of Nadol in the confrontation, Rao Jodha failed to translate his perseverance and military proficiency into immediate success. For 12 years, he endeavoured in vain to penetrate Mandore’s defenses while his wherewithal diminished and his adversities amplified. Meanwhile, Rana Chunda also annexed Nadol as chastisement. In parallel, Maharana Kumbha, who would go on to be recognized as the most prominent Rajput warlord of his time, had already begun achieving renown in Mewar by his enthusiasm for warfare, administration and arts and architecture.</div>
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Folk legend goes that it was at this crucial junction that Rao Jodha, exiled, isolated and disheartened, was reduced to anonymously seek alms at a peasant dwelling. He burnt his fingers in a bowl of “khichdi” (rice-and-lentil gruel), prompting the peasant’s wife to snidely remark that he was committing the same folly which their sovereign was, since khichdi is hottest in the center of the bowl and cooler along the peripheries. The Rao wisely deciphered the allegory and began annexing smaller fortresses and garrisons surrounding Mandore. It is of course astonishing that he did not conceive the same himself and had to be schooled in military tactics by illiterate peasants! The lore also does not specify how he remunerated his troops if he himself was dependent for sustenance on peasants’ magnanimity.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTbhVIHiCrM6zOrsiCUnZ8dMl0GiD19GEvGS2QvwvkQUa1wtRIGd9ty4pFtQcWYLMbXUuD352mdqeUcSHANU9f7JBmuLslIilBjsAWFx6CUbMdHignHE9mURJVqFiFXDVs9QOuR0Girank/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252814%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTbhVIHiCrM6zOrsiCUnZ8dMl0GiD19GEvGS2QvwvkQUa1wtRIGd9ty4pFtQcWYLMbXUuD352mdqeUcSHANU9f7JBmuLslIilBjsAWFx6CUbMdHignHE9mURJVqFiFXDVs9QOuR0Girank/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252814%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Spellbinding symmetry</span></b></td></tr>
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Capitalizing on the situation while Maharana Kumbha was engrossed in fending off joint aggression by the Sultans of Gujarat and Malwa, Rao Jodha occupied Mandore in AD 1453. Rana Kanta and Rana Manja, sons of Rana Chunda, were pursued and killed. Realizing the jeopardy their kingdoms were in against the Muslim sovereigns of Delhi, Gujarat and Malwa, the two sides agreed to re-conciliate and mutually demarcate their respective spheres of influence. Though disconsolate and infuriated, Rana Chunda, the “Bhishma of Mewar” who earlier relinquished his birthright to his younger brother, now resigned his vengeance on a single command of his sovereign and decreed thus,</div>
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<b>“Anwal, anwal Mewar, Bawal, bawal Marwar”</b></div>
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<b>“Wherever the yellow blossoms of Anwal sprout shall be Mewar’s, the remaining Marwar’s”</b></div>
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In accordance with Rajput tradition of never refusing assistance when beseeched, Rao Jodha remained true to the vow of alliance he had given Maharana Kumbha and deployed an enormous army to help him apprehend and execute the assassins of his father Maharana Mokal Singh.</div>
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<b>“Who would imagine, after such deadly feuds between these rival States, that in the very next succession these hostile frays were not only buried in oblivion, but that the prince of Marwar abjured ‘his turban and his bed’ till he had revenged the assassination of the prince of Chittor, and restored his infant heir to his rights? The annals of these States afford numerous instances of the same hasty, overbearing temperament governing all; easily moved to strife, impatient of revenge, and steadfast in its gratification. But this satisfied, resentment subsides. A daughter of the offender given to wife banishes its remembrance, and when the bard joins the lately rival names in the couplet, each will complacently curl his mustachio over his lip as he hears his ‘renown expand like the lotus’, and thus ‘the feud is extinguished’. Thus have they gone on from time immemorial, and will continue, till what we may fear to contemplate.”</b></div>
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<b>– Colonel James Tod, English East India Company Officer and Oriental scholar</b></div>
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<b>“Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan: Volume I” (1829)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMfTK-fEe0rZn5jjnUpWC8TT9M40VuT4IG_8dmS0D1A9qrqKLfjYDtBChk50ZwYYWEMcf5wHno_zlU05xFUDMbQJrtdk1mHP_djfiV-mmzB3Nt4DOWSmDnPWeGpP-wHdv1vdckWlG3n0EJ/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMfTK-fEe0rZn5jjnUpWC8TT9M40VuT4IG_8dmS0D1A9qrqKLfjYDtBChk50ZwYYWEMcf5wHno_zlU05xFUDMbQJrtdk1mHP_djfiV-mmzB3Nt4DOWSmDnPWeGpP-wHdv1vdckWlG3n0EJ/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Rao Chunda's decree - No yellow blossoms in Marwar.<br />(Here's a Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus) instead)</span></b></td></tr>
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By AD 1455, Rao Jodha had expanded his dominions manifolds and compelled the sovereigns of Bundi and Ajmer to acknowledge his suzerainty. Four years later, perceiving the vulnerability of the fortress at Mandore against his numerous foes, he resolved to raise an impregnable stronghold atop the almost inaccessible Bhaur-chiriya eyrie (also spelled Bhaurcheeria, “Birds’ mountain”), a 410-feet high outcrop 9 kilometers from Mandore. The enormous castle, complete with extensive fortifications 125-feet high and breathtaking palaces, was christened “Mehrangarh” (“Citadel of Sun”) since the Rathores of Marwar claim descent from “Mihir”, the anthropologic manifestation of Sun. It was also referred to as “Jodhagarh” (“Jodha's Castle”, but also translated as “House of Strife” since “Jodha” = “Warrior” in Hindi) from which derived the name of the inhabitation that soon enveloped it – Jodhpur.<br />
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It is now known that the Bhaur-Chiriya outcrop and the associated rocky projections (such as those in Rao Jodha Desert Park adjacent, fodder for another post) are unique geological features composed of Rhyolite rock that was produced by explosive volcanic activity approximately 600-750 million years ago. Christened Jodhpur-Malani Igneous Suite Contact, this natural projection is classified as a National Geological Monument by the Geological Survey of India (GSI). There are 26 Geological Monuments in the country. This, coincidentally, was my second – the first being the Peninsular Gneiss Rock in Lal Bagh, Bangalore (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/02/lal-bagh-botanical-gardens-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens</a>).</div>
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The nucleus of the fortress bequeathed by Rao Jodha to his successors was expanded, reconstructed and embellished by them time and again both with defensive fortifications and enchanting adornments. The most extensive structural additions date to the glorious incumbencies of Rao Maldeo (reign AD 1532-62), Maharaja Jaswant Singh (reign AD 1638-78), Maharaja Ajit Singh (reign AD 1679-1724), Maharaja Takhat Singh (reign AD 1843-72) and Maharaja Hanwant Singh (reign AD 1947-52).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK11G3tambDUaqVw150w7GSnIIVeH72bxbx5d87s-BJIhvjoSGzIR5_SId8NG1FcaR-KVXPEwLgHxOP_LpSejHKVHcNOBCTAsyW4SoN-9bG3VZSIYr6aaO5u5ROhNOOHVwZBo0klvrSkPq/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252842%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1145" data-original-width="1600" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK11G3tambDUaqVw150w7GSnIIVeH72bxbx5d87s-BJIhvjoSGzIR5_SId8NG1FcaR-KVXPEwLgHxOP_LpSejHKVHcNOBCTAsyW4SoN-9bG3VZSIYr6aaO5u5ROhNOOHVwZBo0klvrSkPq/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252842%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Eclectic fusion of traditional Rajasthani and Gujarati architecture -<br />Legacy of Maharaja Takhat Singh?</span></b></td></tr>
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It is impossible to be in Jodhpur and not feel overawed by the epic proportions of the massive stronghold. The entire city appears lilliputian nestled in its all-encompassing shadow. Wherever one goes, wherever one reposes, the sandstone immensity is always in the background. Yet it is never intimidating. On the contrary, the subdued magnificence of the irregular agglomeration of gigantic towers and elegant palaces persistently enchants in the truest sense of the word and beckons visitors to itself like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Witnessing the leviathan barbicans and the long row of mammoth bastions stretched across the entire outcrop, one can be forgiven for believing that this isn't the handiwork of mere mortals but giants.</div>
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<b>“Jodhpur's House of Strife is the work of giants... Above everything, a mark for miles around, towers the dun-red pile of the Fort which is also a Palace. This is set upon sandstone rock whose sharper features have been worn smooth by the wash of the windblown sand. It is monstrous… wherever it wanders, the eye comes back at last to its fantastic bulk. There is no greenery on the rock, nothing but fierce sunlight or black shadow… rock and masonry are so curiously blended in this great pile that he who walks through it loses sense of being among buildings. It is as though he walked through mountain-gorges. The stone-paved, inclined planes, and the tunnel-like passages driven under a hundred feet height of buildings, increase this impression. In many places the wall and rock runs up unbroken by any window for forty feet.”</b></div>
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<b>– Rudyard Kipling, English poet-writer-journalist, “Out of India” (1895)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZzr8Pqp9x-hfvQISN7lEjlOxrZEXFbuEvrXXFNluumawTixaWyWVYxjiIxt7kXJN_JGAxxQI5ydeEl30vkLque4hVVgaEUJyu842dswJAgS9Gc3un59cpn6g19TDgJKXIkmc0pnXNtOhQ/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252826%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZzr8Pqp9x-hfvQISN7lEjlOxrZEXFbuEvrXXFNluumawTixaWyWVYxjiIxt7kXJN_JGAxxQI5ydeEl30vkLque4hVVgaEUJyu842dswJAgS9Gc3un59cpn6g19TDgJKXIkmc0pnXNtOhQ/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252826%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">City skylines be like! - View from Gulab Sagar tank near Ghanta Ghar</span></b></td></tr>
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So daunting are the gargantuan fortress’ defenses that it isn’t uncommon to overhear gossip-peddling guides recount how it has never been subjugated or subjected to escalade in a direct siege throughout its history. Wrong, but close – it fell but only once, though then too when Rathore fought Rathore in the civil strife that manifested immediately following Rao Jodha’s demise when his disinherited eldest son Rao Bika (founded Bikaner which he ruled over AD 1485-1504) audaciously stormed the near-invincible stronghold and received his estranged brothers’ unconditional surrender. </div>
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Jodhpur prospered during medieval times on account of being located along the trade highway connecting north and north-western India with the western states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Modern-day Jodhpur, in contrast, is a small city with scant pleasures to offer. Thankfully, wonderful guesthouses offering rooms at very affordable prices are among these. The entire circumference of Bhaur-chiriya outcrop, particularly the Ghanta Ghar area (more on that in another post), is in fact sprinkled with scores of guesthouses interspersed with colorful hole-in-the-wall shops, ubiquitous handicrafts stores, and roadside confectioneries offering teatime fritters and delicious omelets.<br />
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From here on, there are two ways to reach the fortress-palace – hire a cab/auto (for Rs 100-120) to traverse a scenic 5-kilometer long route around the city, or hike a considerably tough albeit only 500-meter (20 minute) trek beginning from a nondescript downtown street near Ghanta Ghar and crisscrossing the settlement immediately contiguous to the outcrop. One can imagine the endless royal retinue, with sinewy horses, exotic camels and majestic lumbering elephants caparisoned with colorfully embroidered cloth, leisurely negotiating its way along the precipitous trek even as inhabitants of the neighborhood lined the fringes, heads bowed, hands folded, to pay respect to their sovereign.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD3IMVuEnCZjPbf_EVC7mFZdXvlBmLHKwocGqnUA-hpxOv6w8tI3DoKzAo5QLLZCnucdsjaPtxuFzVfjOatjipUCWpTx80RL6VUxpOzZZ8_k3w3NU1qfXfz6M-NRmaMiiw41lgHWBsbZ5l/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD3IMVuEnCZjPbf_EVC7mFZdXvlBmLHKwocGqnUA-hpxOv6w8tI3DoKzAo5QLLZCnucdsjaPtxuFzVfjOatjipUCWpTx80RL6VUxpOzZZ8_k3w3NU1qfXfz6M-NRmaMiiw41lgHWBsbZ5l/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Trek of the celestial retinue (but no Goddesses!), painted on the Jai Pol</span></b></td></tr>
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Though the locals appear unbothered with the contour of the trek, I had to stop every few minutes to catch my breath. Did I mention that those who developed this steep pathway also continuously envisaged imaginative ways of punishing enemy assailants who might take this shortcut (ha!) and therefore all along abhorred even the slightest hint of shade against the scorching summer sun? They sure did not foresee a chubby camera-toting guy hobbling around centuries later! Thankfully, the singular perspective of the imposing battlements witnessed along the way amply recompenses momentary breathlessness and vertigo. With huge towers reaching out sharply to the infinite sky, the expansive fortress stands guard like an indomitable sentinel, indifferent to the puny houses relentlessly mushrooming around it. These ruthless defenses are not the kind that an invading army could even imagine scaling in a hurry.</div>
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Slightly prior to the entrance to the fort proper, dwarfed by the impressive fortifications, yet assiduously maintaining its distinct identity, stands the stately memorial of Thakur Shyam Singh Chauhan who fell defending the capital against the combined armies of Amber, Mewar, Bikaner and Pokhran during the Siege of Mehrangarh (1806). A beautiful off-white chattri (umbrella dome mounted on pillars) adorned with finely-carved scallop leaf ornamentation along its peripheries and miniature onion domes along the cardinal directions, the memorial was commissioned by Maharaja Man Singh (reign AD 1803-43) who also endowed Thakur Shyam Singh's descendants with an irrevocable land grant (now a heritage hotel).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUSbIHcz5CKT5n_Fa46BsQ-alYbPPgFmTLAmdaJYf8r1StdXlDfXSYOCTnGpHFIE574go9OH1Oru-ih3OdI5jH7m8oLguuVb1H69heu9EQjMumqXo3UjlKLoj6FDyAao6bDNW-8AMNUB-W/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252829%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUSbIHcz5CKT5n_Fa46BsQ-alYbPPgFmTLAmdaJYf8r1StdXlDfXSYOCTnGpHFIE574go9OH1Oru-ih3OdI5jH7m8oLguuVb1H69heu9EQjMumqXo3UjlKLoj6FDyAao6bDNW-8AMNUB-W/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252829%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thakur Shyam Singh's chattri - </span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">A monument in its own right elsewhere, a minuscule fraction of the imposing whole here</span></b></td></tr>
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Entrance to the fort is through the monumental Jai Pol (“Gate of Victory”) which, though merely a barbican, is decorated with exquisite plasterwork patterns and spectacular paintings depicting on one side of the entrance arch the more prominent deities among the extensive Hindu pantheon and on the other side the royal train in one panel and the Rao galloping with the chief queen on a gorgeous white steed in another. On a plinth adjoining the gateway is a diminutive shrine dedicated to Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed, pot-bellied Hindu deity of auspiciousness, knowledge and divine blessings.<br />
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Jai Pol was constructed by Maharaja Man Singh in AD 1808-10 following the aforementioned siege, as was another memorial, a relatively unsophisticated chattri celebrating the exceptional valor of Soda Kirat Singh in the battle. The ticket counter is located along the rear of the mighty gateway.</div>
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Also located a stone’s throw away from the gate is the small mausoleum of Bhure Khan, another soldier who also fell during the siege. Folklore goes that Bhure Khan's spirit began manifesting gloomily in the dreams of his regimental brothers when his grave was being unearthed to allow for the construction of Jai Pol. Alarmed by this supernatural development, Maharaja Man Singh immediately had the exhumation halted and established a perpetual allowance (which continues till date) for the purchase of embroidered cloth and various other items of veneration for the grave.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYGdDYGjlSdZr9Wk4f6l8MgB_82AZs0g6BGP8_gzBjWYasV-h2OfK_J27zjsW2LygWs6-imjHYHYNAkR1hOPjInfDo_9_bfsUTjIf0IEq5FaCcJgP32Bhi7SK6nrD2Mfywvsh0cOrfMlCj/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252827%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYGdDYGjlSdZr9Wk4f6l8MgB_82AZs0g6BGP8_gzBjWYasV-h2OfK_J27zjsW2LygWs6-imjHYHYNAkR1hOPjInfDo_9_bfsUTjIf0IEq5FaCcJgP32Bhi7SK6nrD2Mfywvsh0cOrfMlCj/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252827%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Gateway at the end of the trek (phew!) - Jai Pol</span></b></td></tr>
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Parallel to Jai Pol is the Dedh Kangura Pol (“One-and-half battlement gate”), a rather constricted passageway flanked only on one side by a substantial bastion. The bastion was brutally scarred by cannon fire during the Siege of Mehrangarh (1806) following which Maharaja Man Singh was induced to strengthen the fortifications and undertake the construction of Jai Pol. It is imperative herein to transgress and discuss the siege because of its recurrent association with several individuals interred/cremated in and around the stronghold as well as the introduction of additional layers of defenses.</div>
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The timeless struggle for supremacy among descendants of a deceased sovereign, even while traditionally or at least nominally subscribing to the right of primogeniture, constitutes the background of numerous wars of succession throughout the history of the various dynasties that ruled across the country (and the world). Resourcefully capitalizing on the tragic demise of his grandfather Maharaja Vijay Singh (reign AD 1753-93), Bheem Singh (reign AD 1793-1803) ascended the throne of Jodhpur-Marwar as its 31st sovereign after having his uncles and other immediate relatives mercilessly assassinated. Ten horrific years passed thus committing parricide, expelling disgusted feudal lords and sequestering their estates, when the deceitful usurper himself suddenly expired while besieging the unassailable fortress of Jalore where had been smuggled Man Singh, the last surviving claimant of royal blood.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0FJhLyKmz7IOLJu6uB5EtdvwPf2e3swS7K1fHCxfUEJ1YL0Lq2l0s7DluR6rhnBZUYhJxnMIGMmS9QJfchvIILRwnKmD8oBC93orTMGBz7iITYhcjDPtgdNd87IAyyNpZiJM7rgyYkIQN/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252828%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0FJhLyKmz7IOLJu6uB5EtdvwPf2e3swS7K1fHCxfUEJ1YL0Lq2l0s7DluR6rhnBZUYhJxnMIGMmS9QJfchvIILRwnKmD8oBC93orTMGBz7iITYhcjDPtgdNd87IAyyNpZiJM7rgyYkIQN/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252828%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle-scarred - Dedh Kangura Pol</span></b></td></tr>
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Maharaja Man Singh (reign AD 1803-43) had just inherited the powers and prerogatives of the sovereign of Jodhpur-Marwar when his distant cousins and subordinates Thakur Sawai Singh Champawat of Pokhran (reign AD 1781-1808) and Maharaja Surat Singh Rathore of Bikaner (reign AD 1787-1828) raised the standard of war on behalf of Dhonkal Singh, posthumous son of Maharaja Bheem Singh. Regarding the nefarious claim of the pretender superior to that of Maharaja Man Singh's, a vast army of Rathore aristocracy and feudal levies also collected around the former's banner. At the same time, Sawai Maharaja Jagat Singh Kachhwaha II of Amber (reign AD 1803-18) also readily joined the confederacy against Jodhpur with the objective of vanquishing and humiliating Maharaja Man Singh since they both coveted Princess Krishna Kunwari of Mewar. I'm sure Maharaja Man Singh must have felt exactly like Cersei Lannister in the ongoing season of “Game of Thrones” –</div>
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<b>“Enemies to the east. Enemies to the south. Enemies to the west. Enemies to the north.</b></div>
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<b>Enemies everywhere. We’re surrounded by traitors.”</b></div>
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Against the miniscule 5,000-strong army composed chiefly of feudal levies still loyal to Maharaja Man Singh, the confederate army 100,000-strong effortlessly entered and plundered Jodhpur city, it being practically undefended vis-à-vis Mehrangarh, and began bombarding the impenetrable stronghold with relentless cannon fire. Enormous guns were somehow mounted on the crown of the rock-strewn Singhoria hill opposite the fortress (in Rao Jodha Desert Park now) and these shattered the castellation of Dedh Kangura Pol. Though the little breach was inconsequential against the invincible fortress, it infuriated Maharaja Man Singh so much that he offered permanent grant of a village to any gunner who could destroy the enemy batteries. The latter were duly shattered to pieces and the siege now devolved into a battle of wits to determine who would blink first.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcATufPHeiAA_KdMtFgSKjHc0tI-wG59bspw7ODZq7uuB3RtCNdZbcIATMCRH4GojUOOZP7NScRaf4XkUeETCXMS0yLJbBNp_lCrN_eEct4Fi86ujGc0it6Wa51bVzza5SotDBTeGgoR8/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252835%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcATufPHeiAA_KdMtFgSKjHc0tI-wG59bspw7ODZq7uuB3RtCNdZbcIATMCRH4GojUOOZP7NScRaf4XkUeETCXMS0yLJbBNp_lCrN_eEct4Fi86ujGc0it6Wa51bVzza5SotDBTeGgoR8/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252835%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A siege against this monstrosity? Ha! - View from Rao Jodha Park</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>“The siege had lasted five months without any diminution of the ardour of the defenders; and although the defences of the north-east angle were destroyed, the besiegers, having a perpendicular rock of eighty feet to ascend before they could get to the breach, were not nearer their object, and, in fact, without shells, the castle of Jodha would laugh a siege to scorn. The numerous and motley force under the banners of Jaipur and the pretender, became clamorous for pay; the forage was exhausted, and the partisan horse were obliged to bivouac in the distant districts to the south.”</b></div>
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<b>– Colonel James Tod, English East India Company Officer and Oriental scholar</b></div>
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<b>“Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan: Volume II” (1829)</b></div>
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It was under these circumstances that the sovereign of Bikaner withdrew from the confederacy. Exigencies of the emergency demanded irregular measures and Maharaja Man Singh directed his lieutenant Nawab Amir Khan Pathan to besiege Amber (Jaipur) which was left imprudently undefended by Sawai Maharaja Jagat Singh II. The confederacy instantaneously shattered. The embarrassed Sawai Maharaja Jagat Singh II was obliged to seek Maratha assistance to safeguard his train during the retreat, but the remaining scattered armies were pursued and plundered. Throughout Rajput history, exceedingly rare are instances of fraudulent conduct and even the lowliest soldiers consider ambuscades, camouflages and feigning retreats in warfare below their dignity, yet now Nawab Amir Khan engaged in various treacheries to decimate the forces of Thakur Sawai Singh Champawat and Dhonkal Singh. He also obligated Bikaner to surrender Rs 200,000 as reparations and reiterate the suzerainty of Jodhpur.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6kRfUr8Re6LFIRXhN06GOVUjxmCejT9Dhg4uUpnDDiunTsEnh4BBATiWR0DQau5Wd-ZCWUu_GLKAk-aQN7v96SPy95laP6wNhCEAgzJM07Dbsy2GDbROzdka6_N70NA9tPYL9sTIVVcU/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6kRfUr8Re6LFIRXhN06GOVUjxmCejT9Dhg4uUpnDDiunTsEnh4BBATiWR0DQau5Wd-ZCWUu_GLKAk-aQN7v96SPy95laP6wNhCEAgzJM07Dbsy2GDbROzdka6_N70NA9tPYL9sTIVVcU/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Snare the hare - Were such bewitching swords also used in the siege?<br />Daulat Khana Mahal museum</span></b></td></tr>
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Shortly afterwards, Maharaja Man Singh married the sister of Sawai Maharaja Jagat Singh II and gave him his daughter in marriage to indicate the normalization of relations between the two kingdoms. Nawab Amir Khan went on to achieve astonishing pre-eminence in the court of Marwar and could literally get away with murder even though it was common knowledge that he was instrumental in the conspiracy hatched in AD 1816 to assassinate Raj Purohit Deonath Badri and Sindhi Indra Raj, Maharaja Man Singh’s spiritual preceptor and financial advisor respectively.<br />
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Depressed by the loss of all his relatives and advisors, the Maharaja himself gradually succumbed to insanity and over the next few years ruthlessly executed the entire cabal of avaricious officials and feudatories whom he suspected of corruption, subversion and treason. One of the last constructive decisions he undertook was to commission opposite the fortress a chattri-like memorial dedicated to Sindhi Indra Raj. Also marked across the road from it is the spot where was cremated Purohit Guman Singh who was slain without mercy fighting the ferocious Pathan soldiers who murdered Raj Purohit Deonath Badri. No tourists ever stop to photograph or read the epithets on these.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ97BJtQLBiSX_Fjb4rdGdBeByS3mNuwcMfP160SYyqnwU7YnqSFTiUBhTyT6zyeys2i0nfWJYvNK6JY6v-S3mcz_NI5b_tLgMSbeSx6TvFm-PsqNuz3WQXh2oWops0SW_lILb7os2qNkB/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252840%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1223" data-original-width="1600" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ97BJtQLBiSX_Fjb4rdGdBeByS3mNuwcMfP160SYyqnwU7YnqSFTiUBhTyT6zyeys2i0nfWJYvNK6JY6v-S3mcz_NI5b_tLgMSbeSx6TvFm-PsqNuz3WQXh2oWops0SW_lILb7os2qNkB/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252840%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Forgotten and ignored - Sindhi Indra Raj's memorial</span></b></td></tr>
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Beyond the Dedh Kangura gateway, the passageway sharply turns along a hairpin bend and becomes steeply inclined, leading up to Amriti Pol aka Lakha Pol. Only a couple of steps up the incline a small plaque embedded in the wall commemorates the martyrdom of Rajaram Meghwal who volunteered to be interred alive in the fortress’ foundations when it was being constructed! Why though, one might inquire.<br />
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It isn’t common knowledge that when Rao Jodha determined that the fort at Mandore would not withstand concerted enemy attacks, he was encouraged to transfer his capital to Bhaur-chiriya outcrop by Chiriya Nathji, an accomplished ascetic who alone resided there in a secluded cave performing religious penances and extreme self-mortification. Subsequently enraged when the Rao expelled him from his meditation grounds and did not heed his anguished remonstrations against overtaking the entire rocky eminence, he spitefully cursed the city to forever suffer scarcity of water and offer subsistence to neither man nor animal. Expressing remorse afterwards (but not before Rao Jodha beseeched him for reconciliation and promised the handover of a natural cave for his residence and the establishment of a shrine dedicated to him), the coercive sage demanded voluntarily-offered human sacrifice for propitiating supernatural forces to diminish the effects of the eternal malediction – thus, Rajaram Meghwal’s grotesque entombment in lieu of Rao Jodha's promise of providing for his descendants.<br />
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Not that the sacrifice did any good. Groundwater in and around the city remained brackish, and droughts are till date commonplace. Eventually, Rao Jodha and his descendants were impelled to fall back on more mortal measures, developing an extensive system of water management structures – humongous man-made lakes and beautiful step-wells (“baoli/jhalra”) interconnected by a substantial crisscross of rainwater aqueducts (“nahar”). These edifices were sadly allowed to disintegrate and disappear after the advent of tap water, but their monumental ruins still remain littered across the laid-back city.<br />
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Interestingly, one comes across iterations of the same folklore in association with many fortress-capitals across the country, say for instance Bangalore Fort (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/01/bangalore-fort-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalore Fort</a>). In each case apparently, innocent individuals were wantonly slaughtered/buried alive to sanctify these edifices against some recluse’s malediction or some supernatural spirit’s malevolent undertakings. But in the case of Jodhpur, I find the perpetration of human sacrifice surprising considering that Rao Jodha had in fact invited Karni Mata, an ascetic warrior-priestess who is till date revered across Rajasthan as an incarnation of Goddess Durga, to lay the corner-stone of the fortress. Did the Goddess not oppose human sacrifice?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFVnoIcyKadhpivXGs5xvXu7gdPoBQz0_aN7uaZ7xLb1e8c7Urtpw_O64W3eea2trbmVpO_a1dR_WaDqOhDfv4eiiGCg_eLdIiiMx4zKEtR4l-lwTY5R8wx14bzePpWvwLi-1ROZjWa2je/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252831%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFVnoIcyKadhpivXGs5xvXu7gdPoBQz0_aN7uaZ7xLb1e8c7Urtpw_O64W3eea2trbmVpO_a1dR_WaDqOhDfv4eiiGCg_eLdIiiMx4zKEtR4l-lwTY5R8wx14bzePpWvwLi-1ROZjWa2je/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252831%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The trek's finally over! - Looking back from the threshold of Amriti Pol</b></span></td></tr>
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The Amriti Pol was constructed as part of another phase of structural reinforcement undertaken by Rao Maldeo (reign AD 1532-62), the most impressive sovereign of Marwar since the kingdom’s inception.<br />
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Unequalled in warfare and statecraft, Rao Maldeo expanded his dominions manifolds, subjugating the kingdoms of Bikaner, Ajmer, Nagaur, Jalore, Sambhar, Siwana, Phalodi, Pokhran, Merta and Tonk, and making inroads even into the suburbs of Amber and Mewar. Determined to retain his expansive territorial acquisitions against enemy incursions, he had constructed numerous fortifications across Marwar and stationed therein formidable garrisons. His unstoppable war machine remained unchallenged throughout the epochal reigns of Mughal Emperors Zahiruddin Babur (reign AD 1526-30) and Nasiruddin Humayun (reign AD 1530-40 and 1555-56), but was eventually treacherously brought to a standstill in the Battle of Sammel (1544) by Emperor Sher Shah Suri (reign AD 1540-45) who, after witnessing the phenomenal competence and tenacity with which Marwar’s commanders fought, justly exclaimed that “he nearly lost the empire of Hindustan for a handful of barley” (alluding to the inhospitality and poverty of Marwar).<br />
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Thereafter Jodhpur was annexed and Mehrangarh garrisoned with Muslim armies but Rao Maldeo succeeded in repudiating their fearsome might in less than a year and augmented the fortress’ existing defences with Amriti Pol and the 125-feet towering battlements existential now. The alluring city, which had so far been irresponsibly left undefended, was also encircled with a continuous wall pierced intermittently with military outposts and majestic gateways combining both form and function.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWPQGrWW_SXumydaG6iy2rIBPxt-SGZtBA76B34qb6pccoasX_lHPNnE2uYOil-AZyeA9xSU8YQxYTBadQmq838Qwcs7Jnaweci1Hz6g4LIErsckOmF9Hummhlw4xWX26ruc-mXQb1jerr/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252833%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWPQGrWW_SXumydaG6iy2rIBPxt-SGZtBA76B34qb6pccoasX_lHPNnE2uYOil-AZyeA9xSU8YQxYTBadQmq838Qwcs7Jnaweci1Hz6g4LIErsckOmF9Hummhlw4xWX26ruc-mXQb1jerr/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252833%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Throughout the fortress, it is impossible to escape the transcendent baritones wafting over the endless sea of magnificent palaces</span></b></td></tr>
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Loha Pol (“Iron Gate”), the fifth of seven gateways punctuating the fortifications, constitutes the extremity of the original defenses as envisaged by Rao Jodha. It was partially reconstructed by Maharaja Man Singh. Comprising two perpendicular arms and an enormous iron gate studded with sharp nails to prevent war-elephants from skull-bashing their way in, the gateway is probably the most forbidding of all outworks in the fortress-complex. I wouldn’t want to be the elephant going against this monstrosity of an entrance!<br />
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On a platform inside the gargantuan gateway assemble traditional folk singers vocalizing in deep baritones to the tune of traditional Indian drums, ek-tara (classical single-stringed instrument) and Ravana-hatha (violin believed to have been invented by Ravana, the mythological demon king from Ramayana who was married to Mandodari, princess of Mandore).<br />
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But instead of being engulfed by the melodious notes in a palliative evocation of Rajput folklore and auditory culture, visitors are instantaneously seized by a flurry of disquieting emotions brought about by sets of vermillion handprint reliefs on each side of the entrance arch. Redolent of the abominable Hindu practice of Sati (in/voluntary immolation of widows and concubines on the funeral pyre of their deceased husband), the symbolic depictions, 31 on one wall and 5 on the opposite, reveal the ludicrous meritorious connotations that the outrageous practice came to be associated with, especially among Rajput royalty, many of whom wholeheartedly argued that the Sati attained atonement for her and her husband’s sins and ensured their reunion in the endless chain of re-births. The sheer ridiculousness of the logic that a woman would want reunion with an individual who expects her to tortuously incinerate herself as penance for his sins when he dies seems to have escaped their medieval mindsets!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxcaeVlvXEW7oQsvRy3MyjPrywEIFo55w-c5zKAmOxemamTt2SMmOY5vSLLnqyBmLgHlRmyn_2KhibE1hI2iB79c4COlnyZqyZOf3OImN6-77s1gzKh7r4u_0O9wi_-DsYlxOy41eD6mi7/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252832%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxcaeVlvXEW7oQsvRy3MyjPrywEIFo55w-c5zKAmOxemamTt2SMmOY5vSLLnqyBmLgHlRmyn_2KhibE1hI2iB79c4COlnyZqyZOf3OImN6-77s1gzKh7r4u_0O9wi_-DsYlxOy41eD6mi7/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252832%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Dark Ages</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>“Why was the widow drugged heavily right after the husband’s death? When she was put on the pyre, she was strapped down in a cage made of raw bamboo, lest the sati decides to escape the pain of getting burned alive! Thick smoke used to be created through the burning of ghee and coir, so no one could see her terrible torture and feel fear! Countless drums would be beaten and conches blown loudly so no one heard her cries, her screams, her pleas for mercy!”</b></div>
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<b>– Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bengali writer, “Narir Mulya” (1917)</b></div>
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Mercifully the practice was outlawed in AD 1829 by Governor-General William Bentinck (officiated AD 1828-35), thanks in part to the persistence of Hindu socio-religious reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Christian missionary William Carey, but British legislations extended only to Presidency regions and Sati continued unabated in (administratively autonomous) princely states for more than two decades thence. Jodhpur forbade the custom only in AD 1852.<br />
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It is emphasised that initially instead of reducing the incidence of the horrendous practice, the prohibition on the contrary reinforced its ubiquity and rendered it an act of religious defiance against Christian proselytizing. Perhaps that explains why, even though it’s known that 7, 63 and 27 women perished on the funeral pyres of Rao Satal (reign AD 1489-92), Maharaja Ajit Singh (reign AD 1679-1724) and Maharaja Bheem Singh (reign AD 1793-1803) respectively, only the mass Sati committed by Maharaja Man Singh’s 15 widows, 13 concubines and an unknown number of slave girls in AD 1843 – the only legal instance of Sati in Jodhpur after the 1829 promulgation – is commemorated here.<br />
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Regrettably, the last royal Sati (albeit illegal) was also in Jodhpur – in 1953, abetted by her children and relatives, Sugandh Kanwar, wife of Brigadier Jabbar Singh, grandson of Maharaja Takhat Singh (reign AD 1843-73), secretly committed Sati on her husband’s funeral pyre.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFe5PkjS581Oz3AUd6q6oAP3_35s1NHbyYwHnWaf92pdn4yhb3TT8XqQzVz8q6l8viVDnJjPnXBKqNBVKAMRHTawXVTjnVHLOZy4rkPfmhmJaz86PuWAgst3jBRGkf66xSTDMx-sKY6YR7/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252844%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1275" data-original-width="1600" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFe5PkjS581Oz3AUd6q6oAP3_35s1NHbyYwHnWaf92pdn4yhb3TT8XqQzVz8q6l8viVDnJjPnXBKqNBVKAMRHTawXVTjnVHLOZy4rkPfmhmJaz86PuWAgst3jBRGkf66xSTDMx-sKY6YR7/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252844%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Witness to uncountable horrors, treacheries and mysteries -<br />Deepak chowk facade</span></b></td></tr>
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Though masquerading as an unadorned entranceway, Loha Pol is not merely a stupendous time portal introducing unsuspecting visitors to grim medieval history, it also constitutes the physical demarcation between the invincible defenses on one side and the exaggerated opulence of the royals on the other.<br />
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From here on, crowning the featureless fortifications looming on either side far, far above visitors are resplendent red-pink sandstone palaces and passageways unsurpassed in sophistication of conception, exquisiteness of execution and sumptuousness of proportion. Reflecting eternally on the tremendous expertise and explosive confidence of the stonemasons who painstakingly fashioned these, the enthralling symmetry of the numerous motifs that constitute the delicate sandstone lattice screens here could easily be mistaken as having been engraved in wax or wood. Unarguably this rhapsody of artistic intricacy co-mingling so spontaneously with architectural barrenness is the spectacular work of jewellers among elves employing not malleable precious metals but sheer ruthless stone.<br />
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It is heartbreaking that the elegant refinement of craftsmanship, so meticulously developed over numerous centuries, was so ephemeral that it has entirely disappeared from the country and survives only as sporadic vestiges such as these distinguished specimens here, among the very last of their exalted kind.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWAyJNsPfjMjE5auRBDcpX5aTlffUBEPUh1XwSg8XXz_tKPNj5qBCOJOaCKdISfYOMdUl3tSryDye8LHa9AIBSGib99WNfmIAYq-upiqZB6tE-fcpohnQJT0vzekMcuBt6ta0DY9uVF8b/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252834%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWAyJNsPfjMjE5auRBDcpX5aTlffUBEPUh1XwSg8XXz_tKPNj5qBCOJOaCKdISfYOMdUl3tSryDye8LHa9AIBSGib99WNfmIAYq-upiqZB6tE-fcpohnQJT0vzekMcuBt6ta0DY9uVF8b/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252834%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Rajasthan's best kept secrets! - Jhanki Mahal and Phool Mahal (rear)</b></span></td></tr>
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Disguised as a stunted entranceway (vis-à-vis the aforementioned various gateways) but actually a staircase leading up to the public palaces, Suraj Pol (“Sun Gate”), pierced into a side wall a stone’s throw from Loha Pol, is among the oldest sections of the fortress-complex.<br />
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(Instead of proceeding to the palaces via the gateway, one can alternatively head straight and explore the fortress’ defenses and the two shrines consecrated along the precipitous ramparts – more on these later.)</div>
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Most of the extravagant palaces surrounding Suraj Pol were commissioned by Maharaja Jaswant Singh (reign AD 1638-78) who was among the most experienced aristocrat-generals in the courts of Mughal Emperors Shihabuddin Shahjahan (reign AD 1628-58) and Aurangzeb Alamgir (reign AD 1658-1707). This was an epochal period, full of unequalled tumult, interminable bloodletting and treasonous intrigues, not only in the history of Rajputana, but the entire country. Not surprisingly, both Emperors were perpetually suspicious about the Rajputs' intentions and did not feel very comfortable allowing Maharaja Jaswant Singh to remain near Delhi for long. It is therefore especially noteworthy that he managed to find the inspiration, inclination and energy to undertake these laborious architectural endeavours even while being continuously transferred from one turbulent province to another throughout his life. Of course, it needs be noted that many of these dazzling edifices have probably undergone a sea change from their original forms on account of subsequent renovation, reconstruction and redecoration.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfB4EzWgA3C0JyBb_9esa62vFDBRlgfVjAnG77du-zjuJ4RXEfh7-IouKFqSx9xOtL0XEN78U-8dgqUBAlvs2Kl-jsBA8e-oeJ93nqcKIAOgfomViixtCQ3IKhoAgRFvUfLgSKkTiQZzfa/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfB4EzWgA3C0JyBb_9esa62vFDBRlgfVjAnG77du-zjuJ4RXEfh7-IouKFqSx9xOtL0XEN78U-8dgqUBAlvs2Kl-jsBA8e-oeJ93nqcKIAOgfomViixtCQ3IKhoAgRFvUfLgSKkTiQZzfa/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Electric hues and exquisite designs - A section of the Cradle gallery</span></b></td></tr>
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The public section of the palace area is fragmented into a series of gorgeous edifices demarcated by four expansive courtyards (“chowk”) – Sringar chowk, Daulat Khana chowk, Deepak chowk and Holi chowk, in that order. Four exceptionally well-maintained period rooms (Sheesh Mahal, Phool Mahal, Takhat Vilas and Moti Mahal) and a vividly painted Cradle gallery constitute the highlights of this section.</div>
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The charismatic Sringar chowk (“Anointment square”), immediately contiguous with Suraj Pol, is studded with the most elaborately conceived and executed stone lattice screens I have witnessed in my life. Each panel is meticulously perforated to render a mind-boggling plethora of minuscule motifs collectively culminating in lovely little vases and life-like peacocks enveloped in rococo explosions of intertwined floral patterns. One would not be indulging in hyperbole in stating that this singular specimen of stone craftsmanship can effortlessly shame even the most dexterous Chinese/Japanese paper-cutters!<br />
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As the nomenclature suggests, Sringar chowk was the site of coronation of successive sovereigns after Rao Jodha. In a corner has been placed a white marble throne so lifelessly designed that it is completely incongruous with its fabulous surroundings and makes me wonder if it is only a symbolic replica.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Rlbvp9AlfMoBNo4DX1-sHf0607leLUmzAJFYgAHl2UIwBuJAsSNhJ-mLe8ojetHQqUbxgrNzSkL_nxg1FDEqSCAlOgsBIrid-_887-bBdsIAEeRPWtu_H1vfvdaeiWLOmKAcS76mEt6g/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252813%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Rlbvp9AlfMoBNo4DX1-sHf0607leLUmzAJFYgAHl2UIwBuJAsSNhJ-mLe8ojetHQqUbxgrNzSkL_nxg1FDEqSCAlOgsBIrid-_887-bBdsIAEeRPWtu_H1vfvdaeiWLOmKAcS76mEt6g/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252813%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Endless multitudes of latticework motifs - Sringar chowk courtyard</span></b></td></tr>
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The two halls adjoining Sringar chowk have been converted into small museums displaying palanquins and elephant howdahs respectively.<br />
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Several kinds of wooden palanquins, covered and uncovered, decorated with lacquer, bright paints, gold foil and mirror adornments, are exhibited in the first gallery. There’s a peculiar one fashioned as a chair surmounted on a litter, and another flanked by childish wooden peacocks so thoroughly dust-encrusted that their original multicolored exuberance has all but vanished.<br />
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The elephant howdah gallery too has several wonderful specimens – a majority of them layered with reliefs of floral scrolls and roaring lions – though these too intermittently suffer from the same depressing lacklustre and ill-maintenance.<br />
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Without disregarding the fact that Mehrangarh Museum Trust is among the most esteemed monument conservation agencies in the country and the celebrated fortress has been consistently ranked #1 among tourist sites in India by several national and international journals/surveys, the exhibits could unquestionably be better managed. I would’ve ranked the place somewhere in the middle – admittedly, it is not, say Hazarduari Rajbari at Hetampur (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/hetampur-hazarduari-rajbari-birbhum.html">Pixelated Memories - Hetampur Hazarduari Rajbari, Bengal</a>), but it isn’t the National Museum at Delhi or the Wadiyar Palace at Bangalore either (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/10/national-museum-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - National Museum, Delhi</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/04/bangalore-palace-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalore Palace, Karnataka</a>).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIG5M8Hqbf41C77OkAXiBNn8SHDlfw576Ctk6ea0x_zog0_avRuTgWqPoOEaV-ZUk1AMTUhMcgCfBJCjKHkZJ-bJhqETlAFYCxj3Ol6sf9pSK_bFqgeeDGLAIqfMbvG_a74hHJtaND1fmt/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252830%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIG5M8Hqbf41C77OkAXiBNn8SHDlfw576Ctk6ea0x_zog0_avRuTgWqPoOEaV-ZUk1AMTUhMcgCfBJCjKHkZJ-bJhqETlAFYCxj3Ol6sf9pSK_bFqgeeDGLAIqfMbvG_a74hHJtaND1fmt/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252830%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The kings are no longer kings, the throne is still incongruous</b></span></td></tr>
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Daulat Khana chowk (“Treasury square”), the second courtyard, was constructed by Maharaja Ajit Singh (reign AD 1679-1724) in AD 1718 for the organisation of grand durbars on the occasion of important festivals. It is fringed on three sides by three absolutely irresistible palaces – Daulat Khana Mahal (“Treasury”), Phool Mahal (“Palace of Flowers”) and Jhanki Mahal (“Palace of Glimpses”).<br />
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Jhanki Mahal, which straddles both Sringar chowk and Daulat Khana chowk and is therefore the first edifice in the straightforward architectural scheme surrounding the latter courtyard, is actually explored last in a top-to-bottom manner because one first heads, or is rather ushered along a circuitous arrow-marked route, to Daulat Khana Mahal and thereon to Phool Mahal. I shall therefore return to discuss its mesmerizing interiors later. As regards its exteriors, the palace, commissioned by Maharaja Takhat Singh who was endowed with very intriguing artistic tastes, is layered throughout with exceedingly intricate stone latticework screens behind which royal ladies would repose and observe the proceedings of both the courtyards without themselves being perceived. </div>
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Prior to venturing into this cluster of palaces, one can instead step through a narrow passageway off one corner and explore the desolate rear courtyard (more a frightening overhang over the precipitous cliffs that almost imperceptibly merge with the soaring outworks!). The (paid) elevator facility available at the ticket counter terminates here in the form of a thick brickwork shaft – I’m not sure how helpful this arrangement is, considering that one missed out all the gateways, memorials, and Sringar chowk and the adjoining galleries, but still has to traverse up-and-down several flights of stairs to explore the remaining palaces.<br />
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Not a single soul manifested here while I pranced and danced and photographed around for what seemed like a long, long time (but was probably not more than 20 minutes). The silence was deafening. I could’ve just sat down amidst the cannons positioned along the peripheries, royally enjoying the tremendous winds that afflict these heights and sporadically feeling melancholy for the alternately discolored and weather-blackened sandstone walls forgotten by conservation authorities. But that would not have been half as fun as peeping into the adjoining locked halls and trying to determine if there was some way to sneak in.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3OIT7nvN4sOsmy3sq2nUS6JEzGf56UgGVYhNRfZ-ojoZKP1w9MvV7Uz7hxa7wj81TwtnUk7HrzGA8AoLbzZfNUuUzKTXsJ6Z5iOkPIMaHYCqpQvQVj0VrwS45dMnwX7wEPzNCKtAXKcD/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252836%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3OIT7nvN4sOsmy3sq2nUS6JEzGf56UgGVYhNRfZ-ojoZKP1w9MvV7Uz7hxa7wj81TwtnUk7HrzGA8AoLbzZfNUuUzKTXsJ6Z5iOkPIMaHYCqpQvQVj0VrwS45dMnwX7wEPzNCKtAXKcD/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252836%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Embellished by over a dozen generations - Daulat Khana Mahal (center), Phool Mahal (right) and Jhanki Mahal (left)</span></b></td></tr>
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Reminiscent of tangy lemon pies served with dollops of cream, the unusual Daulat Khana Mahal is painted delightful tart-yellow with off-white highlights that contrast brightly against the burnished reds of the rest of the fortress and the brilliant blues of the sky. Not limited to the color scheme, the uniqueness also extends to the artistic aesthetics – endowed with twin rows of miniature onion domes, it is the only edifice (except the two shrines) upon the entire eyrie that is not prominently pierced with lattice screens.<br />
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True to its name, inside are exhibited some of the most priceless treasures of the royal family of Jodhpur, including numerous well-preserved medieval coins, shimmering Bidri wares, and truly spellbinding swords with hilts resembling lion heads, parrots etc. I could not take my eyes off one such sword whose hilt was most unexpectedly fashioned as a beyond-belief beautiful “Makara” devouring a mid-leap hare poised on the head of a miniature lion! (picture above) “Makara” are mythical entities possessing the body of a fish, the tusks and trunk of an elephant, the limbs of a lion and the tail of a peacock.<br />
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A life-like silver idol of Goddess Gangaur, dressed in traditional Rajasthani attire and jewellery, is also displayed towards the exit. The Goddess, whose name derives from “Gana-Gauri”, the union of Goddess Gauri and Lord Shiva (Hindu God of death, destruction and procreation), is worshipped by unmarried girls desirous of a suitable match and by married women for their husbands’ longevity.<br />
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The place of honor among these exorbitant exhibits however is reserved for Mahadol, an elaborate gilded palanquin captured (besides 40 million Rupees and military accouterments of every description) as war booty by Maharaja Abhay Singh (reign AD 1724-49) from “Nawab Mubariz-ul-Mulk Sarbuland Khan Dilawar Jung” Muhammad Rafi, renegade Governor of Gujarat, in the Battle of Ahmedabad (AD 1730).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52zB7inarNgspPuOa1yjy-JUdgVi4CND-ysxB00hUol6KPncByZCKm8edhp4FkiPIb-T8OpI0UxPB8YiK6eGYhNYFjZQWdkAMsZYvNlzz_vPELXGued_DOJ4sWjmAOVeR2Omp9BPgx3fS/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252817%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52zB7inarNgspPuOa1yjy-JUdgVi4CND-ysxB00hUol6KPncByZCKm8edhp4FkiPIb-T8OpI0UxPB8YiK6eGYhNYFjZQWdkAMsZYvNlzz_vPELXGued_DOJ4sWjmAOVeR2Omp9BPgx3fS/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252817%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Still fit for royalty - Mahadol, Daulat Khana Mahal museum</span></b></td></tr>
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Towards the right of Daulat Khana Mahal is the Phool Mahal building, an extravagant edifice whose projecting windows (“jharokha”) and inverted hyperbolic eaves (“chajja”) are invariably more sumptuous compared to the other palaces. A helical staircase within leads to the floor-length miniature paintings gallery, textiles gallery, Sheesh Mahal (“Hall of Mirrors”) and Phool Mahal (“Hall of Flowers”), each located at a different levels within the building. The miniature paintings gallery was closed when I visited.</div>
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The textile collection at Mehrangarh is believed to be the largest and finest of its kind in India, and houses garments, tents, tapestries and roof hangings belonging to 18th-20th centuries AD. These include the “Shahi Lal Dera” (“Royal Red Tent”), a magnificent velvet tent 4-meters high embroidered with glittering gold thread. It belonged to Emperor Shahjahan or Aurangzeb and was snatched during war, it isn’t clear when. Sadly, it is so huge that it is rarely unfolded and remains tucked in the Moti Mahal palace.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMwr2bdvlGRa8pUsSD3rCt73PM5aBNnk1-iwU2Sva7gKzffviQFLNjeepx8_YyBIpB-4H2JQm5Q_VmV7YRvYIWLsYPapayOpQNZuMXhu5GIO2_08H8le-efqJkfwZ6QSW2_oaexu12Vav0/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252818%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMwr2bdvlGRa8pUsSD3rCt73PM5aBNnk1-iwU2Sva7gKzffviQFLNjeepx8_YyBIpB-4H2JQm5Q_VmV7YRvYIWLsYPapayOpQNZuMXhu5GIO2_08H8le-efqJkfwZ6QSW2_oaexu12Vav0/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252818%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Drapes of royalty - A section of the (unimaginatively named) textile gallery</span></b></td></tr>
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Thankfully, the textile collection here has not been wasted and turned into a dusty old (albeit enormous) wardrobe like the one in Bangalore Palace (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/04/bangalore-palace-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalore Palace</a>). The Mehrangarh Museum Trust has laboriously undertaken the conservation and restoration of Rajasthan's intangible cultural, literary, textile and musical heritage, and has also committed to various other exertions such as establishment of restaurants and souvenir stores in the fortress and commencement of knowledge-sharing collaborations with local schools and educational institutes. These efforts have served commendably towards resuscitating the fortress-complex and Jodhpur’s tourism-linked economy and the Trust most certainly exemplifies a conservation model that can be emulated elsewhere across the country.<br />
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This adulation does not in any way whatsoever condone the various acts of omission and commission on the part of the Trust though. I am especially disappointed that they've quoted Rudyard Kipling in a garbled manner to weave a very eloquent but erroneous panegyric about Mehrangarh. The inaccuracy is further compounded because very few bloggers in India undertake any sort of fact/quote check, and misinterpretations/mistakes, especially those originating from credible sources like the Trust, magnify manifolds because of recurrent replication until eventually they are reflected on almost every blog/website.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5R_mEqHSmDy7a_yOr5phHxvOkWX31OKnBOQglIb8UT-4wDrGeeW-fc5DK82PXTmjJ05Lzmx34jwMErT-poqLk8Hduk0Mmj1grJ4mWbgppnxGNQItKA58LDV7IYT-PNnfgEf0FyOQUlg0/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252824%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5R_mEqHSmDy7a_yOr5phHxvOkWX31OKnBOQglIb8UT-4wDrGeeW-fc5DK82PXTmjJ05Lzmx34jwMErT-poqLk8Hduk0Mmj1grJ4mWbgppnxGNQItKA58LDV7IYT-PNnfgEf0FyOQUlg0/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252824%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Wonderland, upside-down - Stepping into the Phool Mahal</span></b></td></tr>
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Sheesh Mahal, as the name suggests, is studded throughout with mirrors cut into a variety of shapes that spatially supplement and lustrously reflect the various religious scenes inscribed in stucco around the hall. In one panel is enthroned Goddess Durga, the feminine manifestation of primordial universal energy, flanked on either side by devotees and tigers. In another, the subject is Lord Krishna, the playboy-strategist-statesman-cowherd-warrior-philosopher who supposedly lived some 5,000 years ago and is regarded as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu God of life and nourishment. The roof is accessorized with tightly packed Christmas baubles which were added later along with the chandelier.<br />
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Interestingly, Sheesh Mahal was the bedchamber of Maharaja Ajit Singh. I can only imagine how irresistible it would have appeared in the scintillating yellow-gold glow of candlelight and earthen oil lamps. But also spare a thought for the sheer amount of labour that royal servants would’ve had to exert to polish the thousands of irregularly-shaped mirror pieces that constitute this kaleidoscopic mosaic and keep them completely free of dust and smudge! To their relief though, relatively larger fragments of mirror are used here unlike many Mughal palaces which were embedded with hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8Dkkfn9I57ws-Hv9IGcVZXQdybi1446uoImqfX02IFa5Nrcz99kmH67SkiGhf5H3apGemJE7OSHDN8aa_QoxnYEQR6nEzYSTxgNUSJ0wmMtK2hjbQ0_LU4H05MSUuTw-R8k55y9Avb4c/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252815%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8Dkkfn9I57ws-Hv9IGcVZXQdybi1446uoImqfX02IFa5Nrcz99kmH67SkiGhf5H3apGemJE7OSHDN8aa_QoxnYEQR6nEzYSTxgNUSJ0wmMtK2hjbQ0_LU4H05MSUuTw-R8k55y9Avb4c/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252815%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sheesh Mahal - More a shrine than a bedchamber</span></b></td></tr>
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Drenched profusely in blinding-bright gold and adorned with convoluted tangles of multicolored floral scrolls, Phool Mahal, the most outstanding hall in the fortress, lends its name to the building it is housed in. With light dramatically reflecting from the painted windowpanes into millions of multi-hued shards and life-like painted portraits of previous sovereigns regally gazing down from their gold-ensconced frames along the roof, the opulent hall, with its luxurious oriental carpets and expensive tapestries, would magically transform every night into a scene of inebriation and adult festivities, overflowing with wine and mouth-watering delicacies, rendered dream-like by the manifolds talents of versatile musicians and beautiful dancing girls.<br />
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Constructed for these private celebrations, leisurely pursuits and confidential meetings by Maharaja Abhay Singh after his triumphant return from Ahmedabad (from where came the considerable amount of gold requisite for these enviable adornments), the glittering glimmering hall displays mixed Rajput-Mughal architectural influences. The engrailed arches and the fluted pillars with their elaborate capitals and lotus bases are inspired by Emperor Shahjahan’s innovations in the fortress-palaces at Delhi and Agra (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Red Fort, Delhi</a>), but the dazzling gold work, serpentine floral patterns, exquisite frescoes and painted-glass panes have Rajput origins. Maharaja Takhat Singh (reign AD 1843-73) had the ceiling and roof mouldings repainted to incorporate his and his nine sons’ likeness in the scheme.<br />
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Interestingly, the bright paints used here were created through traditional processes by dissolving natural colors in a concoction of glue and cow urine which has fungicidal and anti-corrosion properties.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIYTWhnlMMVUm2k17pO1P03EETCJz-nPTveLRlh0vD1VBS60mLx13lVfva2nH5Lvw82yiJ1ieCzRoxpd11hiWZvD_ZbaA0k8Wf3mzSbTdzD5KXt9VfbNprEqOX-hNwntazacrmU2YQn2R3/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIYTWhnlMMVUm2k17pO1P03EETCJz-nPTveLRlh0vD1VBS60mLx13lVfva2nH5Lvw82yiJ1ieCzRoxpd11hiWZvD_ZbaA0k8Wf3mzSbTdzD5KXt9VfbNprEqOX-hNwntazacrmU2YQn2R3/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Gold, glue and cow urine! I'm still ambivalent towards this palace.</b></span></td></tr>
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A staircase opposite Phool Mahal leads to the roof which connects to the roof of the Daulat Khana Mahal where is located the Selaih Khana (“Armoury”), a collection of traditional arms and shields. On exhibit are several excellent watered-steel swords (many with gold hilts inlaid with precious stones), masterfully crafted daggers, ferociously curved Khanjars, exceedingly long spears, Persian knives with painstakingly carved ivory handles, leather-covered shields and rifles. My favourite here is a pair of “Bhuj”, heavy axe-knives from Gujarat with gold bases fashioned as ornamental elephant heads. Also kept alongside are elongated daggers resembling ice-picks that could be concealed in the Bhujs’ long shafts.<br />
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More impressive than the displays themselves is that every item is meticulously labelled and curated, not only in Selaih Khana but all other galleries in the fortress as well. Large information panels intersperse all major displays, and it is astonishing to see people halt selfie sessions to read, discuss and occasionally snigger about exhibits. Obviously, printed curation is constrained by limitations of space and aesthetics, but the Museum Trust has also updated (almost) exhaustive details about galleries, period rooms and most objects on display on their website and Facebook page (links in the end). Such effort on the part of museum authorities is seldom seen outside major galleries located in metropolitan cities, and is unheard of in relatively less popular backwaters like Jodhpur – point in case, the museum in Mandore Gardens, only 9 kilometers from Mehrangarh, is absolute rubbish. In fact, I refuse to even classify it as a museum, and I should be paid to go see it rather than the other way around! I'll blog about it in another article.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEsob2WIJMIxjftEIvJKY-0nK_-_NaDH7GuPBmqo24rMaElwvMBAVKmURZcYy8KTivGGg5Pzd45b4STDhTEV0YlXvZNK5Nk4OLxzvcBVky3AQVvGEgJz7Aa3iRoUCMnww2ZWf_ep00KkeK/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252820%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEsob2WIJMIxjftEIvJKY-0nK_-_NaDH7GuPBmqo24rMaElwvMBAVKmURZcYy8KTivGGg5Pzd45b4STDhTEV0YlXvZNK5Nk4OLxzvcBVky3AQVvGEgJz7Aa3iRoUCMnww2ZWf_ep00KkeK/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252820%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Fascinating collection</span></b></td></tr>
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After the Selaih Khana, the aforementioned arrow-marked route directs one to a narrow opening interlinking the roofs of Daulat Khana Mahal and Jhanki Mahal, and thence to Takhat Vilas, Maharaja Takhat Singh’s personal apartment and the most startling hall in the fortress-palace. Every inch of the floor-length bedchamber, including the floor and windowpanes, is gaudily painted to present a graphic potpourri of unrelated scenes from mythology, folklore, warfare and everyday life (Indian and European) scattered amidst a smattering of countless patterns. Bewildered I wondered how the Maharaja slept in this frivolous room considering one’s attention would restlessly flitter from painted panel to panel.</div>
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Apparently he did not!<br />
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The story goes like this – a minor branch of the Rathore clan of Jodhpur-Marwar was established in Idar (Gujarat) in AD 1730 by Maharaja Anand Singh (reign AD 1731-53) who impulsively conquered the tiny kingdom while marching to Ahmedabad with his elder brother Maharaja Abhay Singh. Maharaja Anand Singh’s descendants also annexed Ahmednagar (Maharashtra) and delegated its suzerainty to yet another minor branch of the Idar family. Maharaja Takhat Singh, sovereign of Ahmednagar (AD 1841-43), belonged to this Idar-Ahmednagar lineage, very distant cousins of the Rathore family of Jodhpur. Heartbroken by the premature demise of all his sons, Maharaja Man Singh was persuaded by his queens to adopt Maharaja Takhat Singh and proclaim him his successor. Maharaja Takhat Singh promptly resigned his Ahmednagar dominions to his Idar cousins and rushed to Jodhpur where he was crowned sovereign of Marwar following the demise of Maharaja Man Singh in AD 1843. He soon however acquired a reputation for debauchery and excessive indulgence (by modern standards)!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivuSURu9CeQAAUgXt93BeW6Zg-Hf1_ZxP5XuvIPxwurId_qFuZLO7lrsIYVNUBszt-w4iMUkhwpQutjverKx-9ebTfMr3p-czaBvKdWCOoXgGf9rynk9N0RqFri-phUe8ykxKScLu45MCQ/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivuSURu9CeQAAUgXt93BeW6Zg-Hf1_ZxP5XuvIPxwurId_qFuZLO7lrsIYVNUBszt-w4iMUkhwpQutjverKx-9ebTfMr3p-czaBvKdWCOoXgGf9rynk9N0RqFri-phUe8ykxKScLu45MCQ/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Such eccentricity! Curiouser and curiouser! - Takhat Vilas</span></b></td></tr>
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The subcontinent had over the past century gradually come under the in/direct control of the English East India Company. Powerful regional sovereigns – Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah of Bengal, Mahadaji Scindia of Gwalior, Fath Ali Tipu Sultan of Mysore, Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab, etc – were all dead, and impressive fortress-strongholds were fast becoming redundant in the absence of mutual aggression and perpetual warfare (the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857/First War of Independence was still a decade and a half away). With little else to do, Maharaja Takhat Singh began indulging in chronic womanizing besides other pursuits like polo. Like a pampered teen, he probably used his newfound affluence and breathtaking fortress to impress women, marrying 30 of them over the next 30 years and enrolling at least 19 others as royal concubines! Thus was my query answered. Why would he accessorize the palace the way he did – Christmas baubles dangle from roof rafters! – when he had at his disposal all the resources and accumulated spoils of a 600-year old kingdom would sadly remain unanswered to perplexed visitors.</div>
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<b>“The fighting-instinct thrown back upon itself, must have some sort of outlet; and a merciful Providence wisely ordains that the Kings of the East in the nineteenth century shall take pleasure in “shopping” on an imperial scale… gilt blown glass Christmas-tree balls do not go well with the splendours of a Palace that might have been built by Titans and coloured by the morning sun. But there are excuses to be made for Kings who have no work to do – at least such work as their fathers understood best.”</b></div>
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<b>– Rudyard Kipling, English poet-writer-journalist, “Out of India” (1895)</b></div>
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I also find it very revolting that the otherwise pretentious bedchamber has been accessorized with dust-covered mattresses and an unpleasant wooden bed no different from ordinary charpoys used across the country. Did the Maharaja actually use them, or are they substitutes placed here for want of originals? In any case, I'm sure they could have been better kept?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tRWP9-ru3MpbkfP0bVUYWfAvavHxXANuRoNbj9C17bl16c_FeyM9_FZnLuAkLc6Hpae1ruGmuXa5m-r3zKpMHrqwQC2YE9XCTQ9y15RiI_4k7McEs3S_uj-mQEk5cJJ9pYURBzJP5FSZ/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tRWP9-ru3MpbkfP0bVUYWfAvavHxXANuRoNbj9C17bl16c_FeyM9_FZnLuAkLc6Hpae1ruGmuXa5m-r3zKpMHrqwQC2YE9XCTQ9y15RiI_4k7McEs3S_uj-mQEk5cJJ9pYURBzJP5FSZ/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Quite the moustache! - Portrait of Maharaja Takhat Singh, Phool Mahal</span></b></td></tr>
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The remaining portions of Jhanki Mahal have been converted into curatorial offices and hold little interest, except of architectural nature, for visitors. A constricted hallway on the ground floor houses the Cradle gallery where are displayed several fancy cradles adorned with small blue-and-gold figurines of birds, elephants, mythological deities, arrays of servants and musicians, etc. Many of these cradles are ceremonial ones used on the occasion of Janamashtami festivities (celebrations associated with Lord Krishna’s birth). The vivid designs painted on the roof(s) of Jhanki Mahal are also noteworthy.<br />
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Outside hangs a huge realistic painting by German-Indian artist Archibald H. Müeller depicting Veer Durgadas Rathore who for close to three decades (AD 1679-1707) waged a fierce guerrilla war against Emperor Aurangzeb's repugnant machinations and indefatigable armies to secure the recognition of Maharaja Ajit Singh, Maharaja Jaswant Singh's posthumous son, as the rightful sovereign of Jodhpur.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJxfo72cJMCD6CMsOhMRDgLjBdbBky6-ZCaQ9HhEyrjcfM9D2pwuoTpzOaYaR08AgcM8Z_SuCylSf7gHSYwRZ8vV_z4Q8oH1-ZQEp4iWaWOgsJobCIrk95fZ2CJRMON2Dcxwv-V2ntwVP/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252838%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJxfo72cJMCD6CMsOhMRDgLjBdbBky6-ZCaQ9HhEyrjcfM9D2pwuoTpzOaYaR08AgcM8Z_SuCylSf7gHSYwRZ8vV_z4Q8oH1-ZQEp4iWaWOgsJobCIrk95fZ2CJRMON2Dcxwv-V2ntwVP/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252838%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Cradles, baubles and trinkets</span></b></td></tr>
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Thereafter one is suddenly disgorged back into the blistering sunlight in yet another courtyard, a small one this time, christened Deepak chowk (“Lamp-lit square”) perhaps because of the prodigious amounts of midnight oil burnt by clerks who would assemble everyday in the adjoining rooms to revise administrative and financial records received from the various bureaucratic/military departments and tributary chiefs.<br />
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Along each corner of the courtyard is located a small rectangular alcove in which are etched various religious symbols – the Shri Yantra (mystical Tantric diagram) in the first, Lord Shiva's trident in the second, an (unbelievably detailed!) enthroned individual wearing a comical conical cap in the penultimate, and in the last the androgynous “Ardhanarishvara” depiction of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati (composite male-female celestial form split vertically down the middle).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4uwmnOd1_HNnTRzpnyVpwBQRd9ZZHgz9q5LLLMUbTHM7R3D3nqmOJtPno5moN_0-Z1z5OeQI2dbFmMJQL23i8T26gvUXf9jIziQa66w1WI-Qjo23KazVwNuyPk8RSmvg9N_0AoTXEdWcD/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252825%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4uwmnOd1_HNnTRzpnyVpwBQRd9ZZHgz9q5LLLMUbTHM7R3D3nqmOJtPno5moN_0-Z1z5OeQI2dbFmMJQL23i8T26gvUXf9jIziQa66w1WI-Qjo23KazVwNuyPk8RSmvg9N_0AoTXEdWcD/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252825%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">“Thou still unravish’</span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;">d bride of quietness!” - Holi chowk courtyard</span></b></td></tr>
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Deepak chowk connects to Holi chowk, the last public section of the fortress, where is located Moti Mahal (“Hall of Pearls”), so designated because of the pearl-like iridescence imparted to it by the use of seashell-derived limestone plaster which renders it the most solemn palace in the fortress. Solemn, sadly, does not translate to unforgettable vis-à-vis an impregnable stronghold and its constituent color-saturated halls.<br />
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Unlike Holi chowk where the Maharaja and his queens and concubines celebrated all the important festivals, Moti Mahal was strictly for military/administrative brainstorming. But the august edifice, commissioned by Maharaja Sur Singh (reign AD 1595-1619), was equipped with an innovative appendage – alcoves behind the throne led to balconies from where queens could listen to court proceedings without themselves being detected (more on this medieval socio-cultural aspect later).<br />
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An entire side of the hall is pierced by huge painted-glass windows. Witnessing sunlight filtering through these in magical colors and bouncing off the sober walls and the hundreds of perfectly polished mirrors arranged all along the gold-leaf decorated roof is soothing to the extent of being intensely sleep-inducing!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi907VzKibedFuojIc8yUi8F0DACyZZsGurTP-evzFBo23qYtzqc7g1vvjv7TLnfEdIdH0i6mMDKd2YpBKmAyBJBZa9CFYNSiCTfIqlk_IY7yIp6Ydd3RZLm-2JYDxB_wSRZe3bGPvrlZI8/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252816%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi907VzKibedFuojIc8yUi8F0DACyZZsGurTP-evzFBo23qYtzqc7g1vvjv7TLnfEdIdH0i6mMDKd2YpBKmAyBJBZa9CFYNSiCTfIqlk_IY7yIp6Ydd3RZLm-2JYDxB_wSRZe3bGPvrlZI8/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252816%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Old-world refinement at its finest - Moti Mahal</span></b></td></tr>
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The end of the tour of the fortress-palace’s exhilarating interiors is marked by the blotted pink buildings surrounding Zenana Deorhi chowk (“Women’s square”) which are said to be decorated with more than 250 different stone latticework designs (of which a large many are irresistibly bewitching to say the least).<br />
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Oblivious to the overwhelming vagaries of time and nature, towering impenetrable in every direction, and clamouring ceaselessly for absolute attention, this unparalleled mound of excruciatingly-detailed filigree windows and millions of minute other projections, carved dexterously enough to appear crafted from soft sandalwood, soars high into the infinite sky as if reaching out to demarcate its own permanent acquisition of an infinitesimal corner of it. One wonders if the women who resided here – queens and concubines – saw it as such, confined to it throughout their eventful lives as they were under the watchful eyes of eunuch guards, egress restricted only to ceremonial occasions and the eventual Sati.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXSBYen8iOwDdTA0YO9Gfy_AE2L_-2jFqPB_oTrLpgX9e_bynOIGU7RuQqS0fkO1BWRizl_m5jXcbJgUh8H17hg9z2KBSuQEDvtaifX6TQX53z8NCR58A_QW5sDtFqo-fcj9WaczYF38G/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252812%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXSBYen8iOwDdTA0YO9Gfy_AE2L_-2jFqPB_oTrLpgX9e_bynOIGU7RuQqS0fkO1BWRizl_m5jXcbJgUh8H17hg9z2KBSuQEDvtaifX6TQX53z8NCR58A_QW5sDtFqo-fcj9WaczYF38G/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252812%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Feminine charm - Zenana Deorhi facade</span></b></td></tr>
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An enormous numbers of factors need be referenced while discussing medieval notions of women’s seclusion (“zenana”) and chastity (“purdah”) and their contravention of and coexistence with notions of gender equality and socio-economic self-determination, especially while contrasting this with widespread polygamy and systematically institutionalized concubine relationships among Rajput royalty.<br />
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In the context of Jodhpur-Marwar, royal marriages were predominantly politically determined and queens were graded hierarchically according to seniority and political expediency. Concubines were also classified in two broad categories – ordinary (“pardayat”) and intimate (“paswan”) – and a number of subcategories. All royal ladies were entitled to private apartments in Zenana Deorhi, retinues of servants and palanquin-bearers, and numerous political prerogatives and socio-economic privileges depending on the aforementioned hierarchical order. They were financially independent for their day-to-day expenditure. Additionally, queens were also authorized to draw upon state resources for commissioning public works and philanthropic undertakings. They could also forbid their husband, the sovereign, from allocating apartments in Zenana Deorhi to his concubines, as happened in the case of Maharaja Takhat Singh whose queens were exhausted with his excessive philandering. Not to be outdone, he commissioned the standalone Chokhelao Bagh palace in another section of the fortress for the purpose.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz2JLxAuNkf_FHpVOGVtjIzoeai7zFJjSX6dCNCnpy2aZlfgmYdkSRUFqjtBljGb8OOo7vN4RstbiLJjYyJw9A3zGPSQNt8YWmzDENSKW_pWzDh8OItIVzSJusUWXxPBsqDizltxoXqfVI/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252821%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz2JLxAuNkf_FHpVOGVtjIzoeai7zFJjSX6dCNCnpy2aZlfgmYdkSRUFqjtBljGb8OOo7vN4RstbiLJjYyJw9A3zGPSQNt8YWmzDENSKW_pWzDh8OItIVzSJusUWXxPBsqDizltxoXqfVI/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252821%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Locked away from prying eyes - Rear apartments, Zenana Deorhi</span></b></td></tr>
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If one has money to splurge, a section of the Zenana Deorhi has been converted into the Mehrangarh Museum shop where can be purchased exorbitantly priced t-shirts, elephant coasters and jewellery. Some well-researched books are also available, again marked at stupendous prices. Don’t miss the painted door adorned with faded images of various Hindu deities in the corner adjacent the souvenir store.<br />
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Another wing of the Deorhi has been converted into a scholars’ retreat where reside researchers and conservationists employed in the fortress/museum. Though this section is out of bounds for ordinary visitors, I was able to access it thanks to my friend Shakshi who works with the Museum Trust’s department of textile conservation. Shakshi also showed me the moderately-proportioned rear courtyard section of Zenana Deorhi, one of the most unforgettable palaces I’ve stepped in, laden as it is with lace-like delicate latticework screens, exquisite projecting windows, off-white stucco finish resembling marble, and telltale gorgeous facades festooned with plaster and paintwork details that would not have been out of place in one of Emperor Shahjahan’s fairy tale marble edifices. Of course, much of my unbounded appreciation for this hidden corner can be chalked up to having a solitary run of the place with no incorrigible guides regurgitating ridiculous stories or selfie-clicking tourists stepping into my frame.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8d-qwL9TdELEuJ4Ro6WYGzymJJyd7WfEFzyrZPq2_EzLPCKT_PqZTh11bEtYVXhelWA5WadO-QXrdfSFX5_YcQKT2g2H68AGi12gECAP9V6GzEQa3LOdW0CzHElQRg4GRQBypNn5UXZQ5/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252822%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8d-qwL9TdELEuJ4Ro6WYGzymJJyd7WfEFzyrZPq2_EzLPCKT_PqZTh11bEtYVXhelWA5WadO-QXrdfSFX5_YcQKT2g2H68AGi12gECAP9V6GzEQa3LOdW0CzHElQRg4GRQBypNn5UXZQ5/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252822%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Forgotten princesses, secluded palaces</span></b></td></tr>
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Three hours since I stepped through the enormous Jai Pol, it was now time for lunch and I was back at Shakshi’s side. There are three café/restaurants within the fortress – Palki, which is located close to the ticket counter and serves moderately-priced breakfast snacks and confectioneries, Café Mehran, a full-fledged restaurant offering exorbitantly-priced traditional Rajasthani lunch combos, and Café Chokhelao (aka Mehran Terrace), located in Chokhelao Bagh palace and renowned for very expensive candle-lit dinners with the majestic fortress lit red-orange looming in the background. Conservationists employed by the Trust get discount at all of them. Shakshi says that's the only reason I was with her, but she’s lying.</div>
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I recommend the Lal Maans (red meat) combo at Café Mehran – bite-sized mutton in spicy watery gravy served with boiled rice, salad and chapattis – priced at Rs 600. The mutton was soft and perfectly diced, and the portions are almost sufficient for two. The servers, who were without exception in the 55-65 age group (I might be wrong though), were exceedingly soft-spoken and courteously waited upon patrons as if they were modern-day Maharajas which I found very embarrassing. The decor – soothing blue and lemon walls decorated with life-size portraits of erstwhile Maharajas – is also interesting. Cost for two – Rs 1,000.<br />
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The brownies and mirchi vadas (spicy fried fritters stuffed with mashed potatoes and chilli) at Café Palki are also okay, though nothing worth writing about.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gfO7W9DQ7Mbap0Dl2aORHMICUjp0cutrjk1H21Z4TYHOqPXGKNWkV0Wj8SQpv8O7S8omlP8m0KnDszadB-nLmkiNG39S5ZMDwVleNuwYHpwS_4mgW22aXJdn8hV5alMGnwSLGEjrvkma/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252843%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1220" data-original-width="1600" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gfO7W9DQ7Mbap0Dl2aORHMICUjp0cutrjk1H21Z4TYHOqPXGKNWkV0Wj8SQpv8O7S8omlP8m0KnDszadB-nLmkiNG39S5ZMDwVleNuwYHpwS_4mgW22aXJdn8hV5alMGnwSLGEjrvkma/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252843%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Serpent Goddess' shrine framed against the expansive Blue City</span></b></td></tr>
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Satiated, I found myself back at Suraj Pol to explore the ramparts and the two shrines on the other side. The transition from palaces to defenses, and by corollary opulence to exclusive functionality and artistic austerity, is abrupt, the only interlude being the simplistic though not unadorned temple dedicated to Goddess Nagnechia, a serpent divinity half-woman half-snake, whom the Rathores revere as “Kuldevi” (clan deity) and whose idol Rao Jodha specially brought from Mandore and established here in AD 1460.<br />
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The temple's painted gateway is adorned with murals depicting Lord Ganesha in one panel and one of the Maharajas worshipping the enthroned Goddess in another. The temple itself comprises of a large cloister-enveloped courtyard with a moderately-proportioned four-cell sanctum at the far-end where are consecrated bronze idols of Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna and Goddess Hingla besides Goddess Nagnechia.<br />
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An obscure eight-armed folk goddess, Hingla ji is considered the patron deity of Kshatriyas (warrior caste) because she provided sanctuary to the descendants of Emperor Kartavirya Arjuna (aka Sahasrabahu Arjuna) of the (probably mythological) ancient kingdom of Haihaya/Mahishmati when Lord Parashurama, another incarnation of Lord Vishnu, was ruthlessly annihilating all the Kshatriyas off the face of the earth.</div>
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The sanctum's exterior walls too are painted gorgeously to depict the royal retinue on the march, perhaps referencing Rao Jodha’s journey to Mandore and back to transfer the Goddess’ idol from the old city to the new. The expansive temple courtyard is also the site of the annual Navratri festivities during which the silver idol of Goddess Gangaur from Daulat Khana Mahal is brought here in a palanquin in a colorful musical procession and worshipped alongside Goddesses Nagnechia and Hinglaji.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_mwCZyAnpFOSn0v2ib6tID17Lm0G6_6ebj1W5GnYX41XcQFx0Z_8D4NI9LPKEg6yTWzBfmXQOFW0S5LOzPeTkwCyQwVwVTGzeZnEJbZ6IsH3D6p_FExrD9dUXXHLa8Ug9-Y_49P84jIo/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_mwCZyAnpFOSn0v2ib6tID17Lm0G6_6ebj1W5GnYX41XcQFx0Z_8D4NI9LPKEg6yTWzBfmXQOFW0S5LOzPeTkwCyQwVwVTGzeZnEJbZ6IsH3D6p_FExrD9dUXXHLa8Ug9-Y_49P84jIo/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Bedecked like a bride - Gangaur, Goddess of marital bliss,<br />Daulat Khana Mahal museum</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Venturing further along the ramparts, abutting the eventual extremity of the colossal fortress is located the second shrine which is consecrated to Goddess Chamunda, a manifestation of Goddess Kali, the ferocious black-skinned blood-drenched personification of death and destruction. This tiny edifice was partially reconstructed by Maharaja Takhat Singh in AD 1857 as the original structure was severely damaged in an explosion caused by lightning striking a gunpowder store nearby.<br />
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The juxtaposition of the old and the new in the temple's aesthetics, especially the exquisitely crafted and perfectly polished stone festooning and banana-blossom roof against the older, relatively unsophisticated sculptures of muscular gatekeepers, lean “Gandharvas” (celestial musicians), and short and chubby “Ashtadikas” (mythical guardians of the directions), makes for very interesting photography compositions.</div>
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Folklore associated with the shrine describes how the fierce but munificent Goddess would manifest in Rao Jodha’s dreams and apprise him of military strategies to be employed in difficult wars. In one such iteration of these fantastical Homeric dreams, he was informed that the enemy sovereign’s armour could only be pierced if attacked in a particular manner which shall be conveyed to him on the battlefield by the Goddess manifesting in the form of an eagle. Lo and behold! An eagle materialized next to him during the course of the battle and he instinctively felled the enemy sovereign with a single arrow. All of this within the span of a few seconds, even before the eagle could resume its flight and disappear into nothingness.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhup7E4_CijUXfeT-t2Cu4lfGE2mTOS3Kd7ndEWHow__Nr84s2r4eOJYPqLoZggsIHYn6KSp7hfAiwi2H0H9_DBRAtow5Hw-u0Aa27c3pQftrAUKJzAYoFEc7uTOcwKxYa5OtC_ZCPTwYjg/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252839%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhup7E4_CijUXfeT-t2Cu4lfGE2mTOS3Kd7ndEWHow__Nr84s2r4eOJYPqLoZggsIHYn6KSp7hfAiwi2H0H9_DBRAtow5Hw-u0Aa27c3pQftrAUKJzAYoFEc7uTOcwKxYa5OtC_ZCPTwYjg/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252839%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">If Serpent Goddess wasn't enough, how about Eagle Goddess?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goddess Chamunda's temple</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Beginning that day, eagles came to be revered in Jodhpur as benevolent aspects of the Goddess and it’s prophesied that the city shall prosper as long as these magnificent birds of prey fly above Mehrangarh. As a sanguine nod to the tale’s authenticity, an eagle with outspread wings and a raised talon (symbolic of being in the process of resuming its flight after communicating the Goddess’ missive to Rao Jodha) features on the royal family’s multicolored flag and coat-of-arms.<br />
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The downside of this and the other tales is that they caricature Rao Jodha. Here’s an unequalled warrior who cannot fathom war manoeuvres that are apparent to peasant women but understands eagles! Think of all the literature and sitcom references that can be generated from this one sentence. Pokémon, anyone? Perhaps he was Newt Scamander speaking bird Parseltongue? Nope, actually the Goddess was Brandon Stark warging in eagles because there aren't many ravens in Rajasthan! Overlooked in this absurd storytelling is the fact that the Rao raised an invulnerable stronghold, one of the finest I've come across in my sojourns.<br />
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I would not put too much stock in the tale of the Goddess manifesting as an eagle either. Apparently, the 330 million deities in the Hindu pantheon appeared as flora, fauna and even miraculously-originating idols with alarming frequency. The Vaidyanatheswara temple in Talakadu commemorates Lord Shiva incarnating as a tree (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/12/talakadu-mysore-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Sand-submerged temples of Talakadu, Karnataka</a>). The 50+ Shakti Peethas scattered across the subcontinent house tiny stone fragments believed to be Goddess Sati's body parts. The Kankalitala Shakti Peetha in fact grew around a water tank in which it's said the Goddess' waist lies submerged! (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/09/kankalitala-shaktipeetha-birbhum.html">Pixelated Memories - Kankalitala Shaktipeetha, Bengal</a>).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixAtP0e4rKYZakEw7fbbs4YuCNvxGpxCioXhw0W8dQtf7vqZx-gFHwYI_aChC03YRNUjYnLCQxULcS8ey7womjtq1ye5KylUgutEdmf-asMqj-DR35MS0-sg-NXwHcL2GCaDj0Pnb2RUuj/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252819%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixAtP0e4rKYZakEw7fbbs4YuCNvxGpxCioXhw0W8dQtf7vqZx-gFHwYI_aChC03YRNUjYnLCQxULcS8ey7womjtq1ye5KylUgutEdmf-asMqj-DR35MS0-sg-NXwHcL2GCaDj0Pnb2RUuj/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252819%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Old Gods and the New</span></b></td></tr>
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Between the two shrines, the long walkway along the cannon-mounted ramparts overlooks the enchanting city lethargically sprawled encircled by hills so distant that it is difficult to perceive where they become one with the great desert lying beyond. In the distance rises the humongous profile of Umaid Bhawan palace. In the immediate vicinity the contours of the city, an ever-multiplying sea of miniature Lego blocks predominantly painted blue in continuation with a medieval scheme of color-coded caste discrimination.<br />
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From here, the laid-back Blue City suddenly seems deserted, the deluge of humanity vanishes magically. No multicolored flags flutter on invisible clotheslines, nor do vehicles create an ear-splitting ruckus. Only incalculable multitudes of swifts swoop and pirouette in every direction against the ink-black overcast skies, while giant eagles trace successively smaller circles overhead in a scene reminiscent of “The Lord of the Rings”. Alas, the moment of all-comprehension and self-discovery was not to be – another bunch of hyperactive, incessantly chattering visitors appears without premonition, a guard huffing and puffing in tow, cajoling the reckless ones to not cross the railings along the precipice and click selfies elsewhere.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlKboFIl5l2kwMMrFqm7KzJXInMdH9CBuSsU02sARknYJwn-bIT3XueugPrOrb1X1Q-NtLXozULo2ylwbpAI3FWxkfTJmr3rKxIOfBhjTdEk5YTiPmvVak45K_C10z3zvQFzjOLJYGnCG/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252841%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlKboFIl5l2kwMMrFqm7KzJXInMdH9CBuSsU02sARknYJwn-bIT3XueugPrOrb1X1Q-NtLXozULo2ylwbpAI3FWxkfTJmr3rKxIOfBhjTdEk5YTiPmvVak45K_C10z3zvQFzjOLJYGnCG/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252841%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Umaid Bhavan - Palace at the threshold of the Great Desert</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It had begun drizzling again. I had planned the two-day trip under the assumption that monsoon and the associated swarms of tourists were still a month away, but unexpectedly it pitter-pattered intermittently on both days, though thankfully the tourists did not materialize, at least not in incredulous numbers.<br />
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I was compelled to skip the Chokhelao Bagh palace, but the sudden downpour magically rendered the already spellbinding landscape into an unbelievable explosion of drenched hues, a visual tiramisu of sorts – inky-black sky stretching as far as the eye could see, yellow-orange towers and castellations, pink-red palaces gradually assuming darker shades, brightly glistening greys of the oft-trodden cobbled stone walkways, and the expanse of the violet-blue city underneath punctuated by occasional brick reds, dull oranges and cement greys, hemmed by the dark green-browns of the wilderness beyond. Each thunderclap sent innumerable swifts in flights of rapturous frenzy and the already overcast skies were soon saturated with agitated black pinpricks zigzagging around like notorious little pixies.<br />
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The breathtaking scene was impossible to photograph and is incredibly difficult to describe. As I stood there on the ramparts taking in the colors and the majesty of Mehrangarh, I could not help but drift back to Rajasthan tourism’s newly launched track song –</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Maati maange painjani, Bangdi pehne baadli</b></div>
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<b>Dedo dedo baavdo, Ghor-mator baavdi”</b><br />
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<b>(“The land is wearing anklets, the sky is wearing bangles</b></div>
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<b>The clouds in a happy frenzy have taken different shapes, the beautiful revolving rotund earth”)</b></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnVpgSauW4ejRD0kLCAM3SiBWeTvFCParLcZ4Pa4ha9cAnYUsl11ETWZbyQt1HEjbigByTjlGI7PQAOyVZ9spLy6r4YKsm81SH8_UvaQ_yD_X4G5N-sbbeEIqOeHjVScwSnM5DGlnZnFJa/s1600/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252837%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnVpgSauW4ejRD0kLCAM3SiBWeTvFCParLcZ4Pa4ha9cAnYUsl11ETWZbyQt1HEjbigByTjlGI7PQAOyVZ9spLy6r4YKsm81SH8_UvaQ_yD_X4G5N-sbbeEIqOeHjVScwSnM5DGlnZnFJa/s640/Mehrangarh+Fort+Jodhpur+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252837%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Chokhelao Bagh, Maharaja Takhat Singh's special pleasure palace</span></b><br />
<b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;">(square building on left)</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Location: </b>Jodhpur is located 600 kilometers from Delhi. There is regular train and bus service between the two cities. I personally prefer Mandore Express and Delhi Serai Rohilla - Jodhpur Superfast since they're both overnight trains on both up and down routes.<br />
<b>Open: </b>All days except Mondays, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm<br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Indians: Rs 100 (Rs 50 for senior citizens and students), Foreigners: Rs 600, including audio guide and elevator charges (Rs 500 for senior citizens and students)<br />
<b>Still camera charges:</b> Indians: Rs 100, Foreigners: Rs 25<br />
<b>Video camera charges:</b> Indians: Rs 200, Foreigners: Rs 50<br />
<b>Audio guide facility:</b> Rs 170 (Rs 100 for senior citizens and students) (applicable only for Indian citizens)<br />
<b>Time required for sightseeing:</b> 3 hrs (not including lunch at the restaurants)<br />
<b>Time required to explore Jodhpur in its entirety:</b> 2 days (not including the numerous baolis/jhalras)<br />
<b>Charges/person inclusive of food and lodging in Jodhpur:</b> Rs 3,000 for 2 days, 1 night stay (assuming hotel charges Rs 1,000/day). This does not not include travel from-and-to Delhi/elsewhere.<br />
<b>Relevant Links -</b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Other <span style="text-align: left;">Geological Monuments in the country -</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ol>
<li><b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/02/lal-bagh-botanical-gardens-bangalore.html" style="font-weight: normal;">Pixelated Memories - Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens</a></b></li>
</ol>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Other fortress-palaces in the country -</b></div>
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<ol>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2015/04/bangalore-palace-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalore Palace, Karnataka</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/hetampur-hazarduari-rajbari-birbhum.html">Pixelated Memories - Hetampur Hazarduari Rajbari, Bengal</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Red Fort, Delhi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/seringapatnam-mandya-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Seringapatnam, Karnataka</a></li>
</ol>
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</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Other heritage cities in the country -</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ol>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/11/hampi-bellary-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Hampi, Karnataka</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/03/pondicherry.html">Pixelated Memories - Pondicherry</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/seringapatnam-mandya-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Seringapatnam, Karnataka</a></li>
</ol>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Other important museums in the country -</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ol>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/09/indian-museum-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - Indian Museum, Calcutta</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/10/national-museum-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - National Museum, Delhi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/04/shankars-international-doll-museum-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Shankar's International Doll Museum, Delhi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/04/victoria-memorial-kolkata.html">Pixelated Memories - Victoria Memorial, Calcutta</a></li>
</ol>
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<b>Suggested Reading -</b></div>
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<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rhythmdivine/reinventing-the-master-musicians-of-rajasthan/7248908">Abc.net.au - "Reinventing Rajasthan's master musicians" (March 15, 2016) by Geoff Wood</a></li>
<li><a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Tod%2C+James%2C+1782-1835%22">Archive.org - "Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan" by Lieut.-Col. James Tod</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-blue-city-of-jodhpur">Atlasobscura.com - The Blue City of Jodhpur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sati-handprints">Atlasobscura.com - Sati handprints, Jodhpur, India</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39890722">Bbc.com - "Spring-cleaning India's most magnificent tent" (May 14, 2017) by Melissa Klugt</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/475283/a-citys-psyche.html">Deccanherald.com - "A city's psyche" (May 03, 2015) by Akhil Kadidal</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/FortJodhpur/">Facebook.com/FortJodhpur</a> (Official Facebook page of Mehrangarh Museum Trust)</li>
<li><a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~royalty/ips/j/jodhpur.html">Iinet.net.au - Jodhpur genealogy (AD 1226 - present)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/picture-gallery/the-queens-diary/1870-1.html">Indianexpress.com - Photo essay "The Queen's Diary" by Tashi Tobgyal</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44146726">Jstor.org - "Embodying Royal Concubinage - Some aspects of concubinage in royal Rajput household of Marwar, (Western Rajasthan) C. 16th-18th centuries" by Priyanka Khanna</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-practice-of-sati-widow-burning">Kashgar.com.au - The practice of Sati (widow burning) (May 02, 2017) by Linda Heaphy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://kevinstandagephotography.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/mehrangarh-fort-the-exterior-jodhpur/">Kevinstandagephotography.wordpress.com - Mehrangarh Fort – The Exterior</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/937hgZfQWGjZsQlsLwmZmN/A-550yearold-backdrop-to-the-stars.html">Livemint.com - "A 550-year old backdrop to the stars" (July 26, 2012) by Gayatri Jayaraman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://mediaindia.eu/art-culture/restoring-a-movable-palace-from-the-mughal-era/">Mediaindia.eu - "Restoring a movable palace from the Mughal era" (June 7, 2017) by Surbhi Kapila</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mehrangarh.org/mehrangarh/architecture">Mehrangarh.org - Architecture</a> (Official website of Mehrangarh Museum Trust)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.mehrangarh.org/collection/collection-5">Mehrangarh.org - Arms & Armour</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mehrangarh.org/mehrangarh/period-rooms">Mehrangarh.org - Period rooms</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.rajasthanhistory.com/blog/history-art-culture-tourism-in-thar-desert/the-splendour-of-marwar-region-of-thar-desert">Rajasthanhistory.com - The splendour of Marwar region of Thar desert</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.royalark.net/India/jodhpur.htm">Royalark.net - Jodhpur genealogy (AD 1226 - present)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sandipbasu.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/an-honourable-man/">Sandipbasu.wordpress.com - An Honourable Man (Durgadas Rathore)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.thebetterindia.com/39521/border-security-force-bsf-camelry-camel-band/">Thebetterindia.com - BSF and its Camel Contingent</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jun/20/rajasthani-painting-garden-cosmos-jodhpur">Theguardian.com - "Pleasure palace" (June 20, 2009) by William Dalrymple</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sammel">Wikipedia.org - Battle of Sammel</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durgadas_Rathore">Wikipedia.org - Durgadas Rathore</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodhpur">Wikipedia.org - Jodhpur</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodhpur_Group_%E2%80%93_Malani_Igneous_Suite_Contact">Wikipedia.org - Jodhpur Group – Malani Igneous Suite Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodhpur_State">Wikipedia.org - Jodhpur State</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karni_Mata">Wikipedia.org - Karni Mata</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takht_Singh">Wikipedia.org - Maharaja Takht Singh</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rao_Nara">Wikipedia.org - Rao Nara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew5W_kmtzjM">Youtube.com - Rajasthan Tourism Ad compilation</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-6151217323342218222016-10-26T12:22:00.000+05:302017-07-27T21:11:03.327+05:30Emperor Aurangzeb's Grave, Khuldabad, Maharashtra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“I am grown very old and weak. I know not who I am or what I have been doing. I have not done well for the country or its people. My years have gone by profitless. God has been in my heart; yet my darkened eyes have not recog<b>nized His light. Every torment I have inflicted, every sin I have committed, I carry the consequence with me. Strange that I came with nothing into the world, and now go away with this stupendous caravan of sin! Alas, life is transient, and the lost moment never comes back. There is no hope for me in the future, and I know not what punishment be in store for me to suffer. Though my trust be in the mercy of God I deplore my sins. Come what will, I have launched my bark upon the waters! Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!”</b></b></div>
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<b><b>– Emperor Aurangzeb’s last letter to his son Azam</b></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In the middle of nowhere</span></b></td></tr>
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The unchallenged reign of Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir (AD 1658-1707) stands forth as such an unprecedented epoch in the annals of Indian history that his own life story practically mirrors the chronicle of the enormous subcontinent for 50 years. 300 years later, he unarguably remains the most despised sovereign, especially for the saffron brigade, so much so that an arterial road in the national capital was rechristened recently in an endeavor to erase his life and times.</div>
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And why shouldn’t it be so?</div>
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His deliberate reversal of his predecessors’ religious policies towards his non-Muslim and unorthodox Muslim subjects, and his fiercely bigoted discrimination in matters of religious co-existence and taxation and revenue collection remains uncontested. Not only that, he prohibited by royal decree the celebration of Holi and Diwali and the marking of Muharram.</div>
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In his famous “Benaras Firman” of AD 1659, he decreed that though no long-standing, legally authorized temple henceforth be demolished or desecrated nor the inhabitant Brahmins be disturbed or persecuted in any way, new temples should not be allowed to be constructed without permission nor should Hindu religious education be disseminated from any shrine. Several temples in Benaras, Sindh and Multan were thus destroyed and Brahmins imprisoned and punished for using them for purposes of instruction.</div>
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In AD 1665, he ordered officials in Gujarat to demolish all those shrines, including the famed Somnath temple, which the Governor had previously devastated but Hindus had had renovated or reconstructed. The beautiful stone railings of Keshav Deo temple of Mathura were dismantled the next year since the same were financed by Dara Shukoh. In AD 1669, the Governor of Orissa was obliged to destroy all Hindu shrines that fell in his dominions. Vishwanath and Gopinath temples in Benaras and Keshav Rai temple in Mathura were also totally devastated the same year and mosques raised at their sites.</div>
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The ninth Sikh spiritual preceptor Guru Tegh Bahadur and his closest associates were imprisoned, barbarically tortured and decapitated in AD 1675 for refusing to convert to Islam and protesting the anti-Hindu barbarities.</div>
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In AD 1679, over 300 temples were destroyed in Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur and Amber – Rajputs resisting the same were brutally slaughtered. Numerous Hindu shrines were also destroyed in Dwarka, Ayodhya and Haridwar.</div>
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Not relenting yet, a special “Daroga-i-Beldar” (“Superintendent of Laborers”) was appointed to the armies to oversee the razing to ground of all Hindu shrines encountered on the march through Deccan, Maharashtra, Golconda and Bijapur.</div>
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Though his disastrous religious policy is generally held responsible for the swift downfall of the empire, for the Emperor however it wasn’t merely a matter of personal caprice or earthly gains, but consideration of the Quran's orthodox interpretations which exhort every pious Muslim to exert him/herself to wage Jihad against non-Muslim countries (“Dar-ul-Harb”) to transform them into realms of faith (“Dar-ul-Islam”). To him, the religion of the great majority of his subjects was an abomination and a mischief which he fervently abhorred and considered his sovereign and personal duty before heaven to persecute and, if possible, stamp out through iconoclastic sacrilege, judicial persecution, economic repression, forced conversions and restriction of worship.</div>
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But did he ever regret his decisions and proclamations? We know not.</div>
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We do however know that until his demise at the ripe old age of 89 years, he remained distinguished for his religious dedication, personal chastity and public austerity. So much so that he willed to be interred not in Aurangabad where rests in eternal repose his beloved queen Rabia-ul-Daurani, but in nearby Khuldabad (“Abode of Eternity”) close to the hallowed mausoleums of 1,500 Sufi philosopher-dervishes including the illustrious 14th-century saints Hazrat Zainuddin Saiyyid Shirazi and Hazrat Burhanuddin Garib (disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/hazrat-nizamuddin-dargah-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah</a>). Not only that, he also refused to appropriate royal funds for personal expenditures, and paid the Rs 14.75 due for the minuscule space where his grave is located from the proceeds of the sale of the prayer caps he hand-stitched and had sold anonymously! Not unsurprisingly, though he also had assimilated Rs 350 from the sale of the calligraphic Qurans he copied, he forbade the use of this money for any personal purpose, simply stating that he’d be answerable to Allah if he had committed any mistakes in the copied renditions and profited from the same.</div>
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Such was the unadorned and uncovered grave's austerity that it stunned Governor-General Lord Curzon (officiated 1899-1905) so much so that he immediately requested the then Nizam of Hyderabad to have it enclosed with a delicate marble lattice screen. Vis-à-vis the monumentally magnificent mausoleums of his predecessors, the grave still retains its heartrending simplicity, unpretentiously shrouded only by a scanty layer of grass and stunted herbs like his sister Jahanara Begum’s unembellished tomb in Delhi (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/09/jahanara-begums-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jahanara Begum's Tomb</a>). That this is how the exceedingly powerful master of India’s unparalleled wealth, the man whose empire extending from Ghazni to Chittagong and from Kashmir to Karnataka yielded Rs 3 billion annually in revenues (in AD 1700!), decided to be buried is certainly bewildering!</div>
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<b>“Though under Earth and throneless now I be, Yet, while I lived, all Earth was under me!”</b></div>
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<b>– C.S. Lewis, “The Chronicles of Narnia”</b></div>
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Stepping through the massive whitewashed gateway and exploring the colossal courtyard of the adjoining mosque, one cannot help feel overwhelmed by the impermeable silences, the terrifying solitariness. Neither birds flutter overhead, nor do the ubiquitous palm fronds whisper their frighteningly eerie secrets. Time, ceaseless elsewhere, seems to have come to an unheralded standstill. In Delhi, the saffron brigade might be restlessly deleting the signs of the Emperor’s existence, but here he appears to have already been irretrievably forgotten! Wonder what he would have made of that!</div>
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<b>Location: </b>Khuldabad is located 27 kilometers (an hour by car) from Aurangabad. One can hire a private taxi for 12 hours (costs approx. Rs 1,500-2,000) and explore the nearby located fortress-citadel of Daualatabad and the rock-cut caves at Ellora as well on the same day. The highway connecting Khuldabad and Aurangabad is exceptionally well-maintained, however expect vehicular congestion and human overpopulation within Khuldabad itself.</div>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset</div>
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<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil</div>
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<b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil</div>
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<b>Time required for sightseeing:</b> 30 min (though the whole of the Khuldabad funerary zone will take considerably more)</div>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<b>Mausoleums of Emperor Aurangzeb's siblings and other Mughal sovereigns -</b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2011/10/humayuns-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Humayun's Tomb complex, Delhi</a> (where is interred Dara Shukoh as well)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/09/jahanara-begums-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jahanara Begum's Tomb, Delhi</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2014/06/moti-masjid-mehrauli-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Moti Masjid, Delhi</a> (where is interred Emperor Bahadur Shah “Zafar” II)</li>
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<b>Other monuments/landmarks in Maharashtra -</b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2016/09/pataleshwar-temple-pune-maharashtra.html">Pixelated Memories - Pataleshwar Temple, Pune</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2016/09/vishrambaug-wada-and-shaniwar-wada-pune.html">Pixelated Memories - Vishrambaug Wada and Shaniwar Wada, Pune</a></li>
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<b>Relevant links -</b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.aulia-e-hind.com/dargah/aurangzeb.htm">Aulia-e-hind.com - Tomb of Great Moghal Emperor Aurangzeb</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://double-dolphin.blogspot.in/2016/04/aurangzebs-tomb-khuldabad-aurangabad.html">Double-dolphin.blogspot.in - Aurangzeb's Tomb, Khuldabad</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://scroll.in/article/752358/was-aurangzeb-the-most-evil-ruler-india-has-ever-had">Scroll.in - Article "Was Aurangzeb the most evil ruler India has ever had?" (dated Sep 02, 2015) by Shoaib Daniyal</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurangzeb">Wikipedia.org - Aurangzeb</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khuldabad">Wikipedia.org - Khuldabad</a></li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-42223319433438073892016-09-26T18:40:00.000+05:302017-03-21T08:35:27.958+05:30Pataleshwar Temple, Pune, Maharashtra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Through many years, at great expense,<br />Journeying through many countries<br />I went to see high mountains, I went to the oceans.<br />Only I had not seen at my very doorstep,<br />The dew drop glistening, on the ear of the corn.</b><br />
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<b><b>– Rabindranath Tagore</b></b></div>
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Among Pune’s inhabitants, only an infinitesimally tiny fraction is aware of the tremendously enthralling monuments that their beautiful city camouflages as derelict mansions, tumble-down edifices and long forgotten shrines. Overshadowed by towering Banyan and Kanak Champa trees of unimaginable antiquity, the very appropriately christened Pataleshwar Te<span style="text-align: justify;">mple in fact masquerades as a colossal crater in a secluded corner of a densely-vegetated garden. It isn’t everyday that you look down a hole and find a temple peeping back! (unless if you're in Talakadu! Refer </span><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/12/talakadu-mysore-karnataka.html" style="text-align: justify;">Pixelated Memories - Talakadu, Karnataka</a><span style="text-align: justify;">)</span></div>
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Dedicated to the “Pataleshwar” (“Lord of the Netherworld”) aspect of Lord Shiva, the Hindu God of death and destruction, the rock-cut shrine was commissioned some 1,200 years ago during Rashtrakuta Dynasty reign (AD 753-982) but the endeavor never came to fruition as further sculpting was rendered dangerous and eventually entirely abandoned after a fault line was discovered at the back of the sanctum. What remains is a massive underground rectangular cell, forbiddingly dark and damp, supported by thick unembellished pillars, and convincingly reminiscent of the macabre “netherworld” term in its nomenclature.</div>
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The shrine was referred to as “Bhambavade temple” during Maratha reign after the minuscule village it adjoined. The name was corrupted to “Bhamburde” by British administrators and afterwards disappeared from the annals of history as the area slowly mutated into what is now known as Shivajinagar.</div>
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Blanketed by disquieting silence, the austerity is disturbing, and a strange terror of being buried underneath the whole enormity slowly creeps in. Even light seems to be frightened of venturing within, restraining itself short of the sanctums, further deepening the foreboding darkness until every shadow ominously merges into the next. Amidst the almost impenetrable gloom, only the polished bronze Shivalinga (the universal rounded-cylinder primordial symbol of Lord Shiva) and the brilliant white marble sculptures of the trinity of Rama, Lakshman and Sita nearby seem aglow with a subdued magnificence.</div>
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Stepping back outside, the most unusual aspect of the shrine is the enormous umbrella-shaped pavilion in the courtyard underneath which reclines the bull-demigod Nandi perennially adoring Lord Shiva, his master.</div>
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Contemplating the velvety, vibrant green moss on the rain-drenched rock surfaces, the glistening droplets enchantingly draping the convoluted cobwebs, and the perpetual squish and crunch of sweetly-stinking semi-rotten foliage under my feet on the ground level, I cannot help recall a Kannada verse by the renowned 12th-century scholar-social reformer Basavanna wherein he addresses his personal deity “Kudalasangama Deva” (Lord Shiva) thus –</div>
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<b>“Maneyolage maneyodeyaniddano illavo? Hostilalli hullu hutti, maneyolage raja tumbi;</b></div>
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<b>Maneyolage maneyodeyaniddano illavo? Tanuvolage husi tumbi, manadolage visaya tumbi;</b></div>
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<b>Maneyolage maneyodeyanilla, Kudalasangama Deva”</b></div>
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<b>“The master of the house, is he at home, or isn’t he? Grass on the threshold, dirt in the house;</b></div>
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<b>The master of the house, is he at home, or isn’t he? Lies in the body, lust in the heart;</b></div>
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<b>No, the master of the house is not at home, Our Lord of the Meeting Rivers”</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Down the rabbit hole!</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Jangali Maharaj road, less than a kilometer from Shivajinagar Railway station (Coordinates: 18°31'36.9"N 73°50'59.4"E)</div>
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<b>Open:</b> All days, sunrise to sunset</div>
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<b>Entrance fees:</b> Nil</div>
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<b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil</div>
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<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>45 min</div>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<b>Other landmarks in the vicinity - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2016/09/vishrambaug-wada-and-shaniwar-wada-pune.html">Pixelated Memories - Vishrambaug Wada and Shaniwar Wada</a></div>
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<b>More land-submerged temples - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/12/talakadu-mysore-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Talakadu, Karnataka</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-23858603327912595622016-09-06T19:32:00.000+05:302017-03-22T10:32:21.444+05:30Vishrambaug Wada and Shaniwar Wada, Pune, Maharashtra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>For Snehal</b></div>
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<b>“I’ve watched the sun rise over mountains where no human being has ever trod and seen it go down over cities where every inch of space is filled with people, pushing and fighting each other for life. I’ve given birth. I’ve been in love. I’ve changed beyond expectation. I’ve seen people die in alleyways; seen others survive impossible odds; known happiness and darkness and grief, and the one thing I’m still sure about is that life is mystery; life is change; it’s what my mother called magic, and it’s capable of anything.”</b></div>
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<b>– Joanne Harris, “Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure”</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_oWJBE_8v65aZfzFyZ8pl1JrD22zrcx-0_ZC9gBLiiEMbpfVOGon8tkreplbKt2QR-8b7TrWuDz-MOCix1JpWgIzWtueDoT8BtpOgU12aZMjcSAImJU7tehvixglsY10uqTStE5rkJxB/s1600/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_oWJBE_8v65aZfzFyZ8pl1JrD22zrcx-0_ZC9gBLiiEMbpfVOGon8tkreplbKt2QR-8b7TrWuDz-MOCix1JpWgIzWtueDoT8BtpOgU12aZMjcSAImJU7tehvixglsY10uqTStE5rkJxB/s640/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25284%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Blink-and-you-miss-it! - Vishrambaug Wada</span></b></td></tr>
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This is not the first time I’m questioning my fidelity towards my beloved Delhi. I cannot leave her, and yet I cannot always love her either. But Pune, that subliminally resplendent green emerald encircled by towering hills, I fell in love with, and I fell in love in, sincerely and unconditionally, at first sight. Thoroughly drenched in ceaseless monsoon drizzle and enveloped in an impenetrable cloud of fascinating fragrances, delectable flavors and bedazzling sights, I excitedly tasted of the city’s multifarious offerings, never realizing what inescapable charm was it that eternally ensnared me – was it the fleeting handshake, the vividly breathtaking smile that has become imprinted on my retinas, or that simple serving of otherworldly delicious pasta for which remains unexpressed my humble, affectionate gratitude?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA4otWgRD_9ULK_JEy7lyxx7opJn0aatA4VCedHW0EzJKX0pN7Eu1RqM93zHiMF4rx_iKreVB9D3-fpTuywgZs5xbn0AyS8l1WaYmCZk5isUcdVfsL46ZA63vezgcTEEqHlCOPprgGHE9Q/s1600/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="469" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA4otWgRD_9ULK_JEy7lyxx7opJn0aatA4VCedHW0EzJKX0pN7Eu1RqM93zHiMF4rx_iKreVB9D3-fpTuywgZs5xbn0AyS8l1WaYmCZk5isUcdVfsL46ZA63vezgcTEEqHlCOPprgGHE9Q/s640/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25287%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Traversing timelines</b></span></td></tr>
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My fondest memory, which keeps returning to me as wisps of an enchanting half-remembered dream, is that of “Vishrambaug Wada” (literally, “Leisurely Garden-mansion”). Located on Thorale Bajirao Road immediately opposite the Bank of Maharashtra, the imaginatively embellished triple-storied wooden edifice was commissioned in AD 1807-08 by Peshwa Bajirao II (officiated AD 1796-1818) as his personal residence. Just a glimpse, and astonishingly hypnotic proves to be the subdued flamboyance of the faded red-tinted walls contrasting against the dark coffee overtones of the painstakingly chiseled wooden surfaces, the latter delectably overlaid with exquisite flower-patterned convolutions exaggeratedly slithering and throbbing, incorporating in their midst intermittent floral explosions and tiny alcoves for remarkably life-like parakeets and peacocks to roost in amidst sophisticated smatterings of vegetative arabesques and tender banana-blossom and cypress-tree motifs.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgow9VU8pfPKXfudMhZLaiIqYuIDIjRDEbBAzmsO8mWhyphenhyphenZVFJYGSInUEjC4NuyM1nFQRuwTw17Pn1V0xhlZIFuj_SfQ00bzcKpSC_hZ9HV-92LHI1y4P4kzszS9ANh-ff5JOOgX-JJ-_jGB/s1600/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="481" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgow9VU8pfPKXfudMhZLaiIqYuIDIjRDEbBAzmsO8mWhyphenhyphenZVFJYGSInUEjC4NuyM1nFQRuwTw17Pn1V0xhlZIFuj_SfQ00bzcKpSC_hZ9HV-92LHI1y4P4kzszS9ANh-ff5JOOgX-JJ-_jGB/s640/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25285%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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Flanked by richly sculpted, terribly vicious monkeys, the intricately detailed, massive wooden canopy (“Meghadambari”) crowning the entrance marvellously appears to be floating of its own volition, supported as it is on eye-catching ostentatious representations of eclectically conceived imaginary beings possessing the head of a dog, the body of a lion, the scales of a fish and the wings of an eagle, the entire abundantly encrusted over with sumptuous floral motifs and geometric bands. On the first floor, the two “Diwan-i-Khas” (“Halls of Royal Audience”), used individually for special state meetings and dance gatherings, have now been transformed into immense museums entitled “Punawadi te Punyanagari” delineating the history and evolution of Pune and its numerous thriving bazaars, thoroughly congested residential locations and invincible fortress-palaces. The luxuriously carved lotus-pillars and the sheer warmth and intimacy of the entire setting unfailingly prompts one to imagine the extravagant opulence of the inimitable halls when they were strewn with evocatively embroidered oriental rugs and further wreathed with magnificent chandeliers and enviable tapestries.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Imagination woven through architecture</span></b></td></tr>
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Employed successively as a prison, a Sanskrit school, an engineering college and a municipal corporation office since its takeover by the avaricious British East India Co. following the Third Anglo-Maratha War (AD 1818), the ruinous ground floor still continues to accommodate a post office and a dejectedly rundown souvenir shop. Despite being the only royal residence of the Peshwas to have survived the vagaries of nature and the ravages of fires, the passionately ornamented palace has been wretchedly forgotten, even by those who regularly frequent the renowned Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale sweetshop across the road whose famed Bakarwadi (deep-fried spicy-sweet crispy flour rolls) compelled us to spend over an hour and a half in the queue!</div>
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Vis-à-vis Vishrambaug Wada, Shaniwar Wada (“Saturday Residence”), the heavily fortified official fortress-palace of the Peshwas, proves to be a disappointment – little else apart from the ruinous foundations of some of the edifices and the awe-inspiringly majestic “Dilli Darwaza” (“Delhi Gate”) was spared by an unexplained fire that continued unchallenged to devastate the wooden palace for a fortnight on February 27, 1828. Nonetheless, the mighty gateway's colossal buttresses and immaculate flanking bastions still continue to arouse disbelief while at the same time conveying stately illustriousness.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Shaniwar Wada - Bajirao Ballal's imposing stronghold</span></b></td></tr>
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Commissioned in AD 1732 by Peshwa “Thorale” Bajirao Ballal I (officiated AD 1720-40), the original fortress-palace is said to have been seven-storied, though defensive and decorative additions continued to be incorporated by his numerous successors. A highly exaggerated version of the same was depicted in the recently released Bollywood flick “Bajirao Mastani”, though one can glimpse vestiges of the beautiful religious paintings that might have inspired the movie along the interiors of the massive hall surmounting the Dilli Darwaza.</div>
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Where not pockmarked by foundation remains (enveloped by wooden railings!), the entire expanse has been transformed into a charming garden complex interspersed intermittently by information plaques. The peripheries of course are dominated by the various substantial gateways including Narayana Darwaza (aka Jambhul Darwaza), Mastani Darwaza (aka Ali Bahadur Darwaza) and Ganesha Darwaza. In its celebrated heydays, the imposing fortress-palace unbelievably accommodated over a thousand inhabitants within its crenelated defenses – why the devastating fires of 1828 were not doused thus naturally begets both incredulous surprise and misgivings of mischief/incompetence.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCo2GXJ115el97-5Bzu-yF-rx3Mtw81XO0bjsO9eWsmv0IpgPGff52Z6qdItJ3aDXkyPMFfp6ZCf_SlkzIhBQYszV9OrZP36lkSEjAVgOpquCjWKgJC0QS0COlAAd7kO3F65rnMxpfdWs8/s1600/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCo2GXJ115el97-5Bzu-yF-rx3Mtw81XO0bjsO9eWsmv0IpgPGff52Z6qdItJ3aDXkyPMFfp6ZCf_SlkzIhBQYszV9OrZP36lkSEjAVgOpquCjWKgJC0QS0COlAAd7kO3F65rnMxpfdWs8/s640/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">“Nothing beside remains!”</span></b></td></tr>
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Not surprisingly, the impressive stronghold is regarded as being haunted on every full moon night by agonizingly grief-stricken cries of “Kaka! Mala vachva” (“Save me, Uncle!”) uttered by the restlessly despondent soul of Peshwa Narayanrao (officiated AD 1772-73), the grandson of Peshwa Bajirao Ballal I, who was barbarically murdered and mutilated upon the orders of his own uncle “Raghoba” Raghunathrao (officiated as Peshwa, AD 1773-74). Spooky! And yet people would undoubtedly always only associate the engrossing citadel with the Kashibai-Bajirao-Mastani love triangle – and why not? Didn’t I too circumbulate the immense peripheries seeking the seductive fragrance of the beloved – only to run into a group of boisterously rowdy school students smoking hastily improvised joints immediately adjacent the spectacularly dominating equestrian statue ostensibly commemorating Peshwa Bajirao I but only in fact succeeding in bringing about reminiscences of Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias”!</div>
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<b>“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;</b></div>
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<b>Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!</b></div>
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<b>Nothing beside remains. Round the decay</b></div>
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<b>Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare</b></div>
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<b>The lone and level sands stretch far away.”</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwE1Esp23Fj0UUu73GFqvZqttmUe1vvG1IWLKkyelBb5fgD895K11a_4nVoHHTPCqLzpV8kOvI7fRMcnXYSljN2_4RvHJJ2e-jJevA58govo_1zR8hTk0l8Q_0qTFk4JfkN72JmVw6HJji/s1600/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwE1Esp23Fj0UUu73GFqvZqttmUe1vvG1IWLKkyelBb5fgD895K11a_4nVoHHTPCqLzpV8kOvI7fRMcnXYSljN2_4RvHJJ2e-jJevA58govo_1zR8hTk0l8Q_0qTFk4JfkN72JmVw6HJji/s640/Shaniwar+Wada+Vishrambaug+Wada+Pune+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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Which, all in all, of course makes me wonder if the Peshwas, two of whom so delicately embellished this spellbinding city, ever spent their hours ruminating philosophies and reminiscing memories while traversing new cities? Did they too realize, like now I do, that often in life one unknowingly embarks on certain journeys only to eventually apprehend that no matter how frantically one tries, some people, notwithstanding how dearest, one will probably never see again, and some places, notwithstanding how mesmerizing, would never be visited again.</div>
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And yet, one also realizes that memories, those ruthless pinpricks stabbing at our hearts in stolen moments of solace, would never let us forget the ones we loved so desperately, even if we wanted to. That we would never want to, of course, somehow always remains unsaid and unappreciated!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Peshwa Bajirao Ballal - The Indian Ozymandias</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location:</b> Shaniwar Wada is located barely 2 kilometers away from Shivajinagar in the heart of the city. Vishrambaug Wada is less than 1 kilometer away on Thorale Sreemant Peshwa Bajirao Road.</div>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, 8 am - 5.30 pm</div>
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<b>Entrance fees: </b>Vishrambaug Wada: Nil; Shaniwar Wada: Indians: Rs 5, Foreigners: Rs 125</div>
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<b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil</div>
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<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>Vishrambaug Wada: 1 hr; Shaniwar Wada: 2 hr</div>
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<b>Suggestion: </b>Don't forget to purchase the mouthwatering Bakarwadi from Chitale bandhu sweetshop just across the road from Vishrambaug Wada!</div>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://siddhikodre.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/vishrambaug-wada-punes-best-kept-secret/">Siddhikodre.wordpress.com - Vishrambaug Wada - Pune's best kept secret</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bajirao_I">Wikipedia.org - Peshwa Bajirao I</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baji_Rao_II">Wikipedia.org - Peshwa Bajirao II</a></li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-8882717597011334382016-05-16T02:56:00.000+05:302016-05-16T02:56:05.740+05:30Dadabari Jain Temple, Mehrauli, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“No man can encompass all that is to be known. The wisest among us can hold no more than a mustard seed’s weight of knowledge in his heart. But nevertheless each follower of the path has his own particular understanding, and each person’s understanding has value.”</b></div>
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<b>– Thalassa Ali, “Companions of Paradise” (2006)</b></div>
</b><br />The streets blistered and roasted like fiery furnaces and not the slightest draught stirred, while the sun, an insufferable ball of fire in the clear sky, transformed into intense searing white and ceaselessly endeavored to incinerate all existence. It was a day not unlike any other in Delhi’s scorching summer.<div>
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Amidst the multitudes of singed brown-green hues of Mehrauli Archaeological Park manifests mirage-like Dadabari Jain temple – dedicated to the erudite Jain mystic-saint Manidhari Dada Gurudeva Sri Jinachandra Suri ji – whose flawless white profile unfailingly soothes dreary eyes and beckons fatigued souls.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Jewel in the wilderness</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />At the very outset, I insist that only believers read on, and skeptics and cynics skip these few paragraphs.</div>
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A prodigious scholar, inquisitive philosopher and excellent social reformer, Sri Jinachandra Suri, born Surya Kumar in AD 1140, is said to have renounced the comforts of conventional life at the tender age of 6 years, and thereafter arduously trained and distinguished himself in Jain religious philosophy and metaphysics.</div>
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He compiled numerous scholarly tomes on comparative religious theology and spirituality, and soon afterwards became so illustriously renowned that he was entrusted by Acharya Gurudeva Jindutta Suri ji, his transcendentally accomplished spiritual mentor, with delivering intellectual spiritual discourses on religious mysticism, universal brotherhood and philanthropic magnanimity throughout the country.</div>
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<br />Although Acharya Jindutta and he himself had prophesied his arrival and subsequent demise in Yoginipur (Delhi), he nonetheless resolved to temporarily reside in the province to discourse on religious equality, tolerance and amicability upon receiving deferential invitations from the sovereign Raja Madanpal Tomar.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Inviting</span></b></td></tr>
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During his residence in Yoginipur, he is said to have also commissioned a beautiful temple, dedicated to the legendary twenty-third Tirthankara Parshvanatha (BC 872-772), at the present-day site of the Qutb Complex (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/qutb-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb Complex</a>).</div>
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<br />At the age of 26, prompted by clairvoyant visions only slightly prior to his mournful demise, he resolutely cautioned his emotionally-besieged disciples to not stop his funeral procession anywhere except where they wished to cremate his earthly remains, for if they did they would never be able to relocate his body again. Fatigued and desirous of allowing fellow devotees to pay their last respects and condolences for the demised, the faithful followers carrying the funeral pyre did however stop in the village square and, as portended, failed to move the remains again! Reminiscent of the childish tale of Humpty-Dumpty, subsequently the king’s soldiers, horses and even elephants are said to have failed in their endeavors to budge him, and thus was Dada Gurudeva ji cremated on that very spot and a commemorative shrine reverentially constructed over the consecrated site.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTy1gwT7vPHssxaB3tJhmUKUBssEOvBlHywmsDkSwh4Dsyfk6J7EZuksZfU0B67DJKcqyApuVaQ1q2F2xEQ5iLIqsDE_6ep9MpTYqg2-q5b3hsWjS_0SddE8aoInJhd3sbxf98Wnd3CFWo/s1600/Jain+Dadabari+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTy1gwT7vPHssxaB3tJhmUKUBssEOvBlHywmsDkSwh4Dsyfk6J7EZuksZfU0B67DJKcqyApuVaQ1q2F2xEQ5iLIqsDE_6ep9MpTYqg2-q5b3hsWjS_0SddE8aoInJhd3sbxf98Wnd3CFWo/s640/Jain+Dadabari+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Blinding!</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />Additionally, it’s said that he had also portended that the sacred site where he’d be cremated shall remain barren for 800 years, and indeed a magnificent shrine was only consecrated here in late 19th-century. Repeatedly embellished and reconstructed since, an intricately ornamented silver-and-glass memorial gracefully protrudes over the hallowed site today, symmetrically enveloped by covered walkways for faithful devotees to circumambulate.</div>
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<br />Only a stone’s throw away, the massive central shrine is elegantly fabricated of exquisitely sculpted white marble. Within, the glittering glimmering sanctum is in its entirety composed of a spellbinding agglomeration of meticulously reverse-painted glass shards whose myriad shimmering hues compliment and yet jostle with each other for visual supremacy amidst a whole that remarkably, without being even in the slightest bit incongruous or disproportionate, succeeds in delineating several visual depictions of Jain mythological fables and remembrances of Dada Gurudeva’s enthralling, albeit possibly highly embellished, life and times. As the photographs here testimony, magnificently does the whole chamber metamorphose, upon incidence of even the minutest sliver of sunlight, into an extraordinarily effervescent explosion of vivacious colors.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">One from the folklore</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />Perhaps endeavoring to plagiarize the spatial scheme of the venerable Parasnatha Hill in Jharkhand (at least to me it appeared so!), adjacently has been conceived a large artificial hillock whose constricted veins secure a labyrinthine network of tiny interconnected cell-like sanctuaries, each individually dedicated to Jain mendicant-teachers and Tirthankars (lit., “ford-maker”, omniscient spiritual teachers who attained liberty from the terrible cycle of rebirths and worldly attachment by fierce contemplative meditation, unremitting emphasis on non-violence, and the renunciation of worldly relationships and responsibilities).<br /><br />Though the shimmering vividness of the shrine’s reverse-painted glass art might be commonplace in most north Indian Jain/Hindu temples, yet given its impeccable history and the singular network of shrines defining the artificial hill, it is surprising that not many are aware of the existence of this multicolored sparkle enveloped within its soothing white cocoon adjacent the perceptibly interminable wilderness of Mehrauli Archaeological Park.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Cherubs, blossoms </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;">and wreaths</span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> - Unusual for a Jain shrine!</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />In every direction one turns to are located innumerable medieval monuments and devoutly revered shrines, some world-renowned, others even more disappointingly obscure. The simplistic yet alluring Madhi Masjid is barely a stone's throw away (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/madhi-masjid-mehrauli-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Madhi Masjid</a>). More prominent is Ahinsa Sthal, another Jain shrine, and its neighbor mausoleum of Azim Khan, both constructed upon adjacently situated towering outcrops appealingly overlooking the green-brown expanse of Mehrauli (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/ahinsa-sthal-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Ahinsa Sthal</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/azim-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Azim Khan's Tomb</a>). No wonder then amidst this deluge of enthralling ruins and forgotten monuments, the Dadabari is only half-remembered and occasionally frequented.<div>
<br /><b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset</div>
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<b>Nearest Metro station: </b>Qutb Minar</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>The temple is located in a nondescript street on the other side of Mehrauli-Gurgaon highway immediately opposite the metro station. If coming by bus, get down at Lado Serai crossing (at the junction of Mehrauli-Gurgaon and Mehrauli-Badarpur highways) and walk for barely half a kilometer to reach the metro station. </div>
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<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil<br /><b>Photography/video charges:</b> Nil<br /><b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>45 min</div>
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<b>Note: </b>Footwear isn’t allowed within the temple complex and can be deposited at the small kiosk across the road from the entrance.<br /><b>Relevant links -<br />Other monuments/landmarks located in the immediate vicinity -</b><br /><ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/ahinsa-sthal-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Ahinsa Sthal</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/azim-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Azim Khan's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/balbans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Balban's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/jamali-kamali-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jamali Kamali Complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/02/khan-shahids-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Khan Shahid's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/madhi-masjid-mehrauli-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Madhi Masjid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/06/mehrauli-archaeological-park-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Mehrauli Archaeological Park</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/metcalfes-ziggurats-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Metcalfe's Ziggurats and Guardhouses</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/05/quli-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Quli Khan's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/qutb-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb Complex</a></li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-87698851441728166752016-04-30T06:45:00.000+05:302016-05-28T07:08:43.662+05:30Fire destroys Delhi’s National Museum of Natural History<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Vritha ahankarshivaya, yathapashyapasoon alipt rahoon, muktapane khanbeerpane va utsaahane, kartavyepalan karnanyalach satvik mehantat”</b></div>
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<b>“The detached and liberated performer, devoid of false ego, endowed with fortitude and insurmountable enthusiasm, unwavering in success and failure, is considered noble.”</b></div>
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<b>– The Bhagavadagita</b></div>
</b><br />Tragedy struck Delhi this past week when the priceless treasure horde that was the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) was reduced to a smoldering mass of immense nothingness by a devastating fire.<div>
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The indescribable anguish and the surprising outburst of nostalgia, vociferously articulated by the city’s heritage and environment enthusiasts, was considerably more pronounced for Kaustav, my fellow Bio-technologist, and I since it has not yet even been a couple of months that we were standing riveted within the colossal building, in turns enthusiastically admiring the not insignificant collections meticulously arranged within glass cases and acquisitively staring at the scores of preserved flora-fauna specimens which we then heatedly argued about while attempting to classify them according to families, classes and categories learnt back in school (Animalia, Mammalia, Vertebrae…you get the drift). As if it would come alive and charge, the massive preserved rhinoceros standing threateningly at the foot of the staircase leading to the exhibition area too cornered a considerable fraction of our bewilderment.</div>
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The brilliantly lit fluorescent displays, the dazzlingly multi-hued butterfly collections seeming so conspicuously fragile, the unbelievably endearing bird specimens, the singularly patterned mollusks, the arrays of taxidermy big mammals, the numerous mesmerizing life-size diorama scenes, and of course the inquisitive-looking leopard sentinel-like staring at visitors from its perch along the ceiling – the loss is literally irredeemable, as if a bright light has become inexplicably extinguished even though it had been catastrophically neglected for so long that little of its magnificence, its magnetism now remained, even though it retained its unparalleled potency for illumination.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KVTXXAoFrDCR5lYeQX_1hBAJfTLcM77FPIvVjiiTKeS6ZwrVId7BEpxWQAb2HIQsWvWpyf4KFmAyW6HECFOQXsuMH92AU_XM4Cr1Q51lvVEx2Ghaevb5nXnWOB0JWKNJk7hQJeN5bT-2/s1600/National+Museum+of+Natural+History+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25281%2529.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KVTXXAoFrDCR5lYeQX_1hBAJfTLcM77FPIvVjiiTKeS6ZwrVId7BEpxWQAb2HIQsWvWpyf4KFmAyW6HECFOQXsuMH92AU_XM4Cr1Q51lvVEx2Ghaevb5nXnWOB0JWKNJk7hQJeN5bT-2/s640/National+Museum+of+Natural+History+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a><br /><br /><br />Death, in general, and the poignant eulogies that follow undeniably possess the unfailing propensity to elevate even the mundane on to the pedestal of blinding glory. I have no intention of denying that the museum authorities did little to promote its outstanding collections or even to preserve them particularly painstakingly, or that most of the mounted specimens were indeed frustratingly drenched with thick grimy layers of dirt and actually appeared like mottled and unkempt teddy-bears which could not even aspire to compete with the stunning visuals and the enviable narration that, say, National Geographic or Discovery Channel, have to offer today. Yet not unlike most things Indian, the endearing museum excelled not because of the uninterested bureaucracy but despite it, and the loss certainly does overwhelm.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6L_voDCRR_YIf1nMc_tjnAYrYh5d7pKvmuHnLvGkwz291KKrwOn-9eseBHheSlvRV-VT1XIDhlm6tFRELnlYVAdBP3ZbDe_SlWSuA1eY2i5p4DKeU9onCKn9IwyDsxBZq23i_lgPf4YKp/s1600/National+Museum+of+Natural+History+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6L_voDCRR_YIf1nMc_tjnAYrYh5d7pKvmuHnLvGkwz291KKrwOn-9eseBHheSlvRV-VT1XIDhlm6tFRELnlYVAdBP3ZbDe_SlWSuA1eY2i5p4DKeU9onCKn9IwyDsxBZq23i_lgPf4YKp/s640/National+Museum+of+Natural+History+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></div>
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<br /><br />Government authorities, including Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar (under the aegis of whose Ministry of Environment and Forests the iconic museum had been functioning since 1978 from a rented building belonging to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) at Mandi House), have resiliently announced the construction of a grander, considerably better equipped facility near Pragati Maidan, how soon can the same be established and operationalized however remains to be seen. The precise cause of the accidental fire too hasn’t yet been ascertained.</div>
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<br /><br /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJPgms4FVBDJmw7RV-H1lTKfHO5ksKouJAfvCXcued6CEEPyycM_DIO-P9_04-6V3zhZYEKwI8Mf5p22jxgunx8XMnQlOnQFGW7DAup3DHt9IiIB5Ni2H2ybRn3qmcbfTKjD161KCtqE_/s1600/National+Museum+of+Natural+History+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJPgms4FVBDJmw7RV-H1lTKfHO5ksKouJAfvCXcued6CEEPyycM_DIO-P9_04-6V3zhZYEKwI8Mf5p22jxgunx8XMnQlOnQFGW7DAup3DHt9IiIB5Ni2H2ybRn3qmcbfTKjD161KCtqE_/s640/National+Museum+of+Natural+History+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a><br /></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-34167328500437484912016-04-12T13:51:00.005+05:302016-04-12T14:20:53.048+05:30Sarvamangala Temple, Bardhaman, Bengal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Om Sarvamangala mangalye, Shive sarvatha sadhike</b></div>
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<b>Sharanye Triambake Gauri, Narayani Namo-stute”</b></div>
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<b>(“The Goddess who perpetually bestows auspiciousness and prosperity on all, I bow to thee</b></div>
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<b>The Goddess who is the consort of Lord Shiva, the possessor of three eyes, </b><b>I bow to thee”)</b></div>
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For a compulsive traveler, every single city, even the hideously grotesque and the repulsively avaricious ones, camouflage within the folds of their superficial selves iridescent jewels unpretentiously masquerading as the commonplace and therefore remaining implausibly untouched by dreadfully corrosive human presence. Remarkably though, more often than not, it is the smaller forgotten edifices, throbbing with a plethora of folklore pertaining to the city’s mythical origins and their own bewitching origins and construction, which ceaselessly fascinate and entice. Effortlessly do the enthralling outlines of myriads of picturesque landscapes, the tortuously snaking convolvulus of streetscape, and the fantastical silhouettes of monumental edifices become perpetually seared onto one’s retinas for all eternity, so much so that fragmented slivers of these reminiscences unfailingly continue to be recreated sporadically in one’s imagination even years later, especially in conjunction with snatches of soothing music that one played on a particular journey.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Timeless simplicity! - Shrine of the mother Goddess</span></b></td></tr>
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Consider then my elation when I was recently able to retrieve some photographs from my old laptop that crashed almost a year ago, in the process relieving fond, half-forgotten memories of the ceaselessly pulsating city of Calcutta and its languidly laid-back environs, coupled with the sorrowful realization that among a long list of the monumental cathedrals, minuscule Chinese shrines, unheralded colonial memorials and immense temple complexes that I never got around to penning articles about was the soothingly serene Sarvamangala temple, jewel-like ensconced in a beatifically humble corner of the illustrious district of Bardhaman (Burdwan), whose semi-ruinous architectural conformations, subdued artistic adornments and gorgeous terracotta ornamentation I had spontaneously fallen in love with.<br />
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Enveloped within enormous brownish-pink periphery walls that, with their towering Corinthian pilasters, elaborate stucco outbursts of intricate floral flourishes, and gracefully multi-layered semicircular arches delineated by exquisite vegetative scrolls, would not have been out of place in late-colonial Indian palatial edifices (such as the one in nearby Birbhum, refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/hetampur-hazarduari-rajbari-birbhum.html">Pixelated Memories - Hetampur Hazarduari Rajbari</a>), the gorgeous lemon-yellow shrine is existential within its own hallowed square described by a second line of enclosing walls whose entrance way is heralded by two cream-yellow shrines dedicated to the “Chandreswara” (“Lord of Chandra”, Chandra being the moon God) and “Indreswara” (“Lord of Indra”, Indra being the God of thunder and lightning and the chief of minor deities in Hindu mythology) manifestations of Lord Shiva, the God of death and destruction.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7YSXfyU_Y3gTbYtx2kFh5CS27Q4OH2uWP4kObTIhv6f3bEhL74ZLaLBX-0Pr_Wt_Vhs-idEhGxSOQaqb-CCJPi7uOD0XCydDJkcZiYOn_F7in5RMMcSArvoGSAWE-_a-o2KRw7Rxvlfqm/s1600/Sarvamangala+Temple+Bengal+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7YSXfyU_Y3gTbYtx2kFh5CS27Q4OH2uWP4kObTIhv6f3bEhL74ZLaLBX-0Pr_Wt_Vhs-idEhGxSOQaqb-CCJPi7uOD0XCydDJkcZiYOn_F7in5RMMcSArvoGSAWE-_a-o2KRw7Rxvlfqm/s640/Sarvamangala+Temple+Bengal+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A cocoon like no other - The palatial edifice enveloping the shrines</span></b></td></tr>
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Matchless in their delicate conception and dexterous execution, especially spellbinding are the mesmerizingly sophisticated and meticulously detailed vermilion-red terracotta panels, outstandingly embellishing the twin Bengali-style Shiva shrines and portraying vivid scenes from several interconnected folklores involving depictions of several formidable deities encompassed within a multitude of mischievous and voracious monkeys, an overflowing abundance of rudimentary shrines, a profusion of very attentive parakeets and long-tailed peacocks, and an extravagant excess of excessively flirtatious explosions of multi-patterned floral blossoms.<br />
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Within the congested central enclosure, gracefully preceded on two of its adjacent sides by huge pillared congregation halls (“Natamandir”) rises the vertically pronounced, vibrant yellow central shrine, its nine soaring spires (“Navratana”) towering above every other edifice, religious or functional, within the sanctified complex.<br />
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In the immediate vicinity of the gateway exist three more subsidiary shrines, dedicated to different manifestations of Lord Shiva. The central sub-shrine, surmounted by five fluted spires (“Pancharatna”) and intermittently adorned with tiny terracotta tiles depicting mythological deities, mythical entities, celestial dervishes and angry sages amidst fantastical smatterings of convoluted floral flourishes is considerably better preserved vis-à-vis the considerably constricted side-shrines flanking it whose tiered tapering roofs have become atrociously weather-blackened and whose remarkably decorated terracotta-studded exterior surfaces, where not painfully crumbling to imperceptible dust, have ruinously withered to unspeakably horrible brown-black smudges.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLbGQ9nO5gH6lNF3KceFkfwqL2Xk-V0fLfjhA64H2cJDQcqj5u27eDgtI_KGAb5LUmZUnpzzFAPtVu_Yi7fi91ABHYw-r5dW53yFtej_ApYK4i8T29vOKgbKiedyVq-z8B3biShnPhZOAg/s1600/Sarvamangala+Temple+Bengal+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLbGQ9nO5gH6lNF3KceFkfwqL2Xk-V0fLfjhA64H2cJDQcqj5u27eDgtI_KGAb5LUmZUnpzzFAPtVu_Yi7fi91ABHYw-r5dW53yFtej_ApYK4i8T29vOKgbKiedyVq-z8B3biShnPhZOAg/s640/Sarvamangala+Temple+Bengal+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Withered to disintegration - One of the interior Shiva temples</span></b></td></tr>
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Enveloped with thick layers of brightly colored, glittering glimmering embroidered clothes and festooned with expensive gold jewelry, housed in the sanctum of the central shrine is a tiny, shimmering black stone sculpture of the eighteen-armed Goddess Durga, a fierce manifestation of universal feminine energy, astride her powerfully muscled lion and piercing the body of the formidable buffalo-demon Mahishasura with her intimidatingly long trident.</div>
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Arguably, the minuscule sculpture was either surprisingly revealed from within the Damodar riverbed or was accidentally discovered in a lime kiln around the year 1740, and the local feudal lord Rajadhiraj Zamindar Raja Chitrasena Roy (officiated AD 1740-44) immediately commissioned the construction and ornamentation of the unsophisticated temple around it. It is conjectured in popular folklore that the revered Goddess had miraculously appeared in his dream and foretold her manifestation in this black stone which, enshrined and venerated, shall protect the Raja's territories from the ferociously barbaric slaughter and plunder unleashed over AD 1741-51 by the impressively maneuverable cavalry forces (“Bargir”) of Maratha ruler Raghoji Bhonsle I of Nagpur.</div>
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Another theory however contends that the beautiful shrine was actually commissioned by the devout Maharaja Kirtichanda Roy (officiated AD 1702-40) in AD 1702. His prodigious successor Raja Chitrasena Roy merely further magnified and embellished it when he assumed power.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVBlm3SMLjjaCRODVSjc9JVZ8FU2yZECtzqbnphKoKPiT8vLYeMcMBeNITSyiX1zjgP5IO6TeVnJ1ChAeFPT4ZtyiEhT8cxJUDzWRe9Q0pnEoWahlTJHcVHhAHMj2YzmWnubTCJLafsb3/s1600/Sarvamangala+Temple+Bengal+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVBlm3SMLjjaCRODVSjc9JVZ8FU2yZECtzqbnphKoKPiT8vLYeMcMBeNITSyiX1zjgP5IO6TeVnJ1ChAeFPT4ZtyiEhT8cxJUDzWRe9Q0pnEoWahlTJHcVHhAHMj2YzmWnubTCJLafsb3/s640/Sarvamangala+Temple+Bengal+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">History for the fanatics - A Hindu Goddess who protects Hindu subjects of a Muslim sovereign from Hindu plunderers!</span></b></td></tr>
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It is believed by some that the shrine coincidentally exists at the site of the “Shakti Peetha” (“Seat of Primordial Feminine energy”) where Goddess Sati’s navel fell following the terrible destruction of Daksha’s sacrifice. I copy verbatim from previous blog posts (refer links enumerated at the end of this article) for elucidation of the mythology and historiography encompassing the Shakti Peethas –<br />
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<b>The Shakti Peethas’ perplexing origin has its convoluted roots in ancient history's numerous tales where myths and legends conspire alongside hard facts to generate a picture of inexplicable phenomena and locations. Hindu legends recall the ritualistic sacrificial worship (“yagna”) commissioned by the mythological emperor Daksha in which his own angelic daughter Sati (Shakti) and her husband Shiva, the Hindu God of death and destruction, were unwelcome. Sati, though requested not to go by Lord Shiva but persuaded by an unremitting love for her father and maternal family, nonetheless reached her father’s abode only to be faced with an unrelenting onslaught of merciless abuses and insults heaped upon her all-powerful husband, as an anguished consequence of which she committed suicide by jumping into the ceremonial fire; dangerously enraged and unnervingly grief-struck, Lord Shiva picked up Goddess Sati’s lifeless body in one arm and his frightening trident in the other and began the frenzied “Tandava Nritya” (celestial dance of destruction). The entire world was on the brink of irrevocable destruction when all the Gods and deities collectively invoked Lord Vishnu, the Hindu God of life and preservation, who used his “Sudarshana Chakra” (spinning disc weapon) to cleave Sati’s body into 51 parts since an infuriated Shiva had vowed not to stop his terrible dance till Sati’s body existed. Each of the sacred spots where these 51 hallowed parts fell came to be sanctified as an auspicious “Shakti Peetha” where an intent worshiper channeling the said energy would be endowed with immeasurable intellectual and spiritual prowess.</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Mythology elucidated in terracotta - Panels adorning one of the exterior Shiva temples</span></b></td></tr>
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Following the post-independence abolition of the Zamindari system of revenue administration, the then Maharaja Uday Chanda Mahtab (officiated 1941-55) constituted the Sri Sarbamangala Trust Board in the year 1954 for meeting the expenses of the maintenance, conservation and restoration of the shrine as and when required. The long expanse of periphery wall near the Natamandir is entirely tessellated with a grossly unsightly array of small black-and-white marble plaques eternally commemorating charitable pecuniary contributions undertaken by reverential devotees – so much for philanthropy!</div>
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In the intervening distance rises a massive tree encircled by tiny clay toys and wreathed with shimmering garlands, deep red religious threads, marigold flowers, and iridescent glass bangles – votive offerings perhaps for the preternatural folk deity Seetla (hideously ugly but kindhearted Goddess of fevers, skin sores, pustules, and several infectious diseases of skin and blood, including chicken-pox) to cajole her to spare the children the terrible epidemics and punitive sufferings. Yes, even in 21st-century too there are such unbelievable primeval incarnations of the mythological mother Goddess in currency!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Contemplation - Looking into the Natmandir</b></span></td></tr>
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Who would have thought that the glimpse of this ancient tree in this semi-rural locale in distant Bengal would bring to me half-remembered memories of half-understood traditions from over a decade and a half ago when my grief-struck mother affectionately carried me, chicken-pox inflicted and fever-inflamed, to the local temple near our residence to propitiate the primordial Goddess! And who would have thought that I would here regret that my children would probably never know of these hypnotic legends and mysterious folk deities, except perhaps in confused half-forgotten tales such as these my own?!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Twin sentries - Chandreswara and Indreswara, the exterior Shiva temples</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Approximately a kilometer and a half from Bardhaman railway station.</div>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>The shrine is accessible via the street emanating from Curzon Gate (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/04/curzon-gate-bardhaman.html">Pixelated Memories - Curzon Gate</a>). The route is pretty straightforward and locals can easily guide one to the shrine. Walk/avail an auto/rickshaw from Bardhaman railway station/bus stop.<br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil</div>
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<b>Photography/video charges: </b>Nil</div>
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<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>30 min</div>
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<b>Relevant links -</b></div>
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<b>Other landmarks located in Bardhaman -</b></div>
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<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/04/curzon-gate-bardhaman.html">Pixelated Memories - Curzon Gate</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/03/kankaleshwar-kali-bari-bardhaman.html">Pixelated Memories - Kankaleshwar Kali Bari</a></li>
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<b>Other Shakti Peethas in the country -</b></div>
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<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/05/kalighat-temple-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - Kalighat Temple, Calcutta</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2011/12/kamakhya-temple-assam.html">Pixelated Memories - Kamakhya Temple, Assam</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/09/kankalitala-shaktipeetha-birbhum.html">Pixelated Memories - Kankalitala Shaktipeetha, Birbhum</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2015/09/sri-chamundeshwari-temple-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chamundeshwari Temple, Mysore</a></li>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<li><a href="http://kolkatajournal.com/the-maratha-menace-1741-1751/">Kolkatajournal.com - The Maratha menace – 1741-1751</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.omashram.com/news/78-the-day-of-shitala-devi">Omashram.com - The Day of Shitala Devi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://scroll.in/article/776978/forgotten-indian-history-the-brutal-maratha-invasions-of-bengal">Scroll.in - Article "Forgotten Indian history: The brutal Maratha invasions of Bengal" (dated Dec 22, 2015) by Shoaib Daniyal</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seetla_Mata,_Punjab">Wikipedia.org - Seetla Mata (Punjab)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitala">Wikipedia.org - Shitala</a></li>
</ol>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-89630630266798026302016-04-01T00:18:00.001+05:302016-04-01T00:18:56.634+05:30TB Day – Operation ASHA, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><a href="https://web.facebook.com/operationasha/posts/10152917776672325">An abridged version of this article</a> was published on <a href="https://web.facebook.com/operationasha/">Operation ASHA's Facebook page</a> on March 25th.</b></div>
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<b>“My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) to stone and brass in heathen-wise,</b></div>
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<b>But in my brother’s voice, I hear my own unanswered agonies. His God is as his Fates assign;</b></div>
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<b>His prayer is all the world’s – and mine.”</b></div>
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<b>– Rudyard Kipling, “Kim” (1901)</b></div>
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Negotiating one’s way through the immense flood of humanity and indifferent cattle ceaselessly streaming the claustrophobic narrow meandering streets delineating the oxymoronic urban village of Tehkhand in south-east Delhi, it is explicably easy to fathom why communicable diseases spread with such diabolical intensity in Indian subcontinent.</div>
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On a scorching summer morning, the scene is fairly reminiscent of Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno”. Flanked on either side by unbelievably overpopulated, multi-storied residential buildings whose ground-floor facades have been transformed into cramped cubbyhole shops and confectioneries, the obnoxious-smelling streets, deplorably pockmarked or shrouded with thick carpets of dog and cattle excreta with astonishing frequency, overflow along the peripheries with absolute black putrid sewage. Unparalleled in their irritability, an incalculable number of flies violently flicker around, and yet their all-enveloping presence does not in the least hinder the tiny impoverished children, their straw-colored hair and dust and slime-ensconced faces reflecting terrible tales of starvation and poverty, from carelessly running about in the accumulated filth and grime.</div>
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Unremarkable among a row of similar inconsequential buildings is an insignificant little clinic crowned by several cardboard information panels, one of these identifying it as an Operation ASHA DOTS center, another vibrant violet one announcing adherence to RNTCP.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1OwXK1HCEetyujl-1r8QasZSWIt8CdAI9R1vjmYWVdKo-Orpxul4Cajr0qoUOGlFtOO9rYy9XqUyjt6nafpo67BYWfbaH5R_MBEEC41HG0c2_X0-rzOc0HidtVcUB3447X3ALSxwXIJtj/s1600/Operation+ASHA+TB+Day+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1OwXK1HCEetyujl-1r8QasZSWIt8CdAI9R1vjmYWVdKo-Orpxul4Cajr0qoUOGlFtOO9rYy9XqUyjt6nafpo67BYWfbaH5R_MBEEC41HG0c2_X0-rzOc0HidtVcUB3447X3ALSxwXIJtj/s640/Operation+ASHA+TB+Day+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Last-mile Delivery to the BoP</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />Endeavoring to eradicate Tuberculosis (TB) from the world over, Operation ASHA (OpASHA) is a Delhi-based non-profit, non-government organization operational in India and Cambodia, with third-party replication in Uganda, Dominican Republic, Peru and Kenya. Additionally, medications, care and counseling are also provided to underprivileged patients suffering from hemophilia, diabetes and HIV-AIDS.<br /><br />Why Tuberculosis?</div>
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<br />The statistics are horrifying – according to World Health Organization (WHO), of the 9.6 million people globally diseased with TB in the year 2015, a staggering 2.2 million were in India. Of these, over 330,000 died, that is, two deaths every three minutes, which is the approximate time required to read this article!</div>
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More people die of TB-related complications in India than in countries like Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia and China. What is however most perplexing is that the disease is totally curable, and the medicines are available free of cost from any government hospital/dispensary. More distressing is the absolute failure of medical health workers to get patients to adhere to the RNTCP-DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short-course) treatment regime whereby a patient has to consume the specified drugs for 6-8 months in the former’s presence (thus, directly observed).</div>
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Default in treatment can have the TB bacterium transform into Multidrug resistant (MDR) which, at its current rate of manifestation, shall prove to be the scourge of the developing world if unchallenged.<br /><br />By employing Biometric eCompliance and electronic medical recordkeeping (EMR) systems consisting of android phones and fingerprint readers, OpASHA has succeeded in reducing default rate to less than 3% vis-à-vis 60% reported by governmental bodies and other NGOs, and that too by spending less than 19 times the capital invested by the latter.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3HbIzr6AAux24GaZq_qpHc71YUI8127fu92Ct8PKr6euRb76AZrjd-AFeurUSL1XVygrTRfZ4jrInnGqsKIvRl6-olU0RTp9Dz97QadfxPmZJ5AU45uI4PO_YVdVGZwICtMBg3hyphenhyphenOh2gv/s1600/Operation+ASHA+TB+Day+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3HbIzr6AAux24GaZq_qpHc71YUI8127fu92Ct8PKr6euRb76AZrjd-AFeurUSL1XVygrTRfZ4jrInnGqsKIvRl6-olU0RTp9Dz97QadfxPmZJ5AU45uI4PO_YVdVGZwICtMBg3hyphenhyphenOh2gv/s640/Operation+ASHA+TB+Day+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Fighting Tuberculosis worldwide</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />Slightly within the physical peripheries of Tehkhand village is located the aforementioned OpASHA’s community DOTS centers, its inconspicuousness an additional advantage for the distressed patients trickling in intermittently throughout the day since they are often forced to maintain secrecy about their medical condition as a consequence of the severe social stigma associated with the disease.</div>
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Every 24th March, recognized as TB Day throughout the world, Tehkhand thunders with the slogans of several score OpASHA volunteers who march the constricted and clogged streets armed with starkly functional placards and posters stating “We want zero TB deaths” and mentioning the numerous indicators associated with the deadly disease.</div>
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This year, Dr. Sengupta, Delhi District TB Officer (DTO), too joined in and further expounded on the disease’s symptoms as well as the ill-effects of the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. Patients and counselors from OpASHA’s Tehkhand centers, volunteers from the village, OpASHA office staff and officials from the government TB departments joined in to help make the event a success and disseminate knowledge about the disease and, most importantly, the complete effectiveness of its cure.<br /><div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwocOxinDJQsgk7kTWEmGdMP6Yq7-P5BB_plOjrYrWMHw92mulvHBtNkfbwoDaPF1cO1xoWLF7CD6e6IvxSVtu2wnTpYo_7z5TWYDm7A7SprGPFeMSdQW_dDSe0GqDInlwWPAUA-xpg9LP/s1600/Operation+ASHA+TB+Day+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwocOxinDJQsgk7kTWEmGdMP6Yq7-P5BB_plOjrYrWMHw92mulvHBtNkfbwoDaPF1cO1xoWLF7CD6e6IvxSVtu2wnTpYo_7z5TWYDm7A7SprGPFeMSdQW_dDSe0GqDInlwWPAUA-xpg9LP/s640/Operation+ASHA+TB+Day+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">#zeroTBdeaths</span></b></td></tr>
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This article and the ones that’ll follow germinate from the realization that knowledge about this horrendous disease and its catastrophic consequences is still abysmally low, even among many highly educated and remarkably accomplished individuals with whom we, the OpASHA staff, interacted, and we need to rectify this immediately.</div>
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<br />Your help too counts! To know more, visit <a href="http://opasha.org/">opasha.org</a>.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-21529862331205036202016-03-16T19:27:00.000+05:302016-03-16T19:27:09.633+05:30Mehtab Bagh, Agra, Uttar Pradesh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Herding in India is one of the laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie down, and move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and staring china-blue eyes show above the surface, and then they lie like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd children hear one kite (never any more) whistling almost out of sight overhead, and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put grasshoppers in them; or catch two praying mantises and make them fight; or string a necklace of red and black jungle nuts; or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows. Then they sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and the day seems longer than most people’s whole lives, and perhaps they make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and put reeds into the men’s hands, and pretend they are kings and the figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then the evening comes and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other, and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village lights.”</b></div>
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<b>– Rudyard Kipling, “The Jungle Book” (1894)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNnHtnWaDHlPjEphFv1hq_DppYkhnyRB9lmLKWMBCYVybro_dWSdcUbAuhsNZJ8EoeADO78e2fMoIW3lc6ldjGj5N5HOUiBRH2eCXHrrZVFicEmqyNoYyPhrrNeawPDWBvVg9AkBFnTiIc/s1600/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNnHtnWaDHlPjEphFv1hq_DppYkhnyRB9lmLKWMBCYVybro_dWSdcUbAuhsNZJ8EoeADO78e2fMoIW3lc6ldjGj5N5HOUiBRH2eCXHrrZVFicEmqyNoYyPhrrNeawPDWBvVg9AkBFnTiIc/s640/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Spot the cattle! - Mehtab Bagh perspectives</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />Although no longer the glittering capital of the vast subcontinent, Agra, quintessentially languid and laidback, has eminently served over the centuries as the magnificent epicenter of several empires, its most remarkable transformation manifesting itself during the glorious reign of Emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (ruled AD 1556-1605).<div>
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On a sweltering bright afternoon not many days past, contemplating the enchanting bluish-white outline emanating opposite as if straight from a fascinating fairy tale, I wordlessly stood on the very perceptible edge of the painstakingly manicured “Mehtab Bagh” (“Moonlit garden”) only a few short steps away from the lethargically slithering narrow stream of Yamuna, the meandering “black river” of mythology, while the great ball of fire in the sky ruthlessly scorched the majestic expanse of passionately constructed sepulchers, imaginatively ornamented fortress-palaces, and thoughtfully designed pleasure garden complexes, each relentlessly seething with its own enormous share of historically diverse folklore, amidst an unbearably parched landscape composed almost entirely of vividly blazing red sandstone.</div>
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<br />Impressively conceived by the exalted Emperor Shihabuddin Muhammad Shahjahan (reign AD 1627-57) and deliberately sited in close geographical and contextual relationship with the otherworldly breathtaking Taj, his unparalleled magnum, the immaculately landscaped garden complex, with its colossal octagonal fountain and riverside pavilions, is the conspicuous source of seductive legends conjuring the tyrannical Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir (reign AD 1657-1707) contemptuously scuttling his formidable father’s extravagant idea of commissioning a flawless “Black Taj” at that very site wherein would've been interred his mortal remains.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sculptural orgasm!</b></span></td></tr>
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<b>“That it was Shah Jahan’s intention to duplicate the entire scheme of the Taj, by the erection of another mausoleum in black marble to enshrine his own remains, on the opposite bank of the Jumnan and to connect the two by a bridge, seems fairly well established. Tavernier, the French traveller and trader, who visited the Mughul court during the regimes of both Shah Jahan and Aurangzebe stated that the former emperor “began to build his own tomb on the other side of the river, but the war which he had with his son interrupted his plan, and Aurangzebe, who reigns at present, is not disposed to complete it.”… Whether this monarch even with all his vast resources could have carried out such an extravagant and spectacular project will never be known, but that he had the vision to contemplate it is an indication of the unlimited extent of his architectural ambitions.”</b></div>
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<b>– Percy Brown, British art critic-scholar-historian-archaeologist,</b></div>
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<b>“Indian Architecture, Volume II: Islamic Period”</b></div>
</b><br />Owing to the blistering heat, an unending, irregular column of cattle-herds, their directionless drifting animals appearing unbelievably minuscule vis-à-vis the gargantuan shimmering mausoleum opposite, defined the sole human presence except for the company of two mirage-like CISF guards diligently and discernibly doing the rounds. The unexciting atmosphere seemed to be monotonously alive with all the intermittent noises that, taken together, make one big uneventful silence – the drowsy drone of uninterrupted afternoon wind and the consequential soundless whispers carried amidst flailing fronds of dry grasses brushing against each other, the rustle of something alive in the undergrowth, and the occasional shrieks and chirrups of birds diving and swooping acrobatically and singing paeans of inextinguishable love to each other.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj67TkR6Z3vJcjZBlFlC2ftA_hsg9kV6nZNFekP0iM2BMkBPeCzl67CudGAeBl3c2D9Cy2oTEExLv58V7AiZpPB1iGnuaTF-7_7tQGHUjxBx08FxpQOvxVfKrqCzWJN1xWkrQtdtTX6nTyf/s1600/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj67TkR6Z3vJcjZBlFlC2ftA_hsg9kV6nZNFekP0iM2BMkBPeCzl67CudGAeBl3c2D9Cy2oTEExLv58V7AiZpPB1iGnuaTF-7_7tQGHUjxBx08FxpQOvxVfKrqCzWJN1xWkrQtdtTX6nTyf/s640/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Is it a cliche to say “Waah Taj”?</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />The symmetrically designed garden was probably existential, by another name, as a tiny constituent of the gargantuan “Hasht-Bihisht Bagh” (“Eight Paradises' garden”) laid by Emperor Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (reign AD 1526-30), Emperor Shahjahan’s great-great-grandfather. Afterwards, it passed into the compensatory “jagir” (land grant in lieu of military service) of Raja Man Singh Kacchwaha of Amber (Jaipur) who bequeathed it to his grandson Mirza Raja Jai Singh from whom it was regally purchased eventually for horticultural development as visualized by Emperor Shahjahan.<br /><br />The tenderly-maintained immensity was severely submerged by the torrentially brimming river in AD 1652 and, owing to continuous flooding, was afterwards grievously abandoned, incomprehensibly forgotten and contemptuously relegated to being existential as a mere pitiable sand-submerged, weed-shrouded mound interspersed with ruinously devastated corner-towers. Nonetheless, its erstwhile prestige miraculously survived for centuries in local mythology and eventually metamorphosed into its being the fabled, albeit historically unacknowledged, site of the mythical “Black Taj”.</div>
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It was excavated by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1993-94 and thereafter subjected to meticulous architectural and horticultural restoration. The archaeological remains, although minuscule, are interesting – expansively hemmed in by soaring corner octagonal towers (of which only the south-eastern one survives) and enveloped by presently near-indiscernible pleasure pavilions and exquisitely planned lower pools, there existed near the riverfront a gigantic octagonal pool with twenty-four fountains embedded within it. Through the center of the sprawling garden ran a large ornamental water channel surrounded by fragrant flower beds and thick carpets of vibrant green grass. Near the extremities have been discovered ruinous remains of extensive waterworks and storage tanks.<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisw3QQnmQ-_bSunY8u5ebAML8cI96slBCWAWXflxLv59Eonzk05FqFhRx623GsxL-U3STgApgh9JATy3n6VkSG_e0rKkWgMeso3zXf4JWL5Ypa-viB9infg1DBxmXDjUSIAsipxnCVBmi4/s1600/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisw3QQnmQ-_bSunY8u5ebAML8cI96slBCWAWXflxLv59Eonzk05FqFhRx623GsxL-U3STgApgh9JATy3n6VkSG_e0rKkWgMeso3zXf4JWL5Ypa-viB9infg1DBxmXDjUSIAsipxnCVBmi4/s640/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sigh! No moonlit views now!</span></b></td></tr>
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The mesmerizing view experienced on full moon nights would have been unrivaled – creating beautiful illusions of shimmering waterfalls, water would have perennially cascaded into stepped lower pools whose sides are perforated with small arched niches in which, it's said, were placed slender white candles picturesquely appearing like twinkling stars in obdurately dark nights. The soothing gurgle of gently falling water and the enthralling fragrance and subdued blue-white iridescence of night-blooming jasmine flowers would have completed the fascinatingly dreamy scene.</div>
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Incomprehensibly, despite its sterling reputation, the beautiful garden is very nominally advertised by the ASI and UP tourism, and it remains, for reasons only explicable to the authorities, one of Agra's little known secrets, a virginal patch nearly untouched by tourists and locals alike, when it should have been among the magnificent city's crowning glories. And I was there, endeavoring to imagine what the matchless emperor witnessed.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSQ_eLPN-YO24BTVNNB9h4GMlKnS083InKXS8-RYYNH5LHIaUIf_ZtthRlKra7xpMnR-isaoVdj7jaPm1BmpAcQmOsYdbYmSsfMFma1bnAYvx3f2weLNzMAj3GVqlFofIA1b9PU3YPW3gF/s1600/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSQ_eLPN-YO24BTVNNB9h4GMlKnS083InKXS8-RYYNH5LHIaUIf_ZtthRlKra7xpMnR-isaoVdj7jaPm1BmpAcQmOsYdbYmSsfMFma1bnAYvx3f2weLNzMAj3GVqlFofIA1b9PU3YPW3gF/s640/Mehtab+Bagh+Taj+Mahal+Agra+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A solitary visitor</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br /><b>Location: </b>The garden is situated on Yamuna riverbank immediately across from Taj Mahal. Road distance between the two is 7.5 kilometers.</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Although the road network is very well-connected to the garden and surrounding urban villages, public transport facilities are near negligible, especially for the return trip, since only the rare tourist heads this way. One can avail a shared auto-rickshaw from Agra Cantt. Railway station or Agra Fort for Bijli-ghar crossing (Rs 15/person either way) and from there avail a shared auto-rickshaw, again for Rs 15/person, for Yamuna ghat (or simply “Ghat”) on the other side of the river. From here, auto-rickshaws charge Rs 50 till Mehtab Bagh, however the price quoted would generally be several times this figure and one is compelled to bargain. It is advisable to book the auto-rickshaw for a round trip which will cost Rs 150, inclusive of the waiting time.</div>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset (ticket window closes 30 minutes before the sunset)<br /><b>Entrance fees: </b>Indians and SAARC country nationals: Rs 5; Others: Rs 100. Free entry for children up to 15 years of age.<br /><b>Agra Development Authority (ADA) toll-tax </b>(applicable on all days except Fridays): Indians and SAARC country nationals: Rs 10; Others: Rs 500 (remains valid (only for foreigners) for an entire day and can be presented at other major monument complexes too).<br /><b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil/Rs 25 respectively<br /><b>Time required for sightseeing:</b> 45 min<br /><b>Relevant Links -<br />Another monument located on this side of the river - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2016/03/itimad-ud-daulahs-tomb-agra.html">Pixelated Memories - Itimad-ud-Daulah's Tomb</a></div>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/taj-mahal-agra-mehtab-bagh-to-be-developed-as-an-alternative/1/429181.html">Indiatoday.intoday.in - Article "Mehtab Bagh to be developed as an alternative to Taj Mahal" (dated April 09, 2015) by Siraj Qureshi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/asis-efforts-to-restore-taj-mahals-fabulous-medieval-garden-bear-fruit/1/244462.html">Indiatoday.intoday.in - Article "Nursery of History" (dated Aug 07, 2000) by Anshul Avijit</a></li>
<li><a href="http://mytravelnama.com/2015/07/30/quest-for-the-black-taj-at-the-mysterious-mehtab-bagh-agra/">Mytravelnama.com - Quest for the Black Taj at the mysterious Mehtab Bagh, Agra</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-50985089949364840382016-03-08T19:22:00.000+05:302016-03-15T14:45:11.828+05:30Itimad-ud-Daulah's Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><b>“Almighty God! What a profound thought and glorious idea it is that the subtle apprehenders of truth, whose bright minds are like the breath of morning, and who are keen-sighted students of the schedules of Creation and composers of the diagrams of the tables of wisdom and perception, have not, with the exception of Speech which is but a vagrant breeze and fluctuating gale, found in the combinations of the elements or in material forms, anything so sublime or a jewel so rare that it come not within the mould of a price, the Reason’s balance cannot weigh it, that Language’s measure cannot contain it, and that it be beyond the scale of Thought; – and yet how should it be otherwise? Without help of Speech, the inner world’s capital cannot be built, nor this evil outer world’s civilization conceived.</b>”</b><br />
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<b><b>– Abul Fazal ibn Mubarak, “Akbarnama” (written and illustrated, AD<span style="text-align: right;"> 1590-96)</span></b></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyg6pvIClTe1e9sMyr_X6HuhxHOZ5HAf6No8FWKsWB9cNNbAKWX_ysXsVedQGgk7xXpAaMubTZqpiGpDGmWfJpazOmKrI0zn896j_ERoudAciFPGyza3a-QSIY7sd9ZgZWa_7gz4wBYLJ3/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyg6pvIClTe1e9sMyr_X6HuhxHOZ5HAf6No8FWKsWB9cNNbAKWX_ysXsVedQGgk7xXpAaMubTZqpiGpDGmWfJpazOmKrI0zn896j_ERoudAciFPGyza3a-QSIY7sd9ZgZWa_7gz4wBYLJ3/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Describe this, Abul Fazal!</span></b></td></tr>
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With the indulgent reader’s benevolent acquiescence, and wholly apprehending the significant semantic inadequacy in describing the unparalleled subliminal magnificence of the imaginatively conceived and meticulously embellished mausoleum of “Itimad-ud-Daulah” Mirza Ghiyasuddin Beg that I recently had the delightful privilege of setting eyes upon, I shall here humbly endeavor to retrace in thoughts and photographs, the matchlessly resplendent impression that is instantaneously seared onto one’s retinas for interminable eternity upon crossing the enchanted threshold of the small, conscientiously symmetrical and affectionately maintained grass-shrouded oasis that affectionately embraces the extravagantly ornamented “jewel-box” edifice as its centerpiece, and mercifully secludes it from the exasperatingly tumultuous deluge of humanity indifferently throbbing about the perplexing spiders’ webs of extensive streets and enormous slithering riverine bridges enveloping it.<br />
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Imagine then, walking towards an exceedingly massive gateway, squat solid of design and flawlessly balanced of proportions, composed of vibrant red sandstone painstakingly inlaid with glistening white marble in numerous spellbinding motifs so incomparably exquisite that one explicably confuses them for painted designs! Wide-eyed speechless with fantastical wonderment at the unequaled sight of the intricate festooning of rococo floral foliage and vegetative flourishes ornamenting the grand gateway, one belatedly comes to the arousing realization that despite the sculptural excellence of its elaborate decorative features, it is merely a trifling formal entrance; a temptingly promising, yet wholly functional, demarcation between the remarkably simplistic peripheries and the regally lavish centerpiece whose minute glittering jewel-like glimpses assiduously attract one further along the perfectly manicured garden complex till one sets eyes on its superlative majesty enthroned lethargically upon its high sandstone plinth.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7c5xFTXPZt9QMTgi111FrYwAwQ6zhz0S8KaG9Srhyphenhyphendn0GCv52CXc8MkLCnyHYAjHPqk7_Gww50hRu4rIIt0C3dAEzbWY-bI_lF3w7o95l7JB_rtPeKh4qxM9_w9UhLqzJNwnlNa7xShX/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7c5xFTXPZt9QMTgi111FrYwAwQ6zhz0S8KaG9Srhyphenhyphendn0GCv52CXc8MkLCnyHYAjHPqk7_Gww50hRu4rIIt0C3dAEzbWY-bI_lF3w7o95l7JB_rtPeKh4qxM9_w9UhLqzJNwnlNa7xShX/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Portal to another world</span></b></td></tr>
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Stepping within, let the reader visualize this square immensity, brightly illuminated by sparkling sunshine, its enormous marble surface magnanimously and very flamboyantly sprinkled with an unbelievably profuse, elaborately Bacchanalian crisscrossing inlay of multi-chrome glimmering floral convolutions, geometrical designs and arabesque scrollwork that in itself would have been exaggeratedly ostentatious were it not so exceptionally precise, so extraordinarily symmetrical, so astonishingly hypnotic, and so irrefutably subdued by the soothing whiteness of the unblemished marble, that it conclusively surpasses all endeavors at visual faultfinding.<br />
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<b>“Marble, specially of the textural quality as that obtained from the quarries of Makrana in Jodhpur, provides its own decorative appearance owing to its delicate graining, and any ornamentation requires to be most judiciously, almost sparingly applied, otherwise the surfaces become fretted and confused. Moldings have to be fine and rare in their contours and plain spaces are valuable as they emphasize the intrinsic beauty of the material, so that restraint has to be invariably observed. The forms therefore of this style are essentially marble forms, while the decoration is only occasionally plastic, such enrichment as was considered essential being obtained by means of inlaid patterns in colored stones.”</b></div>
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<b><b>– Percy Brown, British art critic-scholar-historian-</b>archaeologist,<br />“Indian Architecture, Volume II: Islamic Period”</b></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFzEZmg3532yRwO0fRSpHFJKB3lY8_kvFEsXC8M422rFyNED8J1M0KCarLA-JOo6-4j08nRZAuOXjDFisC2G1A30eS97coAppElOMehN07f4eNq1rlq955KzH4P8U9sYE7RV-Lwc0Axzpl/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFzEZmg3532yRwO0fRSpHFJKB3lY8_kvFEsXC8M422rFyNED8J1M0KCarLA-JOo6-4j08nRZAuOXjDFisC2G1A30eS97coAppElOMehN07f4eNq1rlq955KzH4P8U9sYE7RV-Lwc0Axzpl/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Behold extravagance</b></span></td></tr>
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Along the soaring octagonal minarets, enclosing the richly sculpted stone filigree screens, in the little crevices encapsulated between contiguous ornamental brackets supporting the overhanging eaves (“chajja”), camouflaged on the surface of the brackets themselves, indeed on every smallest fraction of the mammoth edifice except the curved roof of the square pavilion crowning it – is interwoven this precisely outlined veneer of multi-hued tessellation, this incomparable exemplar of embellishment the sheer complexities of whose unforgiving delicate nature and ostentatiously ornate intricacies spontaneously and endlessly snare flabbergasted onlookers into meticulous contemplation of its constituent configurations until eventually it seems ceaseless time itself has come to an unforeseen standstill to admire this remarkably mesmerizing superficial constitution.</div>
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One unquestionably perceives the prominent emphasis on the meticulous miniaturization of even the more massive panels, especially those adorning the exceedingly detailed lower portions of the edifice, and categorically comes to the plausible conclusion that the committed sculptor-craftsmen, who diligently emphasized the minutest of arabesque details, the slightest of geometric illustrations, and the simplest of physical forms, might have been essentially convicted that even layman visitors would not merely reflect unrelenting attention on the entire colossal edifice, but also comprehend the faultless nature of miniaturization herein accomplished and the unequivocal excellence thus incorporated.</div>
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Indisputably inspired by enthralling Persian paintings, visually the most noteworthy tessellated sections are the realistic minuscule panels, comprising of eclectically intricate flower vases, splendidly arrayed tiny cups and fashionably slender wine flasks, intermittently peppering the tremendously sophisticated surface of the extraordinarily evocative mausoleum.</div>
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<b>“It is of no little psychological significance that a movement (Islam) which began with restrictions against all forms of monumental art should eventually produce some of the most superb examples. Only the pyramids of the Pharoahs, and a few other funerary monuments, such as that raised in memory of King Mausoleus at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, have excelled in size and architectural splendor the Islamic tombs of India.”</b></div>
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<b><b>– Percy Brown, British art critic-scholar-historian-archaeolog</b>ist,<br />“Indian Architecture, Volume II: Islamic Period”</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigx3_yHU8QeswCLyyl9MUyrMBmWOME5Bdlmu_leEVATcq7FflybLouYvehHDu6v2Nr4EH9p5d1NKtfPrUBHdEQLqMKEQS9p4nKAoGigrlaPNUHNq4fQ9IOTl5_87WQgVssN8JM7F8Yxc7B/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigx3_yHU8QeswCLyyl9MUyrMBmWOME5Bdlmu_leEVATcq7FflybLouYvehHDu6v2Nr4EH9p5d1NKtfPrUBHdEQLqMKEQS9p4nKAoGigrlaPNUHNq4fQ9IOTl5_87WQgVssN8JM7F8Yxc7B/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Incredible!</span></b></td></tr>
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Let me also recount for the forbearing readers the incredibly fascinating, if slightly far-fetched, story of Mirza Ghiyasuddin Muhammad Beg who is often regarded as a living exemplar of individual advancement, through education, from debilitating insufficiency to enviable affluence, and from depressing powerlessness and agonizing dependency to wielding considerable influence even over otherwise unyielding sovereigns.<br />
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Firstly however, it needs be justly acknowledged that our exceptionally handsome and illustriously erudite protagonist is more eminently renowned for his celebrated descendants – his daughter Mehrunissa “Nurjahan” (“Light of the World”) formidably wielded the royal scepter while her depraved husband Emperor “Nuruddin” (“Light of the Faith”) Muhammad Salim “Jahangir” (“World Conqueror”, reign AD 1605-27) abandoned himself to drunken debaucheries and overindulgence of laudanum and opiates; his distinguished granddaughter Nawab Aliya Arjumand Bano Begum “Mumtaz-i-Mahal” (“Most Exalted in the Palace”) is of course recognized throughout the world as the “Lady of the Taj”, the favorite wife of Mughal Emperor Shihabuddin (“Champion of the Faith”) Muhammad Shahjahan (reign AD 1627-57)!<br />
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The son of a high Persian official, Mirza Beg was obliged for some undocumented reason to quit Teheran in AD 1577 and travel in extreme impoverishment to the vast realm of the Great Mughals to secure official and pecuniary advancement at the imperial court. Regarding this compelled relocation, a curious, although probably erroneous, saga resiliently survives in local folklore and is very delightfully recounted by semi-learned guides to perplexed tourists – it goes that while traversing, in a buffalo/mule cart (the numerous fictional accounts differ on such insignificant intricacies!), the vast desolate tracts delineating Indian subcontinent from central Asia, Mirza Beg’s family exhausted their money (alternatively, they were waylaid by ferocious bandits), and were all in danger of wretchedly perishing from hunger when Asmat Begum, Mirza Beg’s pregnant wife, delivered the radiantly lovely Mehrunissa (“Sun among Women”) in the oppressive desert.<br />
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Drastically affected by the absence of sustenance, the famished mother could barely remain upright, and the aggrieved father had become too severely exhausted to afford her either physical or emotional support. Distressed by starvation and fatigue, they hardheartedly resolved to abandon the newborn in some solitary stunted undergrowth and grievously resume their long onward journey in the hope of coming across some form of reprieve.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ3JPQRx43hFFZtuGZUU99MiIbDK3zDIU_Zo-exO82XxEJKQPYXIERioqbLfJ9pYzK5VXiH_YS4afpiPy20VKlNIFyu_RHO18tK_Jat1WPOOnwN8w0772mYEFhSZmRfPi3EbJIaWyB0PBS/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ3JPQRx43hFFZtuGZUU99MiIbDK3zDIU_Zo-exO82XxEJKQPYXIERioqbLfJ9pYzK5VXiH_YS4afpiPy20VKlNIFyu_RHO18tK_Jat1WPOOnwN8w0772mYEFhSZmRfPi3EbJIaWyB0PBS/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A daughter's tribute</span></b></td></tr>
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But as they deliberately pressed on and the tiny shrubbery perceptibly disappeared from the horizon, uncontrollably the mother burst in a piteous paroxysm of grief, crying “My child! My child!”, consequentially causing them to return and retrieve the child. Soon thereafter they were picked up by a benevolent caravan headed to Lahore (in modern-day Pakistan) in the realm of Emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (reign AD 1556-1605), and the rest, as they say, is history.<br />
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The legend is undoubtedly mythical – firstly, the alleged circumstances would only be known to Mirza Beg and Asmat Begum and neither of them of course would have made the humiliating anecdote public. Furthermore, most historians unambiguously concede that the shrewdly resourceful Mehrunissa (afterwards Empress “Nurmahal” (“Light of the Seraglio”) and “Nurjahan” (“Light of the World”)) was born in Kandahar enroute to India.<br />
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An identical tale states that the crying newborn was in reality discovered by an affluent trader Malik Masud who then recounted the sordid account at the caravanserai he was lodged in, consequentially causing the anguished Mirza Beg (who too had coincidentally boarded there) to recount his sorrowful travails and reclaim the beautiful child. Affected by pity, Malik Masud ceremoniously introduced Mirza Beg to Emperor Akbar who, propelled by his astute business skills, respectable scholarship, and amiable temperament, readily conferred upon him the office of “Diwan” (treasurer) of the province of Kabul (Afghanistan).<br />
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During the reign of Emperor Nuruddin Jahangir, Mirza Beg was bestowed with the honorific “Itimad-ud-Daula” (“Pillar of the State”), decreed “Sarpotdar” (“Lord High Treasurer of the Empire”), and eventually raised to the enviable position of “Wazir-ud-Daulah” (Prime minister). Interestingly, his bold propensity to demand immense bribes was entirely overlooked! His sons Mirza Abul Hasan “Asaf Jahan”, Muhammad Sharif and Ibrahim Khan “Fateh-Jang” too were entrusted with the the command of several thousand cavalrymen of the mammoth imperial army.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vU_20LelKU7VMtHARB6eFvOWKSqpD-z5SnrlCV8riHPJkD00ofZZgQ5R_8q4yXFKjw74yRYsXMPZ1yJOezMC_EQjWD2-5tyUqnAdrE9fYVrEtJmWu7tFZJM_0PvPv0d-jb6Wutj_Vbbe/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vU_20LelKU7VMtHARB6eFvOWKSqpD-z5SnrlCV8riHPJkD00ofZZgQ5R_8q4yXFKjw74yRYsXMPZ1yJOezMC_EQjWD2-5tyUqnAdrE9fYVrEtJmWu7tFZJM_0PvPv0d-jb6Wutj_Vbbe/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Delicate, in all senses of the word!</span></b></td></tr>
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Affectionately commissioned by Empress Nurjahan upon the mournful demise of her father, the majestically rousing mausoleum, constructed over AD 1622-28, is undeniably a visionary alchemical transformation sublimely arising from the distillation of hundreds of relatively modest, though awe-inspiringly attractive, predecessors. Not only perceptible in its singularly unusual architecture is the conspicuous mix of Hindu and Persian antecedents, the inimitable exteriors too, with their elaborate rococo of intricate floral flourishes and enchanting arabesques, are unforgettably evocative of fine embroidery realistically portraying elegant flowers not found in the Indian subcontinent, which, it’s said, is how the indulgent empress artistically envisioned the gorgeously wreathed edifice. Surprisingly though, the extensive use of semi-precious stones – turquoise, jade, lapis lazuli, topaz, carnelian, quartz, garnet, agate – of all hues and shades, in combination with black and white marble, is visually balanced despite the exaggeratedly ostentatious mosaic they culminate into.<br />
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<b>“It is easy to trace Nur Jahan’s feminine taste…in the magnificent tomb which she built for her father, Mirza Ghias Beg, Jahangir’s Prime Minister. </b><b><b>This is one of the most eclectic of the Mogul buildings… It is inaccurate to apply the term “Indo-Persian” to Itmad-ud-daulah’s tomb and other of Jahangir’s and Shah Jahan’s buildings. The structural design of the tomb belongs to the Hindu tradition… Nur Jahan’s intention was to reproduce in marble and precious inlay the enamelled tile mosaic of Persian tombs; but Persian craftsmen who were not skilled in fine masonry could not do this for her. The Indian masons, therefore, with their usual versatility adapted their craft to the Empress’s taste.”</b></b></div>
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<b><b>– Ernest Binfield Havell, “Indian Architecture, Its Psychology, Structure, and Histo</b>ry<br />from the first Muhammadan Invasion to the Present Day” (1913)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0UQrkDYYCU8OY6xKmFjEMbbOqq12HKsw28jLFtTWSJAE4cPBkkokTWcDZzjK1LuCucknY5wGl7L4JlFSjVJzDoHnGwup09yQJE9zCQFf-4UchvWP_c4FXn8dPf7A3f8nPJDHSGvL5qY7s/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0UQrkDYYCU8OY6xKmFjEMbbOqq12HKsw28jLFtTWSJAE4cPBkkokTWcDZzjK1LuCucknY5wGl7L4JlFSjVJzDoHnGwup09yQJE9zCQFf-4UchvWP_c4FXn8dPf7A3f8nPJDHSGvL5qY7s/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Across the threshold</span></b></td></tr>
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Let the kind reader picture now an incalculably magnificent gallery lined with numerous outstandingly finished, repetitive designs – bountiful flower vases alluringly overflowing with delicate foliage flourishes and multicolored roses (many of these polychrome compositions inspired by the stylized sketch-works of Ustad Mansur Naqqash, Emperor Jahangir’s renowned court painter specializing in rich flora-fauna masterpieces), skillfully finished wine-cups, splendid rose-water vessels, exceedingly vivid cypress trees realistically billowing on the smooth surface, and congregations of tiny feathery birds composed as if of delicately frothy clouds – each dexterously painted in a thousand vibrant hues and gracefully adorning every slightest nook and cranny of the wonderful surface except where the celebrated walls are layered with recurring multi-patterned inlaid marble or are interspersed by formidably set entrances and perfectly sculpted stone filigree screens. This then is a humble description of the mesmerizing interiors!<br />
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Unwaveringly adhering to the “Hasht Bihisht” architectural scheme favored by the affluent royalty, these galleries surrounding the large central chamber culminate into considerably smaller subsidiary chambers where are interred Itimad-ud-Daulah’s dearest kinfolk.<br />
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Yet the greatest surprise waits in the magnificent central chamber where in a centrally located sarcophagus reposes in eternal slumber the beloved Asmat Begum who deceased in AD 1621, only a year prior to her influential husband whose own brilliant green grave, appreciably offset towards the side, accompanies hers. Here then, staggeringly encasing the entire roof is an impressively enormous, celestially dazzling, brilliantly vivid-hued painted medallion conceived in such an impossibly exquisite, ostentatiously charismatic and symmetrically engrossing manner that the reader shall unfailingly discover that one cannot help being compellingly immersed in its pensive contemplation for a long while.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8PvmvpM35-456uJG5PpmnumFY0w3J0uawU8xZrcpJLytLCkeOeq1-SA8oHxP4hvAfEJcibZTjtVcITAkMrtLW1YwXyVcrTVPpXM2uiQcaSiSZL3fDK-oZBpSNDxrDpE55J-QOZ7HfY_IU/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8PvmvpM35-456uJG5PpmnumFY0w3J0uawU8xZrcpJLytLCkeOeq1-SA8oHxP4hvAfEJcibZTjtVcITAkMrtLW1YwXyVcrTVPpXM2uiQcaSiSZL3fDK-oZBpSNDxrDpE55J-QOZ7HfY_IU/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Iridescence!</span></b></td></tr>
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Precisely outlining the passionately decorated mausoleum’s flamboyant florid iridescence is the formulaically envisioned quadrangular Mughal “charbagh” (“four-quartered garden”) grandiosely enveloping it. Its beautiful accompaniments – faultless walkways and their straightforward fastidiousness and subdued sunburned brown-red hues; ornamental false gateways adorned with decaying remnants of impressive marble inlay and vibrantly multi-hued paintwork; corner domed towers blushing red through their restrained simplicity; and shallow water channels meticulously lined with attractively patterned cascades – are equally noteworthy.</div>
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Irrefutably capable of rendering one sufficiently awe-inspired through the resourceful invocation of the incomparable exquisiteness of the intricate painted patterns adorning its under-surface, the majestically proportioned western false gateway transforms into a humongous, breathtakingly beautiful pavilion from which to contemplate the lethargic flow of the narrow slithering stream that is Yamuna, the meandering “black river” of mythology (now deplorably physically so too, considering the ceaseless discharge into it throughout the day throughout the years of incalculably vast quantities of tremendously poisonous chemicals, inexorably nefarious organic wastes and putrid-smelling decomposing excreta).<br />
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Unquestionably hundreds of the unbelievably colossal fortifications, extravagantly opulent palatial complexes, profligately ornamented sepulchers, and passionately envisioned religious edifices dotting the immense landscape of the country would live up to indescribably fanciful adjective-laced descriptions, yet rare would be one as ethereally beautiful, as subliminally spellbinding, and as consummately perfect as Itimad-ud-Daulah’s magnificent sparkling “jewel box” mausoleum.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBxtaQ7MWG4gt0RBKdVXGTw4dezoFIA1XpiDzLNq4GtwCITqOYrgIS9cwoQl-PPAf0mqBs9W1xRuBIzRFug5O44MoPAaJitejjaTqGkNKEa783wfD8c4sy5bjlpjD-JrbQxNsNGOCCGX0/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtBxtaQ7MWG4gt0RBKdVXGTw4dezoFIA1XpiDzLNq4GtwCITqOYrgIS9cwoQl-PPAf0mqBs9W1xRuBIzRFug5O44MoPAaJitejjaTqGkNKEa783wfD8c4sy5bjlpjD-JrbQxNsNGOCCGX0/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Painted and tessellated - Pavilion views</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>“The tomb known as that of Eti-mad-Doulah at Agra… cannot be passed over, not only from its own beauty of design, but also because it marks an epoch in the style to which it belongs… Its real merit consists in being wholly in white marble, and being covered throughout with a mosaic in “pietro duro” – the first, apparently, and certainly one of the most splendid, examples of that class of ornamentation in India… The beautiful tracery of the pierced marble slabs of its windows, which resemble those of Selim Chisti's tomb at Futtehpore Sikri, the beauty of its white marble walls, and the rich colour of its decorations, make up so beautiful a whole, that it is only on comparing it with the works of Shah Jehan that we are justified in finding fault.”</b></div>
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<b>– James Fergusson, Scottish businessman-architect-writer<br />“The History of Indian and Eastern Architecture” (1876)</b></div>
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That being said, demeaning comparisons need to be notched down a scale or two. Despite their underlying technical similarities and structural over-refinement, and the extravagantly sumptuous decorations and lavish expenditure in material ornamentation concurred in both their construction, in my humble opinion, the exemplar mausoleum of Itimad-ud-Daulah arguably deserves to be above “Baby Taj”, its other descriptive sobriquet. The two edifices underline entirely different classes of architecture. Itimad-ud-Daulah’s eccentrically ornate mausoleum is the product of an altogether different age and its corresponding aesthetics – an age when the most functionally mundane edifices were intended to bedazzle; an age when, notwithstanding funerary sobriety, a sepulchral edifice would not be considered complete without an overindulgence of ornamentation, and an overemphasis on explosive bursts of rococo floral flourishes, all-encompassing artistic excess and fantastically multicolored traditional tessellated motifs.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9V4C5Ube-JrGU0q_nPxdrJC7rUZveqdr9WgchhnjNWLKbWJ33R_ea7IAkjfm09eP9mo_aJTRuC6vhKUXdNFr4oWnx0uh1aZ9F5qM6NtONSSalc0jAVGthAst6cCeXfZNdVovNYaCKiQG/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9V4C5Ube-JrGU0q_nPxdrJC7rUZveqdr9WgchhnjNWLKbWJ33R_ea7IAkjfm09eP9mo_aJTRuC6vhKUXdNFr4oWnx0uh1aZ9F5qM6NtONSSalc0jAVGthAst6cCeXfZNdVovNYaCKiQG/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Not the “Baby Taj” it's made out to be!</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>“It is an exceedingly beautiful building, but a great part of the most valuable stones of the mosaic work have been picked out and stolen, and the whole is about to be sold by auction, by a decree of the civil court, to pay the debt of the present proprietor, who is entirely unconnected with the family whose members repose under it, and especially indifferent as to what becomes of their bones. The building and garden in which it stands were, some sixty years ago, given away, I believe, by Najif Khan, the prime minister, to one of his nephews, to whose family it still belongs.”</b><br />
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<b>– Major-General Sir William Henry “Thuggee” Sleeman, British East India Co. Administrator</b></div>
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<b>“Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official” (1844)</b></div>
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(In hindsight, the preposterously appalling treatment meted to the preciously unique edifice at the hands of Mir Bakshi Mirza Najaf Khan Safvi, the incorrigibly efficient commander-in-chief during the unsustainably fragile reigns of the fledgling emperors Muhammad Shah I (reign AD 1719-48) and Shah Alam II (reigned AD 1759-1806), seems conservatively improbable but not entirely impossible. Mirza Najaf himself is buried in an unspeakably plain, possibly half-finished mausoleum in Delhi’s Jorbagh-Karbala area (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/08/najaf-khan-and-his-tomb-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Najaf Khan and his tomb</a>)).</div>
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In so impressively restoring the elegantly kaleidoscopic edifice vis-à-vis the despicably ruinous circumstances in which it was inherited (!!), the Archaeological Survey of India, in collaboration with World Monuments Fund, has commendably accomplished an exceptionally onerous and enormously expensive undertaking – an extremely comprehensive process that involved scientific research and documentation, structural conservation, immaculate replacement of missing/deteriorated architectural elements, preservation of the sophisticated paintwork, and the integrated restoration and technological optimization of the water channels and contextually traditional horticultural landscape epitomizing the refined Mughal “charbagh” setting. Salute to their meritorious achievement!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbhfx9EkcfCgU1hBQ_hLnFCCbFrekkSBDlVwZkQ8t9Ir29WYPwEaGvUR7i65WMh5hjknarw0FMdyRDi_q-lrQ5JgeuDdVkhgvMcXRS6lipnoxrz5vG7s7sBOHJIBRYP613IRlU5x3n1eG/s1600/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbhfx9EkcfCgU1hBQ_hLnFCCbFrekkSBDlVwZkQ8t9Ir29WYPwEaGvUR7i65WMh5hjknarw0FMdyRDi_q-lrQ5JgeuDdVkhgvMcXRS6lipnoxrz5vG7s7sBOHJIBRYP613IRlU5x3n1eG/s640/Itmad-ud-Daulah%2527s+Tomb+Uttar+Pradesh+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">History meets modernity</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>The mausoleum, accessible via Ambedkar Bridge, is situated on Yamuna riverbank across from Taj Mahal/Agra Fort and the railway stations. One can avail a shared auto-rickshaw from Agra Cantt. Railway station or Agra Fort for Bijli-ghar crossing (Rs 15/person either way) and from there avail a shared auto-rickshaw, again for Rs 15/person, for Yamuna ghat (or simply “Ghat”) on the other side of the river. The mausoleum is barely 5-10 minutes’ walk from there on.<br />
<b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset (ticket window closes 30 minutes before the sunset)<br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Indians and SAARC country nationals: Rs 5; Others: Rs 100. Free entry for children up to 15 years of age.<br />
<b>Agra Development Authority (ADA) toll-tax </b>(applicable on all days except Fridays): Indians and SAARC country nationals: Rs 10; Others: Rs 500 (remains valid (only for foreigners) for an entire day and can be presented at other major monument complexes too).<br />
<b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil/Rs 25 respectively<br />
<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>1.5 hours<br />
<b>Note:</b> Footwear is not allowed within the mausoleum and can be deposited (for no charge) at the small counter adjacent the side.<br />
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<b>Relevant Links -</b><br />
<b>Couple of other exemplars of tessellation ornamentation -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/08/atgah-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Atgah Khan's mausoleum, Delhi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2011/12/old-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qila-i-Kuhna Masjid, Purana Qila, Delhi</a></li>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_tktd_up_itimaduddaula.asp">Asi.nic.in - Itimad-ud-Daula’s Tomb, Agra</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1600_1699/jahangir/itimadtomb/itimadtomb.html">Columbia.edu - Itimad-ud-Daulah's Tomb</a> (Images)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00artlinks/agra_havell/11itimaduddaulah.html">Columbia.edu - Itimad-ud-Daulah's Tomb, Agra</a> (Text)</li>
<li><a href="http://islamic-arts.org/2013/the-tomb-of-etimad-ud-doulah/">Islamic-arts.org - The Tomb of Etimad ud Doulah</a></li>
<li><a href="http://persian.packhum.org/persian/main?url=pf%3Ffile%3D00702051%26ct%3D302">Persian.packhum.org - Ain-i-Akbari, Vol - I (Itimad-ud-Daulah)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://persian.packhum.org/persian/main?url=pf%3Ffile%3D00702051%26ct%3D303">Persian.packhum.org - Ain-i-Akbari, Vol - I (Nur Jahan)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahangir">Wikipedia.org - Jahangir</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirza_Ghiyas_Beg">Wikipedia.org - Mirza Ghiyas Beg</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_Jahan">Wikipedia.org - Nurjahan</a></li>
</ol>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-19067242272404799692016-02-17T18:55:00.000+05:302017-03-02T19:02:02.812+05:30Loharheri Baoli, Dwarka Sector-12, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Hogi is dher imaarat ki kahani kuch to,</b></div>
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<b>Dhund alfaz ke malbe me ma’ine kuch to”</b></div>
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<b>(“Surely a story hides behind these ruins somewhere,</b></div>
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<b>Search the debris of words, the meaning is there somewhere”)</b></div>
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<b>– Shahpar Rusool, Urdu Professor,</b></div>
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<b>Jamia Milia Islamia University, Delhi</b></div>
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<br />Bubbling with fantastically-conceived hyperbolic tales and mythology, oral folklore always conceals within its spellbinding florid exaggerations thoroughly disguised minute kernels of truth which resiliently resist, and often irreversibly shatter, even the most endeavoring communal forgetfulness and/or malicious attempts to whitewash history.</div>
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Comprised of huge staircases leading down to deep vertical shafts of associated wells, “baolis” (step-wells) are massive medieval water-management and congregational monuments majestically scattered throughout northern and western-central India. Considering their limited numbers and unparalleled ornamental adornments, they are unquestionably and quite conspicuously the most cherished monuments vis-à-vis the multitudes of contemporaneous religious and funerary edifices, extravagantly opulent palaces and formidable fortress-strongholds littering the immense landscape.</div>
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Substantially smaller than most of its magnificent counterparts intermittently peppering the city, the recently-discovered Lodi-era (AD 1451-1526) baoli in Dwarka’s Sector-12 is historically believed to have been christened “Loharheri Baoli”, deriving from the contiguous presence of a small settlement of ironsmiths (“lohar”) whose hydrological and congregational requirements the tiny edifice was to fulfill. Perplexingly though, this satellite suburb would have been considerably distant from the extensive settlements of medieval Delhi whom the ironsmiths would have professionally catered. Fortunately for the enthralling step-well, this historical anomaly renders it one of the few medieval monuments in this part of the city (the only other, that too several kilometers away, is the desolately forgotten and grievously brutalized Hastsal Minar delineating the ruinous remains of Mughal Emperor Shahjahan’s hunting estate (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2016/01/kaushal-minar-hastsal-village-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Kaushal Minar, Uttam Nagar</a>)).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBVmqmMsbRpOUaNIFtJ-zQ8hPBr4YQnTdpyAEtGdXtEbE-83miwOJ1OS0RrY70_6F6nBiiI-FJuMDH0C1Y_-EsEGCBS0WFwgJalRC9DPIp6rBzPspGaiRLr5rYZ0mPEZp6iPVsQSKjrCn1/s1600/Loharheri+Baoli+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBVmqmMsbRpOUaNIFtJ-zQ8hPBr4YQnTdpyAEtGdXtEbE-83miwOJ1OS0RrY70_6F6nBiiI-FJuMDH0C1Y_-EsEGCBS0WFwgJalRC9DPIp6rBzPspGaiRLr5rYZ0mPEZp6iPVsQSKjrCn1/s640/Loharheri+Baoli+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Lost and found</span></b></td></tr>
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Walking the unclogged, strangely sanitized streets of Dwarka – almost reminiscent of post-apocalyptic, post-humanity scenes from science fiction movies – feels singularly bizarre and a tad bit bewildering. Unlike the rest of terribly overpopulated, thoroughly urbanized and ubiquitously commercialized west Delhi, minutes pass here before one spots another pedestrian walking purposelessly or expectantly sniffing around buildings, vehicles seldom blare horns, and the colossal multi-storied soaring residential buildings too are unbelievably distantly spaced and uniquely designed.</div>
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Accessed via a narrow wicket-gate puncturing the high walls enveloping the towering Gangotri Apartments whose peripheries it discreetly, in fact almost invisibly, adjoins, presently the extensively restored and impeccably maintained three-tiered baoli is existential within a vast garbage-carpeted barren tract of land sporadically shrouded here and there by sorry-looking miserable tufts of weeds and grass irrepressibly rising from amidst the collected assortment of foul-smelling plant and vegetable waste, an overabundance of cow dung and dog droppings, innumerable polythene bags filled with domestic non-biodegradable rubbish, discarded construction material, and worthless shards of glass and plastic glinting in the sunlight.</div>
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Although the Gangotri complex and Dwarka International School prominently located barely a stone’s throw away are not insignificant landmarks, the bewildered locals, it seemed, faced insurmountable difficulties either comprehending my modest intentions or offering directions, consequentially sending me on a to-and-fro walk in search of the elusive baoli which being an unadorned, rubble masonry-built underground monument is easy to miss even from the immediate vicinity.</div>
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<b>“In India it is not a good idea to ask just one person’s opinion, especially as far as directions are concerned. Not wishing to appear discourteous or unhelpful, they will say the first thing that comes into their head rather than honestly and far more usefully admitting that they do not know. It is best to ask as many people as possible and opt for the majority view. This does not necessarily mean that you will then be going in the right direction – it just gives you a slightly better chance of doing so. </b><b>We therefore asked as many people as possible but we still ended up lost.”</b></div>
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<b>– Josie Dew, “The Wind in My Wheels” (1992)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2R9cL-IiZlgiwTvtd9-_zQ-wQKczZEUCOEUO1faxhbXFAERn2h60PRdHGS3InYc3BsznHXryckiKmCbJYCW2RdgJfi0Fs8aR0jVw5CqZCeENc44DQDybpYjrLa4FV2I2Sjz_9gRde2PH/s1600/Loharheri+Baoli+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2R9cL-IiZlgiwTvtd9-_zQ-wQKczZEUCOEUO1faxhbXFAERn2h60PRdHGS3InYc3BsznHXryckiKmCbJYCW2RdgJfi0Fs8aR0jVw5CqZCeENc44DQDybpYjrLa4FV2I2Sjz_9gRde2PH/s640/Loharheri+Baoli+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">First impressions</span></b></td></tr>
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Moderately proportioned and truly parched owing to the disastrous lowering of water-table over the centuries, the mesmerizing edifice was conveniently forgotten and interred underneath layers of earth and thick undergrowth, which culminated in its unsurprising obscurity and disappearance from contemporary literary records and monument censuses. Like its almost similarly designed cousin associated with the Wazirpur group of monuments in R.K. Puram (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/07/wazirpur-monument-complex-rk-puram.html">Pixelated Memories - Wazirpur Monument complex</a>), this beautiful rectangular edifice too possesses immaculate rows of ornamental alcoves lining the longer sides along its two levels. There isn’t however any other functional feature or artistic adornment perceptible, except the presence of the likewise-dry circular well-shaft hugging its rear. Unexpectedly though, especially considering the perennial paucity of heritage enthusiasts and touristic visitors and the wretched uncleanliness of its surroundings, not the slightest trace of garbage can be noticed anywhere within the baoli's earmarked area – certainly a most commendable achievement on the part of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) which restored the edifice and Delhi Development Association (DDA) to whom this tract of land belongs.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7YtMMjipNlO9RoURm7E0PrHVu8C09qWPdVipfg6EvLKFjzCQKY4jA8-IeAJyaG5UHAaEvLN7v2kpBVOU8L40wB1HPGV73YTxg6Zi2PC1sbUqz0zyDsaGTiIwBLHjxEOAgfFQL2tehRu3W/s1600/Loharheri+Baoli+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7YtMMjipNlO9RoURm7E0PrHVu8C09qWPdVipfg6EvLKFjzCQKY4jA8-IeAJyaG5UHAaEvLN7v2kpBVOU8L40wB1HPGV73YTxg6Zi2PC1sbUqz0zyDsaGTiIwBLHjxEOAgfFQL2tehRu3W/s640/Loharheri+Baoli+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Isolated case?</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Pocket-1, Sector-12 Dwarka</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Walk/avail an auto/rickshaw to Gangotri Apartments/Dwarka International School from Dwarka Sector-12 Metro station which is about a kilometer and a half away. If walking, head towards Hotel Radisson Blu and take a left turn from there. The small baoli is located about a kilometer from this point on the right side of the arterial road in a vast barren expanse in the very shadow of Gangotri Apartments.</div>
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<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil</div>
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<b>Photography/Video charges: </b>Nil</div>
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<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>20 min</div>
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<b>Relevant Links -</b></div>
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<b>Another monument located in the neighborhood - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2016/01/kaushal-minar-hastsal-village-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Kaushal Minar, Uttam Nagar</a></div>
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<b>Other baolis in the city -</b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2011/10/agrasen-ki-baoli-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Agrasen ki Baoli</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/02/feroz-shah-kotla-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Baoli, Feroz Shah Kotla complex</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/03/baoli-hazrat-nizamuddin-dargah-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Baoli, Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah complex</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2011/12/old-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Baoli, Old Fort complex</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/02/red-fort-baoli-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Baoli, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/07/wazirpur-monument-complex-rk-puram.html">Pixelated Memories - Baoli, Wazirpur monument complex</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/09/gandhak-ki-baoli-mehrauli.html">Pixelated Memories - Gandhak ki Baoli, Mehrauli Archaeological Park</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/09/rajon-ki-baoli-mehrauli-archaeological.html">Pixelated Memories - Rajon ki Baoli, Mehrauli Archaeological Park</a></li>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/296369/behind-glitz-glamour-traditional-water.html">Deccanherald.com - Article "Behind the glitz and glamour of traditional water harvesting" (dated Dec 05, 2012) by Amitangshu Acharya</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/a-rare-medieval-discovery/article2155898.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "A rare medieval discovery" (dated July 03, 2011) by R.V. Smith</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Forgotten-Lodi-era-baoli-discovered-in-busy-Dwarka/articleshow/9018659.cms">Timesofindia.indiatimes.com - Article "Forgotten Lodi era baoli discovered in busy Dwarka" (dated June 28, 2011) by Richi Verma</a></li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-75283596117307570522016-02-09T15:09:00.000+05:302016-02-09T15:09:19.373+05:3030th Surajkund Crafts Fair, Faridabad, Haryana<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Journalist and professional sociopath A.A. Gill wrote, </b><b>“</b><b>If New York is a wise guy, Paris a coquette, Rome a gigolo and Berlin a wicked uncle, then London is an old lady who mutters and has the second sight. She is slightly deaf, and doesn't suffer fools gladly.</b><b>”</b><b> Delhi, then, might be an ageing tsarina: ruthless, capricious, avaricious, paranoid – and fond of bright colours, pretty trinkets, and sex scandals. Like all grandes dames, she's showy, cash-splurging, hard to love, easy to photograph. Or perhaps, given her recent reinvention, she's more like a nouveau riche socialite – exactly as above, but on Twitter. The whole city jingles with theatricality, bling and the so-bad-it's-good.”</b></div>
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<b>– Elizabeth Chatterjee, “Delhi: Mostly Harmless” (2013)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijWf7BKhFKhjTHn8TsRw_eaUI6XV0RfVVBB91fJHDfbGZCgZL7cSiMxe9MYqGzFtXFwNpwziyE5G8NNd8TvnqWRr3QNoGXm-Ghnz6sILwuvu_6-XB6RC9JD16TZagMUuLj0zKq2C11JfG4/s1600/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijWf7BKhFKhjTHn8TsRw_eaUI6XV0RfVVBB91fJHDfbGZCgZL7cSiMxe9MYqGzFtXFwNpwziyE5G8NNd8TvnqWRr3QNoGXm-Ghnz6sILwuvu_6-XB6RC9JD16TZagMUuLj0zKq2C11JfG4/s640/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Traditional meets capitalism</span></b></td></tr>
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Inimitably gorgeous paintings, meticulously designed sculptures, dexterously crafted handicrafts, mouthwatering delectable snacks, brilliant explosions of traditional attires and dance performances, myriads of vibrant colors, spellbinding sights, dizzying aromas and the rush of shopping frenzy-induced happiness amidst a terrifying deluge of aimless humanity at the very boundaries of Delhi – Surajkund Crafts Fair is back in its 30th edition and, quite gratifyingly, there doesn’t seem to be an end to the enchanting extravaganza of traditional handicrafts, matchless heritage and mouthwatering food on offer. And if the several kilometer-long traffic jams leading to-and-fro to the event location (especially on weekends!) are any evidence, the millions of spoiled-for-choice visitors thronging wide-eyed fascinated throughout the unbelievably enormous arena still cannot get enough!</div>
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I had previously been to the 28th edition (documented here – <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/02/surajkund-crafts-fair-faridabad.html">Pixelated Memories - 28th Surajkund Crafts Fair</a>), and yet nothing could prepare me too for the incredibly immense crowds, the impeccably distinguished artistic designs and the delightful presence of at least a dozen traditional visual artists (“Behrupiya”) deviously attired in sparkling outfits and flawlessly masquerading as mythological divinities and traditional dancers.</div>
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This year, China-Japan and the newly-formed state of Telangana have been designated as the unique partner country(s) and theme state respectively for the enthralling cultural festival and consequentially present are several contingents of celebrated craftsmen-sculptors from these places to showcase their unparalleled artistic skills and cultural traditions.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBGF_Yv4DTwpRKQpuIaNcaVBWesh1bTSKtH0GsJF_vzHCRZ0TibbxVrxDvnAMP0JmTv7dqEuHtc9BikFzYNk98hNXb9_QkBnC0CJXa1gq69z8ikkuBOkcPxO8DqN1YnT4kTXiQHjTFUPl7/s1600/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="504" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBGF_Yv4DTwpRKQpuIaNcaVBWesh1bTSKtH0GsJF_vzHCRZ0TibbxVrxDvnAMP0JmTv7dqEuHtc9BikFzYNk98hNXb9_QkBnC0CJXa1gq69z8ikkuBOkcPxO8DqN1YnT4kTXiQHjTFUPl7/s640/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Glitter glimmer - Dhokra tribal handicrafts (Chattisgarh)</span></b></td></tr>
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Besides these, also in participation are craftsmen, sculptors, painters and handicraft merchandise traders from numerous other Indian states and countries like Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Seychelles, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Tunisia, Malaysia and Nepal – however, as the craftsmen from Seychelles pointed out, not every spellbound, bargain-hungry visitor is eager to purchase anything, and most of those wandering about are there just to absorb the impeccably vibrant sights, hypnotic sounds, vivid textures and multitude of tastes (not all of them mouthwatering or even worth contemplating upon though!) that the mesmerizing fair promises.</div>
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For the discerning, there are tremendously swamped craftsmen from Karnataka offering illustrious Bidri artworks (black copper very delicately inlaid with shimmering silver) and Channapatna toys (handcrafted wooden, painted with brilliant natural colors and polished to perfection), soft-spoken Japanese artists (enticing hundreds of selfie-seekers to wantonly click photos alongside gigantic kites imprinted with cartoon samurais), polished-looking Onyx traders from Pakistan (with massive vases almost as high as me!), conscientiously hard-nosed craftsmen from Chattisgarh offering consummate Dhokra artworks (thoroughly-detailed tribal figurines produced by pouring molten metal in baked clay casts), muscular Rajasthani traders with bristling mustaches lining the arena with exquisite cloth puppets in myriads of sartorial choices and accessory designs, diligent painters from Maharashtra selling the celebrated tribal Worli paintings depicted on earthen wares and showpieces, very kindly old ladies from Malaysia selling otherworldly beautiful handmade paintings and intermittently delving into impromptu drawing-painting lessons for little kids, and, among others, bored Bengali craftsmen stocking coarse jute accessories and simplistic decorative tapestries and religious figurines.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8ufSl-WQIecDd4nqaZe33RukVdSQ1C7Cmgu_Ve2v323jWZ6DxrbWee8X8rOfABZ8M_EK6uL4PMpIqHQ8uVtUVNPRVEenvkXRwnpFv5CKDXXuENmsjYAfCSHY1-noHptxVf1y7wFLrS2C/s1600/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8ufSl-WQIecDd4nqaZe33RukVdSQ1C7Cmgu_Ve2v323jWZ6DxrbWee8X8rOfABZ8M_EK6uL4PMpIqHQ8uVtUVNPRVEenvkXRwnpFv5CKDXXuENmsjYAfCSHY1-noHptxVf1y7wFLrS2C/s640/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Colors of Surajkund - Channapatna wood toys (Karnataka)</span></b></td></tr>
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Also in attendance are several hundred more merchants dealing in vibrantly multi-hued utensils, glittering hookahs, appealingly-patterned textiles, enviably intricate religious sculptures, temptingly fearsome tribal masks, delicate ornamental glass lamps and accessories, tantalizing papier-mâché accessories and hundreds of thousands of types of scintillating jewelry adorned with glittering beads and shimmering sparkles. Until last year, there were unmanned drones and numerous helicopters flying high above the immense premises for security purposes; impressively this time, the prime attraction available for joyrides are several helicopters conspicuously twirling about very low overhead and banking and swerving midair with dazzling impunity!</div>
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The only drawbacks, as far as I can gauge of course, are the gastronomic avenues – the overall quality of the assorted savories as well as the unsurprisingly exorbitant prices (a glass of jaljeera for Rs 50, a smaller-than-the-smallest Domino’s pizza for Rs 200!!). Thankfully, the marvelous handicrafts do make up for everything. Five hours and a couple of thousand rupees later, clutching a heavy bag of finely polished Dhokra artworks and wonderfully bright Channapatna toys, I was already planning on items I shall be purchasing the next year!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-5KQX3mxO41KCB2FwIDoC8_Ac9PH9HVVeYWE9NT1VarmAVbsSsOykvrqU_MHGkOwSm6DBTfeEmWbZiuibfLZSnXO2QW74DUuI2G4o-rLbrJ-xX15m0X5Gq6UIcJzoqLE6IsIu6QbNPkiA/s1600/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-5KQX3mxO41KCB2FwIDoC8_Ac9PH9HVVeYWE9NT1VarmAVbsSsOykvrqU_MHGkOwSm6DBTfeEmWbZiuibfLZSnXO2QW74DUuI2G4o-rLbrJ-xX15m0X5Gq6UIcJzoqLE6IsIu6QbNPkiA/s640/Surajkund+Crafts+Fair+Haryana+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Learning - A Malaysian artist tutoring children about how to paint</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Surajkund is located in Faridabad, approximately 8 km from south-east Delhi. The nearest metro station/bus stop is NHPC on the arterial Mathura road. Free to-and-fro shuttle services are available between the fair arena and NHPC, Badhkal Chowk and Badarpur metro stations. Interstate buses and autos also ply throughout the day along Mathura Road and one can get down at Badhkal/NHPC and avail a shared auto from there. If driving from Delhi, one can access Surajkund past the Karni Singh Shooting Range near Tughlaqabad.</div>
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<b>Entrance fees:</b> Rs 120/person (Rs 60 for senior citizens and college students upon showing photo ID card; free entry for girl students and children below the age of 10 years). Tickets are also available at 31 metro stations including Badarpur, Neelam Chowk Ajronda, Escorts Mujesar, Badhkal, Tughlaqabad, Sarita Vihar, Rajiv Chowk, ITO, Mandi House and Central Secretariat.<br /><b>Photography/Video charges: </b>Nil<br /><b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>3-4 hrs</div>
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<b>Relevant links -<br />Nearby attractions -</b> <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/04/tughlaqabad-adilabad-nai-ka-kot.html">Pixelated Memories - Tughlaqabad - Adilabad - Nai-ka-Kot Fortress complex</a></div>
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<b>Organizational details about the annual fair</b><b> -</b> <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/02/surajkund-crafts-fair-faridabad.html">Pixelated Memories - 28th Surajkund Crafts Fair</a></div>
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<b>Another amazing place to shop for handicrafts and textiles - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/dilli-haat-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Dilli Haat</a></div>
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<b>Suggested reading - </b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behrupiya">Wikipedia.org - Behrupiya</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-82067680114543363242016-02-06T11:58:00.000+05:302016-02-12T19:21:03.141+05:30Khas Mahal, Red Fort complex, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>This article is part of a series about Red Fort, Delhi. Refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories – Red Fort complex</a> for the composite post.</b></div>
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<b><b>“The Mughal buildings which remain…without their carpets, awnings and gorgeous trappings they look strangely uncomfortable: cold and hard and white, difficult to imagine back into life. Today, as the pavilions lie empty and neglected, they look like ossified tents – silk turned to stone. The Emperor is dead; the courtiers have dispersed. The whole structure has crumbled. The gorgeous canopies have rotted, the bamboo supports have snapped. The dazzling inlay of precious stones was long ago picked out with daggers.”</b></b></div>
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<b><b>– William Dalrymple, “City of Djinns”</b></b></div>
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Conceived as the most extravagantly described, opulently adorned and painstakingly sculpted residential pavilion within the magnificent Red Fort complex, the dazzlingly resplendent “Aramgah-i-Muqaddas” (“The Most Auspicious of Residences”), more popularly referred to as “Khas Mahal” (“Royal Palace”), was envisaged as Emperor Shahjahan’s personal palace. Indeed, so unbelievably outstanding are its numerous ornamental features, so superlatively detailed are its delicate stone filigree screens and so meticulously sculpted are its various decorative elements that sycophantic royal chroniclers could not resist drenching it in such explicably grandiose prose, such inordinately lavish praise that one would have condescendingly dismissed their flattering words as superfluous hyperbole were one not witnessing festooned throughout the gorgeous edifice the incomparable spectacle of mesmerizing poetry described so dexterously in cold stone.<br />
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Externally perceptible as being only moderately-proportioned vis-à-vis other mammoth palaces and luxurious residential edifices scattered within the spellbinding complex, the palace’s incomparable majesty does not really feature in most fastidiously descriptive texts and effusively reminiscent photo-features, comprehensible of course in light of its incomparable splendor’s characteristic elusiveness to being comprehended in mere words. The fascinatingly detailed individual features – the rococo explosion of impenetrably intertwined vegetative scrolls, highly exquisite red sandstone lattice screens, vibrantly multi-hued floral motifs and hundreds of other imaginatively conceived geometric patterns – seamlessly culminate in a whole that unfailingly is, in terms of visual composition, irresistibly enthralling and densely impermeable.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQVufF05AgV7i7955IrGuhWMnV28qQtac4fd4AWdwQtHWV2sx71SaRCXOnEBMTsl0l_hkyRJUDoT2AmD_GnW1wQTelcfJ-x_zlHIRPWxLxjAO1jZgQ2o1V9MQwk_YXHCopCc8DLs_rwCX/s1600/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQVufF05AgV7i7955IrGuhWMnV28qQtac4fd4AWdwQtHWV2sx71SaRCXOnEBMTsl0l_hkyRJUDoT2AmD_GnW1wQTelcfJ-x_zlHIRPWxLxjAO1jZgQ2o1V9MQwk_YXHCopCc8DLs_rwCX/s640/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Otherworldly!</span></b></td></tr>
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The entire outstanding palace is fragmented into three divisions – “Tasbih-Khana” (prayer room), “Baithak” (dining/living room, also otherwise employed in the capacity of a “Toshkhana” (regal wardrobe)) and “Khwabgah” (bedroom) – and gurgling soothingly through the center of each is the “Nahr-i-Bisht” (“Stream of Paradise”) which once upon a time, heavily intoxicated by the mesmerizing sight of these elegant regal residences, gracefully gushed through the imperial seraglio.</div>
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In the Khwabgah would often sit notable rhapsodists, regaling with their fantastical tales and mythological folklore, lulling to regal slumber the powerful emperor who reposed on a comfortable couch separated from them by rich curtains. Along the profusely ornamented inner wall, outlined by extravagant festooning of sculpted foliage and floral patterns, is the fabulous fortress-palace's most renowned pictorial depiction – a tremendously exquisite representation of “Mizan-i-Adal”, or Scales of Justice, ostentatiously accompanied by several seemingly-brilliant stars and framed within a scythe-like sharp crescent moon.</div>
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Contiguous with the outstanding palace along its (formerly) river-facing side is Muthamman Burj, a semi-octagonal tower crowned by an attractive, immaculately rounded onion dome. Its present limestone-plastered surface luminously glistening unblemished white in the sunshine, the dome was originally lavishly gilded with gold, thus the nomenclature “Burj-i-Tilla”. A protruding window (“jharokha”) built into the wonderful tower was where the royally-attired emperor would appear to his subjects every morning for the traditional “darshan” (public appearance). The original jharokha was ordered to be rebuilt by Emperor Akbar Shah II in AD 1808 and an engraved inscription to the effect notes thus –<br />
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<b>“Muinuddin Abu Nasr Akbar Ghazi, king of the world, conqueror of the age, and shadow of God,</b></div>
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<b><b>on the face of Muthamman-Burj, built anew such a seat that the sun and moon sew their eyes on it.</b></b></div>
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<b><b>May the seat of Akbar Shah be of exalted foundation. Year 1223 Hijri”</b></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtIOwlxy0vGUMcDhtiou2V4QS-LkLkraNH77jHmfdJtZeifS7wC7EYrLARYvi9Y4CLHa8-_1wvra8KW8B68vlSgplGyHZOS_e9QtcamaeQReii-ywlE2JHPweuYyeIyKc-smobApp6sXRN/s1600/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtIOwlxy0vGUMcDhtiou2V4QS-LkLkraNH77jHmfdJtZeifS7wC7EYrLARYvi9Y4CLHa8-_1wvra8KW8B68vlSgplGyHZOS_e9QtcamaeQReii-ywlE2JHPweuYyeIyKc-smobApp6sXRN/s640/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The imperial seraglio - Khas Mahal (left) and Rang Mahal.<br />Muthamman Burj is conspicuous by its onion dome.</span></b></td></tr>
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Ferocious elephant and lion fights were regularly organized on the sand stretch underneath this tower for the enjoyment of the mighty sovereign. The elephant-trainers (“mahouts”) goaded their animals fearlessly and would often themselves be brutally and mortally crushed between the massive charging beasts, nonetheless they were propelled into the fearsome melee by two considerations – unbridled appreciation and pecuniary reward if they won, and financial support and professional assistance for their families if they lost. On the morning of May 11, 1857, however, there were no fierce animal-fights and yet the sand stretch swarmed with endless humanity – mutineers of the 3rd Light Cavalry of British East India Co.'s army had assembled here and were being addressed from the emperor’s window by Captain Douglas.</div>
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Via the small “Khizrabad Gate”, a steep flight of stairs descended, from underneath the beautiful domed tower to the riverfront, and was only privately used by the emperor, especially when embarking on boat journeys on river Yamuna adjacent.</div>
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The flawless sparkling white marble of Khas Mahal has miserably descended to mottled rotting cream-brown, the dexterously adorned walls have been irrevocably spoiled by avaricious plunderers-conquerors, the impressive inlay of semi-precious multicolored stones, agates and carnelians has wretchedly been despoiled, and the vibrantly sparkling porcelain-ware and the traditionally designed vases sporting fragrant colorful flowers too have disappeared, yet the handsome regal palace resiliently, though sharply in contrast with its present despondent existence, retains its irrepressible flair of royal dignity, unrestrained prosperous flamboyance and matchless artistic originality.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9CrtsvbBb1R1vrtQgnQWM8pjcleV6Wrd5OgFJHHhmaaXG6jKq5Ew1W_YIZW26gvgg8ZHd49CpfXHgn9BZFU0uviEnqYmQOnJ2CcYqprMwt9ac1fcSyCHNOVoeDhEScNjZO3TgMyBYAXTj/s1600/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9CrtsvbBb1R1vrtQgnQWM8pjcleV6Wrd5OgFJHHhmaaXG6jKq5Ew1W_YIZW26gvgg8ZHd49CpfXHgn9BZFU0uviEnqYmQOnJ2CcYqprMwt9ac1fcSyCHNOVoeDhEScNjZO3TgMyBYAXTj/s640/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The shadow of heaven?</span></b></td></tr>
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One cannot however helplessly fail to cringe at its unwarranted fall, more especially so considering that unanimously did numerous ingratiating court chroniclers and eminent calligraphists leave behind glittering tributes to its original illustriousness. Reiterated here for emphasis is the resplendent legend inscribed on its entrance arch by the distinguished royal calligraphist Sa'adullah Khan –<br />
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<b>“Praise be to God! How beautiful are these painted mansions and how charming are these residences: a part of the high heavens they are! I may say the high-souled holy angels are desirous of looking at them!</b></div>
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<b><b>If the residents of different parts and directions of the world should come to walk round them, as they walk round the Ka’aba, it would be allowable; or if the beholders of the two worlds should run to kiss their highly glorious threshold as they kiss the black stone at Ka'aba, it would be proper.</b></b></div>
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<b>The commencement of this great Fort, which is higher than the palace of the heavens and is the envy of the wall of Alexander; and of this pleasant edifice; and of the Garden of Hayat Baksh, which is to these buildings as the soul to the body, and the lamp to an assembly; and of the pure canal, the limpid water of which is to the person possessing sight as a mirror showing the world, and to the wise, the exposer of the secret world; and the water-cascades, each of which you may say is the whiteness of the dawn, or a tablet containing secrets of the Table and Pen of Fate; and of the fountains, each of which is a hand of light inclined to shake hands with the inhabitants of heavens, or is a string of bright pearls made to descend to reward the inhabitants of the earth; and of the tank, full to the brim of the water of life and in its purity the envy of light and the spring of the sun, announced in AD 1639, the 12th year of the holy ascension, proved to be the harbinger of happiness for men.</b></div>
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<b>The completion of it, at the expense of fifty lakh of rupees, by the power of the auspicious feet of the sovereign of the earth, the lord of the world, the originator of these heavenly buildings, Shihabuddin Muhammad, the second lord of felicity, Shahjahan, the King, the champion of the faith, opened in the 21st blessed year of the accession, the door of grace to the world.”</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicM3xJU8_rYrbs00z7hDFZw5uFiLsvzF4zIo7c9wzqQFhJ5TAEpYDqeQqevd4PSBJkApA1SnL6JncSEbTon_1os9cxfUCELqPe6vNo4wXm1zHM-1rWu2R4oIAnQ-rktEG_rf5Ia-f0MzNA/s1600/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicM3xJU8_rYrbs00z7hDFZw5uFiLsvzF4zIo7c9wzqQFhJ5TAEpYDqeQqevd4PSBJkApA1SnL6JncSEbTon_1os9cxfUCELqPe6vNo4wXm1zHM-1rWu2R4oIAnQ-rktEG_rf5Ia-f0MzNA/s640/Khas+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Mere pitiful remnant this?! Unbelievable!</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Red Fort, Old Delhi (Shahjahanabad). The fortress, located at an extremity of the renowned Chandni Chowk street and connected to all parts of the city via regular bus and metro services, remains open everyday from 9 am to 6 pm, followed by a light-and-sound show.<br />
<b>Nearest Metro Station: </b>Chandni Chowk<br />
<b>Nearest Bus stop: </b>Red Fort<br />
<b>Nearest Railway Station: </b>Purani Dilli<br />
<b>How to reach:</b> The fortress is a mere half kilometer from the metro station and about a kilometer from the railway station. Walk from either of them. The bus stop is located immediately across it and is connected to all parts of the city via regular bus service. There are regular trains throughout the day to Purani Dilli on Delhi circular railway line and from the neighboring suburbs.<br />
<b>Entrance fees (inclusive of museum charges):</b> Indians: Rs 15; Foreigners: Rs 250<br />
<b>Photography/video charges:</b> Nil. Tripods not allowed without prior permission.<br />
<b>Relevant Links -<br />Composite post about the fortress complex - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Red Fort complex</a><br />
<b>Other edifices/museums located within the fortress complex -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/02/red-fort-baoli-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Baoli, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/04/chatta-chowk-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Chatta Chowk, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/05/diwan-i-am-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Diwan-i-Am, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/04/diwan-i-khas-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Diwan-i-Khas, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/07/freedom-fighter-museum-salimgarh-fort.html">Pixelated Memories - Freedom Fighter Museum and Salimgarh Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/03/hira-mahal-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Hira Mahal, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/04/mumtaz-mahal-and-rang-mahal-red-fort.html">Pixelated Memories - Mumtaz Mahal and Rang Mahal, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/03/naubat-khana-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Naubat Khana, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/07/sawanbhadon-pavilions-and-zafar-mahal.html">Pixelated Memories - Sawan–Bhadon Pavilions and Zafar Mahal, Red Fort complex</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/03/shah-burj-burj-i-shamli-red-fort-new.html">Pixelated Memories - Shah Burj and Burj-i-Shamli, Red Fort complex</a></li>
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<b>Other monuments/landmarks located in the immediate vicinity -</b><br />
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<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/jama-masjid-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jama Masjid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/gurudwara-sis-ganj-sahib-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/07/sunehri-masjid-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Sunehri Masjid (Chandni Chowk)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/02/sunehri-masjid-near-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Sunehri Masjid (near Red For</a><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/02/sunehri-masjid-near-red-fort-new-delhi.html">t)</a></li>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<li><a href="https://archive.org/details/RedFortAtDelhiUnderShahjahanAndAurangzeb">Archive.org - Red Fort at Delhi under Shahjahan and Aurangzeb (Muhammad Waris' "Badshahnama") by Dr Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ghulam_Ali_Khan,_Bahadur_Shah_II_enthroned_with_Mirza_Fakhruddin_1837%E2%80%9338_Arthur_M._Sackler_Gallery,_Smithsonian_Institution,_Washington.jpg">Wikipedia.org - (Image) Bahadur Shah II enthroned (Artist: Ghulam Ali Khan)</a></li>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-44705487592364749982016-01-25T19:44:00.001+05:302016-01-25T19:44:54.589+05:30Lodi-era Tombs, Zamrudpur village, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet – mad am I not – and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences these events have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me they have presented little but horror – to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace – some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.”</b></div>
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<b>– Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Tomb II - The odd man out</span></b></td></tr>
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<br />On the rare occasion when her memory would not fail her, my octogenarian grandmother, unbelievably obese and ceaselessly censorious, would instantaneously and quite pompously invite the grandchildren to her boisterous court and burst forth into a flurry of meandering half-remembered mythological folklore and historical fiction, primarily concerned with opulently extravagant pre-partition life, but also occasionally transforming into perplexingly convoluted yet seamlessly interconnected bedside stories composed of myriads of mythological deities, mythical creatures and anthropomorphic entities perennially endeavoring to caution simpleminded folk against the intolerable sin of avariciousness, represented most often as an inverted, putrefying and obnoxious human skull which can apparently never be filled with enough gold.<div>
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Were she alive today, I could have similarly recounted to her about the shockingly obscene conditions of the small urban village of Zamrudpur immediately adjoining the posh Greater Kailash (GK-1) area where existential, in the form of an all-encompassing malignant mushrooming agglomeration of box-like multistoried, multicolored residential apartments acquisitively festering with not the slightest regard for civic planning, physical hygiene or heritage conservation, is a repugnant exemplification of the vicious malevolent evil she repeatedly warned us kids about. As the unbelievably strong stench threatens to overpower casual passer-bys and the decrepit, gaudily-painted buildings huddle close together to render roads narrow stinking pathways thoroughly drenched with garbage, putrid slime and detergent-laced water runoff, crystal-clear rays of sunshine beat an unsolicited hasty retreat, restricting themselves to infrequently transgress only as an intermittent obscure patch here and another brilliant streak there, until eventually the ground surface and several floors succeeding it above are utterly drenched in an unnatural darkness which further vindictively aggravates the threatening spiral down into unhygienic filthy living conditions.<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdyk1xiSmNciNfZj9KJhxeovWuK8F3r2Qp65WjEFxqX9F2O1c1Yp3YfLY_yfnaNjQh9n69bOPENeTTiCqCYHFRCq772buISrL4pe8N4LwWMzNToIwDhWbNLT0wQOQxcnaCXvGsvgnHW5q/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdyk1xiSmNciNfZj9KJhxeovWuK8F3r2Qp65WjEFxqX9F2O1c1Yp3YfLY_yfnaNjQh9n69bOPENeTTiCqCYHFRCq772buISrL4pe8N4LwWMzNToIwDhWbNLT0wQOQxcnaCXvGsvgnHW5q/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Hide-and-seek - Tombs I (left) and II</span></b></td></tr>
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Existential in terribly inhumane conditions within this small warren hole of immeasurably appalling living conditions, exceedingly narrow slithering streets and foul-smelling grimy cul-de-sacs, the whole entirely submerged in a deluge of decaying domestic wastes, fetid animal excreta, irritatingly dense spider-webs and unspeakably filthy water runoff, is a cluster of five solemn mausoleums where repose in eternal slumber the immediate family and the closest associates of Zamrud Khan, an Afghan noble in the court of Sikandar Lodi (reign AD 1489-1517) who was provided the bountiful estate (“jagir”) of Kanchan Sarai (thereafter christened “Zamrudpur”).</div>
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<br />Crowned by thick clumps of vegetation sprouting from, and branching around, the very pinnacles of their enormous domes, the two greatest of these mausoleums can be perceived as perfectly plump flashes of textured dirty brown peeping inconspicuously from amongst this impermeable maze of multi-hued high-rise apartment buildings in the immediate vicinity of Bluebells International School while travelling between Kailash Colony and Moolchand stations on the violet line of Delhi metro.</div>
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Of these two mausoleums, the larger (Tomb I), so gigantic that it fairly easily outsoars the neighboring massive buildings, has been so appallingly molested and encroached upon that one frightfully shudders to even look at it – divided into individualistic corners, a portion of it, accessed by traversing through infinitesimally narrow, garbage-covered and exceedingly cold and damp streets, has been converted into a substantial cowshed by a septuagenarian deaf-and-mute man who also shares these drenched, damp and cow dung-spattered accommodations with his bovine charges.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCkGqSO3-M4pS0o_IaDyq1cg5gno0yY58uLahEtkW6GzYvgzB-d7OhHWwdm93BhD__CAEKbPMMgdsZQ5wqJAhYYtahTTuk3De8bJdJqLw0RdFQysvpKTghj6kWj0aO15IcaUyU1Gld7iok/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCkGqSO3-M4pS0o_IaDyq1cg5gno0yY58uLahEtkW6GzYvgzB-d7OhHWwdm93BhD__CAEKbPMMgdsZQ5wqJAhYYtahTTuk3De8bJdJqLw0RdFQysvpKTghj6kWj0aO15IcaUyU1Gld7iok/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Repulsive!</b></span></td></tr>
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The perplexed animals, accustomed to adhering to their monotonous undisturbed lives but presently as shocked upon noticing us as we were on discovering them cheerfully lodged in this wretched imposing monument, confusedly stumbled and trampled about endeavoring to escape through the constricted opening where we stood, until the frail old man shooed and pushed them away and sympathetically switched on a high-wattage incandescent bulb precariously hanging overhead to facilitate our clicking some photographs. Bored eventually after a few minutes, he shooed us away too and the impressive monument despondently reverted to its dimly lit, mistreated existence.</div>
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Another portion of the mausoleum, externally entirely cut-off from the first and accessible only after circling through several intermediate ever-constricting streets, has been converted into an atrociously dreadful living quarter by an ingenious neighbor and is perennially leased on rent to garbage-collectors who, besides sleeping here in makeshift hammocks stretched between the walls, also horrifically light fires within the medieval edifice and store huge stacks of non-perishable rubbish like irredeemably broken toys, fragments of punctured tires, unfixable electric fixtures and damp rotting cardboards! Despite the indescribably miserable squalor they inhabit and the freezing cold they were enduring sitting in a small, garbage-littered opening adjoining their grand residence, the impoverished garbage-collectors were heartwarmingly quick to share tales of destitution and penury, concerning their livelihood and living conditions (bitterly describing the freezing wafts of cold January air blowing through the enormous entrances as murderous!), as well as simplemindedly asking why we do not petition the government to save these monuments from such inexcusable humiliation and certain obliteration. If only the government would listen!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh37weLaxMqOmwpJYFftJOzZO78lwCf6yOJr8dlqqOY6vWlDtHXR1rdocispcaedNO69KGpHQWXlGtV5M_mzfGnb9K0UCvzzsSR0FZtUzT5PAu2WYrpitqpazTeslElNfHf7x7TUF6xy7ZK/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh37weLaxMqOmwpJYFftJOzZO78lwCf6yOJr8dlqqOY6vWlDtHXR1rdocispcaedNO69KGpHQWXlGtV5M_mzfGnb9K0UCvzzsSR0FZtUzT5PAu2WYrpitqpazTeslElNfHf7x7TUF6xy7ZK/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A few good men?</span></b></td></tr>
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They, like the elderly cattle-keeper, respectfully welcomed us into their meager hearths and undeniably earned sanctuary in our hardened hearts, not so however the foul-mouthed middle-aged man who had covetously encroached upon the second-largest mausoleum (Tomb II) by converting it into a proper family residence complete with iron double-gates and whitewashed medieval walls, and arrogantly proceeded to threaten us when we attempted to click photographs, stating, I quote, “This is Lal Dora land. What will the ASI officials do when even the policemen can’t help you here?” “Lal Dora” are those unregulated colonies/urban slums which are exempted from construction guidelines and civic planning protocols as regulated under the Delhi Municipal Act, and quite glaringly, seldom do the municipal authorities have any noticeable presence here. What is most reprehensible however is the knowledge that this particular notably enormous monument, which flamboyantly displays all the telltale structural and ornamental motifs of Lodi-era architecture, including decorative recessed alcoves externally adorning its walls and a dexterously chiseled inverted lotus finial crowing its prominent dome, is not even within the claustrophobic village cluster but barely skims its expansive, relatively uncluttered peripheries! Its resilient walls might have been cleverly whitewashed and the celebrated medieval nature of its cavernous interiors might have been entirely obliterated, but what cannot be wished away is the certainty that, given its conspicuously outstanding architecture and the magnificent harmony of its traditional design relentlessly and starkly contrasting against and contemptibly shaming so-called modern building designs burgeoning around it, it shall never cease to visually stand out as a majestic beacon amidst the abysmal squalor and detestable turmoil of its disgraceful surroundings.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnJOaZMc73zi99KCNNM4K3qsSBeVbkIYu3EKOf17pd2pnEJi0LL_KSZBn5tBX2wmJvzrAfHXsMoI-upsacWPnPZQxzsRIEan64GqNfb8i4lY1FTShqGAvYMEGPSrJDYxsZLwtZm6oftQGq/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnJOaZMc73zi99KCNNM4K3qsSBeVbkIYu3EKOf17pd2pnEJi0LL_KSZBn5tBX2wmJvzrAfHXsMoI-upsacWPnPZQxzsRIEan64GqNfb8i4lY1FTShqGAvYMEGPSrJDYxsZLwtZm6oftQGq/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">History vs Modernity</span></b></td></tr>
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<br /><br />Positioned at the acute vertex of an extraordinarily narrow street where it forcibly branches off into two even more congested streets (if these can be referred thus!) which eventually culminate into cul-de-sacs after a couple of steps, Tomb III’s entrances have been temporarily cordoned off with heavy wooden boards and it has been converted into a makeshift warehouse by neighboring residents to store unusable junk and rotten rubbish. Nauseatingly, one of its thick sides has been entirely assimilated as a not inconsiderable fraction of the perimeter of the adjoining unhealthily cramped building; even more horrendously, the quarter off the adjoining corner has been surgically sheared off to accommodate yet another building. As measly relief in the spirit of the legendary beneficence and forbearance of this city, the unevenly-constructed staircase of the densely populated tenement on the third side only barely skirts the mausoleum’s dome and doesn’t really incorporate the edifice within its own structure except for the matter of the small assistance where it raises its entire support configuration over a corner of the latter’s roof! Magnanimously did the inhabitants also spare a small opening between to be used as a community dump yard, and besides the unavoidable unpleasant stench, the mausoleum is now also gleefully richer by an abnormally intriguing diadem composed of colorful, multi-textured plastic wrappers and polythene rubbish.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig-W6Zwn_BeNsIY_v5et81_Ls2wnmrXFJZfHE44hmGBWXcUjYlldITM-pjlkgscE0z7IT13oorbGF6uzjyBrYIATymTIgnyTxgCduGa8LWZom2mpFcF2e9CD8HeVf7NiL4pnNBXikRACb/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig-W6Zwn_BeNsIY_v5et81_Ls2wnmrXFJZfHE44hmGBWXcUjYlldITM-pjlkgscE0z7IT13oorbGF6uzjyBrYIATymTIgnyTxgCduGa8LWZom2mpFcF2e9CD8HeVf7NiL4pnNBXikRACb/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Eternal damnation! - Tomb III</span></b></td></tr>
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Furthering these marvelous monuments' incorrigible helplessness, where humanity’s ceaseless avariciousness and heartless barbarity eventually relents, the perpetually incriminatory forces of nature take over – a gnarled Peepal tree (Ficus religiosa), the ultimate bane of monument conservation in the subcontinent, rises from the last remaining corner, imperceptibly gradually yet certainly strangling the monument to indiscernible powder.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Three or four young pipal-trees have begun to spread their delicate branches and pale green leaves rustling in the breeze from the dome of this fine temple; which these infant Herculeses hold in their deadly grasp and doom to inevitable destruction. Pigeons deposit the seeds of the pipal-tree, on which they chiefly feed, in the crevices of buildings.</b></div>
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<b>No Hindoo dares, and no Christian or Muhammadan will condescend, to lop off the heads of these young trees, and if they did, it would only put off the evil and inevitable day; for such are the vital powers of their roots, when they have once penetrated deeply into a building, that they will send out their branches again, cut them off as often as you may, and carry on their internal attack with undiminished vigour.</b></div>
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<b>No wonder that superstition should have consecrated this tree, delicate and beautiful as it is, to the gods. The palace, the castle, the temple, and the tomb, all those works which man is most proud to raise to spread and to perpetuate his name, crumble to dust beneath her withering grasp. She rises triumphant over them all in her lofty beauty, bearing high in air amidst her light green foliage fragments of the wreck she has made, to show the nothingness of man’s greatest efforts.”</b></div>
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<b>– Major-General Sir William Henry “Thuggee” Sleeman, British East India Co. Administrator</b></div>
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<b>“Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official” (1844)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCGhmlg8mdARAF7S8sN6az56knjfiauaow4Gy60yv6ZhuVJTRHvPpZIRmUC3URJy7axfdL8Tgz-Z10EvS-0xNiCsBKJoM-ZYz_Q2VKNTCkVc3YrXRmyrTXRdWqIMk6NQPGucnKcno-N-Zc/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCGhmlg8mdARAF7S8sN6az56knjfiauaow4Gy60yv6ZhuVJTRHvPpZIRmUC3URJy7axfdL8Tgz-Z10EvS-0xNiCsBKJoM-ZYz_Q2VKNTCkVc3YrXRmyrTXRdWqIMk6NQPGucnKcno-N-Zc/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Classical architecture - Tomb I interiors</span></b></td></tr>
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I would be memorably surprised if there are even a dozen people not from Zamrudpur who have ever set eyes on Tomb IV. After spending several minutes traversing the bewildering streets in unordered circles, we could only barely catch a glimpse of some of the irrepressible stone brackets of this small mausoleum startlingly incorporated within the dingy, uninhabitable corner of an irregularly constructed residential building at the very end of a blind alley so unnaturally dark that there was little scope of visually making sense of the congested, garbage-infested, dust and spider web-carpeted surroundings without switching on the camera’s flash! A common toilet exists barely a couple of steps away and stacked against the dingy moldy corner were old rusted motorcycles, political hoardings, wooden furniture and semi-rotten fragments of clothes and other miscellaneous organic wastes. It was only afterwards, when a kindly local lady, feverishly incensed against the neighbors for having nearly obliterated the entire medieval monument, took us up her building that we could make complete sense of the torturous and yet outlandish events that really preposterously transpired here – it appears that an entire multi-storied building, was profanely conceived in a crooked U-shaped manner, had one of its asymmetric extreme branches miraculously arising midair, tenuously supported structurally by the equally unbalanced central branch and the similarly haphazard building on the other side – where the vanished ground floor of this extreme branch of the U-building should have been, there instead exists the aforementioned dingy moldy corner framing a tiny knoll.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU7LQ5sXJBiuK3DoRcbpG32u5AbYcR4bXiAw2YDSOkLZ1H86pR6Xa4iHihtrL7AbCq1lVqKBehb2ZywcS9rK8Hxheb0IhAgtkS4FkEb0NIQ3K-sQmZaWSKuNpnZ5TxNaL4kSFEwCwSBfHa/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="487" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU7LQ5sXJBiuK3DoRcbpG32u5AbYcR4bXiAw2YDSOkLZ1H86pR6Xa4iHihtrL7AbCq1lVqKBehb2ZywcS9rK8Hxheb0IhAgtkS4FkEb0NIQ3K-sQmZaWSKuNpnZ5TxNaL4kSFEwCwSBfHa/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Abandon all hope! - Tomb IV hiding in plain sight</span></b></td></tr>
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To our indescribable horror, masquerading as the tiny hellhole infested with terrifying mold, spiderwebs and the accumulated dust and rotten wastes of several years past, the shabbily crumbling, rubbish-infested knoll was Tomb IV, whitewashed and cunningly camouflaged by a tiny apartment built greedily embracing it! From the adjoining buildings’ roofs, we were looking down at it as if it was within a haphazardly constructed well! One can observe its sheared-off extremities and the moderately-proportioned, perfectly-rounded dome, slowly yet persistently being submerged under a dreadful deluge of plastic wastes, polythene wrappers and other garbage. How long before the entire monument disappears under this wretchedness?</div>
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<b>“Fearful, indeed, the suspicion – but more fearful the doom! It may be asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs – the stifling fumes of the damp earth – the clinging of the death garments – the rigid embrace of the narrow house – the blackness of the absolute night – the silence like a sea that overwhelms – the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Worm – these things, with the thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed – that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead – these considerations, I say, carry into the heart which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon earth, we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated.”</b></div>
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<b>– Edgar Allan Poe, “The Premature Burial”</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6eEVKpPYs9ifXp1qrA-Pt0QlvLJHmldeBwZzO3lDeenTQyC_z2d5ofHGVXEyaij62-OVRotstDQTMbEPrnAY0E8hlw-hPmv0kIO9DVLGQuEmE4mRz1Db3DQ1HogjxOq6BtCpn00MPgrR/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6eEVKpPYs9ifXp1qrA-Pt0QlvLJHmldeBwZzO3lDeenTQyC_z2d5ofHGVXEyaij62-OVRotstDQTMbEPrnAY0E8hlw-hPmv0kIO9DVLGQuEmE4mRz1Db3DQ1HogjxOq6BtCpn00MPgrR/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Tomb V - The monument stands, modernity around crumbles!</span></b></td></tr>
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<br />Thoughtlessly degraded and bitterly injured, if these mausoleums too could have spoken, would not they too have hopelessly lamented this unjustified and intolerable burial under garbage? Were these gorgeous epitomes of architectural heritage in some other, more discerning country, they would have been painstakingly and honorably conserved and restored to their original outstanding grandeur, and cherished as magnificent embodiments of the glorious achievements of their unparalleled art, architecture and culture. Here, they have been devastatingly condemned, intermittently shattered and wait to be demolished entirely!<br /><br />Judging from the outstanding remnants of its artistic ornamentation and physical immensity, especially the exquisitely incised plasterwork medallions inscribed on the underside of its large dome, Tomb V is unarguably spatially the largest and artistically the most celebrated of all the pavilion mausoleums (that is, possessing a massive umbrella dome symmetrically surmounted on several relatively slender pillars, in this case twelve, four to each side) in the city. Or it would have been were it not so heartrendingly converted into an immense clothesline stiflingly located at the end of a claustrophobic road in an extraordinarily dark-damp opening tightly bordered on all sides by several irregularly-conceived high-rises!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimV1qJc_SebwYXn4IlBEm1ccc3J0SR8elpuckUhZFns_dpnWSYqDvbgK4_NZuhGocA3EIj1e4t5qXJj79F2di0KUYCFaIKQYFlTCR-w5fxX_trle1tbCs97lg-rn33jU4qgjzotxjhRpPD/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimV1qJc_SebwYXn4IlBEm1ccc3J0SR8elpuckUhZFns_dpnWSYqDvbgK4_NZuhGocA3EIj1e4t5qXJj79F2di0KUYCFaIKQYFlTCR-w5fxX_trle1tbCs97lg-rn33jU4qgjzotxjhRpPD/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Tomb V - The multipurpose clothesline/playground/makeshift temple/garbage dump/hangout zone!</span></b></td></tr>
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Howsoever irredeemable be their crimes towards these mute edifices, given the bone-chilling cold and the unusually fierce draughts storming this small opening in this otherwise thoroughly densely congested colony, somehow one cannot help pitying the impoverished locals who are condemned to miserable life in such a gloomy and drenched hole, that too in the national capital of one of the self-proclaimed "socialist" global superpowers. It does become near impossible to efficiently argue for the dedication of greater financial resources for heritage conservation and monument restoration in the face of such staggering destitution and criminal inhumanity towards fellow individuals. Wonder when do we get our act together – it's another 26th January tomorrow.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPsJgCIfVofFaBH1kpDYf4krDCKIv1OMDiVfxMX5AkcJ1RZrNs9kB5MbMYzmrgxifqx-To7YxhICpraRDS7Cxq6BAHqkA_A_eX09fbQvYrnHbzECDXAtw0ZrACy5czzgXiSDLa3IFctfWX/s1600/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPsJgCIfVofFaBH1kpDYf4krDCKIv1OMDiVfxMX5AkcJ1RZrNs9kB5MbMYzmrgxifqx-To7YxhICpraRDS7Cxq6BAHqkA_A_eX09fbQvYrnHbzECDXAtw0ZrACy5czzgXiSDLa3IFctfWX/s640/Zamrudpur+Tombs+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Meager remnants - Dome medallion, Tomb V</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location:</b> Zamrudpur village, immediately behind Bluebells International School, a short walk from Kailash Colony metro station. I could not determine the coordinates of tomb V, however the other monuments should, I believe, approximately correspond to these coordinates – Tomb I - 28°33'26.6"N 77°14'11.8"E, Tomb II - 28°33'28.0"N 77°14'12.9"E, Tomb III - 28°33'26.4"N 77°14'15.5"E (tentative) and Tomb IV - 28°33'25.6"N 77°14'13.7"E.<br /><b>Nearest Metro station: </b>Kailash Colony<br /><b>Remarks - </b>Since most of these monuments have been entirely encroached upon and converted into private residences, entry and photography might be restricted by the locals and/or the person(s) living within. It is advisable to be careful and cordial while photographing/documenting. None of these monuments are under the aegis of Archaeological Survey of India and no charges of any kind are applicable.<br /><b>Relevant links -<br />Other monuments/landmarks in the immediate vicinity -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/05/iskcon-temple-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - ISKCON Temple</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/05/lotus-temple-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Lotus Temple</a></li>
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<b>Other Lodi-era funerary monuments in the city -</b></div>
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<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/10/bada-gumbad-complex-lodi-gardens-new.html">Pixelated Memories - Bada Gumbad</a> (Lodi Gardens)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/02/bagh-i-alam-ka-gumbad-deer-park-new.html">Pixelated Memories - Bagh-i-Alam ka Gumbad</a> (Green Park)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/10/lodi-road-jawahar-lal-nehru-stadium.html">Pixelated Memories - Gol Gumbad</a> (Lodi road)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/11/imam-zamins-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Imam Zamin's Tomb</a> (Qutb complex)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/05/lodi-era-tomb-lado-serai-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Lodi-era Tomb</a> (Lado Serai)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/lodi-era-canopy-tomb-mehrauli.html">Pixelated Memories - Lodi-era Tomb</a> (Mehrauli Archaeological Park)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/05/lodi-era-tomb-mehrauli-archaeological.html">Pixelated Memories - Lodi-era Tomb</a> (Mehrauli Archaeological Park)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/03/sheesh-gumbad-lodi-gardens-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Sheesh Gumbad</a> (Lodi Gardens)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hauz-khas-trail-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Tombs in Hauz Khas</a> (Choti Gumti, Sakri Gumti, Dadi's Tomb and Barakhamba)</li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/12/south-ex-trail-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Tombs in South Ex.</a> (Bade Khan ka Gumbad, Chote Khan ka Gumbad, Bhure Khan ka Gumbad and Kale Khan ka Gumbad)</li>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://laldora.com/">Laldora.com - What is Lal Dora?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ranasafvi.com/trampled-graves/">Ranasafvi.com - Trampled Tombs: Forgotten Heritage in Zamarudpur</a> (Rana accompanied me to Zamrudpur and this is her account of the horrible conditions we witnessed)</li>
<li><a href="http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Layout/Includes/TOINEW/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=CAP%2F2010%2F12%2F06&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T&PageLabel=4&EntityId=Ar00401&AppName=1">Timesofindia.com - Article "Lodhi-era tomb vandalized" (dated Dec 06, 2010) by Richi Verma and Durgesh Nandan Jha</a></li>
<li><a href="http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelEntityToPrint_TOINEW&Type=text/html&Locale=english-skin-custom&Path=CAP/2009/11/09&ID=Ar00500">Timesofindia.com - Article "New lease of life for Lodi era tombs" (dated Nov 09, 2009) by Richi Verma</a></li>
<li><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Heritage-sword-over-many-more-localities/articleshow/19052916.cms">Timesofindia.indiatimes.com - Article "Heritage sword over many more localities in Delhi" (dated March 19, 2013)</a></li>
</ol>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-4759846848196917092016-01-12T18:50:00.001+05:302016-01-14T21:51:31.987+05:30St. James' Church and Fakhr-ul-Masjid, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“The services of the 1st and 2nd corps of irregular horse, under command of Lieut.-Colonel Skinner, assisted by Major Fraser, throughout the siege, have frequently elicited the highest admiration and applause. Nothing could exceed the bravery of this valuable class of soldiers; and Lieut.-Colonel Skinner and Major Fraser fully merit this acknowledgment of his lordship's unqualified approbation of their conduct, and that of their men.”</b></div>
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<b><b>– General Gerard Lake, British Commander-in-Chief, Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803)</b></b></div>
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<b><b>(As mentioned by James Baillie Fraser, </b><b style="text-align: center;">“Military Memoir of Lieut.-Col. James Skinner, C.B.,</b></b></div>
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<b><b style="text-align: center;">For Many Years A Distinguished Officer Commanding a Corps of Irregular Cavalry in the</b></b></div>
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<b><b style="text-align: center;">Service of the H.E.I.C.” (1851))</b></b></div>
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Gracefully located at the culmination of numerous perennially crowded streets slithering their way not very far from the magnificent Red Fort in the heart of Old Delhi, the majestic St. James' Church (more popularly renowned as Skinner’s Church), one of the finest English edifices to be constructed in the city, is undoubtedly a veritable time portal traversing whose sunshine yellow-drenched precincts instantaneously and miraculously allows one to be transported to an adventurous age, as so stimulatingly portrayed in Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim”, of British territorial and military supremacy and intelligence networks, when numerous legendary men from distant Britain undertook imperial administrative, judicial and military offices in the subcontinent, raised extremely powerful, semi-independent cavalry and infantry units and marched around with glittering field honors and glowing official commendations to indulge in extensive warfare and subdue inconsequential native warlords, ferocious dacoit brigands and militarily insignificant, however exceedingly extravagant, royalty.<br />
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Having survived numerous legendary battles, commendably distinguished in warfare and admirably regarded as a highly educated noble-minded man ceaselessly gallant in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity and courteous to his brother-soldiers as well as indigenous subordinates, Colonel James Skinner (1778-1841), a most generous friend and an inspiring officer, still remains indelibly etched in the annals of the British East India Company as a military adventurer whose thrilling military exploits, unparalleled insightfulness of mind, undiminished benevolence of heart and unmatched comprehensive knowledge of Indian customs and languages could rarely be surpassed by other undoubtedly audacious English infantrymen, mercenaries and political agents with whom the country was thickly swarming in those early decades of British colonialism.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4r554clTan187tKB3PvyEW5GzVip9ZPecaqJEjdfHtiBm-3Awto6sUF4fAP4oLBHjQHDUkpGKc8OCNpbkDBCb7gVfq90MviABi0B2NXB3fhyphenhyphenIZ-MTTtCgsA10pdDjPu9P1oyh2im6Q3kq/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4r554clTan187tKB3PvyEW5GzVip9ZPecaqJEjdfHtiBm-3Awto6sUF4fAP4oLBHjQHDUkpGKc8OCNpbkDBCb7gVfq90MviABi0B2NXB3fhyphenhyphenIZ-MTTtCgsA10pdDjPu9P1oyh2im6Q3kq/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In consequence of a mercenary's gratitude - St. James' Church</span></b></td></tr>
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In those early days, being recurrently challenged by its formidable French and Portuguese counterparts and yet ambitiously proceeding with rapid consolidation of power through territorial annexation, expansion of influence circles and militarization, the British East India Co. efficaciously resorted to the Mughal system of allowing enterprising private individuals to raise irregular fighting units in lieu of enormous rent-free land endowments (“jagir”) and military standing. At the right place at the right time for the right reason, Col. James Skinner was one such highly resourceful individual. His courageous men endowed him with the respectful name “Sikandar Sahib” derived from the vernacular rendition of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, and it needs be noted that besides unmatched chivalry and dauntlessness, he was also celebrated for his unequaled learning and understanding. Indeed, so unquenchable was his thirst for the acquirement and dissimilation of knowledge that he even laboriously penned two encyclopedic books titled “Tazkirat al-Umara” (“The Princely Families of the Rajput and Sikh states of India”) and “Kitab-i-tasrih al-Aqvam” (“History of the Origin and Distinguishing Marks of the Different Castes of India”)! Like most of his Indianized English contemporaries, he too spontaneously adopted the social, behavioral and sartorial preferences of the indigenous aristocrats, maintained a harem of, it’s said, 14 or 16 native wives of mixed Hindu and Muslim denomination, and strongly insisted on being referred to by his complete Persian honorific title “Nasir-ud-Dowlah Colonel Sikandar Bahadur Ghalib Jung” (lit., “The Most Exalted Col. Skinner, Victorious in War”). His mansion, renowned for generous hospitality and sumptuous indigenous feasts, endlessly resounded with music, dance congregations and poetry sessions, and all his subordinate men were invited, irrespective of their military rank and social standing, to the religious festivities and grand regimental banquets that were celebrated on his enormous estate with enviable splendor.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Classical!</b></span></td></tr>
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<b>“I do not mean to flatter when I say you (Col. Skinner) are as good an Englishman as I know; but you are also a native irregular, half born and fully bred; you armed them, understand their characters, enter into their prejudices; can encourage them without spoiling them; know what they can and, what is more important, what they cannot do. The superiority of your corps rests upon a foundation that no others have.”</b></div>
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<b><b>– Major-General Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), British East India Co.</b></b></div>
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<b><b>Administrator and Historian</b></b></div>
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As glanced from personal correspondence and military memoirs however, in his long fruitful life he did undergo wretched misery and mournful lamentation as well – point in case, the significant necessity of leading life as a freewheeling mercenary following the contemptible denial of ardently desired military commission and territorial estate along with the unfairly prejudiced treatment he had to regularly endure both from the Hindu Maratha confederacy as well as British East India Co. who continuously contemplated his fierce loyalties on account of his being an Anglo-Indian whose dark-complexion ceaselessly acted as a vicious double-edged sword despite his having successively raised irregular cavalry units for them. Notwithstanding the repulsive slights and discriminatory deceptions, “Skinner’s Horse”, popularly referred to as “Yellow Boys” following their brilliant canary-yellow uniforms, the highly competent irregular light cavalry regiment he raised during the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803) for the British East India Co., relentlessly proved its military mettle time and again while Col. Skinner dexterously commanded it, especially in First Afghan War and the battles of Ghazni and Bharatpur, and even afterwards until its mechanization, assimilation into and acclamation as the senior-most cavalry regiments of the Armored Corps of Indian Army.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxvaR6ck6fbb-SEu650-sspDN1V47hZNIv72yvalYyzZXx_o_pUXVDAsq-EsFdvyHwFhrJyR2BSX3HNyENN0jFZ4kdLhjw48j5OqoHrjI7WwuJP0rF-QFuD8UvCBMHOGKvIr9IStK2NLPJ/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxvaR6ck6fbb-SEu650-sspDN1V47hZNIv72yvalYyzZXx_o_pUXVDAsq-EsFdvyHwFhrJyR2BSX3HNyENN0jFZ4kdLhjw48j5OqoHrjI7WwuJP0rF-QFuD8UvCBMHOGKvIr9IStK2NLPJ/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">From the threshold - The time portal</span></b></td></tr>
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Left for dead for an entire night in the battlefield after being shot in the groin in the Battle of Uniara (Rajasthan, 1800), Col. Skinner, painfully wounded, miserably bereaved at the demise of his fearless men and relentlessly threatened by insatiable jackals, was unexpectedly provided lifesaving water and succor by a cobbler woman who was scavenging for valuables amongst the dead and detected signs of life in him. Immediately upon this deliverance, he gratefully vowed to build an episcopal church were he to somehow survive and acquire economic means to do so – this is generally believed to be the incontestable reason for the commissioning of his gorgeous classical edifice. Also as documented in contemporaneous literary records, Col. Skinner was doubtlessly inspired to construct a handsome church within the enormous peripheries of his Delhi estate as an accompaniment to the ruinously devastated Mughal mosque (more on that later) he discovered and ordered to be repaired therein. <br />
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<b>“Among these natives, as among Christians of old, it was customary to devote large sums to charitable and holy purposes; no doubt, in the hope that their souls would be benefited by the sacrifice. Skinner was no whit behind them or any one in deeds of charity; and it was, doubtless, in something of this spirit mingled with sincere gratitude for blessings bestowed, that he vowed and afterwards built this church. In the same spirit of piety, with a sense of modest humility and of his own unworthiness, did he desire that when he died he should be buried not within the precincts of his church, but under the doorway sill, so that all persons entering might trample on “The Chief of Sinners”.”</b></div>
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<b><b>– James Baillie Fraser, “Military Memoir of Lieut.-Col. James Skinner, C.B.,</b></b></div>
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<b><b>For Many Years a Distinguished Officer Commanding a Corps of Irregular Cavalry in the</b></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1bVhoNoV4JE5EpBuci0syYDrR4KsLIlTGtxSEsYy9RNDTwfvmSX3TjUWLCCrnjt4kJQsGJ_5Aa68TiXvEKJaKmTJpAFnq9J6Vt6zfPxPFD0sREkLdRzONCuEOyv922VuogxeYAz8OIt28/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1bVhoNoV4JE5EpBuci0syYDrR4KsLIlTGtxSEsYy9RNDTwfvmSX3TjUWLCCrnjt4kJQsGJ_5Aa68TiXvEKJaKmTJpAFnq9J6Vt6zfPxPFD0sREkLdRzONCuEOyv922VuogxeYAz8OIt28/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In the company of God and Col. Skinner</span></b></td></tr>
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Constructed between 1826-36 at a cost of Rs 95,000 financed by Col. Skinner, the elegant church, faithfully consecrated by Bishop Reverend Daniel Wilson, was designed by engineer-architects Major Robert Smith and Capt. de Bude of the British Army in graceful Renaissance revivalist-style of architecture seamlessly amalgamating classical English colonial structural design with several Mughal artistic motifs. A bell tower, although inherently upsetting the overall remarkable symmetry yet as a fraction of the whole entirely complimentary to the outstanding floor plan, was constructed later. On a tangential note, Rev. Wilson had personally commissioned and presided over the Anglican Church of Calcutta (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/09/st-pauls-cathedral-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - St. Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta</a>), while Major Robert Smith is also credited with designing the delicate red sandstone Bengali-style cupola that once surmounted the Qutb Minar but presently lies miserably secluded in a relatively distant corner of Qutb complex (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/qutb-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb complex</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/11/smiths-folly-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Smith's folly</a>).</div>
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The church’s soothing yellow cruciform structure interspersed with flawless white highlights, its three stately pillared porticoes surmounted by heavyset triangular pediments and the enormous ribbed double dome crowned by its ornamental lantern and gilded copper cross-and-ball cupola have essentially become one of the most affectionately adored and certainly the most cheerfully photographed of all the British-era monuments and memorials plentifully peppering the Kashmere Gate area. Stepping into the hallowed interiors, exclusively dominated by semicircular arches and rounded floral-esque recesses and simplicity of ornamentation, in every direction one looks to one comes face-to-face with poignant memorials commemorating the memory of the deceased, especially valorous military heroes. Amidst the honors and details of numerous battles impeccably sculpted in resilient marble, the flawless flourishes of floral wreaths and the precise outlines of crossed swords and military badges, emblazoned against numerous of these touching memorials are the insignia of Skinner’s Horse and its battle cry “Himmat-i-Mardan Madad-i-Khuda” (“By the will of man and the benevolence of God”), however there are many others too that were installed to graphically memorialize the unfortunate victims of the First Indian War of Independence (aka the Sepoy Mutiny, 1857) as well as to honor several illustrious servicemen from other regiments and the more eminent amongst the descendants of Col. Skinner (including Brig. Michael Alexander Robert Skinner (1920-99), the great-great-grandson of Col. Skinner and Commandant Skinner’s Horse (1960-63)).</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Lessons in history, warfare and discipline</span></b></td></tr>
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Several of the emotionally-charged memorials insistently remind those shockingly harking to the dangerous romanticism and the elaborate espionage and communication games involved in the Sepoy Mutiny that entire families, irrespective of ethnicity, gender and religious beliefs, were outrageously murdered in cold blood (not to deny that the barbaric British retribution was equally, if not more, vicious. They did not even spare funerary monuments and religious edifices in their indignant wrath!) – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Sacred to the memory of</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b>Thomas W. Collins, Esq., many years Deputy Collector of Delhi, his wife Eleanor and mother-in-law Mrs. E.P. Staines. Three brothers-in-law, J.W. and E.W. Staines and G.R. White. Four sisters-in-law, Mrs. A. Hunt, Mrs. Eliza Cochrane, Mrs. A. White and Miss Christiana Staines. Seven nephews, William C. and Lewis C. Staines, George L. Hunt, James, Henry and Edward White, and an infant son of G.R. White. Three nieces, Margaret, and Mary Hunt and Christiana White. Three grandchildren, John T.C., Josephine T.C. and Joseph O’R.C. Leeson. All barbarously murdered at Delhi on or about the 11th of May 1857.</b></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b>Also Hannah Collins mother, J.R. Collins brother, and Janet Collins sister-in-law of T.W. Collins. The former was killed at Futtyghur and the two latter at Futtypore by mutineers in June 1857.</b></b></div>
<b>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Also Robert P. O’Connor, nephew of T.W. Collins, who was killed at Agra on the 7th July 1857.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“In the midst of life we are in death.”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>This tablet has been erected by the surviving orphans of T.W. Collins.”</b></div>
</b><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRAXPtaOVGOhUtIpXEEVZju4-b11Rc6YAc7cqsDykA6NMXZIdpazcJpZ_qRgdIqA50mYEygiFoV3L9V0iZFfOkp80Y-SqiHumn0jtYzP4qOlSDmyH7BcyFrw3pCZiMuV1aJjcUb2gIO_-3/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%252813%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRAXPtaOVGOhUtIpXEEVZju4-b11Rc6YAc7cqsDykA6NMXZIdpazcJpZ_qRgdIqA50mYEygiFoV3L9V0iZFfOkp80Y-SqiHumn0jtYzP4qOlSDmyH7BcyFrw3pCZiMuV1aJjcUb2gIO_-3/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%252813%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Where and how? - The church's plan and position vis-a-vis the garden and auxiliary buildings enclosing it (Photo courtesy - <a href="http://www.archinomy.com/case-studies/2127/churches-of-new-delhi">Archinomy.com</a>)</span></b></td></tr>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
The church has since its inception played a very important role in the everyday life and social obligations of Delhi’s Christian community; H.M. Queen Elizabeth II (reign 1952 – present) visited it in 1961 and H.H. George Leonard Carey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1995. Until the construction of the Cathedral Church of the Redemption in 1935 near the Presidential palace (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/07/presidential-house-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Presidential House</a>), successive Viceroys since 1911 too used to regularly offer prayers here. The hallowed edifice’s indescribable undisturbed tranquility and the unpunctuated stillness of silence somehow inexplicably eliminates all sounds of the immense mass of boisterous humanity and disorderly vehicles outside; unarguably further assisted by its immensely sober architecture and ornamental treatment, possessing merely these poignant commemorative plaques and two vividly painted stained glass windows depicting respectively the Crucifixion and Ascension of Jesus (a third, depicting Roman soldiers unequivocally cowering in undisguised fear and amazement at the sight of Jesus’s Resurrection, can be perceived within the small church management office immediately adjacent the entrance), the peaceful serenity soothes frayed nerves and calms one’s mind until one is entirely immersed in the contemplation of the conventional architecture and the emotional memorial tablets. Under the benevolent gaze of the painted Jesus and perpetually surrounded by numerous dear friends, descendants and brothers-in-arms, interred therein underneath the glistening white marble close to the altar table are the mortal remains of Col. Skinner shrouded by the unpretentious inscription – </div>
<div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Here rest the remains of the late Colonel James Skinner C.B., who departed this life at Hansi</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>4th December 1841.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b>The body was disinterred, removed from Hansi and buried under this on the 19th January 1842.”</b></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
He died at the age of 63. His heartfelt wish to be buried under the door sill was never fulfilled by his descendants or the two hundred soldiers who faithfully disinterred the remains in Hansi and elegantly escorted them with complete military honors and guard to Delhi, however one assumes his spirit would still be gleefully galloping around armed and mounted on his favorite stallion.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLkNSb_uzoqdOxTncMcMDnja4MuQcEeKdxnza-QwETlMeGk4CT1UEyy05hEI0kBjKow3lgw0jKfkkAYEfXpsWdk0QmKXo8H01gHlrI0K9O5k7zR11y-chh5EXU-h4Owuk6UhnC0SYHUb_U/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLkNSb_uzoqdOxTncMcMDnja4MuQcEeKdxnza-QwETlMeGk4CT1UEyy05hEI0kBjKow3lgw0jKfkkAYEfXpsWdk0QmKXo8H01gHlrI0K9O5k7zR11y-chh5EXU-h4Owuk6UhnC0SYHUb_U/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Exquisite poignancy</span></b></td></tr>
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<br />
I had been postponing the visit to Kashmere Gate area for years for no apparent reason except lethargy and eventually it was Rana Safvi, fellow blogger, history enthusiast and an extremely knowledgeable writer, who convinced me to accompany her to document the monuments located there (her brilliant articles can be read at <a href="http://hazrat-e-dilli.com/">Hazrat-e-dilli.com</a>). We could not however click many photographs of the church interiors since the querulously argumentative lady caretaker refused to allow us – the church authorities, we later learnt, are considerably intimidated following the recent arson attacks on Christian religious shrines and cemeteries in the run-up to the politically and religiously charged Delhi elections. While the physical attacks have stopped, sick mockeries and veiled threats, also undeniably threatening the social fabric of the country, have relentlessly continued to be hurled on social media sites since. </div>
<div>
<br />
In painstakingly sculpted sepulchral mausoleums erected within the enclosed “Skinner family plot” in a corner of the church lawns is where unperturbedly repose in eternal slumber several members of the Skinner family clan, including his sons and daughters. The mournfully weeping angels carved flawlessly, the flourishes of scrolls and wreaths and the fading dark and sorrowful lettering in English and Urdu as inscribed on numerous of the headstones, present an extremely touching picture of inconsolable grief and pitiful lamentation. Nearby is a large plain red sandstone grave indicating the internment of the remains of Col. Skinner's most devoted and learned friend Major William Fraser, the Commissioner of the territory of Delhi and the Agent to the British Resident. Col. Skinner considered his murder in 1835 on the ghastly orders of Nawab Shamsuddin Ahmed Khan of Lotharu-Ferozepur Jhirka (Haryana) as one of the most devastating losses in his life and had his mortal remains disinterred and reburied here when he had the church constructed. The original exquisitely inlaid white marble mausoleum designed and executed by some of the finest stonecutters whom Col. Skinner could have employed was also entirely shattered during the Sepoy Mutiny and reconstructed afterwards. The highly emotive memorial epitaph inscribed by Col. Skinner nonetheless survives and reads – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The remains interred beneath this monument were once animated, by as brave, and sincere a soul, as was ever vouchsaved to man by his Creator;</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b>A brother in friendship, has caused it to be erected, that when his own frame is dust, it may remain as a memorial for those, who can participate in lamenting, the sudden and melancholy loss of one, dear to him as life.</b></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b>William Fraser</b></b></div>
<b>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Died 22nd March 1835”</b></div>
</b><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfx3S5fKzVA6XC8_A55uzJtHePJNJgbfPGQmJIkeAWg2ZSmo57ZdSUgV1MpUkvWXvbkwIhiqzfGKEKs4J7tBK0_1VJE3BvO9RwXTn1Kj9GgX_iruR5bVK6kerR7LINFAoOQ7X8lS-aB9_I/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfx3S5fKzVA6XC8_A55uzJtHePJNJgbfPGQmJIkeAWg2ZSmo57ZdSUgV1MpUkvWXvbkwIhiqzfGKEKs4J7tBK0_1VJE3BvO9RwXTn1Kj9GgX_iruR5bVK6kerR7LINFAoOQ7X8lS-aB9_I/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>In sacred memory - The memorial cross and Mr. Fraser's unpretentious grave</b></span></td></tr>
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Upon a ziggurat-like pedestal adjacent the grave was erected a large three-dimensional cross commemorating the poor Christians deceased in the Sepoy Mutiny. Inscriptions in Hindi, English and Urdu remember the cataclysmic event thus – <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Sacred to the memory of those Christians who were murdered at Delhi in May mdccclvii;</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b>And in gratitude to God for his mercy in having spared a remnant of his people to erect this cross.”</b></b></div>
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</b>
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The simplistic mausoleum of Sir Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe (lived 1795-1853), the British Agent (Negotiator) at the courts of the last two Mughal Emperors Akbar Shah II (reign AD 1806-37) and Bahadur Shah “Zafar” II (reign AD 1837-57), is also located in the church grounds. His singular life and unusual extravagances have been extensively dealt with in these three articles – <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/metcalfes-chattri.html">Pixelated Memories - Metcalfe's Chattri</a>, <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/metcalfes-ziggurats-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Metcalfe's Ziggurats and Guardhouses</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/05/quli-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Quli Khan's Tomb</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEg1tyEjsxxMON6N95WyD2mGy3tOwv821emVL4IiG4P_WiN24Hvxdo3kt74lB3cXHo5Qv-6_hvIcybxFbRzzIGaFcvCJpXQV9ZP19oHxZodUYwNuMIe8f4Vi_vS7vdIRZC-9XT-sgbBInI/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEg1tyEjsxxMON6N95WyD2mGy3tOwv821emVL4IiG4P_WiN24Hvxdo3kt74lB3cXHo5Qv-6_hvIcybxFbRzzIGaFcvCJpXQV9ZP19oHxZodUYwNuMIe8f4Vi_vS7vdIRZC-9XT-sgbBInI/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Fakhr-ul-Masjid - Rising above mediocrity</span></b></td></tr>
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As already mentioned, the First Indian War of Independence (Sepoy Mutiny, 1857), the murderously catastrophic culmination of a formidable storm brewing barely under the undisturbed surface of the vast subcontinent, also spelled calamitous for the church and its handsome yellow structure. The then Chaplain, Reverend Jennings, was arrested and executed by the mutineers. The church's dome too, relentlessly used by the Sepoys for target practice, was so greatly damaged by shell fire that the cross-and-ball finial surmounting it was badly bruised and toppled. Since 1988, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is undertaking the Delhi Government-sponsored maintenance and restoration drive which involves the relaying of several severely damaged polished sandstone surfaces, the removal of several hundred kilograms of unnecessary cement plaster, addition of structural buttresses and support enhancements, restoration of stained glass windows and the repair and gilding of the sophisticated cross-and-ball surmounting the massive ribbed dome. Col. Skinner would have graciously approved – after all, he too amiably adopted and had extensively repaired the aforementioned crumbling Mughal mosque that strikingly sprawled on his estate. </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The Fakhrool Musajid was built by Kuneez i Fatima widow of Shoojaat Khan about A.D. 1729, to the memory of her husband who was one of the confidential followers of Nizam ool Moolk, Minister of Mohummud Shah. It adjoins the Estate and is nearly opposite to the Church erected by the late Colonel Skinner C.B. and has been of late years repaired at no inconsiderable expense by that distinguished Officer, for the convenience of his followers military and menial.”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b><b>– Sir Thomas Metcalfe, “The Dehlie Book”</b></b></div>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
<b><b>(“Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi”)</b></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnV0y0NIb7NQ1tYccfOy0eb2d1v-qpLYztkcpYzg2mzN2zaviMlv_0yxD1WgvmOOOFKZMXSXcEkbKfyqs-r1BlNAdwn6CBze9nbqC_I3Lp5H20rx9pNeOSSGiKq8CaxS7KRLQSCGhC9KdE/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnV0y0NIb7NQ1tYccfOy0eb2d1v-qpLYztkcpYzg2mzN2zaviMlv_0yxD1WgvmOOOFKZMXSXcEkbKfyqs-r1BlNAdwn6CBze9nbqC_I3Lp5H20rx9pNeOSSGiKq8CaxS7KRLQSCGhC9KdE/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”</span></b></td></tr>
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Affectionately commissioned in 1728-29 by Kaniz-i-Fatima (entitled “Fakr-i-Jahan” (“Pride of the World”)) in loving memory of her deceased husband Mirza Shujat Khan, a high-ranking noble (“Mansabdar”) and an artillery officer commanding 4,000 infantry and 2,500 mounted cavalry in the imperial army of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir (reign AD 1657-1707), the gorgeously conceived and unusually proportioned mosque was originally christened “Fakhr-ul-Masjid” (“Pride of the Mosques”), but is presently simply referred to as “Lal Masjid” (“Red Mosque”) on account of its red sandstone character. Its handsome facade embedded with pink-white marble and its bulbous onion domes highlighted through the employment of slender strips of black marble, the mosque is an enthralling sight, rising as it does from a very high platform in the midst of an entire bazaar peopled with scooter mechanics, fruit-and-vegetable sellers, voracious pedestrians thronging to several of the hole-in-the-wall restaurants and roadside sweetmeat sellers, rickshaw-wallahs ferrying around enormous weights and cyclists meandering this way and that to navigate the oncoming flood of humanity that literally threatens to burst through the seams in this very narrow street. The unsophisticated interiors portray extremely simplistic yet very delicate ornamentation predominantly comprising sleek arches and calligraphy inscriptions of the Islamic kalima – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“La illah illa Allah, Muhammad-ur rasool Allah”</b></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.”</b></div>
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Originally cheerfully existential as part of Col. Skinner’s historic estate, presently the small mosque is geographically as well as emotionally separated from it by this aforementioned serpentine bazaar which wedge-like malevolently ranges between the two, thereby introducing on the innocent part of the mosque an element of being overboard and therefore being neglected by conservation authorities and history enthusiasts alike. The traditional architecture and the subdued artistic ornamentation are simplistic in conception and yet undeniably succeed in impressing a casual visitor through their graceful humility and abhorrence of pretentious flamboyance.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXGmJ3qjLpmYNcfDmpUqrkpWaqiYgM8i9c1jBNik3icbr59k_38FUnNcF1dhVI9dD9Cp5fHoss4JWKDpbE2DDH2gdTvfZdxWIKq44J_sqKfK9t4nqXedptf0Nj033l-qWPBpXMHuLfYGv0/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%252812%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXGmJ3qjLpmYNcfDmpUqrkpWaqiYgM8i9c1jBNik3icbr59k_38FUnNcF1dhVI9dD9Cp5fHoss4JWKDpbE2DDH2gdTvfZdxWIKq44J_sqKfK9t4nqXedptf0Nj033l-qWPBpXMHuLfYGv0/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%252812%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A chilly, foggy morning</span></b></td></tr>
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Along the sprawling courtyard have been built tiny rooms, lockers, a washroom and a kitchen to accommodate the numerous students who learn here the recitation of Quran, Islamic jurisprudence, Arabic, Hindi and a bit of English and mathematics (no sciences though!). The cold December day we visited, all of them as well as their middle-aged, bearded teacher (“Imam”) were sprawled slumbering undisturbed in the agreeable afternoon sun and upon being unintentionally thus woken informed us that they were continuously offering prayers all night and were therefore tired now.</div>
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Although the historic mosque looks pretty well-maintained vis-à-vis several others scattered throughout the ancient landscape of Delhi, one has only to take a gander along its rear extremities which have been incorporated within the horribly ruinous premises of the offices of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi – here, in the midst of wreckage and ruins of abandoned and demolished buildings, does one see the terrible destruction fraught by men and women ironically charged with the maintenance and preservation of Delhi’s civic infrastructure! The illustrious Hindu College, which originally functioned from here, has long been shifted to Delhi University’s north campus and its building here demolished and replaced by multistoried unappealing office blocks, yet in a commendably well-camouflaged corner survives a small, low-roofed circular building hugged on one side by a classical colonnade.</div>
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Carefully masquerading as a miserably abandoned, appallingly maintained storage warehouse where are stuffed broken furniture, unfixable electrical fixtures, shredded college examination papers and the lifeless remains of an inoperable motorcycle perhaps preserved here for posterity, this modest orange-yellow edifice impeccably disguises its prestigious historic associations – it constituted a not insignificant fragment of Col. Skinner’s estate and functioned as his dining-cum-recreational room where he entertained his most distinguished and royal guests during the winter months spent here – one assumes that here in a corner stood a cards table, in the center finest of rugs and comfortable bolsters surrounded by extravagantly carved hookahs inset with colorful stones and designs; numerous servants would have continuously whirred about bearing servings of fine alcohol and various kinds of meats and breads when drinking sessions would have continued till late night; interesting hunting expeditions would have been planned, experiences in fierce battles and with lovely dance girls and politician-generals as easily recounted, and one believes that Col. Skinner, ceaselessly engrossed in the betterment of agricultural yield and irrigation facilities of his gargantuan estate in Hansi (Haryana), would have relentlessly deliberated with indigenous village chiefs and governmental officials the dis/advantages of the various modes of cultivation and revenue collection.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6PlREI6UcO31eRx2eJC67QqXUrFm4v_9aslEA1tEYbe__6ruJp_20vIUCTCUf-A4vsjEK2QUx3q8Yr9XO3qnNKlYhc-PXNkhaYOtdn56O1lEZvGUUR138MVLNTJzh_6-hWx0XTXWltIsD/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25286%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6PlREI6UcO31eRx2eJC67QqXUrFm4v_9aslEA1tEYbe__6ruJp_20vIUCTCUf-A4vsjEK2QUx3q8Yr9XO3qnNKlYhc-PXNkhaYOtdn56O1lEZvGUUR138MVLNTJzh_6-hWx0XTXWltIsD/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%25286%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Pitiable!</span></b></td></tr>
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Afterwards, the building along with the surrounding segment of Skinner estate was acquired and similarly employed by Rai Bahadur Lala Sultan Singh Jain (1876-1930), the Treasurer of Imperial Bank at Delhi, Shimla and Meerut and one of the city's richest and most celebrated citizens of his time, renowned for his extravagantly aristocratic style of fine living, his role in the establishment of and philanthropic contributions to several reputable educational institutes including Hindu College, Indraprastha College and Tibba College, and his cordial associations with the foremost of Congress party members and the Maharajas of Kashmir, Jaipur, Mysore and Darbhanga. I wonder if my sister, who recently graduated from Hindu College, would have heard of him. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“So long as Charity, Benevolence, and the kindlier feelings of the human heart</b></div>
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<b>Are held in respect by Mankind,</b></div>
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<b><b>The name of James Skinner will be remembered and revered.”</b></b><br />
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<b>– Memorial stone, St. James’ Church</b></div>
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For some inexplicable reason brought about by the ceaseless passage of time and the vagaries of human social response and communal memories, not many remember and/or revere Col. Skinner today. His beautiful church, on the other hand, continues to be affectionately admired and cherished, and remains to this day, as originally intended, one of the most prominent landmarks of Kashmere Gate area. Were it not for the ignorant MCD employees disturbingly hellbent on irreversibly disfiguring the hallowed mosque and the sorry remnants of Col. Skinner's estate, the same could perhaps have been said about them as well.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjUfSE85-s-i_aOOp7gfNbsEkAuVWW4MJs9bXi-V2nRlHBVcsF5HNKU8X_JBINChfufFcWMu5FnkvOMjaHYZT2PVO23TuxAg22lEsHM_88TJpugaLD3VKUzHL53AlHWL4BpX6Oqrx0y3G/s1600/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%252811%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjUfSE85-s-i_aOOp7gfNbsEkAuVWW4MJs9bXi-V2nRlHBVcsF5HNKU8X_JBINChfufFcWMu5FnkvOMjaHYZT2PVO23TuxAg22lEsHM_88TJpugaLD3VKUzHL53AlHWL4BpX6Oqrx0y3G/s640/St.+James+Church+Fakhr-ul-Masjid+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+%252811%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Of neglectful ignorance and wanton destruction</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Kashmere Gate area, north Shahjahanabad (Coordinates: 28°39'56.4"N 77°13'51.2"E and 28°39'54.0"N 77°13'46.3"E)<br />
<b>Nearest Metro station: </b>Kashmere Gate ISBT, approximately 1.5 kilometers away (however, most bus drivers passing past the church would, if requested, briefly halt immediately opposite it as well).</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Kashmere Gate ISBT is one of the most well-connected bus terminals in the city and is throughout the day accessible via regular bus and metro services. Furthermore, it is only a very short walk from Mori Gate terminal. One can easily walk/avail an auto/rickshaw to the church/mosque from Kashmere Gate metro station/ISBT bus stop. Red Fort/Chandni Chowk is approximately 3 kilometers from the church/mosque and one can avail a bus/auto from there as well. The delicate domes of the beautiful mosque are visually perceptible from the church and its entrance is via a narrow staircase built underneath slightly offset from it amidst the bustling bazaar.</div>
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<b>Church timings:</b> Monday to Saturday: 8 am – 1 pm and 2.30 pm – 6 pm; Sundays: 8 am – 12 noon<br />
<b>Church service timings: </b>Winters (October – March): 9 am; Summers (April – September): 8.30 am<br />
<b>Mosque timings: </b>Fakhr-ul-Masjid remains open to people of all religious beliefs, faiths and genders every day from sunrise to sunset.<br />
<b>Entrance fees:</b> Nil<br />
<b>Photography/video charges: </b>Nil. Prohibited by permission within the church building.</div>
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<b>Relevant links -</b></div>
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<b>Other monuments/landmarks in the immediate vicinity -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/gurudwara-sis-ganj-sahib-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/jama-masjid-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jama Masjid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/parathe-wali-gali-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Parathe wali Gali</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Red Fort</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/07/sunehri-masjid-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Sunehri Masjid (adjacent Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/02/sunehri-masjid-near-red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Sunehri Masjid (near Red Fort)</a></li>
</ol>
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<b>Other edifices in Delhi indelibly associated with British East India Co. officials -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.com/2015/09/adham-khans-tomb-and-mehrauli-phc-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Adham Khan's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/metcalfes-chattri.html">Pixelated Memories - Metcalfe's Chattri</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/metcalfes-ziggurats-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Metcalfe's Ziggurats and Guardhouses</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/05/quli-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Quli Khan's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/sabz-burj-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Sabz Burj</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/11/smiths-folly-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Smith's Folly</a></li>
</ol>
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<b>Some of the churches in Calcutta commissioned by British administrators/clergymen -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/10/sacred-heart-church-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - Sacred Heart Church</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/09/st-andrews-church-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - St. Andrew's Church</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/09/st-johns-church-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - St. John's Church</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/09/st-pauls-cathedral-calcutta.html">Pixelated Memories - St. Paul's Cathedral</a></li>
</ol>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.archinomy.com/case-studies/2127/churches-of-new-delhi">Archinomy.com - Churches of New Delhi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/addorimss/s/019addor0005475u00007vrb.html">Bl.uk - St James' Church, with tomb of William Fraser</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyunits/indiancavalry/skinners.htm">Britishempire.co.uk - Colonel Skinner</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1600_1699/shahjahanabad/delhiviews/delhiviews.html">Columbia.edu - Delhi views - Shahjahanabad</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/skinners-horse.htm">Globalsecurity.org - 1st Horse/Skinner's Horse</a></li>
<li><a href="http://indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Col._James_Skinner">Indpaedia.com - Col. James Skinner</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.jainsamaj.org/rpg_site/literature2.php?id=980&cat=62">Jainsamaj.org - Rai Bahadur Sultan Singh</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/a-house-and-history/article5463632.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "A house and history" (dated Dec 16, 2013) by R.V. Smith</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/india/68.html">Victorianweb.org - Change and Continuity: St. James' Church</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Horse_(Skinner%27s_Horse)">Wikipedia.org - 1st Horse (Skinner's Horse)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Skinner_(East_India_Company_officer)">Wikipedia.org - James Skinner (East India Company officer)</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-21017769224301486492016-01-03T02:55:00.000+05:302016-01-03T02:55:56.500+05:30Kaushal Minar, Hastsal village, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“I do not deny the glamour of the name of Delhi or the stories that cling about its dead and forgotten cities. But I venture to say this, that if we want to draw happy omens for the future the less we say about the history of Delhi the better... We know that the whole environment of Delhi is a mass of deserted ruins and graves, and they present to the visitor, I think, the most sorrowful picture you can conceive of the mutability of human fortunes.”</b><br />
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<b><b>– Lord Curzon, Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 1899-1905</b></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX24mIMrj7PlYdaEFBdE-U45JrGu0rNtqdbkoB6OEYMZ5-G28-1naKHh1aB_c9g-MZPC8i2gII_F3WH9pGKJHZjhfwRaDSiUqtjS2GNrzxETeuzSEGiZSKnVkaiTDD_xZVEkq5RwVR-OY5/s1600/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX24mIMrj7PlYdaEFBdE-U45JrGu0rNtqdbkoB6OEYMZ5-G28-1naKHh1aB_c9g-MZPC8i2gII_F3WH9pGKJHZjhfwRaDSiUqtjS2GNrzxETeuzSEGiZSKnVkaiTDD_xZVEkq5RwVR-OY5/s640/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Reminiscent of the monolith from Arthur C. Clarke's "Space Odyssey" series!</span></b></td></tr>
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According to numerous convoluted mythological tales as recorded in Mahabharata, unquestionably the most enigmatic of the ancient Hindu epics, Delhi was the enviable site of “Indraprastha” (literally “City of Indra” (Indra being the God of war, lightning and thunderstorms and the chief of the numerous deities collectively invoked in the Hindu pantheon)), the magnificent fortified capital of the mythical Pandava brothers. Its contemporary twin citadel was “Hastinapura” (“City of Elephants”) whose very nomenclature indelibly references the widespread presence of immense hordes of massive pachyderms roaming about and being extraordinarily well-domesticated as majestic beasts involved with religion, warfare and royal impressionism. Surprisingly though, remarkably few inhabitants of the rapidly urbanizing metropolitan are aware that vast territories within the city’s expansionist peripheries were even in medieval ages densely vegetated forestlands thickly inhabited with hundreds of fascinating species of flora and fauna. Nonetheless, tales of this long forgotten environmental history do survive in popular folktales and local lore – point in case, the tranquilly laidback, commercially underdeveloped and visually kaleidoscopic urban village of Hastsal (a corruption of “Hast Sthal” (“Land of Elephants”)) where it’s said existed enormous lakes encircled by impenetrable woodlands which constituted an immense elephant corridor.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEvu_5R9CCEyUYiMX_fosGvBXcG4XN2-UPFoyRx2Kir8AfQpasoxICW_Q5voPxj1u4PziMPnSqKG-5NqPJS25SbdZBM1s3DW6KIQk6eGok3ynWVhsy7RUC_D5PRY_U0U4exmC_ldbjZkd/s1600/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEvu_5R9CCEyUYiMX_fosGvBXcG4XN2-UPFoyRx2Kir8AfQpasoxICW_Q5voPxj1u4PziMPnSqKG-5NqPJS25SbdZBM1s3DW6KIQk6eGok3ynWVhsy7RUC_D5PRY_U0U4exmC_ldbjZkd/s640/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">No elephants anymore! - Hastsal village</span></b></td></tr>
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Presently accessible via Uttam Nagar metro station and regular bus and Grameen Seva cab services from the soaring residential enclaves of Uttam Nagar, Janakpuri, Vikaspuri, Nangloi Jat and Najafgarh, the urban village, essentially an agglomeration of vividly painted, box-like multistoried residential buildings intermittently interspersed by hole-in-the-wall shop stores, painstakingly endeavors to vertically dominate and entirely camouflage its viciously avaricious brutality towards what might be considered its golden egg-laying goose – the Kaushal Minar, also otherwise referred to as Hastsal Minar and Chota Qutb Minar, a 17-meter (55 feet) high minaret commissioned in AD 1650 by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan (reign AD 1627-57) which is wretchedly enveloped in its entirety by urban encroachments, rubble remains of obliterated residential annexes and a perennially multiplying rubbish dump so much so that it is next to impossible to observe and photograph its physical enormity from the immediate vicinity and one has to eventually resort to sneakily climb up peoples’ rooftops to better appreciate its mammoth proportions.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvu1VNXPkWVKLj0GfgC_OIYyd00EKZhggcLesy60nm5cKqmpdBhnVghM_0E0holLFvwl2F9VDBC2vDfb9j7fRg9zEhnqSnNE6tCufkk1oqH0zXlQvIuFldRV1Dl73Jj-q6utpNx2Rcvi7K/s1600/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvu1VNXPkWVKLj0GfgC_OIYyd00EKZhggcLesy60nm5cKqmpdBhnVghM_0E0holLFvwl2F9VDBC2vDfb9j7fRg9zEhnqSnNE6tCufkk1oqH0zXlQvIuFldRV1Dl73Jj-q6utpNx2Rcvi7K/s640/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Caged beauty!</span></b></td></tr>
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Access to the high platform on which toweringly rises the precariously ruined monument is now restricted to a grimy half meter wide staircase littered with plastic garbage and domestic vegetable refuse, however what the archaeological authorities forgot to take into account was the resourcefulness of the ingenious locals, many of whom have imaginatively designed their dingy warren-hole of houses such that the staircases and balconies literally skirt the soaring tapering structure. Considered originally to be five floors high and constituting a not insignificant fraction of a gorgeous hunting pavilion where rested the royally-entertained emperor and his immediate retinue following adrenaline-tripping chase and hunt in the forsaken center of all-encompassing wilderness, the colossal minaret, locally known as “Laat” (pillar/staff), is a very sorry picture of its erstwhile regal grandeur – a deplorable condition it grievously shares with its better renowned Shahjahan-era cousins, the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid, which too are sadly existential as heartlessly degraded mere skeletons of their original opulent splendor (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/jama-masjid-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jama Masjid</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Red Fort</a>).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TBh6-c2Hi1By7_yKdn_JtYQ4tjRDRKSJ6wvRujjSg3khxfZxeR58ynP_HClpf3j9R812bx26drNBXmnQIpe20a9qGBO8gU6VvAZuKPPV6DJoc4qkodTRCylw4z1LptO2Pp7UC64n8QAI/s1600/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TBh6-c2Hi1By7_yKdn_JtYQ4tjRDRKSJ6wvRujjSg3khxfZxeR58ynP_HClpf3j9R812bx26drNBXmnQIpe20a9qGBO8gU6VvAZuKPPV6DJoc4qkodTRCylw4z1LptO2Pp7UC64n8QAI/s640/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Yes, it is indeed a protected monument! Why would you think otherwise?!</span></b></td></tr>
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The upper two floors and the chattri (umbrella dome surmounted on slender pillars) crowning the majestic tower are said to have collapsed somewhere in the 18th-century. Notwithstanding the epithet “Chota Qutb Minar” referencing the more renowned, ethereally ornamented victory tower in another distant part of the city (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/qutb-minar-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb Minar</a>), the Hastsal minaret doesn’t really invoke any particular visual or historic reminiscences of the former and doesn’t share any transcendental decorative features except that it too, like all minarets, is a minaret. Adorned with a single row of flawless white marble highlights, the vibrant red sandstone tapering structure was conceived fluted throughout with alternate circular and angular projections, however it can unquestionably be considered the most modestly ornamented both architecturally and artistically, in fact almost soberly bare, vis-à-vis the aforementioned dazzlingly flamboyant monuments that Shahjahan conceived and commissioned as well as his magnum at Agra, the unparalleled Taj Mahal which mere words are explicably hard put to describe.<br />
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Enroute to the minaret, there are bustling bazaars not any different from most others that dot Delhi’s other residential enclaves and sectors, thoroughly crowded with pedestrians, shoppers and motorcyclists and teeming with multi-hued shops (festooned unerringly with glittering glimmering hoarding and shimmering tinsel) offering stationery, confectionery, gold jewelry, everyday necessities, pharmaceuticals, utensils, brassware and the like.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxo-QMiLi6oWNCPEO1EAivHifVdvzC0gH_Zinuu-l60umYLiMCrdB8k2gLVvBb9a8sW4cpfmSlQ85cOH_WPewaGa2EiGVBnfb7OjJVZbuTjn5pgoYU3dZzJhn1CeZMuo9qrHyOlRqSaTt1/s1600/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxo-QMiLi6oWNCPEO1EAivHifVdvzC0gH_Zinuu-l60umYLiMCrdB8k2gLVvBb9a8sW4cpfmSlQ85cOH_WPewaGa2EiGVBnfb7OjJVZbuTjn5pgoYU3dZzJhn1CeZMuo9qrHyOlRqSaTt1/s640/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Piercing the skyline</b></span></td></tr>
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The strangely sanitized scene within the small urban village is however vastly different from the rest of the perpetually crowded city – as if relentlessly endeavoring to smother it in concentric hugs, most of the narrow streets curving around the monument are so congested that automobiles cannot possibly whizz about and thus in their absence there exists an undisguised crystalline silence, an unusual bubble of undisturbed tranquility in the midst of ceaseless noise and remorseless destruction and recreation. At least for me, following an often frustratingly indecipherable zigzagging treasure hunt, it proved to be indescribably exciting to spot the colossal sandstone enormity peeping from behind differently colored buildings and then circle the seemingly concentric, narrow streets and promising looking cul-de-sacs in an eventually fruitful attempt to discover the minaret’s base. Only an infinitesimal number of people outside Hastsal are privy to the existence of this medieval monument – sadly however, as irrefutably evidenced by the beautiful structure’s pitifully aggrieved existence as a dump yard mercilessly encroached upon on all extremities, the locals irresponsibly take for granted the privileged view appreciable only from their terraces.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6E26es-r2zErZj0YWsT_OybSNJ7T1nkMGJz9buazWfLme2NA6BBhG9NFgUUD7GbfqJTeYeL3qFA7VOdZC5hKutarcOPVFOBCXcg-z171GzHdiIDOwZRy0S-0EmeuIKDy7v8AL2ogS58Qr/s1600/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6E26es-r2zErZj0YWsT_OybSNJ7T1nkMGJz9buazWfLme2NA6BBhG9NFgUUD7GbfqJTeYeL3qFA7VOdZC5hKutarcOPVFOBCXcg-z171GzHdiIDOwZRy0S-0EmeuIKDy7v8AL2ogS58Qr/s640/Hastsal+Minar+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Howdy, neighbor?</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset</div>
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<b>Location: </b>Hastsal village, near Uttam Nagar in west Delhi (Coordinates: 28°38'01.9"N 77°03'26.1"E)<br />Nearest Metro station: Uttam Nagar (West), approximately 1.2 kilometers away</div>
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<b>Nearest Bus stop: </b>Hastsal village. Regular bus and Grameen Seva shared cab services are available from nearby Uttam Nagar, Janakpuri, Vikaspuri, Nangloi Jat and Najafgarh.<br />
<b>How to reach: </b>Walk/avail a rickshaw from the bus stop/metro station. Ask locals for the "laat" and they will quickly provide the requisite directions.<br />
<b>Entrance fees:</b> Nil<br />
<b>Photography/Video charges: </b>Nil<br />
<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>20 min<br />
<b>Relevant links -</b><br />
<b>Other landmarks located in the vicinity -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/07/restaurant-review-barbeque-nation.html">Pixelated Memories - Barbeque Nation, Janakpuri - Restaurant review</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/10/ravana-making-in-tatarpur-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Tatarpur - Ravana effigy business</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/09/tihar-jail-graffiti-and-haat-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Tihar Jail - Graffiti and Haat</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Other Shahjahan-era monuments in Delhi -</b><br /><ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/06/jama-masjid-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Jama Masjid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/red-fort-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Red Fort</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Suggested reading -</b><br /><ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/anonymous/406453/">Indianexpress.com - Article "Hastsal Minar" (dated Jan 04, 2009) by Shambhu Sahu</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/history-and-culture/standing-not-so-tall/article507724.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "Standing not so tall" (dated July 09, 2010)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Mini-minar-in-big-mess-no-protection/articleshow/6972470.cms">Timesofindia.indiatimes.com - Article "Mini minar in big mess no protection" (dated Nov 23, 2010) by Richi Verma</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-57386099777590318692015-12-22T14:32:00.000+05:302015-12-22T14:32:19.712+05:30Panchalingeshwara Naganatheshwara Temple, Bangalore, Karnataka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><br />“My country! In thy days of glory past, a beauteous halo circled round thy brow<br />And worshiped as a deity thou wast – Where is thy glory, where the reverence now?</b></div>
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<b>Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last and groveling in the lowly dust art thou,</b></div>
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<b>Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee, save the sad story of thy misery!</b></div>
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<b>Let me dive into the depths of time and bring from out the ages that have rolled,</b></div>
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<b>A few small fragments of these wrecks sublime which human eye may never more behold</b></div>
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<b>And let the guerdon of my labour be, my fallen country! One kind wish for thee!”</b></div>
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<b>– Henry Louis Vivian Derozi</b>o, "To India - My Native Land"</div>
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Several highly embellished, possibly fabricated medieval tales popularly claim to hide in their outlandish bosoms the intriguing beginnings and the interesting nomenclature of the glittering glimmering city of Bangalore – one such fascinating tale recounts how the mighty Hoysala sovereign Veer Ballala II (reign AD 1173-1220), frustratingly lost in the impenetrable forests encircling Bangalore, was kindheartedly offered boiled beans by a poor old woman and gratefully christened the densely-forested area as "Bendakaluru" (literally, “City of Boiled beans”), which eventually evolved into “Bengaluru”; an alternate belief goes that the city derives its name from “Bengavaluru” (“City of Guards”) since here were provided accommodations for royal bodyguards servicing Ganga Dynasty (AD 350-1000) sovereigns; yet another fairly scientific theory however credits the enormous city’s perplexing nomenclature to a possibly vegetative origin and states that it was thus named because of the overwhelming presence of the deciduous Kino trees, locally referred to as “Benga”!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcnrHn7L8Wz78-dnQ1i1cUaK90i12Xf0PL-U0AtD0S_AZUo60MGNSQfYTBTHpPXX8x41Ehrohap1bmbWQJWWYeAORWjMxs-BF-ZKwXbdsLA5hOWNbRCZiR_pN-CdVFYacydNvnsX7uxzV/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcnrHn7L8Wz78-dnQ1i1cUaK90i12Xf0PL-U0AtD0S_AZUo60MGNSQfYTBTHpPXX8x41Ehrohap1bmbWQJWWYeAORWjMxs-BF-ZKwXbdsLA5hOWNbRCZiR_pN-CdVFYacydNvnsX7uxzV/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Spellbinding tranquility!</span></b></td></tr>
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Another bewitching lore enthrallingly recounts the curious construction of the formidable fortress and establishment of the finely planned city around it in AD 1537 by Hiriya Kempe Gowda I (ruled AD 1513-69), the Lord of Yelahanka principality (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/01/bangalore-fort-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalore Fort</a>). It is this one to which I too professed since I began exploring the magnificently ornamented monuments and eye-opening architectural heritage of Karnataka – a year later, the mesmerizing journey has come to fruitful (and unbelievably painful!) termination and it is time for me to return to Delhi beloved, but the last ancient monument I photographed and studied, painstakingly I must point out since it is miserably located in a very distant, perennially ignored corner of the otherwise shimmering city, has unquestionably defeated all the previous beliefs and folklores, notwithstanding how undeniably believable or how fiercely explicable they were, regarding Bangalore’s mysterious origins.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrxWeI9_bHcy4LPftirQdX6vUtlMnjHDqAR7Ocu_BRrBs5M5cEuktbLf4DNoISm8Y_CRKKdBvQTqLcgg5XOwZBIFSRffpafT34jOmkhOIPrOAh6KQdw-6ndJvnn2XdNFY8pmx3K21xme7/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZrxWeI9_bHcy4LPftirQdX6vUtlMnjHDqAR7Ocu_BRrBs5M5cEuktbLf4DNoISm8Y_CRKKdBvQTqLcgg5XOwZBIFSRffpafT34jOmkhOIPrOAh6KQdw-6ndJvnn2XdNFY8pmx3K21xme7/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Challenging established notions</span></b></td></tr>
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The gorgeously traditional Panchalingeshwara Naganatheshwara temple located in the underdeveloped, poverty-encrusted village of Chikkabegur off the Silk Board – Electronic City – Hosur highway happens to be a tiny ancient edifice superficially embellished and unremarkably drenched in myriads of brilliant hues on several occasions throughout its over 1150-year history and is encircled on all sides by multistoried, vividly painted, box-like residential apartments not any different from the millions of buildings littering Bangalore’s overpopulated landscape except that the backbreaking, undulating roads leading to this unexceptional agglomeration of ubiquitous residential spaces are so thoroughly pockmarked and crumbling to featureless oblivion that every moving object – human, vehicle and animal alike – reaches the beautiful temple complex in the all-enveloping midst of an irritating dust cloud of their own making consistently proportional to their own physical dimensions and velocity. Heralded by the enormous Begur Lake and three vividly painted, towering pyramidal gateways (“Gopuram”) displaying a mind-blowing collection of celestial guards, fearsome mythological deities and mythical anthropomorphic entities intertwined with religious pattern work and geometric and floral leitmotifs, the unbelievably simplistic, architecturally austere shrine is altogether a picture of tremendous contrast not merely to the gigantic soaring buildings colonizing Bangalore but also its own three multi-hued, artistically flamboyant, recently constructed gateways (the dexterous stonemasons as well as the traditional artists, all are Muslims – there goes the country's recently manifested and fiercely debated religious intolerance!).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zlaAQUd1e9zG7K1OTPCX-1uQwUc77J4LaTGFMvo7db0Q8LeNk90cGIrSjrXSs45ZwAwwefB_4ieOCC48N3euE5-D8ds8wy0zDyXvyK66MzLf7OTQEk__IxlGbd9f4gxJlWvINWwVeE6d/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zlaAQUd1e9zG7K1OTPCX-1uQwUc77J4LaTGFMvo7db0Q8LeNk90cGIrSjrXSs45ZwAwwefB_4ieOCC48N3euE5-D8ds8wy0zDyXvyK66MzLf7OTQEk__IxlGbd9f4gxJlWvINWwVeE6d/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The forced imposition of modernity</span></b></td></tr>
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Said to have been constructed around AD 860 during the rule of Western Ganga Dynasty sovereign Ereganga Nitimarga I (reign AD 843-70) with further structural and religious additions commissioned by Ereyappa Ereganga Nitimarga II (reign AD 907-21), the exemplar shrine is said to be a handsome epitome of Ganga Dynasty architecture, further embellished during the rule of Rajakesarivarman Kulothunga Chola I (reign AD 1070-1122) and Raja Raja Chola II (reign AD 1146-73) with elaborate Chola Dynasty (reign 300 BC – 1279 AD) artistic and sculptural idioms including representations of "Kirtimukha" (the ferociously wide fanged, lion-like face of an all-consuming demon conceived and originated out of thin air by Lord Shiva to destroy other, mightier demons) and "Makara" (entities possessing the body of a fish, the face and tusks of an elephant, the limbs of a lion and the tail of a peacock).</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDrU1cn3FhwsZQclX1C1__nKn1Ipzdx2aMWpe4gNgVF1bouMbXuZefwYH2ZoIDQxaBCXridIMI0U4OZN7GlpQrVZQuhWw0i64aqwdL2R-DqJL02pVmoY58PiNKxXsUbw9XNWLhVLm_07y/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoDrU1cn3FhwsZQclX1C1__nKn1Ipzdx2aMWpe4gNgVF1bouMbXuZefwYH2ZoIDQxaBCXridIMI0U4OZN7GlpQrVZQuhWw0i64aqwdL2R-DqJL02pVmoY58PiNKxXsUbw9XNWLhVLm_07y/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Piercing the skyline</b></span></td></tr>
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Apart from the three exquisitely painted, intricately designed gateways (one of these a sparkling golden furiously reflecting the brilliant sunshine) and the numerous subsidiary shrines dedicated to minor mythological deities and serpent divinities associated with fertility rituals and childbirth, the two identical granite shrines are widely renowned for their traditional layered architecture adorned with multi-patterned pilasters and smaller figurines of Lord Shiva (the Hindu God of death and destruction to whom these temples are dedicated) and his bull demigod mount Nandi (patron of spirituality and religious commitment). Nageshwara, Nagareshwara, Choleshwara, Kameshwara and Kamateshwara are the five forms (Panchalinga) of Lord Shiva religiously venerated here.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy03_voUhGWN3rKsXFM-mdKrvNQEhLOXSp99JINOzjrgSCUA5IQu9EzVjpIzLD9tqPHFsYeHo-X86_LA_f-Wd9_tO5Jh0XkIZZCKh0ntdq0nft7bCgu6xGveqUtQpReiix5pub3LneBcQc/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy03_voUhGWN3rKsXFM-mdKrvNQEhLOXSp99JINOzjrgSCUA5IQu9EzVjpIzLD9tqPHFsYeHo-X86_LA_f-Wd9_tO5Jh0XkIZZCKh0ntdq0nft7bCgu6xGveqUtQpReiix5pub3LneBcQc/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ancient textures</span></b></td></tr>
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Numerous stone epigraphs and Veergallu inscriptions (commemorating eminent soldier-warriors and efficient generals) miserably lie scattered in different stages of ruination around the historically unique shrine, expounding mythical tales from ancient Hindu epics as well as extolling the unparalleled courage and battle worthiness of military commanders and regal personal guards – one such intricately sculpted stone plaque agelessly celebrating a fierce battle fought in the year 890 between King Ereyappa Ereganga and Nolamba King Bira-Mahendra (whose fearsome elephant battalions were efficiently commandeered by his son Ayyapadeva Nolamba) notes the existence of Bengaluru ruled by a Jain feudal officer named Nagattara within the domain of the Ganga supremacy –<br />
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<b><b>“Bengaluru kalaghadhol buttana setti satta</b>m”<br />(“In the Battle of Bangalore, Buttana Setti died.”)</b><br />
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The obdurate locals stubbornly prevent conservation authorities from relocating these epigraph inscriptions to museums believing that malevolent spirits and bad fortune would accrue in the village if these are even slightly disturbed – thus the continuous exposure to the relentless ravages of ruthless nature.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2f_N9189oZXz6lZ3HZsMluVDFmiITS-5CnP9Ug_Lu-D40zDdyTiXjvX_aMI6imxffVUA0VDgX0lTW_bU_vTxpdlOBOucWkIGUB32ZjSfHsnHqp0T_Ml0x7W5jzAfULz0WtT2prQkMFHqg/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2f_N9189oZXz6lZ3HZsMluVDFmiITS-5CnP9Ug_Lu-D40zDdyTiXjvX_aMI6imxffVUA0VDgX0lTW_bU_vTxpdlOBOucWkIGUB32ZjSfHsnHqp0T_Ml0x7W5jzAfULz0WtT2prQkMFHqg/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="font-size: large;">History's mystery?</span></b></td></tr>
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Thanks to the perennial construction enveloping the tiny village on all sides, one of the faces of the massive lake nearby has been transmogrified into an incredible stretch of multi-rise residential apartments and commercial buildings totally foreign to the underdeveloped, semi-rural landscape, and amidst such development the magnificent colorful shrine, inexplicably peaceful and very strongly fragrant with the aromas of incense and camphor, is an ethereal site of soothing peacefulness and serenity, tranquil enough to attract hundreds of waterbirds that contentedly frolic in the hyacinth-shrouded purple-blue waters of the immense lake opposite and noiseless enough to nearly soothe every single visitor to an undisturbed calmness and facilitate uninterrupted conversations with one’s own self especially during the commotion-free afternoon hours.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKcQD33IZJU47g8lXlDWN8Qa3kSAHxGFQLjm9ofY1MpmdvabK3mlGPFj7Gd9-HgqC1j0Zv0DgisvD0VwQ0Od25IaexDOoz4Ku1TqWyKca3_mIrfUiLXQMgoOKYRHcPCqoQ18vtUSuVmc4o/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKcQD33IZJU47g8lXlDWN8Qa3kSAHxGFQLjm9ofY1MpmdvabK3mlGPFj7Gd9-HgqC1j0Zv0DgisvD0VwQ0Od25IaexDOoz4Ku1TqWyKca3_mIrfUiLXQMgoOKYRHcPCqoQ18vtUSuVmc4o/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Unassuming simplicity</span></b></td></tr>
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But Begur, originally referred to as “Behuru” (“City of Spies”) since here lived the most efficient spies prominently employed by the Ganga Dynasty sovereigns, apparently does not wish to continue being existential in a state of erstwhile skeletal glory – the immense stretch of unutilized area is rapidly giving itself to burgeoning urbanization and avaricious commercialization, modern-day shimmering glass-and-concrete buildings are rapidly piercing the contourless skyline, gigantic resort-like educational institutions such as the Manipal Institute, offering diplomas in banking, financial institutions and corporate investments, encircled by numerous mouthwatering continental cafes and delectable coffeehouses, and lastly, large gated communities enclosed by massive periphery walls and ostentatiously christened Royal Castle, Lakeview Apartments, Wellington Paradise and Regal County are mushrooming in every direction one looks to. It is unreservedly stimulating to know that despite striving to catch up in the race of globalization and urbanized development, the perennially ignored settlement continues to supply reputed historians and archaeologists with rich layers of epigraphical material instrumental in sifting through impenetrable webs of millennium-old folk history and highly embroidered tales to decisively extricate the city's curious history and unequaled identity.</div>
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P.S: The sumptuously delectable white-sauce pasta and tremendously calorie-laden chicken burgers at cafe Magic Oven, prominently located close to the intersection of the Bangalore-Hosur highway and Manipal County road, is definitely worth an irresistible detour.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFqmsTBTjyRdUMKhwhgb98UrGbcgV-3JWMv0fc-FRHlfr_EF_zrLkDlolOvX3qKyqKBqhHfs8ec3kv-q32KQje9vxUPxTEYvB_U3obvsapWuCN4G7rA5QwoPYx1Gr5pwFIqp41GzIZJDN3/s1600/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFqmsTBTjyRdUMKhwhgb98UrGbcgV-3JWMv0fc-FRHlfr_EF_zrLkDlolOvX3qKyqKBqhHfs8ec3kv-q32KQje9vxUPxTEYvB_U3obvsapWuCN4G7rA5QwoPYx1Gr5pwFIqp41GzIZJDN3/s640/Nageshwara+Temple+Begur+Bangalore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Mouthwatering!</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, sunrise to sunset<br />
<b>Location: </b>Chikkabegur locality, Begur village, off Bangalore-Hosur highway<br />
<b>Nearest Bus stop: </b>Singhasandra, couple of kilometers from Bommanahalli<br />
<b>How to reach: </b>All BMTC buses plying to Electronic City from Silk Board, Majestic (Kempegowda Bus Stand) and Koramangala stop at Singhasandra. Irregular private buses are also available from Madiwala junction. The shrine is located approximately 3 kilometers from Singhasandra past Manipal County educational campus. Walk/avail an auto to reach the same.<br /><b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil<br /><b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil <br /><b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>30 min<br /><b>Relevant links -</b><br />
<b>Other monuments/landmarks located in Bangalore -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/01/bangalore-fort-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalo</a><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/01/bangalore-fort-bangalore.html">re Fort</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/04/bangalore-palace-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Bangalore Palace</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/02/jama-masjid-and-dargah-hazrat-bahadur.html">Pixelated Memories - Jama Masjid and Dargah Hazrat Bahadur Khan Shaheed</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/02/lal-bagh-botanical-gardens-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/02/sir-puttanachetty-town-hall-bangalore.html">Pixelated Memories - Sir Puttanachetty Town Hall</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/02/tipu-sultans-palace-and-kote.html">Pixelated Memories - Tipu Sultan's Palace and Kote Venkataramana Temple</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Suggested reading -</b><br /><ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/others/Veeragallu-stones-will-stay-put-in-Begur/articleshow/47376322.cms">Bangaloremirror.com - Article "Veeragallu stones will stay put in Begur" (dated May 22, 2015) by Kushala S</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bangaloretourism.org/bangalore-Begur-Nageshvara-Temple.php">Bangaloretourism.org - Nageshvara Temple - Begur, Bangalore</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.puzha.com/puzha/selfpublish/1092802792.html">Puzha.com - Sri Pancha Lingaeshwara Temple, Begur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-neighbourhood/a-citys-secrets-etched-in-stone/article3255872.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "A city's secrets etched in stone" (dated March 28, 2012) by Pushpa Achanta</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore">Wikipedia.org - Bangalore</a></li>
</ol>
<br />
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-5630382683411447302015-12-07T16:37:00.000+05:302016-01-18T19:06:04.680+05:30Kedareshwara Temple and Jain Basadis, Halebidu, Karnataka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“As the cradle of the human race, southern Asia would alone have a dim and reverential feeling connected with it... No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous, and capricious superstitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate religions of Indostan, &c. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, modes of faith, &c., is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual.”</b><br />
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<b style="text-align: right;">– Thomas De Quincey, “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” (1821)</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpf6nB4fIX6iMJYi3qBOa0hJdMb4_C3ghpF9jhfnrChGH6m4gyUf-cnxH8STt-6xNYSAYHpByjWvvB0klezVZizIntgjFZIhxbJgp4A0CABsG4iIZg2MGyweePTkYE_o_jvpwzQmcquOve/s1600/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpf6nB4fIX6iMJYi3qBOa0hJdMb4_C3ghpF9jhfnrChGH6m4gyUf-cnxH8STt-6xNYSAYHpByjWvvB0klezVZizIntgjFZIhxbJgp4A0CABsG4iIZg2MGyweePTkYE_o_jvpwzQmcquOve/s640/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Forbiddingly dark, appealingly photoshopped - Parshvanatha Basadi</span></b></td></tr>
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It had poured tremendously the entire night and consequentially the beautiful pink-blue early morning was chillier than usual. The still undisturbed landscape, lethargically being tinted yellow-green by feeble rays of sunshine twinkling and sparkling like otherworldly diamonds against tiny water droplets immovably lodged amidst leaves and foliage, was awash with telltale earthly fragrances indelibly associated with any respectable countryside – the distasteful, yet strangely attractive, odor of water-drenched rotting wood and plant waste coupled with that of fresh cowdung littered about, the unmistakably rural wood smoke drifting around and thoroughly enveloping a few households and, piercing it all, the uplifting aroma emanating from sugarcane and paddy fields interspersed by fragrant flower-bearing weeds and wildflowers. Even more pristine at this early hour than its idyllic reputation would foretell, Halebidu, formerly referred to as “Dwarasamudra”, the celebrated capital of the distinguished Hoysala sovereigns (reign AD 1026-1343 over most of Karnataka and parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh), was slowly beginning to rouse from its undisturbed soundless slumber. Lined along the streets, several of the bovine species sat contentedly ruminating and uninterestedly regarding the languid appearance of orange-red sun streaks on the horizon. Goaded into action by the sudden realization of querulous crows and roosters spontaneously awakening with daybreak, a few mangy dogs sprinted about collecting whatever rotten leftovers they could. Only the majestic eagles appeared to have conscientiously taken to heart the adage “Early bird gets the first worm” and were already gracefully reconnoitering in successively loftier circles the immense green fields.<br />
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Couple of hundred meters from the astonishingly gorgeous Hoysaleswara Temple, the foremost of the remarkably conceived, meticulously sculpted and architecturally unsurpassed Hoysala-era shrines dotting Karnataka’s indescribably verdant vast landscape, I stood opposite another cluster of sanctified shrines of Hindu and Jain denomination, assiduously designed, extraordinarily executed, similarly ornamented, physically smaller, equally historic, and yet far less renowned, in fact nearly irredeemably forgotten, vis-à-vis their enormous magnificent neighbor.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8sjGMP-lPRvX9mVh-itzZ1IeVhctG-f1dwYv9MjXAh2uMCcvNCfARNRWW0Bg89uCK0QmmUbi928q3dLQUJxt1hV7xQSsIIW6QJkjnLIVhXLN4RAXiql2c0NXFzJuxyaCFTqKoUvovI6t9/s1600/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8sjGMP-lPRvX9mVh-itzZ1IeVhctG-f1dwYv9MjXAh2uMCcvNCfARNRWW0Bg89uCK0QmmUbi928q3dLQUJxt1hV7xQSsIIW6QJkjnLIVhXLN4RAXiql2c0NXFzJuxyaCFTqKoUvovI6t9/s640/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Minimalist - 180° panorama depicting (left to right) the Brahma Stambha, Shantinatha Basadi, Adinatha Basadi and Parshvanatha Basadi</span></b></td></tr>
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The first self-effacing cluster, whose discontinuous construction was initiated during the supremacy of Hoysala sovereign Bittideva Vishnuvardhana (reign AD 1108-52), comprises three austerely ornamented Jain shrines ("Jinalaya"/"Basadi") composed of rudimentarily sculpted resilient granite intermittently interspersed by intricately ornate decorative panels and exquisitely polished lathe-turned pillars. Also existential within the limited peripheries of the small compound enclosing this cluster are an irregular zigzag-shaped sacred step-well (“pushkarni”) and a soaring 20-feet tall “Brahma stambha” pillar which unmistakably indicates the existence of a consecrated Jain site. The shrines, heralded by a huge, partially ruinous but excellently conserved and restored gateway and a Kannada inscription inscribed on a massive stone also depicting representations of a seated Jain Tirthankar (lit., “ford-maker”, omniscient spiritual teachers who attained liberty from the terrible cycle of rebirths and worldly attachment by fierce contemplative meditation, unremitting emphasis on non-violence, and the renunciation of worldly relationships and responsibilities) flanked by fly-whisk bearing celestial attendants, even though architecturally and artistically terribly austere and traditional, nonetheless undeniably succeed in impressing a casual visitor through their graceful humility and abhorrence of pretentious flamboyance.</div>
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It was also in Emperor Vishnuvardhana’s glorious reign that the aforementioned evocatively spellbinding Hindu shrine dedicated to Sri Hoysaleswara, and also the similarly magnificent one dedicated to Sri Chennakesava at Belur nearby, were conceived and commissioned (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a>). Jain faith too found unequivocal resonance in his immense empire since he originally adhered dutifully to that faith, and his ethereally beautiful Queen Shantala Devi afterwards too continued to sincerely believe in and plentifully patronize Jainism despite his conversion.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Symbolism - Doorjamb, Parshvanatha Basadi </span></b></td></tr>
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Dedicated to the legendary twenty-third Tirthankara Parshvanatha (BC 872-772) and therefore unimaginatively christened “Vijaya Parshvanatha Jinalaya” (although it was originally acknowledged by the nomenclature “Dhrohagharatta Jinalaya”), the first shrine, physically grander and artistically significantly better refined than the other two, is preceded by a large, freestanding pillared hallway and possesses embossed on its doorjamb an exquisitely intricate depiction of a tiny seated figure of a long-eared Tirthankara superimposed with three successively smaller umbrellas above his head and a voluptuous, richly attired, heavenly attendant on either flank bearing regal yak-tail flywhisks. Against the wall rest several large stone tablets delicately carved with similar religious representations and engraved with numerous medieval inscriptions chronologically recounting the commission and construction of the shrine in AD 1133 by Boppadeva in loving memory of his father Gangaraja, a high-ranking minister in the illustrious court of Emperor Vishnuvardhana, and the subsequent financial donations and structural and ornamental additions to it.</div>
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The initial disappointment, if any, upon exploring the understated exteriors of the shrines instantaneously dissipates on stepping within. Originally, the drop-dead gorgeous interiors were illuminated only by minute streams of sunlight tracing their way in through the formidably set entrance, however presently numerous high-wattage fluorescent lamps have been embedded along the indentations and sharp vertexes defining the extensively conceived roof designs. Nonetheless, the unrelentingly grim severity of darkness further accentuates the forbiddingly straight vertical and horizontal lines that define the numerous deftly designed stone pillars that support the immensely heavy roof and are tantalizingly decorated with ornate strings of sculpted trinkets and meshwork patterns, but it also succeeds in blurring all but the most prominent of the methodically detailed nature of the delicately carved stone roof that graces the hallway preceding the sanctum.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsTqkztunO0cT8Pmd1QKrzlBvUI_SOgWM5GsP8VjtWsshF4juZzpqIA65A9n_1xvEszlYxCFFiQsO4bguPuKunRYs2ajES1Ct08UrK2JYrT_0MmPww-zl8OiiaU_11V5NlvkmXgD6JaygJ/s1600/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsTqkztunO0cT8Pmd1QKrzlBvUI_SOgWM5GsP8VjtWsshF4juZzpqIA65A9n_1xvEszlYxCFFiQsO4bguPuKunRYs2ajES1Ct08UrK2JYrT_0MmPww-zl8OiiaU_11V5NlvkmXgD6JaygJ/s640/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Flawless symmetry - Subsidiary shrine, Parshvanatha Basadi</span></b></td></tr>
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In the constricted sanctum, almost frighteningly rises wraith-like an enormous 18-feet tall, eerily glistening grey-black sculpture of Tirthankara Parshvanatha compassionately smiling, standing entirely naked against an exceptionally magnificently designed, highly symmetrical archway interposed with an enormous slithering seven-hooded serpent which also reverentially forms a protective canopy above the Lord to shield him from the elements. That the meager sunlight streaming through the cavernous entrance, which is equally proportioned as the massive sculpture, so brightly illuminates the latter that it almost perceptibly glows amidst the terrifyingly blinding darkness somehow initially proves intimidating, invoking a singular aura of being as emotionally threatening as visually mesmerizingly.<br />
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Except for the spatial dimensions of the considerably narrow, pillared hallway preceding it, the Shantinatha Basadi is almost equally proportioned, identically conceived and likewise ornamented as the Parshvanatha Basadi. Consecrated to the gold-complexioned sixteenth Tirthankara Shantinatha (who supposedly lived for over 50,000 years 10^194 years ago!!), it was commissioned in AD 1196 by an affluent merchant Madhukanna Vijayanna during the reign of Emperor Vishnuvardhana’s grandson Hoysala Veer Ballala II (reign AD 1173-1220), however it’s explicitly contended that the inelegant pillared hallway composed of unsophisticatedly rough-hewn granite was constructed during the culturally renowned Vijayanagar Dynasty reign (AD 1336-1646). Curiously, the entirety’s massive spatial extent regressively reduces the adjacently located, considerably smaller, far simplistically intended and rudimentarily crafted Adinatha Basadi, which it almost physically embraces, to the visual impression of being forcefully and asymmetrically wedged between its two larger contemporaries despite it being commissioned decades earlier in AD 1138 by Devara Heggade Mallimayya, another eminent minister in the distinguished court of Emperor Vishnuvardhana.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Medieval impressions - Commemorative inscription, Adinatha Basadi</span></b></td></tr>
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Compared to the dexterously sculpted Parshvanatha Basadi, Shantinatha Basadi is a significantly simpler affair, both internally and externally, in terms of additional decorative appendages such as exquisitely carved decorative panels and the artistic nature of the 18-feet high hallowed sculpture deified in the congested, extraordinarily dark sanctum. Along the roof-level of the aforementioned pillared hallway are employed as restrained adornments fairly rounded, markedly well-spaced and singularly thick “kangura” patterns (battlement-like ornamentation).<br />
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The Karnataka circle of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) deserves to be highly commended for preserving and restoring these historic monuments as well as excellently maintaining the limited grass-shrouded space around them. The diligent caretakers employed too consider their duties as essential public service and perform them laudably conscientiously. What is most impressive however, which I’m sure any adherent to the essentially non-violent and all-embracing tenets of Jainism will indulgently approve, is that even though high-wattage fluorescent lights have been meticulously installed within the shrines to highlight their unique artistic adornments and architectural features, none have been mounted within the constricted sanctums where numberless tiny bats still continue to cheerfully roost and ceaselessly chirrup.<br />
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Displaying an unparalleled excellence of artistic conception and decorative embellishment including a spatially stellar geometric structure, a dense abundance of detailed representations of mythical entities, mythological deities and anthropomorphic creatures, and an overspilling profusion of dexterously carved, highly adorned sculptures festooned with flawless jewelry and religious symbolism, the Kedareshwara temple is located very slightly more than a stone’s throw away from the surprisingly simplistic Jain Basadi cluster. A beautiful exemplar of consummate Dravidian architecture, it is dedicated to Lord Shiva, the Hindu God of death and destruction, and was jointly commissioned in AD 1219 by Emperor Veer Ballala II and his famous queen Abhinava Ketaladevi.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Unequaled - The Kedareshwara Temple</b></span></td></tr>
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I shall only briefly touch upon enumerating the unique considerations exhibited by the Hoysala's Hinduism-oriented architecture since the same have been several times previously comprehensively described on this blog. Immediately conspicuous here too is the diligent attention to the minutest of ornamental details introduced by the extraordinarily accomplished artists, the overindulgence of the representation of imaginary entities like “Makara” (entities possessing the body of a fish, the face and tusks of an elephant, the limbs of a lion and the tail of a peacock) and “Kirtimukha” (the ferociously wide fanged, lion-like face of an all-consuming demon conceived and originated out of thin air by Lord Shiva to destroy other, mightier demons), the incredibly fantastical number of beyond-belief gorgeous sculptures of mythological deities and mythical anthropomorphic entities employed along the exterior surface barely below the layered-roof delineation and the composition of the hallowed superstructure’s colossal base comprising an outstanding variety of individualistic tiny horizontal columns (counting vertically upwards – charging elephants, fearsome lions, mounted horses, mythical “Makara” and beautiful swans respectively symbolizing insurmountable stability, formidable strength, matchless agility, unchallenged might and elegant grace; intermittently punctuated by extravagant flourishes of floral foliage scrolls and creepers and miniaturized discontinuous depictions of tales from the epics Ramayana, Mahabharata and the various Puranas, followed eventually in their turn by an exaggerated mesh work of small arched alcoves inset with tens of hundreds of smaller inconsequential deities, celestial dancers and divine devotees). The smaller images give way to larger sculptures, each an exemplar not only of unparalleled sculptural art, but also of excellent ancient mythological fables that even precisely specify how a deity is to be visually depicted and which weapon and which facial expression and bodily movement symbolically represents what action and which boon-bestowing capability!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Poetry in stone (V5.0)</span></b></td></tr>
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On the walls are carved massive sculptures of several Hindu deities and their numerous different incarnations, most prominent being Lord Vishnu, the God of life and nourishment, and Lord Shiva, the God of death and destruction – thus there is the anthropomorphic, boar-faced Varaha mightily lifting Earth Goddess Bhudevi from the sea of ether after defeating the demons who had imprisoned her; the benevolent, boon-bestowing, omniscient aspect of Lord Vishnu flanked on either side by his wives Bhudevi and Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity; the ten-faced, ten-armed intellectual demon King Ravana of Lanka attempting to physically lift the massive Kailasha mountain, the abode of Lord Shiva; the supremely gifted archer-warlord Arjuna; the ten-armed Goddess Durga, a fierce manifestation of primordial feminine energy, piercing the body of buffalo-demon Mahishasura with her intimidatingly long trident; several representations of Lord Shiva furnishing his terrific trident and celestial drum and indulging in “Tandava” (the destructive dance of universal obliteration); Goddess Kali, the unruly manifestation of primordial feminine energy who reigns supreme over sexual acts and inclinations and death and destruction, being reverentially worshipped with musical instruments by cadaverous ghouls as she unusually exclaims with regret and shyness upon unknowingly stepping on her prostrate husband Lord Shiva; Lord Krishna (aka “Govardhana Girdhari” or “The Lifter of Mount Govardhana”), the ostentatious playboy-strategist-statesman-cow herder-warrior-philosopher who supposedly lived some 5,000 years ago and is regarded as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, physically lifting the mountain Govardhana to shield the inhabitants of his domain from a merciless hammering of fierce hailstorms invoked by indomitable demon lords; and Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed, pot-bellied God of auspiciousness, knowledge and beginnings. My personal favorite, as always, remains “Gajasurasamhara”/“Gajacharmambaradhari” – six-armed, combative Lord Shiva wielding numerous weapons of death and devastation while dancing blissfully upon the decapitated head of the slain elephant-demon Gajasura whose flayed hide he triumphantly raises and brandishes as an enormous cloak while his followers gaze wide-eyed terrified and deferential.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSZnEHw6tGKUCExoEoPdMKUx_X5OBSZauB1vgRFzVuslnIwranRGDvg0vuUmApyxBRFaoh21i2IhYQiS5my0fmGx7YY8Tmf5MzGOrcLjp6TM40I9MvF9axUJR6jMG3aElxExJ34vryHnl/s1600/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSZnEHw6tGKUCExoEoPdMKUx_X5OBSZauB1vgRFzVuslnIwranRGDvg0vuUmApyxBRFaoh21i2IhYQiS5my0fmGx7YY8Tmf5MzGOrcLjp6TM40I9MvF9axUJR6jMG3aElxExJ34vryHnl/s640/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">"Gajasurasamhara" - The ecstasy of a triumphant God (V4.0)</span></b></td></tr>
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The marvelous shrine’s and consequentially the sculptures’ smaller, more human, dimensions succinctly allowed the outstandingly accomplished craftsmen-sculptors to dexterously execute astonishingly vividly detailed artworks and exceedingly convoluted foliage flourishes and jewelry. What is more interesting however is the sartorial treatment of several of the more prominent sculptures – indeed numerous portrayals of Lord Shiva have been represented unclothed, except for extensive headgear and layers upon layers of slithering snakes and serpentine foliage not very differential from each other, therefore exposing his genitalia (more often than not, like numerous other exceedingly elegant sculptures, incorrigibly damaged and disfigured by the fiercely fanatical-iconoclast Muslim armies led by Malik Kafur, the ferociously barbaric eunuch General of Sultan Alauddin Khilji (reign AD 1296-1316) of Delhi Sultanate, who invaded and pitilessly ravaged Halebidu).</div>
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The road leading to the enviable shrines literally terminates at the sacred complex’s enclosing peripheries and beyond it begin ceaseless bountiful vibrant green fields. Adoringly gazing at the exceedingly delicate shrine while leaving, I could not help immediately reflecting that in numerous figurative ways too, it is indeed the end of the road. Historically, the breathtaking shrine can be chronologically considered one of the last Hoysala-era achievements and can unquestionably be regarded as cherished among its foremost distillations of miniaturization sculptural ornamentation. Little did I realize however that it would prove an agonizing end of road for me as well and soon I shall be leaving charismatic Karnataka for the immensely well-tread pathways of my beloved Delhi. I nostalgically hope to return someday.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfv5caEnL4UX_avLnqkkBGcDrnZNth4GifI3ZzY2qHepP5B5B2w08eLAOaQedUIHUP4Zh6mbCUO0VrCy0rSVRsWTCtNs2lZTMK2qVRY8uI7PQB3PNJh3o4H_ejIURH8N6iVVVqf-ItQ9ZO/s1600/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfv5caEnL4UX_avLnqkkBGcDrnZNth4GifI3ZzY2qHepP5B5B2w08eLAOaQedUIHUP4Zh6mbCUO0VrCy0rSVRsWTCtNs2lZTMK2qVRY8uI7PQB3PNJh3o4H_ejIURH8N6iVVVqf-ItQ9ZO/s640/Kedareshwara+Jain+Basadi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Reconnoitering</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Basadihalli, approximately 500 meters from Halebidu bus stop.</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Hassan is accessible from different parts of Karnataka by regular KSRTC bus and Indian Railways train services. It is approximately 180 kilometers or five hours away by road from Bangalore. From Hassan, Halebidu is located about 32 kilometers or roughly one hour away by bus at the end of a journey that does take one on certain thoroughly pockmarked stretches of road winding through hill-flanked barren plains and fields. The bus service between Hassan and Halebidu is however not very regular and one might occasionally have to wait up to 30 minutes.</div>
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From Halebidu bus stop, keep walking towards the right for about 300 meters until you encounter another road branching off towards the left. Follow that road to reach the two temple complexes located almost adjacent in a straight line. The road terminates at Kedareshwara temple.</div>
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<b>Open: </b>Everyday, 8 am – 5 pm. On the occasional Sunday however, the part-time ASI caretaker, part-time knowledgeable guide at the Jain Basadi complex (though he vehemently refuses to accept pecuniary benefits for his generous assistance) might arrive around 8.30 am. The straightforward interiors of Kedareshwara temple are presently kept perennially locked and one can only look within through the iron grille.</div>
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<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil<br />
<b>Photography/Video charges: </b>Nil<br />
<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>45 min each<br />
<b>Remarks – </b>Footwear are not allowed inside the temples and have to be left outside. No toilets and drinking water facilities are available here, but the same can be availed at Halebidu bus stop/Hoysaleswara temple complex.<br />
<b>Relevant Links -</b></div>
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<b>Other Hoysala-era shrines in Karnataka -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/sri-pataleshwara-temple-belur-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Pataleshwara Temple, Belur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/11/sri-prasanna-chennakesava-temple.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Prasanna Chennakesava Temple, Somnathpura</a></li>
</ol>
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<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/220041/halebeedu-jain-basadi-cries-attention.html">Deccanherald.com - Article "Halebeedu Jain basadi cries for attention" (dated Jan 17, 2012)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fullstopindia.com/kedareswara-temple-off-the-beaten-path-in-halebid/">Fullstopindia.com - Kedareswara Temple: Off The Beaten Path in Halebid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.jainworld.com/education/juniors/junles03.htm">Jainworld.com - 24 Tirthankaras</a></li>
<li><a href="http://karnatakatravelogue.blogspot.in/2013/01/kedareshwara-temple-and-parshwanatha.html">Karnatakatravelogue.blogspot.in - Kedareshwara temple and Parshwanatha Jain Basadi of Halebid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-districtplus/incredibly-beautiful-but-simply-ignored/article508049.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "Incredibly beautiful, but simply ignored" (dated July 10, 2010) by Shama Sunder</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishabhanatha">Wikipedia.org - Adinatha (Rishabhanatha)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parshvanatha">Wikipedia.org - Parshvanatha</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantinatha">Wikipedia.org - Shantinatha</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veera_Ballala_II">Wikipedia.org - Veera Ballala II</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-65531588923254268522015-12-01T17:06:00.002+05:302017-11-05T00:35:39.417+05:30Talakadu, Mysore, Karnataka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“I travelled a lot once, but you can go on doing that and not get anywhere. Wherever you go or whatever you do, most of your life will have to happen in your mind. And there’s no escape from that little room!”</b></div>
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<b>– Ruskin Bond, “Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra” (1991) </b></div>
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A city, no matter how miniscule or how fervently explored, can rarely ever be entirely depleted of its numerous spellbinding tales – some endearingly regaling, others unforgettably horrific, almost all of them ceaselessly striving to explain the commissioning of a medieval edifice, or the continuation of an ancient custom, or the destruction and devastation of others. Nor can a city ever truly be exhausted of its myriad visual compositions, gratifying gastronomic corners and haunting portraitures both of the melancholy of socio-economic oppressions and the sudden brimming jovialness of life that it is undeniably composed of. And an individual even ever so slightly grazed by the travel-bug can rarely ever stop seeking not just the magnificent edifices and the mouthwatering gastronomic hubs but also the perplexing folktales and the seemingly implausible myths for one gradually dawns on the blissful enlightenment that every single place, no matter how superficially regular or conventionally unstimulating, is always brimming just slightly below the surface with a perennial supply of bewildering lore and the remarkable shared wisdom of the communities that relentlessly demands to be meticulously discovered and lovingly shared.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEey3ZRGYmxYPZv59apMYVyOwNS5rREdS3ugFUk-D5-TAb37qOsy10gVCXn7XwTnLY8Ou6naq0chk_yZQ9VNGJKWRCFS4pkvEOverpHAA_UuYkwtV2-L8YZUfq5zW_JSdIRfrDLW94JYP/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEey3ZRGYmxYPZv59apMYVyOwNS5rREdS3ugFUk-D5-TAb37qOsy10gVCXn7XwTnLY8Ou6naq0chk_yZQ9VNGJKWRCFS4pkvEOverpHAA_UuYkwtV2-L8YZUfq5zW_JSdIRfrDLW94JYP/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ancient grandeur recreated - Keertinarayana temple</b><b> </b></span></td></tr>
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Of course there are by-passes and escape routes for whenever one does eventually decide to terminate the dream-like sojourn, but how can one ever stop exploring, stop discovering both the mesmerizing country and one’s own deep philosophical self? How can one not look forward to the next (hopefully everlasting) journey, the next multihued sunset, the next tranquil beach front and the next unbelievably sensational tale? Soon enough one begins to derive indescribable pleasure from living out of tiny suitcases, the soothing cradle-like locomotion of buses and trains legitimately lulls one to peaceful slumber better than any bed can and the thrilling provocation in the knowledge of one’s own steadfast endurance associated with the intermittent terrifying vulnerability arising from not understanding a language or a place’s milieu, geographic, socio-cultural or otherwise, becomes an interminable addiction.<br />
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But continuous ceaseless travel can often become harrowingly lonely. One is obliged to surrender the comforts of a conformist life, the cherished company of family and friends and, indeed, it demands the investment of a considerable sum of time and capital without any particularly conspicuous dividends except of course what one carries within one’s own self – and yet, the sudden irresistible conversations with complete strangers commuting on public transport, the exploration of myriads of cuisines, fragrances, visual compositions and monumental edifices, the enviable ability to hop on/off buses and trains and run off unrestricted wherever one wishes to, one becomes bewitched so irrevocably that one can never log off. Ever. There always are more embellished myths to be unraveled, intriguing narratives to be interwoven, cities and states to be charted, medieval artistic and architectural accomplishments to be marveled at – soon enough superfluous conversations begin to seem disagreeable, life becomes a continuous adventure and, despite the occasional heartfelt pangs at not having someone one can curl up with over long-distance journeys, one comes to realize that all one actually requires in this pursuit of happiness are earphones, cameras, a bucket load of money, lots of well-detailed maps and full-fledged travel ideas!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfaKSs2Nup_YcSdN1n8Jh8P-1kZWdYkkmbEKsN-VWUbQ815dX3lo4dqIGR4WUT1sIiDTr0zqJc6DpixywhSxXoy3tGg54yitDqMtBZe73NiOcQBLBg2WZykmJBrfXdAnX5vHKV1y1MYAYW/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfaKSs2Nup_YcSdN1n8Jh8P-1kZWdYkkmbEKsN-VWUbQ815dX3lo4dqIGR4WUT1sIiDTr0zqJc6DpixywhSxXoy3tGg54yitDqMtBZe73NiOcQBLBg2WZykmJBrfXdAnX5vHKV1y1MYAYW/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Small wonder - Nandi pavilion, opposite Veerbhadreshwara temple</b></span></td></tr>
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In the enviably indomitable shadow of the elegant city of Mysore, the incredibly unassuming and terribly underdeveloped historic village of Talakadu on the serene banks of the mighty river Kaveri is where I explicably found myself waddling in endless stretches of orange-brown sand this past weekend – unsurprising of course, considering that the place epitomizes a seamless assimilation of implausibly far-fetched medieval folklores and ancient mythological legends with emotionless history and cataclysmic geographical turbulence. Said to originally have been a densely forested fertile land, the spiritually hallowed site suffered spontaneous irreversible devastation in AD 1612 when the pious noblelady Alamelamma, unnervingly aggrieved and infuriated when Maharaja Raja Wadiyar I (reign AD 1578-1617) arrogantly schemed to deprive her of her fabulous royal jewels after crushingly defeating her mortally ailing husband Tirumalaraya, the viceroy of his liege-lord Emperor Sriranga Raya I (reign AD 1572-86) of the Vijayanagar empire (ruled the modern states of Karnataka, Telangana, Seemandhra, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and minute portions of Maharashtra, AD 1336-1646. For further details, refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/11/hampi-bellary-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Hampi</a>), catastrophically cursed the place prior to committing suicide (festooned indisputably with the invaluable jewelry) in the dreaded waters of torrential Kaveri – <br />
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<b>“Talakadu maralagi, Malingi maduvaagi, Mysuru Arasarige makkalagadirali!” </b></div>
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<b>“Let Talakadu be submerged under creeping sands, let a cruel whirlpool be the scourge of Malangi and let the Mysore kings bear no offspring!</b><b>”</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtkhT9DID3AKvcuXbGiaIlV6CaA10joeGlCJcA-NEyyd-0xcGiG0Q2i-umq7eugsGitWpO96cETUADJ4si2YWBI_uEs5PdnFriD4yJuAW2bt1Ztf2cM9k23Ib81sM4vOBTvgbhMi0-5wIj/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtkhT9DID3AKvcuXbGiaIlV6CaA10joeGlCJcA-NEyyd-0xcGiG0Q2i-umq7eugsGitWpO96cETUADJ4si2YWBI_uEs5PdnFriD4yJuAW2bt1Ztf2cM9k23Ib81sM4vOBTvgbhMi0-5wIj/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Irrevocably cursed? - Pat</b><b>aleshwara temple</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
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The atrocious curse promptly evoked for me thoughtful ruminations of the one formerly uttered by the saintly Hazrat Nizamuddin to categorically chastise Delhi’s megalomaniac Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq (reign AD 1320-25) and his gigantic fortress at Tughlaqabad (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/04/tughlaqabad-adilabad-nai-ka-kot.html">Pixelated Memories - Tughlaqabad Fortress complex</a>). Spookily enough, the two uniquely geomorphic villages Talakadu and Malangi (originally located opposite each other on either side of the river) have since been completely buried respectively under an inestimable amount of sand and furious vortexes of the treacherous river Kaveri, perpetually perplexing acclaimed archaeologists, geologists, genealogists, historians, rationalists and visitors alike. Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) concludes that over 30 temples (dated between 6th and 17th century AD) of varied historical origins, artistic and architectural features and spatial measurements lie intriguingly submerged underneath an infinite amount of all-pervading sand at Talakadu and has undertaken an ambitious project to entirely excavate and conscientiously restore as many of these as feasible. What is however infinitely more baffling is the ruinous consequence of the punitive curse on Mysore’s extravagant Wadiyar sovereigns – since then, the Maharajas have ceaselessly failed to beget heirs and interestingly therefore the regal bloodline continues such that a reigning Maharaja adopts an illustrious heir from his immediate family to succeed him, however the new Maharaja’s otherwise prodigious sons too afterwards fail to beget heirs and the entire cycle reiterates when they succeed to the throne.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgulXl1KTmkL30iaitXD4Yx3JcqprW7ordSw95zcpS_0N_gO65CEiiJhhN7rPz9S1NhkT3SzTzGy5KaGfYckfwAPNegN7TV6qb8GVofYY8TzcM6BD20JA25UfoTFDn-2cFM7KWrL2ZFV-mN/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Extensively restored! - Vai</b><b>dyanatheshw</b><b>ara temple</b></span></td></tr>
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Of course, like most inexplicable folklore this one too seems extravagantly embellished and full of numerous glaring inconsistencies – firstly, to his credit, Maharaja Raja Wadiyar was merely demanding the retrieval of sanctified ornaments belonging to the fanatically revered deities at beautiful ancient Srirangapatnam which were then in the secure custody of the queen, secondly, why consider a queen, notwithstanding how religious, as pious if she avariciously covets sacred ornaments and miserably proceeds to curse ancient temple towns with irreversible annihilation for no apparent fault of theirs? Repenting afterwards, Raja Wadiyar had a realistic sculpture of Alamelamma deified in a small personal shrine within the regal palace at Mysore (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/05/mysore-palace-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Mysore Palace</a>) which is till date annually venerated by his blue-blooded descendants to mollify the so-called “Curse of Talakadu”. The last Maharaja Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar (titular reign only to fulfill straightforward cultural and religious obligations sans administrative authority, 1974-2013) too died without any biological heirs. <br />
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In any case, numerous medieval shrines have already been unearthed in Talakadu and it wretchedly needs be noted that ASI as well as the local religious committees supposedly entrusted with managing these have in a severely harebrained manner ridiculously subjected most of these in the name of conservation and restoration to an unbearable application of conspicuous slabs of featureless granite and painted plasterwork and insufferably drenched what remained with an excruciating overdose of paint in flamboyant shades of sunshine yellow, mottled blues and blazing orange so much so that most of these hallowed shrines, the larger ones significantly so, easily resemble modern unromantic constructions and do not in any way retain most of their original subdued, and yet glorious, artistic ornamentation and sculptural accomplishments!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgms8nIMFg6ZWvnUqQ855PK2hRL5WKl5r0QfrdCrAJz26vYFZgOeAxXvIQikeayMgT9squiXZqybaWKuM0aNRi595MhcN-0i9cuxPOObDhfDiYfA3OIVVL0sDBJjNIU3yrakWJupzJ3eIQI/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgms8nIMFg6ZWvnUqQ855PK2hRL5WKl5r0QfrdCrAJz26vYFZgOeAxXvIQikeayMgT9squiXZqybaWKuM0aNRi595MhcN-0i9cuxPOObDhfDiYfA3OIVVL0sDBJjNIU3yrakWJupzJ3eIQI/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Worshiped by Lord Brahma?! - The Shivalinga at Maruleshwara temple</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
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The unquestionably magnificent Vaidyanatheshwara temple is physically the largest and artistically the most majestic amongst the extensive cluster and constitutes the widely renowned and passionately celebrated “Panchalinga” (“Five divine Lingas”, a “linga” being the terribly austere rounded cylinder representation of Lord Shiva, the Hindu Lord of death and destruction) in association with the Pataleshwara, Maruleshwara, Arakeshwara and Mallikarjuneshwara shrines. The majestic shrine, composed throughout of painstakingly sculpted granite and surmounted by a brick and plasterwork pyramidal superstructure (of fairly recent origins and soaked with the ubiquitous blinding brilliant yellow), bears the telltale architectural and artistic idioms of the Vijayanagar empire and also possesses pillared hallways, gorgeous subsidiary shrines (most notably that of Goddess Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva) and highly ornamented and bejeweled embossed depictions of benevolent heavenly sentinels, celestial deities, anthropomorphic entities, mythological creatures and numerous geometric and floral scrollwork patterns of discernibly diverse motifs and imaginative designs. Realistically however, the evocative sculptures cannot even be remotely considered as impressive as their elegant counterparts at Belur-Halebidu or Hampi (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/11/hampi-bellary-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Hampi</a>, <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a>), undoubtedly as a terrible consequence of calamitous exposure to moisture and the elements having been land-submerged for several centuries.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7uo-qxs2BnMaBXtHHFkCo3YCDljuiYO-O4TUXMR9KFPE_3hGHJT9nkM6y9a-rOPHZR-R8Jzd6puUHh2qr1Zoav7sR7U8SVtV6rKKHqJXTu250ZLj_x-UI-2f80eMZRWuPiuWbwregt_X/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7uo-qxs2BnMaBXtHHFkCo3YCDljuiYO-O4TUXMR9KFPE_3hGHJT9nkM6y9a-rOPHZR-R8Jzd6puUHh2qr1Zoav7sR7U8SVtV6rKKHqJXTu250ZLj_x-UI-2f80eMZRWuPiuWbwregt_X/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Be dazzled! - Goddess Pa</b><b>rvati, Vaidyanatheshwara temple</b></span></td></tr>
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Local belief postulates that Talakadu, historically chronicled as
“Gajaranya” (“Elephant forest”), derives its present nomenclature from two legendary
forest-dwelling hunter siblings Tala and Kadu who, having sneakily
witnessed an ancient gnarled tree being deferentially worshipped with
fragrant flowers and sacred river water by massive wild elephants,
severely mutilated it with axes only to see copious blood horrifically
sprout through it and realize that in it had incarnated Lord Shiva for
the spiritual gratification of his affectionate devotee Sage Somadatta
who had been reborn as an elephant. The gorgeous shrine too has its derivations in this remarkably convoluted mythology and is said to have been expanded and embellished around a tiny primordial temple conceived around this mythical sacred tree. The blessed tree is said to have automatically healed itself immediately afterwards, thus the self-explanatory nomenclature “Sri Vaidyanatheshwara” or “Lord of the Healers”. How did the ancient Hindu poet-writers conceive such fabulous fables, teeming with every sort of marvelous wildlife, everyday professions and mythological chimeric entities, is entirely beyond comprehension! <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDBXX47wbOhrjU5cgZdeOuoxnluNGQfXMD1t7Kf6rdkeX1TQkZfWLmxnlaQgbO5fMC4_4eHCdtf31Zj_35WU93mYUOtp0Lksu4hbVMqb78ARmr-sFl5vN-mka5c4xiWrEJw4pl-1jgWliB/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDBXX47wbOhrjU5cgZdeOuoxnluNGQfXMD1t7Kf6rdkeX1TQkZfWLmxnlaQgbO5fMC4_4eHCdtf31Zj_35WU93mYUOtp0Lksu4hbVMqb78ARmr-sFl5vN-mka5c4xiWrEJw4pl-1jgWliB/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sands of Time! (Oh, how could I not have used this cliche!)</b></span></td></tr>
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Not once failing to capture the imagination of visitors to this horribly underdeveloped, geographically besieged town, from here on begins the strangely sanitized wilderness zone where wide serpentine paths have been cleared in the rugged midst of tall eucalyptus trees whose mottled brown-green bark discontinuously peels away to reveal the glistening silver underneath, and scores of unnaturally shy monkeys peeping from behind the trees and hopping on to the corrugated iron roofs sheltering the pathways from sweltering summer sun near-continuously create a shocking, clattering commotion. It is singularly demanding to tread the bottomless sands which instantaneously swirls and realigns itself into frustrating eddies around one’s feet and suffuses into the shoes as soon as one pushes forward another fatigued step. Scores of wrinkled, indeterminably old beggars with cataract-clouded eyes line these pathways and intermittently one also comes across small makeshift shops offering tiny stone idols, packets of sugarballs, clarified butter-drenched sweets, brilliant red vermillion, multi-hued flowers and incense to appease the deities.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-bjaNgrNKozSntg-Ij5pqcJ18lBxMHsQ2VK82otphyphenhyphenTlnuQxaqKU6o2g7C0zqpF5kfLXUXdkRNsvyLJIY-hEVzMZtPXvHFE-jlaFnOzHtf6a97XuF6XsCTFPvRTqlc8nNA-XrTIm0oXK/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-bjaNgrNKozSntg-Ij5pqcJ18lBxMHsQ2VK82otphyphenhyphenTlnuQxaqKU6o2g7C0zqpF5kfLXUXdkRNsvyLJIY-hEVzMZtPXvHFE-jlaFnOzHtf6a97XuF6XsCTFPvRTqlc8nNA-XrTIm0oXK/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sculpted (and restored!) to perfectio</b><b>n - Keertinarayana temple</b></span></td></tr>
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The remaining shrines are predominantly unremarkable single-celled simplistic structures buried encompassed within enormous craters as if recently constructed within an urban construction zone (unquestionably the presence of shimmering multihued paintwork and ubiquitously modernistic superstructures is to be blamed!) and accessible via sets of staircases delineated by glinting steel cordons. ASI has built brick and cement embankments to restrict sand accumulation, however the same aren't as efficient as one would have liked them to be. The massive Shivalinga in Maruleshwara temple is said to have been established by Lord Brahma (the Hindu God of universal creation, profound knowledge and learned enlightenment), while the diminutive Shivalinga in Pataleshwara temple, festooned with fragrant jasmine garlands, is said to miraculously transform from red in the morning to black in afternoon and white in the evening! There are several other smaller, relatively architecturally/artistically unremarkable shrines dedicated to Lord Shiva too scattered around, and a large rectangular water tank (“pushkarni”) only a stone’s throw away from the Vaidyanatheshwara temple.<br />
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Several shrines are also located amongst thick eucalyptus tree forests spanning vast sand plains and rock undulations in the immediate vicinity of the majestic Kaveri where gather tourists and locals alike for fun frolic (there even are tourist-laden coracle boats sashaying to-and-fro!). Catering to the tourists near the beatific riverfront exists a vividly colorful, perennially boisterous bazaar lined with cheap roadside eateries (offering fried fritters, steamed rice cakes (idlis), greasy noodles, tea/coffee, cold drinks, cigarettes and meals comprising servings of steaming boiled rice and watery vegetables and lentils) and makeshift shops (offering stuffed toys, cheap plastic playthings, faux-leather hats, vividly multi-hued stoles and the occasional souvenirs).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrpnh4nD43S8sRxGOf9sZpv0hVsmf64iGWJd8iwIXRKtqO6hIV-KUJoEfylZjbnlB84JJwyPNf3-XKSkRgLQsHyhYASUkGXqSWELt97505lCBwG3vneq6G_f-FffvO1JAGzfArOXKvqWQw/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrpnh4nD43S8sRxGOf9sZpv0hVsmf64iGWJd8iwIXRKtqO6hIV-KUJoEfylZjbnlB84JJwyPNf3-XKSkRgLQsHyhYASUkGXqSWELt97505lCBwG3vneq6G_f-FffvO1JAGzfArOXKvqWQw/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Submerged! - Gaurishankara temple</b></span></td></tr>
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Mysteriously peeping from its unintended entombment, the exceedingly tiny, single-celled Gaurishankara temple, constructed when Maharaja Chikka Devaraya Wadiyar (reign AD 1673-1704) ruled over the area, despite also being painted over with faded yellow and hideous silver, is almost entirely concealed and can be regarded a perfect exemplar of how physically punishing the advent of these shifting sands was to the architectural and religious heritage of the laidback village. <br />
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Despite its unostentatious appearances and uncultivated, almost untouched atmosphere (even the majority of signboards here are in Kannada!), Talakadu is not just any other miniscule village next door – though its medieval prestigious impressions are presently indiscernible, it was an important religious township throughout the supremacy of the Western Ganga Dynasty (reign over parts of Karnataka and Seemandhra, AD 350-1000) and the Chola Dynasty (reign over the modern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the islands of Sri Lanka and Maldives, 300 BC – 1279 AD), two of the most prominent kingdoms of southern India! Originally referred to as “Dalavanpura”, it was developed as the outstanding capital of the Ganga dynasty, an honor it retained over a course of 600 years from AD 390 to 1000. Later, it came to be recognized by the name “Rajarajapura”, christened after the remarkably distinguished emperor Rajaraja Chola I (reign AD 985-1014), and was afterwards seized from the Cholas by the formidable Hoysala sovereign Bittideva Vishnuvardhana (reign AD 1108-52) in AD 1117 who celebrated this outstanding military conquest by assuming the title of “Talakadugonda” (“Victor at Talakadu”) and gratefully commissioned the construction of the notably matchless Sri Chennakesava Temple at his capital Velapuri/Belur (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a>). Historically, it is believed that the Keertinarayana temple at Talakadu was also ordered to be constructed by him to commemorate this significant achievement upon the request of his spiritual mentor Sri Ramanujacharya, the celebrated interpreter of Hindu Vishishtadvaita Vaishnavism texts – indeed the staggered square-shaped grandiose shrine heralded by an equally handsome gateway is the only one discovered at Talakadu to be conceived and executed in the traditional Hoysala style of architecture.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNrqb1WXBjU6P-K105nxNkMXWzaYVDDAQYTKh2w1gB4iELYUtEMxHpLFcrpxm9NJUd0FXWZ-TafmA0pFnlJOANoBFaGzuO559U6SXMYU7Y0XrjBkPeYWmCIbBFOa1NbFEH6RWBgwRSHLZ/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNrqb1WXBjU6P-K105nxNkMXWzaYVDDAQYTKh2w1gB4iELYUtEMxHpLFcrpxm9NJUd0FXWZ-TafmA0pFnlJOANoBFaGzuO559U6SXMYU7Y0XrjBkPeYWmCIbBFOa1NbFEH6RWBgwRSHLZ/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>All dressed up and nowhere to go! - Lor</b><b>d Vishnu, Keertinarayana temple</b></span></td></tr>
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It needs be noted that the magnificent shrine was commendably transported stone by stone from its marshy submerged location, painstakingly recreated in its entirety and impeccably restored to flawless perfection by the ASI. The exceedingly skillfully finished, variously patterned delicate pillars of the shrine's associated hall gracefully frame the sanctum where is consecrated an eight-feet tall idol of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu God of life and nourishment, flanked by relatively smaller sculptures of his two consorts – the earth Goddess Bhudevi and Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity – each deferentially adorned with brilliantly glittering silk and exquisite gold-tinged ornaments. <br />
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The exquisite shrines exhumed so far, despite being physically
moderately-proportioned and predominantly artistically unremarkable,
conclusively prove to be a mysterious phenomenon in themselves,
attracting several million wonder-struck visitors and faithful devotees
annually from all over Karnataka and neighboring states, especially for
the spiritual Panchalingam Darshan festival, a prominently renowned
cultural extravagance organized every 12 years. What is however most remarkable about the enigmatic place is that one cannot shake off the extraordinary, somewhat unnerving, consciousness that one might actually be treading centuries-old superlative civilizational and architectural heritage while walking around here! Surely, these unusual thoughts and destinations are reason enough to travel!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Jh16r17ooC0tbVO5JY8WMmrfuulfra7lTTpYVmbuiSU9IxltfPn5TbAfAykrpPE29fTJWDSxGsGbIseLwr14lIJqYd12akGrWdECXHYVs3yZz6PI9b3AvRf7F4yG80RBWiVSaJepxLUP/s1600/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Jh16r17ooC0tbVO5JY8WMmrfuulfra7lTTpYVmbuiSU9IxltfPn5TbAfAykrpPE29fTJWDSxGsGbIseLwr14lIJqYd12akGrWdECXHYVs3yZz6PI9b3AvRf7F4yG80RBWiVSaJepxLUP/s640/Talakadu+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Talakadu's secret fun zone - Kaveri riverfront</b></span></td></tr>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Talakadu is located approximately 45 kms from Mysore and 185 kms from Bangalore. Private autorickshaws and shared cabs ply between T. Narsipur and Talakadu villages (15 kilometers – 20 minutes – Rs 20/person). Regular government buses are available from Suburban bus stand, Mysore to T. Narsipur bypass flyover (35 kilometers – 30 minutes – Rs 15/person) from where one can walk to T. Narsipur village bus stand. The roads between Mysore and T. Narsipur, although terribly pockmarked, wind through vast water-logged paddy plantations that alluringly glisten soothing blue-green early morning and brilliant blinding green in the afternoon. From T. Narsipur onwards, the route is simple and the roads perfect, and the combination can pretty easily lull one to an undisturbed slumber, especially on slightly cold, extremely pleasant days when it is gently drizzling!<br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil for all the shrines<br />
<b>Photography/video charges:</b> Nil for all the shrines<br />
<b>Note: </b>All temples are open everyday for people of all socio-economic and religious backgrounds and genders from 8.30 am – 5.30 pm. Footwear are not allowed within the individual shrines and have to be left outside. It is advisable to carry sufficient drinking water and wear comfortable shoes since one has to walk considerably long distances across undulating topography and punishing sand plains to cover all the monuments.<br />
<b>Relevant Links -</b><br />
<b>Other monuments/landmarks in/around Mysore -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/church-of-st-joseph-and-st-philomena.html">Pixelated Memories - Church of St. Joseph and St. Philomena</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/05/mysore-palace-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Mysore Palace</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/seringapatnam-mandya-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Seringapatnam</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/sri-chamundeshwari-temple-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chamundeshwari Temple</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/11/sri-prasanna-chennakesava-temple.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Prasanna Chennakesava Temple, Somnathpura</a> </li>
</ol>
<b>Another cursed location - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/04/tughlaqabad-adilabad-nai-ka-kot.html">Pixelated Memories - Tughlaqabad Fortress complex, Delhi</a><b> </b><br />
<b>Suggested reading -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://akshay-chavan.blogspot.in/2009/08/curse-of-mysore-royal-family-rational.html">Akshay-chavan.blogspot.in - The Curse of the Mysore Royal family: A rational analysis</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/jain-basadi-at-talakad-to-be-excavated/article4941959.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "Jain basadi at Talakad to be excavated" (dated July 23, 2013) by R. Krishna Kumar</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/thousands-throng-talakad/article3050496.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "Thousands throng Talakad" (dated Nov 21, 2006)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadiyar_dynasty">Wikipedia.org - Wadiyar Dynasty</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-8188909922090570622015-11-27T18:34:00.000+05:302017-07-28T16:00:40.365+05:30Jahaz Mahal and Hauz-i-Shamsi, Mehrauli, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Dilli jo ek sheher tha alam me intekhab, rehte the muntakhib hi jahan rozgaar ke</b></div>
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<b><b>Jis ko falak ne loot ke veeran kar diya, Hum rehne wale hain usi ujde dayar ke” </b></b></div>
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<b><b>“Delhi, that singularly celebrated city where lived only the remarkable few of their time </b></b></div>
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<b>Fate has devastated and rendered it deserted, I belong to that very destroyed city.”</b></div>
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<b>– Mir Taqi Mir, renowned Urdu poet (lived 1725-1810)</b><b></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6tvoEPj6fnkuIhktQrfExxHvyQvC8xhi1CWkYUdkU9NNk9OvBBkgB93WbImChobNXEFOfGAfquwpfNlM-BYHuSeGfjJOtJsZw72_1tE8VnXulf2bytquVJMxqrKIQZUPnu1Vg2F0tqO8/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6tvoEPj6fnkuIhktQrfExxHvyQvC8xhi1CWkYUdkU9NNk9OvBBkgB93WbImChobNXEFOfGAfquwpfNlM-BYHuSeGfjJOtJsZw72_1tE8VnXulf2bytquVJMxqrKIQZUPnu1Vg2F0tqO8/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Jahaz Mahal - An enigmatic ship washed ashore</span></b></td></tr>
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Despite the viciously bone-chilling, teeth-clattering cold they invoke, winters in Delhi, merciless in their extortion and cruelty, can occasionally be tremendously heartwarming (pardon the expression!) – the otherwise vibrant, perennially overcrowded landscape transmogrifies into a chillingly bleak and thoroughly deserted ghost city colonized by such impenetrably dense fog that early morning one cannot see the buildings across the road, conducive of course to steal a few quick smooches from one’s sweetheart as I have often been guilty of. The chance appearance of minute slivers of warm sunshine are merrily greeted by the entire neighborhood – the infirm elderly quickly rush out to catch up on the gossip, the effusively cheerful children skip and run about, the slightly older ones calmly settle down in the verandahs and balconies with books and earphones and, not to be left behind, the resourceful homemakers too instantaneously bring out the vegetables and fruits that they are to shred and dice and gleefully spend extra minutes bargaining and (often unnecessarily) scolding the “reri-wallahs” (fruit-vegetable sellers, recyclemen, garbage collectors, papad-wallahs and the likes), an ancient convention which they would have otherwise rudely interrupted to rush back into the mellow warmth of the house.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3BX59I4qpocnvS9XdASmG5ko8xQ24UVxO1OXXBEvaoJPr1wOe7VjVG-4xNEoAOlDBeEDNRyOREjfTVp_WamI9M2dqJ-TM9Rgs33onk7h5WU5l1pyyl8WUh0QF2H-aQqARbCLn_3J2Ul9_/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3BX59I4qpocnvS9XdASmG5ko8xQ24UVxO1OXXBEvaoJPr1wOe7VjVG-4xNEoAOlDBeEDNRyOREjfTVp_WamI9M2dqJ-TM9Rgs33onk7h5WU5l1pyyl8WUh0QF2H-aQqARbCLn_3J2Ul9_/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The irony, the religious hypocrisy! - Hauz Shamsi and the sandstone pavilion enshrined with Buraq's sacred hoofprint</span></b></td></tr>
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Engaged in a losing skirmish with these infinitesimal rays of sunshine, the universally abhorred forces of impermeable fog hastily call a temporary retreat only to regroup and reappear later around dusk, in the meanwhile leaving behind only a few scattered wisps sentinel-like hanging about keeping eagle-eyed watches over the larger lakes and hyacinth-shrouded water bodies. No mist however hangs over Hauz-i-Shamsi – where there once was a huge artificial lake exclusively encircled by luxuriant pleasure pavilions, vibrant orchards and manicured gardens, today is an uneven crater bursting with stinking murky water capped with plastic garbage, rotten organic rubbish and human and animal excreta enclosed by a vast contour-less plain where can be spotted even more of this malodorous waste in addition to putrid animal carcasses and shards of beer bottles! Disappointingly, reality, in this case, does not even come close to holding a candle to mythical legends.<br />
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According to popular folklore, 1230 years following the crucifixion of Christ, two men dreamt the same lucid dream – the Prophet Muhammad, seated on Buraq, the celestial winged steed with a head that instantaneously transformed from that of a heavenly horse to a glorious woman and back, beckoned them to follow and thus quickly traversed several miles. Suddenly halting, the otherworldly Buraq kicked the ground with its muscular foreleg and immediately erupted there an immense fountain of sparkling clear water.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYCos_Xv4xUiE3snt4vS_ee9IsKKTzosQYrI1y8JTNCm_R2AusAUzq63hKEqBAdJY0fgGSXmlzRooySL9zfJ9YNn-tj58otH6Iat1Lu6rGROaKkEZUqM3hj9JePZ4RGunj908yIw9ax1F/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYCos_Xv4xUiE3snt4vS_ee9IsKKTzosQYrI1y8JTNCm_R2AusAUzq63hKEqBAdJY0fgGSXmlzRooySL9zfJ9YNn-tj58otH6Iat1Lu6rGROaKkEZUqM3hj9JePZ4RGunj908yIw9ax1F/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Not a drop to drink!</span></b></td></tr>
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Now these two men could be any ordinary persons living anywhere, but they weren’t – they happened to be the legendary Chishti Sufi saint Hazrat Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and Sultan-i-Azam Shamshuddin Waddin Abul Muzaffar Iltutmish (reign AD 1211-36), the emperor of Hindustan, and being incredibly pious men they decided that the formidable Sultan must set out with his entire immense retinue to determine if the dream was indeed prophetic. Intriguingly, some distance away from the regal citadel was discovered the hoof print of the mighty Buraq and thus resolved, the Sultan instantaneously issued a royal decree to commission an immense tank, christened “Hauz-i-Shamsi” (“Shamshuddin’s tank”), encompassing as its centerpiece a small domed pavilion conceived around the stone slab bearing the celestial hoof print thus preserved for posterity. Drinkable water supply then being terribly acute, the blessed water, besides being religiously venerated, was immediately drawn via terracotta canals and pipelines to supply the thriving residential enclaves within the medieval fortress of Qila Rai Pithora and later Tughlaqabad (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/qila-rai-pithora-saket-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qila Rai Pithora</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/04/tughlaqabad-adilabad-nai-ka-kot.html">Pixelated Memories - Tughlaqabad Fortress complex</a>). Unbelievable now, considering the present insufferable levels of pollution!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHL8fquw6EFF8zNLuwiaKOrI0REf3Ht95seWOLdFnl3h8C57FwIqEmRTsiOuk1NIptOKftBYg2mFT4Ltsd6nsd4ZuBHgnpd4jrCia1_zk0TsmjU3lVCSxq0lgxjUKtDB6HhAdDVlH6Dfr/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHL8fquw6EFF8zNLuwiaKOrI0REf3Ht95seWOLdFnl3h8C57FwIqEmRTsiOuk1NIptOKftBYg2mFT4Ltsd6nsd4ZuBHgnpd4jrCia1_zk0TsmjU3lVCSxq0lgxjUKtDB6HhAdDVlH6Dfr/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Blues and reds</span></b></td></tr>
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During the architecturally glorious reign of the Lodi Dynasty (AD 1451-1526), a magnificent floating pavilion accessible by a large causeway was constructed along the peripheries of the majestic tank divinely thus ordained and regally thus patronized – referred to as “Jahaz Mahal” (“Ship Pavilion”) on account of it being immediately reminiscent of an enormous ship gracefully floating on the brilliant blue waters underneath, the graceful retreat was envisaged as a transit accommodation (“serai”/inn) to serve devout pilgrims from central Asia and Europe arriving in Delhi to visit its numerous, devoutly worshiped Islamic shrines and accordingly is composed of numerous individual chambers tastefully designed and opulently adorned. Later it was repaired by the Sultans Alauddin Khilji (reign AD 1296-1316) and Feroz Shah Tughlaq (reign AD 1351-88) and was eventually refurbished to function as an ornamental pleasure pavilion for the last Mughal emperors Akbar Shah II (reign AD 1806-37) and Mirza Abu Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah “Zafar” II (reign AD 1837-57).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0KzzzMpNUZVCT0Ruwb4a147iWqCV4JQ12ceXXyJOhRP1cbr8jP981tXkK95aMVkqnkSNsUbBvCXAG3ud8aZL4lngia6M_A3_fF5R_SQEzmpVJY1iibYcuPvBK_iEYEpghsFVOLkYCmLT/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt0KzzzMpNUZVCT0Ruwb4a147iWqCV4JQ12ceXXyJOhRP1cbr8jP981tXkK95aMVkqnkSNsUbBvCXAG3ud8aZL4lngia6M_A3_fF5R_SQEzmpVJY1iibYcuPvBK_iEYEpghsFVOLkYCmLT/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Relics from an age long gone - A ruined chamber (mausoleum?) in the vicinity of Jahaz Mahal</span></b></td></tr>
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Rendered visually imposing by the employment of massive square chattris (umbrella domes surmounted on slender pillars) and conical buttress corner towers, the gorgeous palatial edifice possesses a U-shaped layout arranged around a large central courtyard (where presently are organized the extravagant cultural and literary celebrations associated with the annual “Phoolwalon ki Sair” aka “Sair-i-Gulfaroshan” festival) and is much embellished with Persian glazed blue and white tiles, multi-patterned alcoves, numerous pointed arches, staggered cross-shaped decorative depressions and ornamental embossment facades. An odd octagonal chattri crowns the mihrab (western wall of a religious/funerary structure indicating the direction of Mecca, faced by Muslims while offering namaz prayers) distinguished by the fixation of white (now yellowish) tiles.<br />
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Long gone is the celebrated age when come monsoons the infinite expanse around the hallowed Hauz was rendered marvelously enthralling by flowering shrubs that would blossom overnight and hundreds of species of multi-hued butterflies romanced midair under the immense canopy of the crookedly gnarled branches of the massive trees peppering the entire verdant landscape; the earth reeked of the mesmerizing post-rain fragrance while good-naturedly querulous birds flitted from branch to another just as the hundreds of magical glittering glimmering dragonflies skimmed the surface of the numerous runoff-collecting tanks and natural water bodies; magnificently-plumed peacocks and spellbinding docile deer freely roamed about, defeated only in numbers by the gently-cooing pigeons and flawless white doves quietly making love against the vibrant red sandstone of the monuments that littered around. The lavish retinues, of Mughal emperors and British officials alike, would lugubriously encamp here and reverberate even till wee hours of the starlit mornings recounting tales of hunts past and phantoms and banshees, interspersed only by fierce drinking bouts and delightful musical and dance soirees set in rhythm with the heavenly descent of torrential rain and thunderous streaks of fearsome lightning.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimOUA1cLJ5B_QK2EWpX49z4P_Ddhl2ndKG9nSHGlQAbGtqYe_HF16Mv0gCNqDf9qLPo3f0M0EACBNJT4EuJMlP5jKGZhlsXMFhVd_ZD3U5J28jQ1LSerFZMotrqExgss6LhJs_JDBvYYtB/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimOUA1cLJ5B_QK2EWpX49z4P_Ddhl2ndKG9nSHGlQAbGtqYe_HF16Mv0gCNqDf9qLPo3f0M0EACBNJT4EuJMlP5jKGZhlsXMFhVd_ZD3U5J28jQ1LSerFZMotrqExgss6LhJs_JDBvYYtB/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Forgotten history? - An undocumented medieval mosque across the road from Jahaz Mahal</span></b></td></tr>
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The sacred tank has been ignominiously reduced to less than a quarter of its original proportions and the preserved hoof print of the mythological Buraq too has been removed even though the twelve-pillared sandstone pavilion constructed to encompass it still exists buoyed in an ever-multiplying stream of foul-smelling garbage and excreta. Even the geographical continuity amongst the numerous medieval mosques and unusual mausoleums that mushroomed around the Hauz on account of its legendary sacredness has been ruthlessly shattered by malignant slum encroachment and extraordinarily ill-planned urban development – the Lal Masjid (“Red Mosque”) nearby, possibly a Lodi-era monument judging from its numerous ornamental features and architectural innovations including melon-like fluted corner towers and painstakingly embellished protruding central mihrab, has been redeveloped on all sides and converted into a grotesque multistoried brick-and-cement residential-cum-religious edifice, its singular domes and the slender minarets too waiting to be assimilated within this tasteless monstrosity but seemingly spared for the time being to herald its regal antiquity. Come to think of it, substitute the domed corner towers with low rectangular buildings and the wall mosque would almost visually resemble its cousin Madhi Masjid, distant both in terms of geographical separation and state of conservation and restoration (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/madhi-masjid-mehrauli-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Madhi Masjid</a>).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaauSslcS8M9xHFKMnN_eAP9cZ6Y68pyj2rWSxzhAykcD92Qr0w4l_l3MRlV5SwBxzN_M6BuyZL80F0id_THNcd4wHcLniaK2FfOZwym7bYI_HcYh52Hpp7W87bhIwsUq5bsmR622E7KxH/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaauSslcS8M9xHFKMnN_eAP9cZ6Y68pyj2rWSxzhAykcD92Qr0w4l_l3MRlV5SwBxzN_M6BuyZL80F0id_THNcd4wHcLniaK2FfOZwym7bYI_HcYh52Hpp7W87bhIwsUq5bsmR622E7KxH/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Lost in a deluge of encroachments - Lal Masjid </span></b><b style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: large;">across the road from Jahaz Mahal</span></b></td></tr>
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Another substantially huge medieval mosque, fitted with glass windows and iron grilles and alienated from the pleasure palace by a road stretched like an evil serpent between the two, has been entirely engulfed in an all-pervading deluge of encroachment and even the narrow mausoleums adjoining it have been bricked up and converted into makeshift residences!<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“More than his (Sultan Iltutmish’s) wars or his conquests, it is with the water supply he has built for the people of Delhi that he has won his place in heaven!”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (lived AD 1238-1325)</b></div>
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Sultan Iltutmish, Hazrat Qutbuddin and Hazrat Nizamuddin have been long deceased and their mortal constructions and conceptions shall too follow soon, murdered by the so-called educated intellectuals and civic planners who have irredeemably failed to preserve traditional water management techniques while simultaneously failing to adopt to rapidly evolving climatic and geographical realities and pressures. Why still do the educationalists insist on reminiscing about baolis (step-wells), artificial tanks, bunds (embankments) and surakhs (water tunnels) in CBSE primary school textbooks is perplexingly incomprehensible!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhyphenhyphen-buMhfb1HzDwkSAXaE2GfY_L3Vf9TvTjJCLDzfhiYcKZxGI7ffF0ZUM1bd8P23RpPgZz_FGq2Okj9_V8y5zl8PejOsUEozGov9T9WSNhgU8UUaoWMX15J_Q8-e0XuXLPaxFgI8zJ1H/s1600/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhyphenhyphen-buMhfb1HzDwkSAXaE2GfY_L3Vf9TvTjJCLDzfhiYcKZxGI7ffF0ZUM1bd8P23RpPgZz_FGq2Okj9_V8y5zl8PejOsUEozGov9T9WSNhgU8UUaoWMX15J_Q8-e0XuXLPaxFgI8zJ1H/s640/Hauz+Shamsi+Jahaz+Mahal+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Towering - A lone mausoleum adjoining the aforementioned undocumented medieval mosque</span></b></td></tr>
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<b>Location: </b>Mehrauli village (Coordinates: 28°30'51.5"N 77°10'42.7"E)<br />
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<b>Nearest Metro station:</b> Both Qutb Minar and Chattarpur stations are approximately 1.5 kilometers away</div>
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<b>Nearest Bus stop: </b>Mehrauli terminal, approximately 1.2 kilometers away</div>
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<b>How to reach: </b>Walk/avail a rickshaw from the bus stop or walk/avail an auto from the metro stations. The locals can easily supply the requisite directions.<br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil<br />
<b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil<br />
<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>45 min<br />
<b>Relevant links -</b><br />
<b>Other monuments/landmarks located in the vicinity -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/adham-khans-tomb-and-mehrauli-phc-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Adham Khan's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/ahinsa-sthal-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Ahinsa Sthal</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/01/azim-khans-tomb-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Azim Khan's Tomb</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/09/gandhak-ki-baoli-mehrauli.html">Pixelated Memories - Gandhak ki Baoli</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/07/hazrat-bakhtiyar-kakis-dargah-mehrauli.html">Pixelated Memories - Hazrat Bakhtiyar Kaki's Dargah</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/06/mehrauli-archaeological-park-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Mehrauli Archaeological Park</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/06/moti-masjid-mehrauli-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Moti Masjid</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/12/qutb-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Qutb Complex</a></li>
</ol>
<div>
<b>Suggested reading -</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/battle-of-ideas-over-delhis-ruins/article4506677.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "Battle of ideas over Delhi’s ruins" (dated March 14, 2013) by A.G. Krishna Menon</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/birds-back-at-hauzeshamsi-after-asi-cleans-up-reservoir/article6800505.ece">Thehindu.com - Article "Birds back at Hauz-e-Shamsi after ASI cleans up reservoir" (dated Jan 19, 2015) by Rana Siddiqui Zaman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauz-i-Shamsi">Wikipedia.org - Hauz-i-Shamsi</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-85289915636405497472015-11-24T19:22:00.001+05:302015-11-24T19:22:38.899+05:30Sri Prasanna Chennakesava Temple, Somnathpura, Karnataka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b><b>“From the origin of things down to the fifteenth century of the Christian era, inclusive, architecture is the great book of humanity, the principal expression of man in his different stages of development, either as a force or as an intelligence. </b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>When the memory of the first races felt itself overloaded, when the mass of reminiscences of the human race became so heavy and so confused that speech naked and flying, ran the risk of losing them on the way, men transcribed them on the soil in a manner which was at once the most visible, most durable, and most natural. They sealed each tradition beneath a monument. </b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>And not only the form of edifices, but the sites selected for them, revealed the thought which they represented, according as the symbol to be expressed was graceful or grave. Greece crowned her mountains with a temple harmonious to the eye; India disemboweled hers, to chisel therein those monstrous subterranean pagodas, borne up by gigantic rows of granite elephants.”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Victor Hugo (“The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”, 1831) </b></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPJ9gp91ntPO73wUMJmWqZR7ldQoOhF0deM7UkDyM7WFtZo4FF0pVj7ZvGhDRxQAhly5zJ9KrtqynZ66SaSuu3hHsOM32C6WZaX4tySpyZYAqbGuLIUGBZ48ajtZ45eV0Kowq6_PRtTP4_/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPJ9gp91ntPO73wUMJmWqZR7ldQoOhF0deM7UkDyM7WFtZo4FF0pVj7ZvGhDRxQAhly5zJ9KrtqynZ66SaSuu3hHsOM32C6WZaX4tySpyZYAqbGuLIUGBZ48ajtZ45eV0Kowq6_PRtTP4_/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Poetry in stone (V4.0) - Sri Prasanna Chennakesava Temple</b></span></td></tr>
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In the unbelievably tranquil tiny village of Somnathpura not very far from the elegant city of Mysore exists the majestic Prasanna Chennakesava temple, chronologically the last and visually the most remarkable exemplar of Hoysala architecture and an epitome of highly symmetrical, immaculately designed and imaginatively embellished sculptural magnificence. Dedicated to the mythological Lord Keshava/Krishna, an ostentatious playboy-strategist-statesman-cowherd-warrior-philosopher who supposedly lived some 5,000 years ago and is regarded as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Hindu God of life and nourishment, the architecturally outstanding and artistically unequaled triple-celled (“trikutachala”) temple seated on its perfectly symmetrical juxtaposed star-shaped platform (“jagati”) venerates the “Venugopala” (“The hypnotic cowherd flute-player”), “Janardhana” (“He who bestows worldly success and spiritual liberation”) and “Kesava” (“He of the beautiful long hair”) aspects of the Lord respectively in its three highly embossed, excellently ornamented individual shrines. In their literature and folktales, the Hoysalas (reign AD 1026-1343) traced their historic lineage to the Yadava clan of north India which claims genealogical descent from Lord Krishna himself – therefore the conspicuous overabundance of exceptionally splendid shrines and vividly bejeweled sculptures throughout the historic land of Karnataka revering the mythical deity. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73l8dc7EDJ8yLSz4240YS39TxqMJiEYelOlz-8GgyfcUQbBF8FfqSB6gWDlpCYZFCsW7lfsNa1k-R_s3gogtJkSaM11_dfEm6IG4k37E_Bqpbyw_AE_iyhf1I4VvFYDlfUIHkI6bp9n03/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Indescribable</b><b>!</b></span></td></tr>
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<br /><br />As if traversing a mysterious mythical barrier delineating the reality from the fantastical, a strangely verdant world presents itself to a visitor as soon as s/he steps within the wire mesh-demarcated physical boundary of the painstakingly landscaped lawn surrounding the temple. Vividly colored flowers mesmerizingly flutter against the gentle breeze and butterflies drunkenly flit around in arbitrary patterns from one shrub to another, flawless white egrets traverse the unfluctuating spread of the grass carpet in search of grub and overhead large hornbills with majestic beaks swoop from the immense spread of the gnarled branches that envision to block out the entire sky somewhere in the future. Several massive flame-of-forest trees compose the boundaries of the lawn while rows upon rows of neatly manicured hedges eventually terminate in an enormous acacia tree that benevolently shelters in its cool shadow the simplistic gateway of the temple’s enclosing rectangular courtyard whose boundaries in their turn are composed of strikingly symmetrical colonnades.<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-LEtpdDF5KBHH3c3dIFQ1CpVOoLPFS3RyOZE851yruveZ9NQRWvckyqNJUrz5pFO9o0FkN7i7jT6OqrmYlnqvhAGtCOGIQroRNNPWsuW0qUlrBKOa2MYCl1h-YH1ZrFPqwWE7zpxj8KoX/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-LEtpdDF5KBHH3c3dIFQ1CpVOoLPFS3RyOZE851yruveZ9NQRWvckyqNJUrz5pFO9o0FkN7i7jT6OqrmYlnqvhAGtCOGIQroRNNPWsuW0qUlrBKOa2MYCl1h-YH1ZrFPqwWE7zpxj8KoX/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Indian Grey Hornbill - Another of nature's wonders</b></span></td></tr>
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Step through the gateway and one literally feels unreservedly humbled in the face of indescribably gorgeous sculptural grandeur – not only is the sheer variety and noteworthy ornamental nature of the artworks and sculptures adorning every conceivable surface of the shrine unmentionably vast and beyond description, but furthermore, overawing every person that beholds the small shrine, here at least, unlike the more grander, unmatched Hoysala specimens at Belur and Halebidu (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a>), the layered pyramidal spires crowning the three individual shrines, meticulously proportioned and exquisitely detailed with a spellbinding miniaturization of precisely-defined flourishes, insignificant deities and mythical creatures, are still existential and exceedingly well-preserved.<br />
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Moreover, such is the attention to the minutest of ornamental details that the extraordinarily accomplished craftsmen-sculptors introduced in their craft that one can be forgiven for believing that the patterns and mythological lores are carved not in stone but in wax or wood! The entire superstructure is composed of dark green/blue-black hued chloritic schist (soapstone) which is extremely easy to chisel into ornately detailed patterns in its original form but transforms to tremendously resilient, unmalleable stone once exposed to the elements for years. Interestingly though, the fascinating sculptures here are significantly more richly jewel-encrusted despite their considerably smaller dimensions relative to their counterparts at Belur and Halebidu.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzfJS9tunmdfLXuylWa1QDxGOi-OUBKB5g9nqemNFbyWzbgzMwGeJDszMKq3BZMb-8z1Ejj_GbyhJNpVOiHrVGhQ42UCO02aVFjid7CkuINHcBfrJaLz-7cM3XFBQkFsA49ZftQWlvwO4V/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzfJS9tunmdfLXuylWa1QDxGOi-OUBKB5g9nqemNFbyWzbgzMwGeJDszMKq3BZMb-8z1Ejj_GbyhJNpVOiHrVGhQ42UCO02aVFjid7CkuINHcBfrJaLz-7cM3XFBQkFsA49ZftQWlvwO4V/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A world in its own</b></span></td></tr>
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Also, except for a visual representation each of Goddess Saraswati (the ethereally beautiful patron of arts, music, learning and knowledge) portrayed here ecstatically dancing while deftly playing her Veena (Indian string instrument) and a ten-armed Goddess Durga (a fierce manifestation of primordial feminine energy) piercing the body of buffalo-demon Mahishasura with her intimidatingly long trident while straddling a particularly realistic buffalo, all depictions here are strictly those of Lord Vishnu and his numerous anthropomorphic incarnations, mythological divine aspects and legendary followers. And while the larger sculptures layering each angle and protruding corner are exemplars not only of unparalleled sculptural art, but also of excellent ancient mythological fables that even precisely specify how a deity is to be visually depicted and which weapon and which facial expression and bodily movement symbolically represents what action and which boon-bestowing capability, the most enthralling are of course the outstanding individualistic horizontal friezes comprising the base of the temple’s external ornamentation – the six layers, punctuated by miniaturized discontinuous depictions of tales from the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, are respectively composed of charging elephants, mounted horses, floral scrolls of foliage and variegated creepers interspersed by fearsome “Kirtimukha” (the ferociously wide fanged, lion-like face of an all-consuming demon conceived and originated out of thin air by Lord Shiva, the God of death and destruction, to destroy other mightier demons), mythical “Makara” (entities possessing the body of a fish, the face and tusks of an elephant, the limbs of a lion and the tail of a peacock) and beautiful swans respectively symbolizing insurmountable stability, matchless agility, formidable strength, unchallenged might and elegant grace.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8f1u_EcghgtnPURqFDiEQ57SbU5_ULtUtAXtGLXzS32YXqiRN6SL51S6ibil8WMqyH0xd40zomrZ6XloEuLLpAo0hHEsozb8ryy5XauIez6p2cOIggzx9A1aGkkINn9tByTuvJP4qWk7E/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8f1u_EcghgtnPURqFDiEQ57SbU5_ULtUtAXtGLXzS32YXqiRN6SL51S6ibil8WMqyH0xd40zomrZ6XloEuLLpAo0hHEsozb8ryy5XauIez6p2cOIggzx9A1aGkkINn9tByTuvJP4qWk7E/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mythology articulated in stone</b></span></td></tr>
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The temple’s front face possesses, instead of the larger sculptures, tiny scroll bands of numerous perceptibly different geometric and floral patterns followed in their turn by diminutive decorative circular or star-shaped pillars supporting in their midst an extravagant mesh work of small arched alcoves inset with tens of thousands of inconsequential deities, celestial dancers and divine devotees.<br />
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The most spellbindingly realistic and artistically evocative statues are however those of the celestial guards that flank the entrances – draped with extremely fine jewelry and headgear that one would have been hard pressed to even be able to carve in soap and yet those tremendously skilled sculptors of yore crafted in stone, the marvelous figures, bearing divine chakras (serrated spinning disc weapons) and conch shells and wrapped with layers upon layers of extraordinarily delicate jewelry, are embossed upon layers of elaborate foliage and geometric patterns once more culminating into fierce Kirtimukhas, miniature Makaras and tantalizing floral patterns.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiif24WcInqcto607PEYO3vnqnb1zx5ebY3Y43mrREyp6V0wwaJ2eAZgi2nAMePbeR7cKWsU7XpaFT0FpvYdjszYZUOOZxyft1qu-9I-D5hDpBZtBE5o34LUZHQT4W6dTqBzTPhQR_bFeef/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiif24WcInqcto607PEYO3vnqnb1zx5ebY3Y43mrREyp6V0wwaJ2eAZgi2nAMePbeR7cKWsU7XpaFT0FpvYdjszYZUOOZxyft1qu-9I-D5hDpBZtBE5o34LUZHQT4W6dTqBzTPhQR_bFeef/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Those sculptors, these details, such polish!</b></span></td></tr>
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The multitudes of sculptures and scroll work lend testimony to the incomparable skill of the architects and artists who were themselves so impressed and overjoyed by their own creations that they disregarded ancient Hindu architectural customs that prohibit artists and sculptors from signing their work – thus come to light the names, sovereign-bestowed titles and places of origin, but not the achievements and lives, of Ruvari Mallitamma, Masanithamma, Chameya, Chaudeya, Nanjeya, Rameya, Pallavachari and Cholavachari. A huge inscribed stone tablet records the commissioning of the temple in AD 1268 by Somanatha Dandanayaka, the illustrious Commander-in-Chief of Emperor Narasimha III (reign AD 1263-92), within the small village he had established and christened after himself as “Somnathpur Agrahara”. In and about the temple are several other inscriptions as well dated from AD 1269 to 1550 recording its substantial embellishment by private individuals and the endowment of the revenue of several villages for its maintenance by later sovereigns.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7jaJULauDjcOT3K5ySTSfXptXRaOQx_ri4wiRaFhkXiRhJTaOOfj0ChKvGwCoSWiwm35p5kJgy2lX-b_UIf8ia51-hjRYOIjFQiewFYZiJZtK8SeDpZDuUVc9P8HYK1AshpfCXOyamiEd/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7jaJULauDjcOT3K5ySTSfXptXRaOQx_ri4wiRaFhkXiRhJTaOOfj0ChKvGwCoSWiwm35p5kJgy2lX-b_UIf8ia51-hjRYOIjFQiewFYZiJZtK8SeDpZDuUVc9P8HYK1AshpfCXOyamiEd/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sculptural extravaganza!</b></span></td></tr>
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The enchanting T-shaped superstructure is divided internally into three exactly identical, incredibly narrow sanctums facing the central hallway, each possessing a singular sculpture portraying the Lord’s aforementioned aspects and heralded by massive astonishingly impressive doorjambs and resplendently ornate divine guards crafted from lustrous granite. Each mesmerizing idol is so thoroughly detailed and finely polished that it lustrously shimmers golden-brown in the warm mellow glow of the numerous incandescent bulbs that illuminate the incredibly dark interiors since the minute streaks of sunlight tracing their way in through the formidably set entrance and the numerous miniscule cross-shaped openings in the ornamental stone latticework that defines the magnificent temple’s walls prove to be grossly insufficient. The darkness further accentuates the forbiddingly straight vertical and horizontal lines that define the numerous deftly designed stone patterns carved into the heavy set walls, but it also succeeds in blurring the methodically detailed nature of the numerous ornately carved concave stone roofs that grace the enchanting rectangular hallway preceding the sanctums and culminate into unequaled patterns fairly realistically reminiscent of the development and blossoming of a massive banana bud.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpF4DLaDg7AWIUYsVnpvSn0aEfV43laVlBiwcuR919EfUt9ODdmy5uBZ_6lHsn1mrnQrHoLY3JThiegw6vQ5Z_PFMzT9w9NBz3za-QoQv1rOMBr41zKClRSy0GOl4McmFYA6JeIh23djiw/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpF4DLaDg7AWIUYsVnpvSn0aEfV43laVlBiwcuR919EfUt9ODdmy5uBZ_6lHsn1mrnQrHoLY3JThiegw6vQ5Z_PFMzT9w9NBz3za-QoQv1rOMBr41zKClRSy0GOl4McmFYA6JeIh23djiw/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Soothing sacredness</b></span></td></tr>
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Except for two stellar-shaped ones immediately adjacent the entrance, all the tantalizing pillars that support the extensively conceived, immensely heavy roof are lathe-turned polished to spotless brilliance and passionately decorated with ornate strings of sculpted trinkets and meshwork patterns. It is compelling to notice how the relatively straightforward interiors were transformed into an artistic extravaganza along the exteriors by those matchlessly accomplished sculptors and consummate craftsmen through the employment of numerous angles and recesses in cohesion with hundreds of thousands of sculptural curves and miniaturization art in collaboration with an unequalled understanding of light and shadow play. Not to be easily outdone by the physically larger and regally patronized shrines at Belur and Halebidu, here were constructed at each protruding vertex of the plinth (“jagati”) smaller ornate sculptures of caparisoned elephants, insignificant deities and serpent divinities.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QczhEoTePj3eeum98DYj8D_xuX74I9ZQ1QIt__VkIoBOnFfGTgaO8ZA1oWJxomWL1iPPKK_IkSJfvWQWSh_HzoBaXnYfnXo5yl8N5SEsyHmYylTo0Vz5ZsmunJp3brzgkG8gepq18UR2/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QczhEoTePj3eeum98DYj8D_xuX74I9ZQ1QIt__VkIoBOnFfGTgaO8ZA1oWJxomWL1iPPKK_IkSJfvWQWSh_HzoBaXnYfnXo5yl8N5SEsyHmYylTo0Vz5ZsmunJp3brzgkG8gepq18UR2/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Impossibly detailed</b></span></td></tr>
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Sadly though, despite witnessing such incomparable visual extravaganza and sculptural grandeur, I left the shrine slightly dejected – it being a Sunday and therefore a vacation for post offices and furthermore, there not being any significant information on the internet apprising passionate philatelists that a letter/post card dropped in the small red postbox nailed to the aforementioned massive acacia tree outside the temple enclosure will be stamped with a special commemorative cancellation depicting a pictorial profile of the shrine, the enthusiastic amateur philatelist in me (further goaded by an innate, much despised tendency to collect and hoard souvenirs!) could not help feeling crestfallen about not having on me an envelope and consequentially not being able to post a letter from here. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0TER0k6SEzDw4S1Qjp19isCrFEZnvp-Q_Fj3vDmmdlv4vKrxHgAQpKYgsu28KIs3KjDp25h5euktmMKjaBA4thAyCUW9xV0IAchW3V-7jp8C7a1AO144ojyuXqwFYYC0AwG1RnQLG1bur/s1600/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0TER0k6SEzDw4S1Qjp19isCrFEZnvp-Q_Fj3vDmmdlv4vKrxHgAQpKYgsu28KIs3KjDp25h5euktmMKjaBA4thAyCUW9xV0IAchW3V-7jp8C7a1AO144ojyuXqwFYYC0AwG1RnQLG1bur/s640/Somnathpura+Chennakesava+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The last of its kind</b></span></td></tr>
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<b>Open: </b>All days, 8.30 am – 5.30 pm <br />
<b>Location: </b>Somnathpura, 35 kilometers from Mysore <br />
<b>How to reach: </b>Infrequent private buses ply between T. Narsipur and Somnathpura villages (12 kilometers – 20 minutes – Rs 10/person). Regular government buses are available from Suburban bus stand, Mysore to T. Narsipur bypass flyover (35 kilometers – 30 minutes – Rs 15/person) from where one can walk to T. Narsipur village bus stand. The roads between Mysore and T. Narsipur, although terribly pockmarked, wind through vast water-logged paddy plantations that alluringly glisten soothing blue-green early morning and brilliant blinding green in the afternoon. <br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Indians: Rs 5; Foreigners: Rs 100; Free entry for children up to 15 years of age.<br />
<b>Photography/video charges: </b>Nil <br />
<b>Note: </b>The temple is still fervently revered by faithful pilgrims and footwear is not allowed within the central courtyard. The same can be deposited (for a miniscule sum of Rs 2/pair) at the makeshift counter near the humble gateway.<br /><b>Relevant Links - </b><br /><b>Other Hoysala temples in Karnataka -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/sri-pataleshwara-temple-belur-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Pataleshwara Temple, Belur</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Other monuments/landmarks in/around Mysore -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/church-of-st-joseph-and-st-philomena.html">Pixelated Memories - Church of St. Joseph and St. Philomena</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/05/mysore-palace-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Mysore Palace</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/seringapatnam-mandya-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Seringapatnam</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/sri-chamundeshwari-temple-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chamundeshwari Temple</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Suggested reading - </b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.indianphilately.net/ppckar.html">Indianphilately.net - Permanent Pictorial Cancellations: Karnataka</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.kaladarshana.com/sites/somnathpura/">Kaladarshana.com - Somnathpura</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennakesava_Temple,_Somanathapura">Wikipedia.org - Chennakesava Temple, Somanathapura</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-75528662173068486572015-11-12T17:12:00.000+05:302015-11-12T17:12:51.105+05:30Hampi, Bellary, Karnataka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“The city of Bidjanagar
(Vijayanagar) is such that the pupil of the eye has never seen a place
like it, and the ear of intelligence has never been informed that there
existed anything to equal it in the world. It is built in such a manner
that seven citadels and the same number of walls enclose each other.
Around the first citadel are stones of the height of a man, one half of
which is sunk in the ground while the other half rises above it. These
are fixed one beside the other in such a manner that no horse or foot
soldier could boldly or with ease approach the citadel.”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Abdur Razzaq, Ambassador (AD 1442-43) of Shah Rukh, Shah of Herat </b></div>
<br />
“One
state, many worlds” – Karnataka tourism’s particularly unpretentious
tagline eloquently sums up the enthralling culmination of marvelously
affluent palaces, scenic natural landscapes, infinite thundering seas, painstakingly ornamented
shrines, peacefully serene fields and endless
fringes of bountiful coconut trees that defines the vast beautiful
state. It is therefore exceedingly surprising that the enviably endowed
state does little to promote the considerably immense treasure of
medieval monuments and mythological sacred sites that it possesses –
point in case, Hampi – the unequalled stronghold of the culturally
renowned Vijayanagar Empire (reign AD 1336-1646) that, like several
other hallowed sites and shrines puzzlingly scattered throughout the
subcontinent, has its ancient mythological roots in intricate Hindu
legends and mythical tales and is an incredible epitome of the
unbelievable evolution and seamless assimilation of implausibly
far-fetched folklores with emotionless history.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5K6Z5WqZ2wZjlD_tuT5M8V8Vqvj2dXW1XqTf1xwfhFE0BzkNSngHHqkjRVXznAdMIAPM9K5Vly8SfNkqzywHPBnS7PuT5ykTknb14hWMHABo96kxXK1pYmc8RawAGjeui4JglhsJv60mZ/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252842%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5K6Z5WqZ2wZjlD_tuT5M8V8Vqvj2dXW1XqTf1xwfhFE0BzkNSngHHqkjRVXznAdMIAPM9K5Vly8SfNkqzywHPBnS7PuT5ykTknb14hWMHABo96kxXK1pYmc8RawAGjeui4JglhsJv60mZ/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252842%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hampi - Where meet history, mythology and nature</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Stepping
into the deliriously laidback village is certainly visually enchanting –
as if with the singular purpose of vexing mere mortals, nature has
studded the landscape in every direction with enormous
accumulations of substantially huge granite boulders heaped over each
other till they surmount considerable heights and intimidatingly dwarf
the entire settlement into a miniature dollhouse-like existence. And
then, perhaps to iterate their sculptural capabilities and
accomplishments, humans peppered the entire area with an infinity of
splendid shrines, towering gateways and rudimentary pavilions carved out
of the very granite boulders that reflect the golden brilliance of the
sun rays with such intensity that the whole seemingly insignificant
settlement appears aglitter.<br />
<br />
The legends and obscure stories surrounding
the mysterious establishment and development of the relaxed village and
its environs as “Vijayanagar” (“City of Victory”), the outstanding
capital of the unsurpassed medieval empire, are many and often
historically implausible – the first and the most unbelievable of all
states that the formidable empire was established by mere shepherds – the brothers
Harihara and Bukka blessed to become mighty
kings by the celebrated reclusive sage Madhavacharya Vidyaranya who was
pleased with their steadfast devotion and unwavering financial support
to him in the form of food and basic necessities during the difficult
period of ascetic penances that he undertook in the neighboring forest
lands.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuR4fEI7uGXA_omGvYoznVnbytosFbimPlCchu9rIA8sjZm_7SGyVS4LKU6LH5beMqb5dzFeFRSYE7gGrBlsoKh_PdYa_4dKhfb0nZ0om23U8QsXabrnp3jcKXt6terRrZgl6Y2yN5JB8/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuR4fEI7uGXA_omGvYoznVnbytosFbimPlCchu9rIA8sjZm_7SGyVS4LKU6LH5beMqb5dzFeFRSYE7gGrBlsoKh_PdYa_4dKhfb0nZ0om23U8QsXabrnp3jcKXt6terRrZgl6Y2yN5JB8/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Complimenting nature</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Scholars
however argue that the brothers were either local chieftains or military
commanders or treasury officers in the service of Pratap Rudradeva I of
the Kakatiya Dynasty of Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) who was ruthlessly
defeated and contemptuously forced to surrender his entire treasury and
powerful army of well-trained elephants in AD 1310 by the fiercely
fanatical-iconoclast Muslim armies led by Malik Kafur, the ferociously
barbaric eunuch General of Sultan Alauddin Khilji (reign AD 1296-1316)
of Delhi Sultanate. Thereafter the brothers, along with Pratap
Rudradeva’s other generals, were unceremoniously carried to Delhi,
rudely ridiculed, unconsentingly converted to Islam under constant
threat of imminent death and given command of a few divisions of the
imperial army. Their puny armies were soon afterwards commanded to
assist Malik Kafur’s in the punitive siege and plunder of Dwarasamudra,
the majestic stronghold of Hoysala Veera Ballala III (ruled AD
1292-1343) (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a>). However, in the midst of the anticipated melee, they
escaped to the impenetrable forests and gradually drifted towards the
tiny village of Hampi where they reverted to Hinduism and imperceptibly
slowly built a tiny kingdom, ringed in by line upon line of massive,
majestic hills composed of colossal, delicately balanced boulders
perpetually threatening to topple over and roll through humanity and
habitation. The small kingdom would later flourish unchallenged into a grand
empire and all the Hindu forces of peninsular India would rally to its
unified command and vision in the face of dreaded barbaric onslaughts
viciously perpetrated by the Islamic Sultans of Delhi (especially the
visionary but ceaselessly pitiless Sultan Muhammad Juna Tughlaq (reign
AD 1325-51)).<br />
<br />
Another theory states that they
were actually high-ranking ministers or feudatories of the unassumingly peaceful,
miniscule kingdom of Anegundi (located across Hampi on the other side
of the mighty river Tungabhadra), enslaved when Muhammad Tughlaq invaded
the region and explicitly forced the local chieftains to submit in AD
1323 – the Sultan however unequivocally instituted them as the fortified
province’s governors after they nominally converted to Islam. They
initially reigned supreme, although insignificantly so, for several years as
“Mahamandaleshvara” (“Great Lords”) from Anegundi under the distant
authority of Muhammad Tughlaq and the spiritual guidance of the learned
Madhavacharya Vidyaranya; but thirteen years later, as the memory of the
Sultan’s exceedingly fierce assault flickered and almost dwindled into
obscurity, the statesman-philosopher-author sage prudently advised them
to proclaim their independence from Delhi Sultanate and cement the
conception of their unopposed supremacy over the environs of Hampi and
its fertile surroundings by commissioning an administrative capital
surrounded by enormous fortifications on the site. It is unfeasibly also
suggested that the illustrious capital was originally christened as
“Vidyanagar” (“City of Learning”) after the eminent sage, however the
name was corrupted in contemporaneous historical records.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8lmpyre8I1NFGByr5N2UK-aW1aaeKrAm0_-UPwJnNQnHPvqBJ7SRYTT2E-9mcfJC-PgzEhYNUkKexocdTGqo2t4xZSASR8dL__DnTEEZ2Gg9CMkRjGKYmVyl8uOpSGfJYe17_cAKq86I/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252850%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC8lmpyre8I1NFGByr5N2UK-aW1aaeKrAm0_-UPwJnNQnHPvqBJ7SRYTT2E-9mcfJC-PgzEhYNUkKexocdTGqo2t4xZSASR8dL__DnTEEZ2Gg9CMkRjGKYmVyl8uOpSGfJYe17_cAKq86I/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252850%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>If there be heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Soon
after its inception, the empire forged a unified alliance with the
gradually declining kingdoms of Dwarasamudra and Warangal to constitute an
unyielding bulwark against the Muslim Sultanate of north India, in so
doing phenomenally halting the inroads of Islamic plunder and
territorial occupation from proceeding to the south and catalyzing the
immediate military capitulation of all the remaining south Indian Hindu
kingdoms to its own unchallenged ascendant authority. Over the next 300
years, the magnificent empire would be governed by four different
dynasties – Sangama (reign AD 1336-1485), Saluva (reign AD 1485-1505),
Tuluva (reign AD 1491-1570) and Aravidu (reign AD 1542-1646), and
despite the sporadic incidents of violent tyranny, desertions by
provincial governors and renegade generals, political discontent among
rebellious nobility annoyed by antagonistic royalty, conniving
refractions and renegades in vassal states, cold-blooded regicide and
barbaric cruelties, it would literally become a synonym of Hindu
cultural and architectural prowess, even though its emperors would refer
to themselves with a composite Persian-Arabic title – “Hindu Raya
Suratrana” (“Sultans over Hindu Rayas”). It would ambitiously send
emissaries to China, levy tributes from Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and
become renowned for its luxurious palatial residences, painstakingly
irrigated and cultivated fields yielding plentiful produce even in the
most arid of topographies, strictly ordered administration and gigantic
armed forces comprising over a million strong infantry and several score
thousand cavalry. In a display of the empire’s secular and militaristic
orientation, Emperor Deva Raya II (reign AD 1422-46) would issue orders for
the engagement of over 2,000 exceedingly lethal Muslim archers, who would
train his force of 60,000 Hindu mounted archers, besides allotting them
vast residential annexes in the capital and commissioning numerous
handsome mosques for the exercise of their faith.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7AP701KroskuFzo9U-sfSkDz2ABNphgixM2mYyemfXT19iCYahl2ryMhj6cvhltHStVNMspoOOh7IvQcWH7iAa7yVkf_a0Zla_bFlaiSn9MphIaOhhxeHBWDf5Xv7whyD5pmDvb3rxaCO/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252833%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7AP701KroskuFzo9U-sfSkDz2ABNphgixM2mYyemfXT19iCYahl2ryMhj6cvhltHStVNMspoOOh7IvQcWH7iAa7yVkf_a0Zla_bFlaiSn9MphIaOhhxeHBWDf5Xv7whyD5pmDvb3rxaCO/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252833%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sculptural orgasm! - Vitthala temple</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
empire’s numerous colorful bazaars lined with extremely wide roads and
pavilions for the merchants to trade and reside in would became legendary for the assortments of fruits, meats, spices,
textiles, Arabian horses, jewels and dozens of curiosities on offer and
would be described thus – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“This
is the best provided city in the world, and is stocked with provisions
such as rice, wheat, grains, Indian-corn, and a certain amount of barley
and beans, moong, pulses, horse-gram, and many other seeds which grow
in this country which are the food of the people, and there is large
store of these and very cheap.. </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>In
this city you will find men belonging to every nation and people,
because of the great trade which it has, and the many precious stones
there.. The streets and markets are full of laden oxen without count,
and in many streets you come upon so many of them that you have to wait
for them to pass, or else have to go by another way.. You will find all
sorts of rubies, and diamonds, and emeralds, and pearls, and
seed-pearls, and cloths, and every other sort of thing there is on earth
and that you may wish to buy. Then you have there every evening a fair
where they sell many common horses and nags, and also many citrons, and
limes, and oranges, and grapes, and every other kind of garden stuff,
and wood; you have all in this street.</b><b>”</b> </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Domingo Paes, Portuguese visitor to Vijayanagar (AD 1520-22) </b></div>
<br />
At
its zenith, the empire’s vast realm would extend throughout peninsular
India between both shores covering the modern states of Karnataka,
Telangana, Seemandhra, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and minute portions of
Maharashtra. Hampi (Vijayanagar), its matchless capital, would be the
world’s second largest city and boast of 500,000 inhabitants at the
beginning of 16th century!<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXdc52BeCgbOsCbUQbmf5n9hv6S3Jf6jNFFDk37OPWdoQ_9dOuzM6qiDn_I-InsucegMMEMmxV-9oCdbz2Cv3IC54Bmu-z9Ci3dG7HqERICN4YzUna2GYPuiRbK0wnv8o86RUxiiVlJVN/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252827%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXdc52BeCgbOsCbUQbmf5n9hv6S3Jf6jNFFDk37OPWdoQ_9dOuzM6qiDn_I-InsucegMMEMmxV-9oCdbz2Cv3IC54Bmu-z9Ci3dG7HqERICN4YzUna2GYPuiRbK0wnv8o86RUxiiVlJVN/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252827%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Virupaksha temple - Dominating the skyline</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Krishna
Devaraya (reign AD 1509-29), the greatest of its sovereigns who would
usher in a golden age of monumental architecture, victorious
territorial annexations and notable literature, would become a household
name throughout the country for several centuries to come so much so
that a satirical cartoon inspired by the hilarious
exploits of his quick-witted and sagacious court jester Tenali Raman (also otherwise known as Tenali
Ramakrishna), one of the eight
distinguished authorities on literature and poetry (“Ashtadiggaja”),
would air on national television in the first decade of 21st century!
(That is how I first heard of the comical Tenali Raman and Krishna
Devaraya, the magnanimous, far-sighted monarch who was an epitome of
physical strength and fearsome rage). <br />
<br />
Eventually
however, the epochal empire hastened to its demise at the hands of
aggressive Muslim forces demographically very different from those that
it had been conceived to steadfastly oppose in the first place. In the
administrative vacuum created by the retreat of Delhi Sultanate, Deccan
India slowly disintegrated into five neighboring Muslim kingdoms of Adil
Shahi Bijapur, Nizam Shahi Ahmednagar, Qutb Shahi Golconda, Imad Shahi
Berar and Barid Shahi Bidar – suspicious and enraged at the political
intrigues of Aliya Rama Raya (reign AD 1542-65) who had been eagerly and
condescendingly stoking the embers of discontent and warfare between
them, the Islamic Sultans formed a formidable alliance in AD 1565 and
inflicted a decisively catastrophic setback to the forces of Vijayanagar
and heartlessly plundered Hampi of all its fabled treasures and
destroyed each of its awe-inspiring palace gardens and hallowed temples.
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“This was not a defeat
merely, it was a cataclysm. All hope was gone. The myriad dwellers in
the city were left defenseless.. The enemy had come to destroy, and they
carried out their object relentlessly. They slaughtered the people
without mercy, broke down the temples and palaces; and wreaked such
savage vengeance on the abode of the kings, that, with the exception of a
few great stone-built temples and walls, nothing now remains but a heap
of ruins to mark the spot where once the stately buildings stood.
Nothing seemed to escape them. With fire and sword, with crowbars and
axes, they carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never
perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and
wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city; teeming with a wealthy and
industrious population in the full plenitude of prosperity one day, and
on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of
savage massacre and horrors beggaring description.</b><b>”</b> </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Robert Sewell, “A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar” (1900) </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1B_4P86Q6nfKuhjhV5Pnfwctosr7wLB8uCQPKi9r-GQWyTsumgY3d0xivHj-uGb1lTUdbeuAK2vb9a16bKk7RGhLwFGrstz6MATJaoN6TR2J07UzYVatSEEpClsxj0HkrjguaQF5OcNYw/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1B_4P86Q6nfKuhjhV5Pnfwctosr7wLB8uCQPKi9r-GQWyTsumgY3d0xivHj-uGb1lTUdbeuAK2vb9a16bKk7RGhLwFGrstz6MATJaoN6TR2J07UzYVatSEEpClsxj0HkrjguaQF5OcNYw/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Vijayanagar - Masquerading tales of murder and devastation under a veneer of beautified monuments in a landscaped setting</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Vijayanagar,
“City of Victory”, the majestic Hindu stronghold devastatingly ruined
by Islamic forces, was abandoned in its entirety and relinquished to
relentless wilderness and ruinous desolation redolent of mass-scale
death and destruction. Its unequalled splendor would crumble into
nothingness and its long line of illustrious rulers who proudly fought
for south Indian and Hindu autonomy would disappear from the memory of
their own kingdom and would only be chronicled by contemporaneous
literary records and foundation stone tablets within erstwhile glorious
shrines and gigantic public works presently scattered around as uncared
for orphan ruins. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Its
rulers, however, in their day swayed the destinies of an empire far
larger than Austria, and the city is declared by a succession of
European visitors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to have been
marvelous for size and prosperity – a city with which for richness and
magnificence no known western capital could compare. Its importance is
shown by the fact that almost all the struggles of the Portuguese on the
western coast were carried on for the purpose of securing its maritime
trade; and that when the empire fell in 1565, the prosperity of
Portuguese Goa fell with it never to rise again.</b><b>”</b> </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Robert Sewell </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZZxSlkoc4PRYYtw8qTVpaLUBc05heMw-s8pBltnTcPRLFBzz9fm5Y1PtUREGPgLyfL9Kjtc0BhAo1B10japJZUyvYOukR1CY3C-7zTLqpSwsEvHVHbqOR7EnHYSFLPIFqdCG80JXy2fxT/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZZxSlkoc4PRYYtw8qTVpaLUBc05heMw-s8pBltnTcPRLFBzz9fm5Y1PtUREGPgLyfL9Kjtc0BhAo1B10japJZUyvYOukR1CY3C-7zTLqpSwsEvHVHbqOR7EnHYSFLPIFqdCG80JXy2fxT/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252810%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span></b><b>Kudure Gombe Mantapa - Irrecoverable remnants of an obliterated past</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
At
the apex of its supreme glory, the picturesque city was the second
largest in the world – today its ruins compose the grandest of the lost
cities of Asia and are unreservedly considered an open air encyclopedia,
a vast interminable museum reminiscent of the empire’s unmatched
architectural and cultural grandeur and considerable financial
affluence. <br />
<br />
But tiny Hampi is significantly older
relative to the glorious reign of Vijayanagar Empire, or the very
history of Hindu-Muslim religious and territorial conflict which
unambiguously contributed to its emergence as a medieval Hindu
stronghold. Its existence is said to be eons of eons ancient not only
compared to the numerous smaller south Indian kingdoms such as the
Chalukyas (reign AD 543-753 and 973-1189), Rashtrakutas (reign AD
753-982), Yadavas (reign AD 850-1334) and Hoysalas (reign AD 1026-1343)
which ruled it in quick succession through their feudatories prior to
the Vijayanagar Empire, but even when stacked against the peerless
ancient dominions of Emperor Ashoka (ruled BC 268-32) whose reign over
the vast territory can be surmised from the numerous rock edicts
commissioned by him in the vicinity to expound his messages of
harmonious religious coexistence, tenderness towards all forms of life
and respect for the government of the day and its administrative
endeavors. The tranquil settlement, almost untouched by the recklessly
avaricious forces of relentless urbanization and snobbish modernization,
finds mention in the most ancient of epics as a hallowed site whose
timeless antiquity and unmatched spiritual importance has long been
inconsiderately forgotten but which nonetheless remains indissolubly
linked to several prominent mythological events involving primeval
creatures and mythical anthropomorphic entities. Undeniably, it is
amongst
the finest examples of this country’s religious heritage where history,
mythology and legends merge in a fantastical fusion to generate fables
that invoke metaphysical entities and invincible deities to exist
alongside ephemeral emperors and fleeting histories.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK0IDD8PlOLBtzieu2n2drLMzqkugXfEL8Cy0dzyhnHYGLOut5mwZD4WimIURI6SuiNoWdOlPY-86xkYDsD0uu06KLky4Bws3T4h3mgZ2HJi-Qjcq9c6kotwnMwzeCOOeKuXiCBc4n26EB/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252831%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK0IDD8PlOLBtzieu2n2drLMzqkugXfEL8Cy0dzyhnHYGLOut5mwZD4WimIURI6SuiNoWdOlPY-86xkYDsD0uu06KLky4Bws3T4h3mgZ2HJi-Qjcq9c6kotwnMwzeCOOeKuXiCBc4n26EB/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252831%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Let us fly back in time, dear reader, to Hampi's mythical origins</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Legend
goes that the pristine hills surrounding the medieval settlement are
even older than human comprehension and were in existence when
impossibly influential deities, fiercely powerful demons and
captivatingly voluptuous celestial forest nymphs roamed the realms of
earth alongside the earliest of human beings, the immediate progeny of
the all-pervading Brahma, the Lord of life and origins. Ancient lore
associated with several fervently venerated shrines throughout the
country recall the ritualistic sacrificial worship (“yagna”)
commissioned by the mythological emperor Daksha in which his own angelic
daughter Sati (Shakti) and her husband Shiva, the Lord of death and
destruction and the foremost of primordial deities, were unwelcome.
Sati, though requested not to go by Lord Shiva but persuaded by an
unremitting love for her father and maternal family, nonetheless reached
her father’s abode only to be faced with an unrelenting onslaught of
merciless abuses and insults heaped upon her all-powerful husband, as an
anguished consequence of which she committed suicide by jumping into
the ceremonial fire. Dangerously enraged and unnervingly grief-struck,
Lord Shiva picked up Goddess Sati’s lifeless body in one arm and his
frightening trident in the other and began the frenzied “Tandava Nritya”
(“Dance of Universal Annihilation”). The entire world was on the brink
of irrevocable destruction when all the Gods and deities collectively
invoked Lord Vishnu, the Lord of life and preservation, who used his
“Sudarshana Chakra” (serrated spinning disc weapon) to cleave Sati’s
body into 51 parts since an infuriated Shiva had vowed not to stop his
terrible dance till Sati’s body existed. Each of the sacred spots where
these 51 hallowed parts fell came to be sanctified as an auspicious
“Shakti Peetha” (“Seat of Power”) where an intent worshiper would be
endowed with immeasurable intellectual and spiritual prowess.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rCiuiRmwq9VU_R6MgnhacVJeQtQu9XuBm3AyqBeiM1LoDXXlesfVOLK-wMnq02K9y4FqR7yFB1A4qneC8cF_IuYbc88AOJT1ovXwnf-EOOwGNj1OGXu2Gh9_qKSfB3_FjhtBAKBs7acL/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rCiuiRmwq9VU_R6MgnhacVJeQtQu9XuBm3AyqBeiM1LoDXXlesfVOLK-wMnq02K9y4FqR7yFB1A4qneC8cF_IuYbc88AOJT1ovXwnf-EOOwGNj1OGXu2Gh9_qKSfB3_FjhtBAKBs7acL/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Virupaksha temple - An assortment of primeval
deities, mythological creatures and mythical anthropomorphic entities</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Assuaged
of his emotional affliction, Lord Shiva retreated to Hemakuta Hill that
overlooks the immense spread of Hampi’s charmingly beautiful landscape,
instantaneously relapsed into cosmic meditation and became
superficially oblivious of the universe for an eternity. Ages later, the
demon lord Tarakasura, possessing immense physical and meditative
strength that was a result of extreme penances that he undertook to
impress Gods into granting him numerous boons that literally ensured his
near invincibility, worshipped Lord Brahma and entreated him to bind
his death by the condition that he be only killed by the biological
progeny of Lord Shiva. Propelled by his limitless arrogance and
emboldened by the belief that Lord Shiva would never emerge from his
primeval meditation, he challenged and vanquished the divine deities
from heavens who were left with no alternative except to rouse Lord
Shiva from his unperturbed meditation and delicately beseech him to
remarry for the beneficence of all mankind and divinity. The Shakti
Peetha in Assam, where fell Goddess Sati’s mutilated vagina
following the Daksha episode (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2011/12/kamakhya-temple-assam.html">Pixelated Memories - Kamakhya Temple, Assam</a>)
and which had lapsed into
unbelievably widespread collective amnesia for several generations, was
rediscovered by Kama Deva, the Hindu God of lust and love-making, who
fired his potent love-arrows from there at Lord Shiva to retrieve him
from his profound meditative phase – thus awakened and exceedingly
enraged at being disturbed, Lord Shiva burned Kama Deva (also otherwise
known as Manmatha) to ashes with his contemplative third eye (however,
as is the case with almost all ancient Hindu lore, he would
of course later be recreated from nothingness and enthused with life
force by Goddess Kamakhya, the bestower of salvation and Tantric
boons). Acknowledging the imminent threat posed by the terrifying
demonic armies, Lord Shiva married Goddess Pampa who is traditionally
associated with the gently cascading river Tungabhadra.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOu6M7-vQ5s7t2lq5jCYyrh-Bu7SjiRdtbCn8YnKCX63o4Zs4ctrTCDSY54R6B3bMVFDpFLECvR3baej4UgLt79XAPU3UOCFYI75xsMld6MSnCTlEGbo_MxJNf97_SCQW1PmDpKRgZyr5/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252821%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOu6M7-vQ5s7t2lq5jCYyrh-Bu7SjiRdtbCn8YnKCX63o4Zs4ctrTCDSY54R6B3bMVFDpFLECvR3baej4UgLt79XAPU3UOCFYI75xsMld6MSnCTlEGbo_MxJNf97_SCQW1PmDpKRgZyr5/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252821%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A tinge of tenderness amidst all-pervading desolation - Eave brackets, Band Tower</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
This
is where even mythology becomes perplexingly layered and perhaps
allegorical to such an extent that it loses its resonance and tender
sensitivity (especially when contrasted with Kalidasa’s immortal poem
“Kumarasambhava”!) – at such terrible cost had the powerful Gods
reclaimed Lord Shiva from his oblivious meditation so that he might
bring forth an invincible child, but when he began rapturously
copulating with Goddess Pampa/Parvati, the other deities despairingly
cried out pleading them to stop since his semen was so potent that it
had begun to singe the entire universe except Goddess Pampa/Parvati who
alone was supremely capable of withstanding its intolerable fury.
Relenting their passions, the divine couple ceased their lovemaking and
the Lord ejaculated his semen which was determinedly scooped up by Agni,
the Lord of fire and conflagrations, with the blameless intention of
harvesting it to create a child only to realize that even he is
powerless to carry it for long (this rendering has of course prompted
some to ridiculously postulate that the scriptures actually refer to a
homosexual union between Lord Shiva and Agni which the latter was unable
to continue!). Agni therefore deposited the semen discharge along the
tranquil river bed and the Goddess, herself indelibly associated with
the river, fertilized the sperms and nourished the foetus with the
obliging assistance of her six handmaidens (“Kritikas” – the consorts of
Soma Deva (Moon God) who are said to constitute the constellation
Pleiades) – thus was born a valorous six-headed son christened
Murugan/Kartikeya who from the very moment of his birth was
regarded as an epitome of intimidating fearlessness, supreme
intelligence, spiritual accomplishment and invincible formidability and
officially assumed command of the infinite divine armies at a very
tender age to triumphantly defeat the demon lord Tarakasura (this is in
accordance with south Indian folklore).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3wz7cvdH0kUfenfDZscdi5Sku8BvJpJE1omT4LRYfXOv4ACMa81zMSvVAhgQPoRUoxGMdadmedCtcBQFenn5CAW1yQjafLT9ElyDzN1FcXmaJhsJMmscTh2rcJYp7BZU7JgzuQHfS22O/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252859%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3wz7cvdH0kUfenfDZscdi5Sku8BvJpJE1omT4LRYfXOv4ACMa81zMSvVAhgQPoRUoxGMdadmedCtcBQFenn5CAW1yQjafLT9ElyDzN1FcXmaJhsJMmscTh2rcJYp7BZU7JgzuQHfS22O/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252859%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Commemorating divine love and intimacy - Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati/Pampa, Virupaksha temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
North
Indian folklore however mentions Lord Shiva marrying Goddess Parvati,
the virtuous daughter of Lord Himalaya who is the anthropomorphic
personification of the expansive mountain range that crowns the land of
India. Also there is the confusion over whether it was Lord Shiva’s
semen or the sparks from his fiery third eye that were collected by Agni
Deva and secondly, was it Goddess Parvati/Pampa who, impelled by a
compassionate sense of motherhood, nurtured the young child or the
revered river Goddess Ganga. The nomenclature “Hampi” is the
anglicized version of “Pampe” which was derived from
“Pampa/Pampakshetra” as the area was traditionally referred to as. <br />
<br />
Several
epochs later, as mentioned in the ancient epic Ramayana that
inspirationally enumerates the (technically reiterating) tale of Lord
Rama, the ideal king-statesman-warrior-son-husband and a supposed
incarnation of Lord Vishnu (the God of life and nourishment), the
considerably undulating, boulder-strewn site came to be associated with
Kishkinda, the stronghold of Lord Rama’s semi-human, semi-monkey followers belonging to the “Vanara” clan
(possibly a race of physically and/or intellectually less developed
indigenous tribal groups or aboriginal men characterized by very
prominent facial features and endowed with an enviable ability to dwell
in and leap between trees and caves). While traversing the entire
countryside to trace the whereabouts of Queen Sita, the dutiful wife of
Lord Rama who was abducted by Ravana, the ten-faced, twenty-armed
intellectual but diabolical monarch of Sri Lanka, it was in Hampi that
the strapping prince and his younger brother Lakshman met Hanuman, their
most ardent and bafflingly good-natured Vanara follower who was
purportedly capable of flying across continents, change his dimensions
from minute to colossal at will, tear apart immense mountains and carry
them around and defeat entire legions of demonic armies without the
slightest of efforts! The claustrophobic residential cave of Sugriva,
supreme lord of all Vanara forces, is also located in Hampi overlooking a
denuded cliff adjacent the river Tungabhadra.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdJp3WVlVkGkZrB7qPtTCFBpG0wtNn_YTvX380inA47P2nnPmtAfI95upr3iVz8kDIqnZOAOSCYQfJMQWjbJyLP4Q9qRGEd8PNViVkk-8riUz9owExaxxftrVDeQt5o-yklRBPImNl1Cf/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252864%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdJp3WVlVkGkZrB7qPtTCFBpG0wtNn_YTvX380inA47P2nnPmtAfI95upr3iVz8kDIqnZOAOSCYQfJMQWjbJyLP4Q9qRGEd8PNViVkk-8riUz9owExaxxftrVDeQt5o-yklRBPImNl1Cf/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252864%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The descendants of Sugriva and Vali?</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
It
is therefore not surprising at all that the miniature village is a
massive playground for exceedingly nimble monkeys – lithe black-faced
grey langurs (Semnopithecus entellus) as well as querulous brown-faced
Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) – who leap between trees and
roofs of houses, run amok across the streets unmindful of traffic and
shrieking pedestrians sprinting away from them, climb the mammoth
gateway towers of the majestic temples and occasionally also comically
tease the
local populations of frogs and calves just to liven things up! Nights in
Hampi are characterized by a deafening silence undoubtedly capable of
reducing anyone on their own (for instance yours truly) to bewildering
palpitation and are punctured only by the intermittent meows of the
ubiquitous felines and the heavy-footed hushed movement of hordes of
sacred (though mostly starved and cadaverous) cows, but during the day
one
can be assured of being repeatedly startled by the chatter of the
unusually numerous simians and their gasp-inducing raucous acrobatics
through the dense foliage and upon the palm frond-layered roofs of the
austerely simplistic shop-cum-houses and spartan guesthouses that line
the length of the village. <br />
<br />
Despite its trifling
geographical span, Hampi’s spellbinding landscape is speckled with such
an unbelievably outlandish number of medieval shrines and residential
annexes that it is preposterous to even think of stepping into the
gorgeous village sans a well-defined map specifying the physical
divisions of the entire area and the key landmarks. Anticipating business
and shoving and shouting to get hired, local guides who also double as
auto rickshaw drivers distribute rudimentary maps free of cost at the
bus stop itself and clamor around the visitors. However, for a serious
sightseeing/documentation visit, it is advisable to be armed with a
highly detailed map, such as the one available here – <a href="http://hampi.in/map/hampi-map-2">Hampi.in/map</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx9HpSQ_BPuvNyd5RK7biitrfQ4TnoXprJyGo5EHoEWMG-ZtIytF8aI5TsbgLiWVe8j3RSpkHjVaj68t-pIA6Z7UPCme41d4vit8Z-yiSXKv_sc8XVDISJ5uXIVZI_savx4QjEWDtpH4na/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252856%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx9HpSQ_BPuvNyd5RK7biitrfQ4TnoXprJyGo5EHoEWMG-ZtIytF8aI5TsbgLiWVe8j3RSpkHjVaj68t-pIA6Z7UPCme41d4vit8Z-yiSXKv_sc8XVDISJ5uXIVZI_savx4QjEWDtpH4na/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252856%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Beautiful relics from a golden age - Plasterwork patterns, Hemakuta Hill shrine</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Marking
the precipitous length of hill sides, protruding from the jutting edges
of great boulders, surmounting the pinnacles of lofty precipices and
even popping up in places that would seem inaccessible to anything but
monkeys and birds – hundreds of miniature shrines and rudimentary
simplistic pavilions, crafted from granite slabs and varying minutely by
degrees in terms of their spatial plan and dimensions, dot the entire
village and its surroundings environs. Majestically towering over the
entire settlement as if attempting to soar even higher than the
surrounding hills is the impressive 52 meter (160 feet) tall gateway
(“Rayagopuram”) of Virupaksha temple. For the sake of classification,
the entire locale is cursorily divided by archaeologists into three
sections – the populated zone around Virupaksha temple, the “sacred
center” and the “royal center” (subdivided further into “royal
residential center” and “royal ceremonial center”); apart from these,
three of the hills – Matunga, Hemakuta and Gandhamadana – comprising the
immediate natural defensive ring around the impregnable settlement too
are sprinkled with an astonishing quantity and diversity of shrines and
pavilions and one wonders that if these mere unexceptional remnants,
irreversibly ruined and decayed, are such an impeccable source of
astonishment and admiration to all beholders, how visually magnificent,
culturally advanced and architecturally dexterous would have been at its
apex the empire that fashioned these! One conservative estimate puts
the number of shrines and rudimentary pavilions (“mantapa”) supported on
granite pillars in and around Hampi at around 3,000, of which
approximately 1,500 are still existential in their entirety with little
or no damage suffered as a consequence of the Islamic invasions or
elements of nature. However, except for the noteworthy Virupaksha temple
universally acclaimed as a living monument, none of these shrines
presently house
sacred idols nor are they employed for worship. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_CsHuXKUXrVp9moJmoEnuILp8rW9iIALISYY3qWWU7UN55WQa9GtIIiD6eblNo_JGO0g-GQciBfgp8_29By2JZqLdimQhNnpRhPMM-ORM2USxmfMqyMjsBeed5Si4HpigtN06HXlCJNSi/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_CsHuXKUXrVp9moJmoEnuILp8rW9iIALISYY3qWWU7UN55WQa9GtIIiD6eblNo_JGO0g-GQciBfgp8_29By2JZqLdimQhNnpRhPMM-ORM2USxmfMqyMjsBeed5Si4HpigtN06HXlCJNSi/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A million miniscule details and myriads of visual permutations </b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
It
is said that Virupaksha temple was adoringly consecrated on the spot
where Goddess Parvati/Pampa and Lord Shiva were traditionally married in
the auspicious presence of the entire Hindu religious pantheon –
celestial deities, intimidating demon lords (“Danavas”), powerful
sorcerer mendicants, fiendish goblins, terrible ghouls (“Pisachas”),
serpent deities (“Nagas”), voluptuous damsels (“Apsaras”), divinely
gifted musician-dancer centaurs (“Gandharvas”) and mystical sages and
their similarly spiritual wives. The original, simplistic shrine,
conceived and constructed around 7th century AD, was manifolds enlarged
and beautified by Proluganti Tippa, an officer in the court of Deva Raya
II, and later was expanded furthermore to its present magnificent
proportions and endowed with its richly textured gateways by Krishna
Devaraya upon ascension to the throne. And although parts of the sacred
enclosure have been grotesquely painted and hideously embellished
several times in the name of restoration/conservation by the temple
authorities, the shrine still retains plentiful of its intended grandeur
and continues to evoke an unbridled sense of wide-eyed awe in every
visitor. I had intended to stay in Hampi for two days and considering
the proximity of Virupaksha temple to the overflowing settlement and the endless groups of locals and
tourists slithering their way in and out of the huge ten-tiered gateway,
I instantly decided that in order to have clear uncrowded photographs,
I’ll have to wake up very early the next morning and visit the temple
before any of the other tourists make their appearance. And despite
being bone-tired from the intense walking and trekking stretching across
several kilometers of the village and neighborhood hills, I did wake up
at 4.30 am the next morning and reach the temple at 5 (it was barely a
stone’s throw away from the modest guesthouse I was staying in – in
fact, the graceful apex of the temple’s massive gateway was visible
through my window and the powerful incandescent bulb surmounting its
crown appeared like a solitary beacon during the dark of the
disturbingly silent night and threw pointed shards of orange-yellow
light to illuminate my room).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBIKA3slVH7V4myBaZltCVSArDl5C6XkPQ35NstkGO4jX6c9zkPq9M8iG4D7X2p2deu9za2h1P7ZHc5LS4asZ5Uy-vQSil4m4MHTbIm6zwTkTaCrFcJ-srb-VMzSwGfCsi-53mw988ett/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBIKA3slVH7V4myBaZltCVSArDl5C6XkPQ35NstkGO4jX6c9zkPq9M8iG4D7X2p2deu9za2h1P7ZHc5LS4asZ5Uy-vQSil4m4MHTbIm6zwTkTaCrFcJ-srb-VMzSwGfCsi-53mw988ett/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sacred symmetry</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
In the absence of any other soul except the chattering monkeys, the pigeons flitting between the pillars
and the beggarly bearded man struggling to sell marijuana, standing
at the threshold of the hallowed enclosure delineating the temple’s
sprawling peripheries, one
unconsciously realizes the unequalled gravity of the shrine’s
stateliness – dedicated to Virupaksha, the benevolent aspect of Lord
Shiva (although literally the word translates to “He of the three eyes
and features dreadful to behold”), the central shrine is enclosed within
two huge rectangular courtyards
whose boundaries are composed of strikingly symmetrical colonnades proudly
displaying their delicately sculpted granite pillars flamboyantly
painted orange and red. The central shrine itself is so evocatively
spellbinding that one instinctively leaves the camera aside for several
moments and begins to visually drink in the unparalleled artworks, the
imaginatively conceived mythical creatures and the painstakingly
chiseled mesmerizing pillars – the staircases are flanked by
sharp-fanged, serpentine dragons and the two prominent front-facing
pillars ornamentally transform into life-size mythical “Yali” (entities
possessing the body of a lion and the tusks and trunk of an elephant)
leaping from the back of a roaring elephantine “Makara” (entities
possessing the body of a fish, the face and tusks of an elephant, the
limbs of a lion and the tail of a peacock) while both their physical
features mutate to depict intense conflagrations of exquisite
flourishes; the incredible magnitude of the innumerable exceptional
sculptures and line motifs employed in the construction of the
remarkable second line of pillars of the meticulously detailed shrine is
bewilderingly fantastic – momentarily, one forgets that the entire
outstanding edifice is constructed from granite, an extremely resilient
material tremendously difficult to carve and fashion into sculptural
filigrees and artworks. Immaculately framed by stately pillars, the
glorious shrine eventually crystallizes along its roof into an enviably
sophisticated painted fresco (“Ranga Mantapa”) portraying myriads of
mythological scenes and legends. But
the vivid blossoming of poetry does not merely cease in stones but
permeates even the minutest of crannies of the temple complex. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH604CMhFgQDBm0zLnMzYDGjJu-PRBX_axYbBfxE8ux0psfkWRuE9GRYe4s9xOWkr4i578uICDFQZQGyVNG2tpQSZn3Fg0P4fo4XZaKpQeoAMKQcAHc9u5PYVfckulsr3IVw42wjg2PLdT/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252848%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH604CMhFgQDBm0zLnMzYDGjJu-PRBX_axYbBfxE8ux0psfkWRuE9GRYe4s9xOWkr4i578uICDFQZQGyVNG2tpQSZn3Fg0P4fo4XZaKpQeoAMKQcAHc9u5PYVfckulsr3IVw42wjg2PLdT/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252848%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Convergence of history, mythology, architecture and sculptural and paintwork art - Ranga Mantapa, Virupaksha temple </b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Its
brick and mortar superstructure flawlessly adorned with decorative
pilasters, statues of celestial guards and large alcoves inset with
captivating depictions of several deities, another excellently adorned
gateway built immediately besides the central shrine leads to a cluster
of over twenty dilapidated miniature shrines lining the sides of an
enormous stepped tank (conspicuously marked with hideous red and white
vertical lines) revered as Manmatha Honda that is believed to be a
natural depression that filled with the molten residues of the
surrounding hills and boulders when they were instantaneously seared by
the blazing intensity of Lord Shiva’s third eye while he furiously
scorched Kama Deva to cinder.<br />
<br />
Parting on a saddening note though, the temple’s in-house elephant, which is
trained to bless patrons with its trunk in exchange for small sums of
money, seemed strangely, disconcertingly hyperactive even this early
morning – perennially chained to the colonnades near the entrance, it
spent the entire time I was in the complex swaying around in semicircles, hopping from one front
foot to another and steadfastly refusing to take cognizance of the
presence of noisily exclaiming visitors even when they headed too close
for comfort – perhaps a terrible, possibly unforeseen consequence of
being confined to such a small space with little or no company and/or
indulgences through most part of the day.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ZCT3lyi-Ikz98bhykruAFWWqPZlSrr00bAsOJIlBU7m4BbqhAEVQTgH9RZ3pnXcy4KNwapKsP1vbAA8hjLVakogNC9KDNtep8qB6l5KMjJFqA6jg-6NKtjpWPg5T9eKbsPcwDLVqV8S7/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252814%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ZCT3lyi-Ikz98bhykruAFWWqPZlSrr00bAsOJIlBU7m4BbqhAEVQTgH9RZ3pnXcy4KNwapKsP1vbAA8hjLVakogNC9KDNtep8qB6l5KMjJFqA6jg-6NKtjpWPg5T9eKbsPcwDLVqV8S7/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252814%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Religion-sanctioned cruelty and deprivation?</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Facing
the iconic Virupaksha temple is the broad, terribly ruined Hampi Bazaar
(10.6 meters wide and 732 meters long), a cluster of pavilions composed
of crude granite pillars that originally accommodated scores of
well-stocked shops and formed one of the major thoroughfares of the
grand capital. Impressive even in its ruined state, the bazaar literally
forces one to pause and wonder what an indelible riot of colors,
fragrances and sounds the scene would have been when rich curtains would
have been stretched between the individual shops and the crowd,
sprinkled here and there with Portuguese traders and mercenaries but
primarily comprising of the local population and merchants from several
countries professing to several faiths and conversing in several
languages, dealt here in spices, textiles, pearls, jewels, foods, fruits
(and surprisingly roses too!) amidst a raucous milling of gawking
pedestrians, swift horse-mounted riders and traders shepherding oxen and camels
bent with heavy sacks of grains and spices. And the regally-attired royal
family too would have frequently traversed through on lavishly adorned
elephants or chariots followed by a train of courteous servants and
famously decorated royal guards mounted on well-bred steeds! <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The
bazaars are extremely long and broad.. Roses are sold everywhere –
these people could not live without roses, and they look upon them as
quite as necessary as food.. Each class of men belonging to each
profession has shops contiguous the one to the other; the jewelers sell
publicly in the bazaars pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.</b><b>”</b> </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Abdur Razzaq </b></div>
<br />
Without
any further diversions, reverting again to Day 1 of my Hampi sojourn –
following my early morning arrival at Hampi bus stand via the overnight
journey from Bangalore (KSRTC Non A/C Sleeper bus, Rs 650/person
inclusive of taxes), I immediately checked into a very down-to-earth
guesthouse (with large unadorned rooms and layers of dried palm fronds
lining the roof to keep the temperature from rising – certainly a
uniquely rural experience!) and proceeded to reserve an auto rickshaw
guide who would, for a princely 750 bucks over the course of next five
hours, show me around the aforementioned three geographical divisions
littered with hundreds of Vijayanagar-era monuments and shrines.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwdOZ7nYmDISav28mUE1x0kpGWySpTHbP2jjFis7Of1QdNmugJizJ-5S_9DCUtlLIg7mgbULdu0G8PSW-gAriNuje4zPdo6dzScwogS60DKzJBGatNXKcR2na1lQirUx8JJ0FulaBzOyCR/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252825%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwdOZ7nYmDISav28mUE1x0kpGWySpTHbP2jjFis7Of1QdNmugJizJ-5S_9DCUtlLIg7mgbULdu0G8PSW-gAriNuje4zPdo6dzScwogS60DKzJBGatNXKcR2na1lQirUx8JJ0FulaBzOyCR/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252825%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Classical architecture - Kadlekalu Ganesha temple</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
“sacred center” is contiguous the bus stand and encompasses within its
ill-defined frontiers numerous religiously and iconographically
prominent and historically important temples besides scores of long
abandoned, highly dilapidated shrines, gateways and pavilions.<br />
<br />
Dedicated
to the elephant-headed, pot-bellied God of auspiciousness, good
beginnings and knowledge, the interestingly christened Kadlekalu Ganesha
and Sasivekalu Ganesha (“groundnut Ganesha” and “mustard seed Ganesha”
respectively!) were so named because of the resemblance of the huge
monolithic sculptures to the grains referenced. The idols were carved
out of single pieces of boulder in situ and while the first is enshrined
within a very confined sanctum adjoining a large singularly
well-proportioned hall lined with surprisingly intricately carved
pillars, the second (which is visually more thrilling considering that
the swollen Ganesha idol is so conceived as to depict along its
posterior side the outline of Goddess Parvati’s voluptuous figure
rendered nearly inconspicuous on account of the plump Ganesha
affectionately sitting in her lap!) is simply enclosed within an
unostentatious pillared pavilion and was commissioned in AD 1506 by a
prosperous trader in memory of Emperor Narasimha Raya II (reign AD
1491-1505). <br />
<br />
Slightly further exists the massive,
considerably well-preserved Krishna temple dedicated to the ostentatious
playboy-strategist-statesman-cow herder-warrior-philosopher who
supposedly lived some 5,000 years ago and is regarded as an incarnation
of Lord Vishnu. Flanked by fairly large and mesmerizingly adorned
subsidiary shrines, the central temple sits within a huge courtyard
accessible via a literally colossal granite gateway surmounted by an
exquisite brick and mortar superstructure that now merely survives in
miserably decayed fragments but is nonetheless testimony to the
incomparable skill of the craftsmen who had the sheer imagination and
tenacious dexterity to conceive and execute such sophisticated
embellishment of geometric line patterns and elaborate sculptural
artwork.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BnHwkQfn84Qqep7xvDnB5qB1f9JlaDm0-I3ksj3fMCCiqnMzTLVKjSCCskr1_in2ZDBnEvHmp0Xa9_RP3Vu-F6fAETK5jvvFKWF6geqzQ4CWQ9jq3KmaopmgL98oYbcB3GD3Bzn09KSK/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252826%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BnHwkQfn84Qqep7xvDnB5qB1f9JlaDm0-I3ksj3fMCCiqnMzTLVKjSCCskr1_in2ZDBnEvHmp0Xa9_RP3Vu-F6fAETK5jvvFKWF6geqzQ4CWQ9jq3KmaopmgL98oYbcB3GD3Bzn09KSK/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252826%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Flawless - The Krishna temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Commissioned
by Krishna Devaraya in AD 1513 to enshrine an idol of “Balakrishna”
(infant representation of Lord Krishna) that he had brought from
Udaygiri (Orissa) as a commemorative trophy following his victorious
incursion against the powerful armies of Suryavanshi Pratap Rudradeva
Gajapati (reign AD 1497-1540), the sovereign of Kalinga-Utkala (comprising
the whole of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and parts of
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa), the entire edifice and its
subsidiary mini-shrines are defined by a visually subdued and ethereally
graceful profusion of unbelievably delicate stone carvings, impossibly
fine stucco detailing and numerous (much dilapidated) multi-tiered
elongated “shikhars” (elongated domes) – unmovably awestruck at the very
threshold of the courtyard after observing the exceedingly skillfully
finished floral scrolls which convolute and twist into a sculptural
rococo depicting mischievously playful antics of Balakrishna inset
within rounded panels interspersed by the ten incarnations of Lord
Vishnu and a plethora of faintly noticeable vine creepers and subtly
tantalizing flourishes, one is tempted to believe that it is not granite
that one is touching and feeling for such flawlessly precise designs
cannot possibly be carved on such severely unmalleable stone! Not unlike
most shrines in the ancient capital however, the sanctums of the temple
and each of its sub-shrines are now bereft of their consecrated idols –
what was spared by the iconoclast Muslim armies has long since been
transferred to different museums ranged throughout the country to disseminate historical information about Hampi and
Vijayanagar Empire – which however does at times and to a seemingly insignificant but
occasionally heartfelt extent, seem to be at the cost of the voiceless local shrines
back here in the idyllic ruins.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaeDWBlw1Owy9MoTzfHGMr_Q4730_5ynt17CmKXELXqHFuq-2y_Fop41groKeVwM4Y8qPm2u_reQEC8VIJ8-etCnQlQynnug0PMSfgzGJ1BD1NNcl1DYX6hcIarHrvBh99-xvxxoUG7_L2/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252857%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaeDWBlw1Owy9MoTzfHGMr_Q4730_5ynt17CmKXELXqHFuq-2y_Fop41groKeVwM4Y8qPm2u_reQEC8VIJ8-etCnQlQynnug0PMSfgzGJ1BD1NNcl1DYX6hcIarHrvBh99-xvxxoUG7_L2/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252857%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>An Emperor's tribute - Central shrine, </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Krishna temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
In
1986, the extraordinary cluster of medieval monuments at Hampi was
accorded the enviable UNESCO World Heritage Site status. In 1999
however, it miserably sneaked its way to the list of World Heritage in
Danger because of unsatisfactory maintenance and pressing infringement
from nearby urbanization and commercial development. Since 2005, a
partnership forged by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), World
Monuments Fund (WMF), National Culture Fund (NCF), Global Heritage Fund
(GHF), Jindal South West Foundation (JSW) and Hampi World Heritage Area
Management Authority (HWHAMA) has been painstakingly endeavoring to
conserve and restore these monuments through the employment of 3D laser
mapping, structural stabilization interventions, site planning
guidelines, horticultural landscaping and traditional brickwork
construction practices to recreate the damaged stucco panels and
sculptures and physically stabilize the gateways and the towers besides
constituting a more visually enhanced composition. Presently, the
gateway of Krishna temple and the sanctum of Vitthala temple (more on
that later) are ensconced within thick webs of cladding and scaffolding
and it is wholeheartedly hoped that, like a butterfly gently and
victoriously emerging from its cocoon, the monuments post-conservation
would once more be the topic of unreserved appreciation and
well-deserved accolades. <br />
<br />
Across the road from the
temple exists its associated gargantuan bazaar where traders and
merchants would gather every Monday to deal in grains. Now relegated to
vegetation and weed-infested shrubbery, the entire area appears
strangely sanitized of all humanity – most tourists are content to click
a photo or two from the road level itself and seldom does anyone head
down the massive granite slabs that ostensibly function as immense,
uneven staircases. It’s a shame actually – concealed behind the bazaar,
camouflaged with all the rough-textured, unevenly-hewn granite columns
that constitute the latter is the temple’s associated sacred water tank
(“pushkarni”) – a pristine rectangular depression brimming with dark
green-colored water around which flutter monotonously faded-yellow
butterflies and stream lines upon lines of ants marching forever to seek
hunt and activity. Egrets and bitterns waddle in the corners or
settle down on the despondently ruined pyramidal roof surmounting the
heartbreakingly beautiful pavilion existential like a marooned island in
the center of the tank. Away from all mankind, away from the
ceaseless drone of unsettling noises and disturbances of tedious
everyday life, away from every single kind of pressure – sitting down in a corner of the bazaar opposite
the tank is explicably peaceful.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiuQVE8GzF4__5GF4IFCxNaNLuwJ-n3r5CkU8MrJ0YV_un27aW-ZrkBYrt_Rlmb6RS0IlOrUCsTPPwR-MFotEi4n64vXCEnt2RJ6rmZx7SbtTmjnetFpmxXQRv1C-xQaTLAu8IhbWWR_pL/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252851%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiuQVE8GzF4__5GF4IFCxNaNLuwJ-n3r5CkU8MrJ0YV_un27aW-ZrkBYrt_Rlmb6RS0IlOrUCsTPPwR-MFotEi4n64vXCEnt2RJ6rmZx7SbtTmjnetFpmxXQRv1C-xQaTLAu8IhbWWR_pL/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252851%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tranquility! - Pushkarni, </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Krishna temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Impenetrably
surrounded by endless expanses of bountiful banana plantations (so
that’s why there is such an overwhelming abundance of simians here!) and
heralded by several more abandoned shrines and massive gateways that
encompass entire two-way roads between their ends, slightly further on
along a dirt track crisscrossed by brimming and gurgling water canals
exists a constellation of some of the most recognizable landmarks dotting
Hampi’s landscape and its imperial iconography. Glorious within its
cramped square shrine and celebrated for the intricacy of its
well-defined stone features and exquisite ornaments, essentially the first and
foremost to be physically witnessed and literary documented would be
the momentous Lakshmi Narasimha monolith commissioned by Krishna
Devaraya in AD 1528. Terribly fierce and unimaginably powerful, Lord
Narasimha, the perennially infuriated anthropomorphic semi-lion,
semi-human incarnation of Lord Vishnu, originated to protect devotees
from terrible demons and is here depicted with fearsome bulging round eyes and a
particularly vicious smile baring his exceedingly sharp fangs, regally
seated on the thick coils of the seven-hooded eternal primordial serpent
Sheshanaga (considered independently to be a physical manifestation, an
admirable brother and a faithful devotee of the former by several
legends) whose seven heads also form a protective canopy above the Lord
to shield him from the elements. The entire is envisaged within a
simplistic arch, a “makara torana”, emerging from the cavernous mouths
of small makaras on each side before eventually culminating into an apex
constituted by a “kirtimukha” (the ferociously wide fanged, lion-like
face of an all-consuming demon conceived and originated out of thin air
by Lord Shiva to destroy other, mightier demons) very nearly merging
with Sheshanaga’s hood. The sculpture’s four arms as well as the image
of Sri Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity and the consort of
Lord Vishnu, which sat on Lord Narasimha’s thigh and which now merely
survives as a mutilated fragment of a bejeweled arm still lovingly
encircling the Lord’s back, were brutally destroyed by the iconoclast
Muslim soldiers during the final ravaging of the city.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNt1M6rprRIIa2CpKCcjrDTpHzpqrRJu5X82yHgwAZpezIIyLOwnqFewjFYIOfEWPk5lLfq2f6M8ky8uVqulT6kgBjbW7Z5y0J-ME-lUUy8ZocZCyVAZAmL_b90VwM4CjLu3Bf3-SMpOWP/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252863%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNt1M6rprRIIa2CpKCcjrDTpHzpqrRJu5X82yHgwAZpezIIyLOwnqFewjFYIOfEWPk5lLfq2f6M8ky8uVqulT6kgBjbW7Z5y0J-ME-lUUy8ZocZCyVAZAmL_b90VwM4CjLu3Bf3-SMpOWP/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252863%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Fierce and yet spellbinding - The Lakshmi Narasimha monolith</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
For
lack of better words to describe this shamefully gruesome facet of
Hampi’s immediate history, I plagiarize my own words from the article
about the unbelievably majestic Hoysaleswara temple in Hassan
district (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/08/hoysaleswara-temple-complex-halebidu.html">Pixelated Memories - Hoysaleswara Temple complex, Halebidu</a>) – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“It
(the shrine) is at once a discovery of ancient Hindu imperial magnificence and
bourgeois grandeur and also of the cruelest of illusions that the
unrelenting passage of the sands of time could wreak on unsuspecting
humans – the illusion originating from hope, from belief, that even
though we might wither and die and decay, our mere creations, be they
sculptures carved in perennial stone or words in timeless literature,
will survive the ravages of time and the exploitation and imprudence of
fellow individuals.. Could not those soldiers, those seekers of worldly
plunder, timeless fame and religious redemption, sense the intricacy of
the stone jewels that I was looking at? Could they not visualize the
sweat and labor of the sculptors who meticulously and laboriously toiled
on crafting these? Could they not notice the enchanting textures, the
ethereal impressions imbibed in stone by those expert craftsmen hopeful
of being remembered through their hypnotizing creations, if not their
mortal names and meager origins? How could they have failed to be
mesmerized?</b><b>”</b></div>
<br />
The Badavilinga temple adjacent
is unusual – the massive granite monolithic Shivalinga (the universal,
terribly austere rounded-pillar representation of Lord Shiva) has been
conceived such that it is skirted by a narrow canal drawn from the
Tungabhadra river and consequentially a major portion of it is submerged
underwater throughout the year. The 3-meter tall Linga projects from an
equally oversized circular base (“Yoni peetha”) and is inscribed very
superficially with the pattern of the Lord’s three eyes. Local folklore
goes that the temple was constructed by an underprivileged peasant
woman, hence the nomenclature – “Badavi” translates to poor. The
superstitious also believe that if one could throw a coin so that it
stays on the Linga’s rounded pinnacle, the devotee’s heartfelt dream
would come true – the atheist in me considered that a waste of both time and
coins and moved on – I was in hypnotic mythological Hampi, what more
could I ask for?! “If dreams were made of stone, it would be Hampi", is
how they promote the place after all.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxkLhsRvi5aKxGuDwnn8pCBMrFN3blxWYFQwCP-8Lkf34W5X-OOUEYR3JG5PzhT0KyZvQ2Fvtst5Ohq-IyCZFpYc-5yGWlkI80ifGrXZCNUe2lj9WKyiCF2qkyCYtYxxW2cgXHWrn5KNas/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252846%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxkLhsRvi5aKxGuDwnn8pCBMrFN3blxWYFQwCP-8Lkf34W5X-OOUEYR3JG5PzhT0KyZvQ2Fvtst5Ohq-IyCZFpYc-5yGWlkI80ifGrXZCNUe2lj9WKyiCF2qkyCYtYxxW2cgXHWrn5KNas/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252846%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Unparalleled exquisiteness! - Subsidiary shrine, Krishna temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Endowed
with a large hall composed of ornately carved pillars, Chandikeshwara
temple is not unlike most other shrines and pavilions scattered
throughout the settlement’s landscape except for the case of its
mistaken identity – while its present nomenclature attests to its
association with Lord Shiva, the sculptures and stone embossments
gracing its pillars and sanctum are certainly concomitant to Lord Vishnu
and the life and times of his various incarnations and devotees.<br />
<br />
Uddana
Veerabhadra aka Mudduviranna temple, still revered by locals and
painted and repainted and embellished enough times to lose its original
royal character and architectural texture, is dedicated to Lord
Veerbhadra, an aspect of Lord Shiva or technically the personification
of his indignant rage, that originated from his furious, all-incinerating
third eye (or his mouth or a lock of his hair – the various epics differ
on the minutest of details!) following the suicidal immolation of
Goddess Sati, with the resolute purpose of destroying the meritorious
proceeds of Daksha’s sacrifice in addition to those disdainful deities
who did not indulge him, the omnipotent, omnipresent primeval
universal force, their sincere offerings.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAcBcElGIFxXumHAkJli60elpz8Pgf51ZSWAf3e_1dmocU7yV5AuShyphenhyphenlqv0713yJNsJC7ZxTTambSTtHEzZlgYt8Y-YcVMaNRxZPC4hUuJYWZui5TMNOkl0diFGGveqttApkLXZ8X6paU/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252817%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAcBcElGIFxXumHAkJli60elpz8Pgf51ZSWAf3e_1dmocU7yV5AuShyphenhyphenlqv0713yJNsJC7ZxTTambSTtHEzZlgYt8Y-YcVMaNRxZPC4hUuJYWZui5TMNOkl0diFGGveqttApkLXZ8X6paU/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252817%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Correlating monuments - A representation of Lord Veerbhadra in </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Kadlekalu Ganesha temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
lore of Veerbhadra’s origins, relatively little known, especially in
the north, is considerably remarkable, especially as described in the
unequaled epic Mahabharata (which does not however mention Goddess
Sati’s sacrifice, but barely skims the surface with the insults offered
to Lord Shiva by Daksha Prajapati) – <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Mahadeva
(Shiva) created from his mouth a terrible being, a living embodiment of
his wrath, whose very sight could make one's hair stand on its end. The
blazing flames that emanated from his body rendered him exceedingly
awful to behold. His arms were many in number and in each was a weapon
that struck the beholder with fear. In energy, strength, and form, that
being of immeasurable might and energy, and of immeasurable courage and
leonine prowess, resembled Mahadeva himself who had created him – he
came to be called by the name of Veerabhadra – that dispeller of the
Goddess's wrath. That mighty being then set out, desirous of destroying
the sacrifice of Daksha. He created from the pores of his body a large
number of spirit chiefs known by the name of Raumyas. Those fierce bands
of spirits, endued with terrible energy and prowess and resembling
Rudra himself on that account, rushed with the force of thunder to
Daksha’s sacrifice, impelled by the desire of destroying it. Possessed
of dreadful and gigantic forms, they numbered by hundreds and thousands
and filled the sky with their confused cries and shrieks so that the
noise filled the denizens of heaven with fear. The very mountains were
riven and the earth trembled. Whirlwinds began to blow, oceans rose in a
surge. The fires that were kindled refused to blaze up, the sun became
dimmed and the planets, the stars, the constellations and the moon no
longer shone – a universal darkness spread over earth and sky. In
consequence of Rudra's wrath, every one of those gigantic beings looked
like the all-destructive Yuga-fire. Agitating the celestial troops they
caused them to tremble with fear and fly away in all directions.</b><b>”</b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPdYq5UZgIV5g_MT_OFqaZe2Tk-VbidCUSMnw65SDpa2KGymfiL4It7qpt2YIm90rxwIBTYQWD_y6os4mZY0cIzac-iWplUZoRRdxPR7jx5mqi3cBXt58HTnFMfSx213Eu1plSKdB7YtET/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252819%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPdYq5UZgIV5g_MT_OFqaZe2Tk-VbidCUSMnw65SDpa2KGymfiL4It7qpt2YIm90rxwIBTYQWD_y6os4mZY0cIzac-iWplUZoRRdxPR7jx5mqi3cBXt58HTnFMfSx213Eu1plSKdB7YtET/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252819%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Glitter glimmer - Inside Uddana Veerbhadra temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
16-feet high four-armed image of wide-eyed mustached Veerbhadra,
wrapped in glittering tinsel, glimmering clothes and garlands of vibrant
orange marigolds and flawless white jasmine, is depicted as bearing a
sword, a shield, a bow and arrows. Continuing with the thread of the
legend – Lord Shiva, pacified following the devastation of Daksha’s
sacrifice and the annihilation of several deities and mythological
celestial beings, brought them each back to life but in his disgust
replaced the decapitated head of Daksha with that of a goat. Here, a
goat-headed tiny Daksha is depicted deferential and worshiping
Veerbhadra, an image also evident in several shrines and pillar
embossments across the length of Hampi, but seldom perceived considering
that in terms of physical appearance and ornamentation, Veerbhadra
conspicuously identifies with every other significant Hindu deity. <br />
<br />
Not
very far from here can be traced the land-submerged outline of Prasanna
Virupaksha temple (lit., “Delighted Virupaksha”) and its subsidiary
shrines, easily discernible against the vibrancy of brilliant green
grass around (and upon!) them – for some indiscernible reason this
unusual underground shrine, again dedicated to Lord Shiva and
chronologically dated to 14th-century, was built within a large
artificial depression. Consequentially, it was later partly buried by
eroded soil and even now remains flooded to some extent throughout the
year. Wide uneven stairs lead down to the level of the solid granite
gateway (said to have been a later addition) and from here again the
temple is still significantly lower. Inexplicably so, especially
considering that the shrine was regally patronized and Emperor Krishna
Devaraya had stipulated the revenue from several villages including the
rural settlement of Nagalapura (which he had established to impress his
favorite wife Nagala Devi), the numerous slender pillars supporting the
roof are very crudely sculpted and bear extremely unsophisticated divine
figurines.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6mtWhVGtgJlwybbqxGGid5Z-B-DCXwS4t8KUdTF1AFGkeKv_o6__mXvC1WFJ84ng-IpCu1ni_CFOz3vVA43MLsZ_l88EKiaq2uSCm6Lhfz7aCw9F9v7Lqa8VVvhtNP-YQotICyi7h0LJ/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252853%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ6mtWhVGtgJlwybbqxGGid5Z-B-DCXwS4t8KUdTF1AFGkeKv_o6__mXvC1WFJ84ng-IpCu1ni_CFOz3vVA43MLsZ_l88EKiaq2uSCm6Lhfz7aCw9F9v7Lqa8VVvhtNP-YQotICyi7h0LJ/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252853%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Singular! - The Prasanna Virupkasha temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Streaks
of light filtering through between the pillars, rendering immaculate
reflections in the crystal clear water and creating patterns of
painfully harsh light and equally blinding shadows, tend to ensure an
unusually memorable visual composition. The gloomy and moist conditions
however are particularly conducive for the settlement of bats in the
nooks and crannies and the obscure darkness-shrouded sanctum.
Consequentially very few visitors step as far as the pillared hallway
and unfailingly rush out almost immediately if they ever do – hence therefore, clean
compositions, bonus for a punishingly compulsive photographer like me!
The severely austere shrine was very recently, and commendably so I must
add, restored and renovated, although I seriously have not the
slightest clue as to why ASI perpetually allows tufts of grass to take
root and colonize the roofs of most of the shrines and temples
(including this one). A scathing article published in Dailymail.co.uk
sarcastically refers to these as the “Hanging gardens of Hampi”! (Refer <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2444871/Hanging-gardens-Hampi-Grass-grows-473-year-old-World-Heritage-site-despite-Rs-14-87-crore-spent-renovation-maintenance.html">Dailymail.co.uk - "Hanging gardens of Hampi! Grass grows on 473-year-old World Heritage site despite Rs 14.87 crore being spent on renovation"</a>). I had
some very enlightening conversation with a couple of young ASI
conservation authorities from Bidar (north Karnataka) involved in the
sketching and planning the preservation and restoration of several
recently excavated, collapsed pavilions in the immediate vicinity of
Virupaksha temple and I must admit I totally overlooked asking
them about this – not that they would have known anyway considering they are
at break-neck speeds shuttled from one monumental destination to the
next all over south India as soon as one conservation project is
accomplished and another is initiated.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwB22g5bYerZ8xghaFgRtPv9nkELkasUAxv-mNgcjkyO7RrQUNeBtUoaWEwvN-DBge7Jj6MDXTnxudIU7jy86AKO61i3M0g1gBOGoo5hu5FMntmd-ZQu3UFKwUha53uNgjTjJti2kVKz9/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252858%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwB22g5bYerZ8xghaFgRtPv9nkELkasUAxv-mNgcjkyO7RrQUNeBtUoaWEwvN-DBge7Jj6MDXTnxudIU7jy86AKO61i3M0g1gBOGoo5hu5FMntmd-ZQu3UFKwUha53uNgjTjJti2kVKz9/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252858%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>At least here grows no grass! - Northern gateway, Virupaksha temple </b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
From
here, the “royal center”, the devastated citadel of the empire, is
located a kilometer further along the numerous curves and bends of the
road as it slithers its way between banana plantations, the occasional
solitary abandoned shrine literally reeking of wild post-apocalypse,
post-humanity loneliness, and massive confused and tumbling mass of
rocky denuded hills composed of large boulders uncontrollably stacked
with little regard for rules of physics and geometry. Enroute, one can
repetitively observe the small square holes drilled equidistantly into granite boulders by Vijayanagar-era craftsmen-sculptors. Economical
beyond measure, they did not wander far and wide in search of diverse
construction materials but uncomplainingly utilized whatever was
plentifully available around them. Guided by an interesting, highly
practical technique, they would continuously pour water over wooden pegs
driven into these small holes pierced along the boulders’ sides and, as the water-soaked wood expanded, the
boulders would eventually unfailingly split into flat surfaces along
these closely-spaced serrations.
Occasionally, when clean sliced edges were not required, they would
gently but doggedly wedge the rocks apart along these perforations to
neatly break them in two. However, the use of granite had its drawbacks –
unlike chloritic schist (soapstone) or sandstone, it could not be
articulately chiseled and shaped into subtle filigree work or gorgeous,
minutely detailed sculptures. What the craftsmen therefore had to
sacrifice in terms of miniaturization and excessive ornamentation, they
compensated through the massiveness of
sculptures and clean delineation of features and functions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-wcvQDwfpcXTRwpmxU1S84l4EJfIsd7ab5OTUsZ3rYIBAZY1jwIifrHfg4OwPb0iLcGlrPHrc6n2ouCKohx2kD5e_KAWTdz93bf-Z4TUkNpicOI_FqgmLKdElhmjvCVM4J26O0EiHZyC/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252813%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2-wcvQDwfpcXTRwpmxU1S84l4EJfIsd7ab5OTUsZ3rYIBAZY1jwIifrHfg4OwPb0iLcGlrPHrc6n2ouCKohx2kD5e_KAWTdz93bf-Z4TUkNpicOI_FqgmLKdElhmjvCVM4J26O0EiHZyC/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252813%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ruins of an empire - R</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>emains of the Noblemen’s quarters</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
thoroughly excavated and then forgotten Noblemen’s quarters and
Dannayaka/Danaik’s enclosure (derived from “Dandanayaka”
(Commander-in-Chief of the troops)), the area where the administrative
offices and extravagant residences of civil bureaucrats, provincial
governors and high-ranking military officers of the empire were located,
exist in an utterly dejected state of ruination, surviving merely as an
overabundance of fortifications and foundations of palatial residences,
unending rows of stables and staircases terminating in sudden limbo –
more often than not, it is these forgotten monuments, rarely tread by
visitors, ignored by conservation authorities and therefore untouched by
the garish application of plaster and paint that goes about in the name
of restoration in our country, that anomalously throb with a plethora
of tales regarding their long forgotten past and hold in their decrepit
bosoms multitudes of stories and lore regarding the city’s existence and
development and their own commissioning and construction. The honks of
vehicles and the perpetually incessant chatter of humanity is
perceptibly lost on the way to this virgin corner, modernity is left
behind; melodiously calling to their
companions, brilliant red birds and vividly colored butterflies flutter from
the brambles and massive serpentine segments of cyclopean walls constructed
from large greyish blocks of granite indifferently guard this patch of
wilderness. Occasionally, just occasionally, one might come across
another person who would be equally surprised on spotting another soul
in this distant patch of relentless wilderness and ever-reclaiming
vegetation. Sadly though, the only tales these residential annexes
recount is of dread and wretched destruction, of all-consuming fire and
cultural and architectural darkness – it is said that such was the
grandeur and opulence witnessed here that when the entire area was set
afire following the ravage and the plunder perpetrated by the exultant
armies of Islam, the opulent residences, impressively built of expensive
sweet-smelling sandalwood and sumptuously drenched with lavish
tapestries and curtains, ceaselessly continued to burn for several days!<br />
<br />
But
the wilderness does hide a few eye-opening gems. A strong square
watchtower, resembling a bastion more than a soaring tower and for some
unknown reason referred to as “Muhammadan Watchtower”, possesses
well-executed low semicircular domes and projecting arched windows
(“jharokha”) supported on stoic stone brackets. From the shape of the
windows, the raised platforms in front of them and the particularly
massive nature of the stone brackets and the tower itself, there seems
little doubt that guns were mounted on these platforms and ammunition
was stored within the stronghold itself.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKeMvx8StQIQlOjuBk-VkhT4kuOo6oZ5bJMIL9kb9v3l_suiEVO85NASZikp2FsBa8S9E8GmL6cQNaSaZGJBFeYBErmp8xF3qB7VrIhqBkyglR0BxX_DY8YrvK94c0Hg5brk8nF4x6MeXS/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252860%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKeMvx8StQIQlOjuBk-VkhT4kuOo6oZ5bJMIL9kb9v3l_suiEVO85NASZikp2FsBa8S9E8GmL6cQNaSaZGJBFeYBErmp8xF3qB7VrIhqBkyglR0BxX_DY8YrvK94c0Hg5brk8nF4x6MeXS/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252860%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Solid - The Muhammadan watchtower</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
tower leads further on to another case of mistaken identity – the so
called “Idgah” mosque – a large hall accessible via three arched
openings with two projecting flanks of wall on either side displaying
huge ornamental cusped arched alcoves. Even if one ignores the
characteristically Hindu carved stone moldings encapsulating the base of
the structure which depict voluptuous celestial dancers, numerous
meditating sages and valorous soldiers battling lions along with rows of
geometric and floral scroll bands (all of which would be unthinkable of
in a mosque considering Islamic injunction against any sort of
depiction of life and beings), an onlooker standing opposite the
structure faces north and not west (the direction of Mecca) like one
would have were it a mosque. <br />
<br />
The octagonal, vertically
prominent “Band tower” watchtower nearby boasts of some of
the most exquisite exemplars of incised plaster craftsmanship – the
ornamental arches surrounding the windows ornately transfigure into a
sculptural rococo of meticulously detailed swans and elaborate
vegetative scrolls of floral flourishes supported upon decorative
pilasters while highly embellished medallions superfluously compete for
attention with rows of artistic curves although the place of honor
unquestionably belongs to the singularly gorgeous, highly eloquently
patterned brackets that support the slightly slanting eaves (“chajja”).
Certainly suggestive of an unbelievably enthralling amalgamation of
elegant Hindu artistic sensibilities and strikingly symmetrical Islamic
pattern motifs, this is undeniably one of the most articulate monuments
in all of Hampi.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSWwcIRlXfnsuR2VsxE0RkO8WfevLkceETHXZsc1_HkXHvbqDaWa_OpwFzhUzv5FbjrG4k6MCKiFf1oWiipgy7_QhbP93od22dVMxiyvhOp_tgXVLPTWkSPZS1pCNPIb5Ss6OF3PZifg3/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252820%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSWwcIRlXfnsuR2VsxE0RkO8WfevLkceETHXZsc1_HkXHvbqDaWa_OpwFzhUzv5FbjrG4k6MCKiFf1oWiipgy7_QhbP93od22dVMxiyvhOp_tgXVLPTWkSPZS1pCNPIb5Ss6OF3PZifg3/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252820%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A jewel in the wilderness - The Band tower</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
A
short walk away, the small but highly ornate Hazara Ramaswami temple
(“Shrine of the one thousand depictions of Rama”, which we, for some
reason discernible only to my exceedingly talkative but very
knowledgeable and soft-spoken guide, covered later) can unmistakably be
endowed with the sobriquet “Ramayana verbalized in stone”! <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The
Hazara-Rama temple is a veritable picture-gallery and its walls and
pillars represent a highly artistic and magnificent attempt to capture
in stone the immortal legends of the Ramayana.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– D. Devakunjari, “Hampi” (ASI, 1998) </b></div>
<br />
Every
conceivable surface of the shrine is adorned with an unmentionably vast
collection of richly-carved reliefs describing the narrative of the
epic Ramayana, the tale of Lord Rama, the mythological ideal
king-statesman-warrior-son-husband and a supposed incarnation of Lord
Vishnu – moreover, such is the attention to the minutest of ornamental
details that the extraordinarily accomplished artists introduced in
their craft that one can be forgiven for believing that the patterns and
mythological lore are carved not in unyielding stone but malleable wax!
Indeed so enormous is the quantity and such exceedingly noteworthy is
the ornamental nature of the figures and embossments that even though
the temple was originally so christened considering its proximity to the
imperial palace’s courtyard (“Hajara”), it nonetheless came to be
referred thus as an allusion to the fantastically incredible number of
sculptures it depicts. Admirably contrasting against the uninterrupted
orange-brown monotony of quartzite, exquisitely carved and meticulously
polished heavy black stone pillars support the shrine’s sanctum,
presently empty and unused. The enchanting shrine is said to have been
commissioned by early Vijayanagar emperors and several later additions,
as determined from the epigraphical impressions and the transitional
features displayed by the temple and its subsidiary shrines, were
financed by Emperors Deva Raya I (reign AD 1406-22) and Krishna
Devaraya.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fnB9R_PQULGUcvKzJN5ao1-RrUkHMvtbmQh3vWLPt2ZD8sn_5Kq2bhDcNCNCwT6wmS58CcCEdRj_iT_LDVJMOAuQRx1HDbse8AONOWqLs3mCIOSEkg5hJN-ij3LUF4Gz2WFGUCjuQmPp/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252854%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fnB9R_PQULGUcvKzJN5ao1-RrUkHMvtbmQh3vWLPt2ZD8sn_5Kq2bhDcNCNCwT6wmS58CcCEdRj_iT_LDVJMOAuQRx1HDbse8AONOWqLs3mCIOSEkg5hJN-ij3LUF4Gz2WFGUCjuQmPp/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252854%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ramayana in stone</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Nearby,
the multistoried painted and gilded palaces and royal residential
mansions extolled by contemporary historical writers were levelled in
their entirety by the Muslim aggressors. Derelict fortifications and
numerous watchtowers, impressive even as skeletons of their erstwhile
militaristic splendor, surround the remains of the judiciously spaced
foundations of several regal edifices – luxurious palaces, safeguarded
treasuries, thoroughly adorned Zenana quarters (residential annexes for
the royal ladies) – which would have exemplified the exalted
manifestations of grandiose Vijayanagar-era non-religious architecture.<br />
<br />
One of the finest edifices in all of Hampi and ornamentally amongst the
most impressively conceived is the Lotus Mahal, also otherwise known as
“Chitragini Mahal”, the critically renowned and widely photographed
double-storied open pavilion constructed in quasi Indo-Islamic style of
architecture and profusely decorated with elaborate incised stucco
ornamentation climaxing into fairly realistic arching horse-shaped (or
probably Yali-shaped, considering that the beast’s face and limbs have
been shattered) brackets supporting the eaves (“chajja”), elegantly
sculpted floral medallions and widely-acclaimed bands of scrollwork
depicted emanating from the vicious jaws of a dragon and diligently
drenching the contours of the cusp arches. Each corner protrusion of the
staggered-square symmetric structure is surmounted by an unusual ornate
pyramidal stepped dome. It goes without saying that when the structure
retained its original artistic impressiveness – the plasterwork
decorations, painted sculptures and multihued friezes – it would have
been an imposing edifice both in terms of architectural brilliance and
artistic gaiety. The only blemish in the otherwise perfect monument –
judging from the way the clumsy staircase has been constructed
externally hugging the structure, it comically seems that the architect
had earnestly failed to acknowledge the necessity for the same and added
it later as an afterthought!<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5ndvNcVS6nIBqczP8221p_peMxLnPoG0mT8dhJd20_6L-NTetFizbE5zoydhtaAw3xdWd21-4jawItBeKzFVG5vfCvCfXU4HjuEeNWMZXjqHQectDHbM6XS9AQ6FY8Cw04KSm8DFRW4I/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252832%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5ndvNcVS6nIBqczP8221p_peMxLnPoG0mT8dhJd20_6L-NTetFizbE5zoydhtaAw3xdWd21-4jawItBeKzFVG5vfCvCfXU4HjuEeNWMZXjqHQectDHbM6XS9AQ6FY8Cw04KSm8DFRW4I/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252832%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lotus Mahal - Postcard perfect (if I may say so!)</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
A
gateway built into the fortified walls leads to a rectangular enclosure
in a corner of which are situated the lofty and dignified royal
elephant stables – eleven huge, externally homogeneous, interconnected
halls crowned with ribbed domed roofs and much adorned with plasterwork
patterns and surface motifs. A square turret-like superstructure
surmounts the flat central chamber and on either side symmetrically
complementarily the domes have been constructed in uniquely different
architectural styles – plain semicircular, fluted plump and rounded
stepped pyramidal. On the inside, the stables are so massive that one
suspects they can easily accommodate two elephants, but then of course
these state animals too would have been pampered like royalty with
delectable food and jewel-studded gold ornaments. The inner surface of
each dome too is crafted with plasterwork in unique decorative features
and small human-sized openings connect the stables to one another so the
elephants’ retainers could enter and egress through each without
bothering to open the colossal wooden gates (since destroyed).<br />
<br />
Perpendicular
to the stables and some distance away from them is
another long rectangular building said to be the guards’ quarters
where resided the palace retinue of royal guards and the king’s favorite
charioteers and palanquin bearers. Surrounded by a lofty colonnade
whose
thick cubical pillars support amongst themselves gently rounded ogee
arches, this Gothic-looking monument too, like Lotus Mahal, is out of
bounds for ordinary visitors.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDcHK1tNU0O5CWRdPwywsM5I_TZjcMmguCrYrNozq1BUzwePNYQjMFrX_NcNfQQa3rcIoC0nAImLVS_EXGqJS90xychjJVeOJovXJWLvMG2qRXl3feqSrQmcQHRaxnUu92SZigGtNDNt8Z/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252823%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDcHK1tNU0O5CWRdPwywsM5I_TZjcMmguCrYrNozq1BUzwePNYQjMFrX_NcNfQQa3rcIoC0nAImLVS_EXGqJS90xychjJVeOJovXJWLvMG2qRXl3feqSrQmcQHRaxnUu92SZigGtNDNt8Z/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252823%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Enormity exemplified - The elephant stables</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Some
distance away, apart from mere ruins and foundations of only a few of
the minor edifices, significantly little survives of the lavishly
fabulous ceremonial enclosure where were concentrated the famed imperial
civil buildings. The most conspicuous edifice that instantaneously
dominates the
field of vision is the enormous terraced pyramidal stone pavilion called
the “Mahanavami Dibba” or “Dasara Dibba” that played a prominent part
in the historic nine-day celebration of Navaratri festival. Referred to
as “throne platform” in contemporaneous literary records, the
12-meters
tall three-tiered elevated podium, established soon after the
unprecedented
victory of Krishna Devaraya against the Orissa Gajapatis, was once
crowned by a substantially large, gorgeously painted and
decorated, several-storied wooden pillared superstructure from where
the emperor and the
royal family along with foreign dignitaries and ambassadors would
relish the religious festivities interspersed by standing performances
by jesters and dancers. Sadly however, no trace of this superstructure
pavilion has survived. In the intervening space surrounding the throne
platform were erected smaller decorated pavilions by eminent
military commanders and court officials from where they would enjoy the
extravagant spectacles along with their families and guests. The granite
superstructure of the elevated platform was concealed under a thick
encasement of dark-green chloritic schist (soapstone) boldly-carved
with elaborate friezes representing fierce battle scenes, retinues of
foreign ambassadors, rich caravans bringing forth supplies of camels and
Arabian horses, charging elephants, exotic and often mythical beasts
and contemporary socio-cultural life and occasions interspersed by
scroll bands of numerous perceptibly different geometric and floral
patterns and smaller inconsequential figurines and dancers. The
exceptional
physical scale and extraordinary artistic conception envisioned by the
superiorly talented artists is in equal terms a delightful composition
and heartfelt anguish for photographers – there simply is not enough
space around the tapering tiers to photograph for posterity enough of
these acclaimed sculptured panels! Standing on the uppermost
level of the soaring pavilion, one can observe the ruins of palaces and
audience chambers encircling it and endeavor to visualize what they
might have appeared as in their original glory when they still possessed
their handsomely painted and exquisitely plastered enclosing walls and
ornamental pavilions and the opulently bejeweled emperor walked these
steps along with his retinue of colorfully-attired ministers and
chainmail-outfitted soldiers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhleT1gtn_BDo9rFGMgsUSoG6LG4d17O4tGbmxjLAOSGzjYEixpjAnyIOqvbEQ-Vn0Dw5bam6-p019ttkq0Y1fX73To-0rCp9hcflQt5rtV3QUGtEuV7d8TrRistd9izajuKifYmG7FsceM/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252828%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhleT1gtn_BDo9rFGMgsUSoG6LG4d17O4tGbmxjLAOSGzjYEixpjAnyIOqvbEQ-Vn0Dw5bam6-p019ttkq0Y1fX73To-0rCp9hcflQt5rtV3QUGtEuV7d8TrRistd9izajuKifYmG7FsceM/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252828%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Imposing! - The royal ceremonial platform</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Immediately
opposite Mahanavami Dibba are the remains of the emperor’s
hundred-pillared audience hall referred to as “Bhuvana Vijaya” and “The
House of Victory”. Merely extant as pillar stubs and remnants of
staircases, the grandiose audience hall was originally flanked on one
side by the Zenana quarters which are described by contemporary
chroniclers as possessing thirty five streets of single-story houses
where resided the queens’ handmaidens and personal servants. Adjoining
the other side of the audience hall was the paved courtyard where
jugglers, dancers, wrestlers and other such entertainers presented their
performances and the vassal chieftains, affluent nobles and foreign
dignitaries collected to publicly present their extravagant gifts and
pay the accumulated revenue. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“This king has a house in which he meets with the governors and his officers
in council upon the affairs of the realm. They come in very rich litters
on men's shoulders.. Many litters and many horsemen always stand at the
door of this palace, and the king keeps at all times nine hundred
elephants and more than twenty thousand horses, all of which are bought
with his own money.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Duarte Barbosa, Portuguese visitor to Vijayanagar (AD 1504-14) </b></div>
<br />
Separating
the regal audience hall and the ornate granite foundations (27 meters X
18 meters X 1.5 meters) of the king’s (since annihilated) palace is an unusual,
trivially small underground chamber, composed entirely of
black-green soapstone, that has very constricted and gloomy staircases
leading to it and similar passages lining it. The exact nature and
purpose of this edifice is not known, however conjecture is that it
functioned as a personal shrine constructed thus so the emperor could
escape the scorching summer heat. I really do wonder how did (do?) the
resilient inhabitants of Hampi tolerate the overabundance of granite
around them – it literally does blindingly bedazzle one at times and the
mirages caused by the overheated surface air further compound the
issue! The shrine however is puzzlingly dated to the reign of
Chalukya Dynasty (AD 543-753 and 973-1189).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiitK4HwT2JasZS2WwgMCuuYAQRpgHL22QYSzqZ17qe4lJvocYmh4msf8SZ6EsRN4IHv-qlkelx5JOkU2-Kidjsj-H0aPIxG70V5sdv2e1B1ar_X1NloqVYJyi1O1P_96UubXCOX_g-mYi-/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252852%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiitK4HwT2JasZS2WwgMCuuYAQRpgHL22QYSzqZ17qe4lJvocYmh4msf8SZ6EsRN4IHv-qlkelx5JOkU2-Kidjsj-H0aPIxG70V5sdv2e1B1ar_X1NloqVYJyi1O1P_96UubXCOX_g-mYi-/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252852%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Perplexing lines and gorgeous symmetry!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Past
the aforementioned private palace of the king is an extensive set of
flawless dark green diorite stone steps, said to have been prefabricated
and planned before being assembled here, culminating into a beautiful,
symmetrically perfect step-well reminiscent of the majestic wells of the
parched desert plains of Rajasthan-Gujarat. Nearby are the remains of a
large public bath and several decorative pavilions. The entire area is
lush with vibrant greenery. Brilliant yellow flowers speckled with
myriad shades of orange and red flutter against the wind while multi-hued
butterflies wantonly flit around mirroring the wayward movements of the
masses of fluffy grey-dappled white clouds overhead. Scattered against
the unending sheet of golden-brown and green are tiny bluish flowers
arising from and around tiny crevices in the stone foundations as if
nature has relentlessly determined not to let waste the magnificent
edifices commissioned by the Vijayanagar emperors but to employ them as
veritable flower vases as a testimony to its own relentlessness and
invincibility. In the background, past the enclosure’s peripheries
determined by a stretch of cyclopean fortifications and rows of
soaring coconut palms and massive trees with gnarled branches standing
sentinel-like, loom the pristine blue ancient hills, appearing straight
out of an immensely skilled painter’s canvas – untouched, virgin, the
dense vegetation shrouding their entire enormous being reverberating
with the furious chirping of a variety of birds. One wonders if once
upon a time, the entire parched and scorched settlement of Hampi, blindingly
glinting gold against the gradually-weakening autumnal sun, also
possessed thickly-wooded forests and luxuriously rich water-intensive
crop fields of sugarcane, roses, bananas and rice and appeared as lush
and inviting as this horticulturally landscaped and archaeologically
preserved zone. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The
space which separates the first fortress from the second, and up to the
third fortress, is filled with cultivated fields and with houses and
gardens. In the space from the third to the seventh one meets a
numberless crowd of people, many shops, and a bazaar.. In this agreeable
locality, as well as in the king's palace, one sees numerous running
streams and canals formed of chiseled stone, polished and smooth.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Abdur Razzaq </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja66ErpVsTZgyndApE91X3ju78N-odax__-sqgRir9gxFbP4jLc1WoWCChbDWbPG4RP-XMs3_Oe3Ly-kNa8Ydkcb7x0VupzTfIeVwo8Ei1QSZfJG37SN2BSTC3CDKDnAhQJUdFlMWrwP3K/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252844%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja66ErpVsTZgyndApE91X3ju78N-odax__-sqgRir9gxFbP4jLc1WoWCChbDWbPG4RP-XMs3_Oe3Ly-kNa8Ydkcb7x0VupzTfIeVwo8Ei1QSZfJG37SN2BSTC3CDKDnAhQJUdFlMWrwP3K/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252844%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Breathtaking!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
Vijayanagar kings of the Sangama Dynasty extensively exploited the
hydrological environment to its maximum to enable efficient irrigation
of expansive agricultural land inside the city. Furthermore, water was
directed to the urban areas for domestic use through an elaborate system
of water channels and numerous impressive tanks and stepped baths were also
constructed to ensure regular supply in blistering summers as well.
Indeed, dissecting the spread of the aforementioned greenery in the
royal core is the “Hiriya canal”, a raised, microscopically inclined
aqueduct that happens to be one of the most outstanding waterworks
employed by them in order to draw irrigation water from several wells in
order to render cultivable the valley encompassing the entire region
from the “sacred center” to the “royal center”. <br />
<br />
Originally
existential as an attractive component of the royal residential
enclosure, the notable “Queen’s bath”, a large square structure with
unexceptionally plain exteriors and remarkably ornate interiors, is
presently housed within a manicured garden enclosure of its own and
therefore irretrievably separated geographically from the larger
heritage zone by unstructured undisguised modern intrusions such as a
small settlement and a major metaled road as a consequence of which
there is an undeniable element of being overboard in an undesirous way
so that the gorgeous monument is often missed by many tourists and
architecture and history enthusiasts. The 15 meters square and 1.8
meters deep bath encompassed within for the convenience of royal ladies
is surrounded by fragmentary remnants of decorated corridors liberally
wreathed with variegated stucco scroll bands, dexterously executed
elaborate rosettes, floral medallions, numerous geometric motifs and
tall projecting windows (“jharokha”) supported upon ornamental stone
brackets shaped like drooping trumpet flowers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK5KujJuBYJOzub78RrDU0JARSI8ZwwIFpMIZYRxM7AiMUijkcNt5O-tNPyYqOFq3qu67UFU3AFSvYx69_sFgYvXDfBHFZn2yabGBO-v3QWrYPVNv8PjOEKkAnrPKkJ9L2gC0IOXXeszu6/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252835%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK5KujJuBYJOzub78RrDU0JARSI8ZwwIFpMIZYRxM7AiMUijkcNt5O-tNPyYqOFq3qu67UFU3AFSvYx69_sFgYvXDfBHFZn2yabGBO-v3QWrYPVNv8PjOEKkAnrPKkJ9L2gC0IOXXeszu6/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252835%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Queen's bath - Reminiscent of playful royal frolics</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
It
was afternoon now, the sun was immersed in a game of hide-and-seek with slightly drizzling purple-blue clouds and I had been
exploring the ruins (and dragging the poor consenting guide along as
well) for over four hours with nothing except a couple of cold drinks
and a few cigarettes to go on. I had rain-drenched and broken my poor
old camera on my last trip to Hassan (*a moment of silence* – it had
always proved to be faithful till its much-mourned sudden demise which
left me pathetically bereaved!), so this time I had its battery and
memory cards along with the ones that came with the new camera, however
scenic little Hampi boasts of such a dazzling assortment of strikingly
wild natural landscapes and unmistakably handsome monuments that even my
second battery was close to draining away entirely by now! Given the
abundant concentration of monuments, I realized that despite being
seriously sweaty and hungry it would undoubtedly be far better to walk
than to order the auto rickshaw to stop (and move out of the view) every
single occasion a mediocre shrine or a tiny pavilion caught my fancy.
Having informed the guide of the same, we proceeded towards the
Gandhamadana Hill (upon whose crest exists the aforementioned, ethereally
beautiful Vitthala temple), on the way very briefly halting at Ganagitti
Jinalaya and Talarigatta gateway.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyJaTZEo-JOH6nArrNlH1ZbH_OsQhHVvMY0bh-Le6RJLk-ZSt-2GmuL4bywd-_d4SH-o3vMEeG3NVAe2F0ov6DDKobSN1XQEMawlEofl6FWXi5UX1hpvwZm7wTWTj7aP-DuSZk7nYNRBVd/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252861%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sculptural extravaganza</b><b>! - At Hazara Rama temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Historical records establish that immediately following the establishment of the
Vijayanagar empire at Hampi, the followers of Jainism, who already
resided here and undertook physically punitive penances, were severely
persecuted by Hindus and it was only in AD 1368 that a strictly
maintained reconciliation was established between the two faiths by
Emperor Bukka Raya (reign AD 1356-77) and thereafter an undisturbed
peace prevailed which is lent irrefutable testimony by the considerable
number of Jain shrines scattered throughout the contours of Hampi’s
punishing physical landscape. Were it not for the tiny seated figure of a
long-eared Jain Tirthankara above the lintel superimposed with three successively
smaller umbrellas above his head and a yak-tail flywhisk on either
flank, it would have been nearly impossible to establish that the
Ganagitti temple is a Jain shrine – the severely austere rectangular
edifice, dedicated to Kunthunatha (the 17th Tirthankara of Jain faith)
and commissioned according to an inscription to the effect in AD 1386 by
Irugapa, the Commander-in-Chief of Emperor Harihara II (reign AD
1377-1404), possesses architectural features indistinguishable from the
more simplistic Hindu shrines dotting the picturesque village – an
inverted T-shaped structure supported by unadorned cubical pillars
realizing three identical shrines facing the central hall which is
preceded by an open pillared pavilion thereby effecting an almost
cruciform plan devoid of any sort of sculptural art form apart from the
miniature one previously described and the arched alcoves built into the
singular brick and mortar terraced superstructure over the pillared
pavilion hall. The sanctum too is empty, however what is even more
interesting than the unremitting sternness of the architecture is the
shrine’s nomenclature – “Ganagitti” literally translates to an
“oil-woman”, however why the handsomely somber temple was referred thus
has been lost in the relentlessly ceaseless sands of time which sooner
or later obliterate every act, edifice and memory.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWpvGTj-n3hYNGpoJBz9GntHPJrnnS4svTwa872G8Cg1XR8F8epI3N1kQ0ELPwZp0V2GB4WwmnrsLwauuQ9fiTnOlQogXEvuk3Bv-jX2RASkGnvPBWQd_-DrXS_AYF4FdNa0rqO0Hmo0Pb/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252855%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWpvGTj-n3hYNGpoJBz9GntHPJrnnS4svTwa872G8Cg1XR8F8epI3N1kQ0ELPwZp0V2GB4WwmnrsLwauuQ9fiTnOlQogXEvuk3Bv-jX2RASkGnvPBWQd_-DrXS_AYF4FdNa0rqO0Hmo0Pb/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252855%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Austerity - </b><b>Ganagitti Jain temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Talarigatta
gateway formed a fragment of the fortified capital’s northeastern
defenses besides, as the name suggests, functioning as a toll gate on
the arterial highway that mapped the garrisoned citadel to the
riverfront and the old capital at Anegundi across. Uninformed of the
militaristic historicity of the site and the numerous gruesome battles
fought around it, one might naively argue that Hampi, endowed with
near-invincible natural strategic strength both by the wide and
torrential Tungabhadra and the impassable hill ranges that surround
it on all sides and whose denuded massive boulders offer little in way
of concealment, does not need human defense works. The first battle for
ultimate control over
Hampi-Anegundi, mythological nonetheless, is mentioned in the Ramayana as the family feud between the mighty Vanara warlord twins Vali and
Sugriva in which Sugriva was decisively defeated and contemptuously
banished from the simian kingdom. Flash forward to the medieval ages,
the fabulous amassed wealth and the unbelievable grandeur of Vijayanagar
Empire relentlessly attracted the Islamic armies which would often
navigate over the river through shallow fords to challenge the
gargantuan imperial armed forces, therefore necessitating the
construction of several lines of defenses and well-garrisoned outer
earthworks described by every fascinated contemporary chronicler. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The
powerful Hindu Sultan possesses a numerous army and resides on a
mountain at Bichenegher (Vijayanagar). This vast city is surrounded by
three forts and intersected by a river, bordering on one side on a
dreadful jungle, and on the other on a deep gorge; a wonderful place and
to any purpose convenient. On one side it is quite inaccessible; a road
gives right through the town, and as the mountain rises high with a
ravine below, the town is impregnable.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Athanasius Nikitin, Russian traveler (AD 1468-74) </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq__DNnhWPiGjC2OvNj5zzHR8ndUIa18su5dfP4MmS1CRz3Dx_-z4lmCH6Q7AIrnuH4zt7gt_KlouHG8qrhnPLNj0tR_Gcp1DY3z6M5VUQC-wrqS_DiOhx3uMz_Vi5IYcXipcx0ejpJ9bZ/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252836%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq__DNnhWPiGjC2OvNj5zzHR8ndUIa18su5dfP4MmS1CRz3Dx_-z4lmCH6Q7AIrnuH4zt7gt_KlouHG8qrhnPLNj0tR_Gcp1DY3z6M5VUQC-wrqS_DiOhx3uMz_Vi5IYcXipcx0ejpJ9bZ/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252836%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Talarigatta gateway - Seamless fusion of form and functionality</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Slightly
beyond Talarigatta gateway, the rock-strewn dusty path leading to the
amazingly well-preserved Vitthala temple does not permit admission to
vehicles except cycles and governmental battery-operated tourist buses
whose every act of locomotion humorously becomes engulfed in a cloud of
all-pervading orange-brown dust of their own rendition – it was at this
point that I bid goodbye to my baffled guide who, although
comprehensibly pleased, could not fathom why one would prefer to walk
all the way back afterwards when they can roam about in an auto
rickshaw.<br />
<br />
Along the way one comes across a classical raised open pavilion
known as “Gejjala Parankusha Mantapa”, a small shrine lined with pillars
transformed to mounted horses and therefore christened “Kudure Gombe”
(“Toy horse”) mantapa and a few lesser, inconsequential pavilions
thickly engulfed by a sea of banana plantations where roamed about dogs
that (horrors of horrors!) instantaneously took a dislike to me and
began barking ferociously! <br />
<br />
Sri Vijaya Vitthala temple,
dedicated to Lord Vitthala/Vithoba (fervently revered in the
Maratha-dominated regions of Maharashtra and northern Karnataka, but
rarely encountered outside), an aspect of Lord Krishna, the flamboyant
playboy-strategist-statesman-cow herder-warrior-philosopher incarnation
of Lord Vishnu, is heralded by the miserable remnants of a handsome
thoroughfare (945 meters X 396 meters) lined with huge colonnaded
marketplaces and an immensely pretty sacred water tank (“Lokpavani”).
Close by exists the so-called “Shiva temple”, which however is actually a
contemporary compact shrine consecrated to Brahma Vitthala, the deity’s
another form. The surprisingly sudden advent of twilight imparted a
reddish-orange glow to every edifice and the vast dusty plains that
are discontinuously shrouded with lush green grass where large stone
pillars and the forgotten remains of the fallen pavilions do not carpet
the ground. Shadows began to gradually lengthen, impressively
camouflaged chameleons swiftly dashed about the rough grey rocks and
staircases and the entire area resounded with the ear-splitting
boisterous cries of multi-hued birds returning home to their little ones
and the intermittent neighs of dozens of inferior-bred horses nuzzling
each other and sprinting around the colonnades and the water tank.
Somehow strangely, the continuously streaming crowds of humans simply
ceased to matter as the shrine and its various unbelievably magnificent
features lethargically became engulfed with traces of darkness. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“The
existence of the temple may be traced at least to the time of Devaraya
II (AD 1422-46). Though the general opinion is that the temple was
neither finished nor consecrated, epigraphic and literary evidences show
that it remained in worship at least till the time of the battle of
Rakhasi-Tangdi. The Vitthala temple portrays the high watermark of
perfection of the Vijayanagara style, and one may well say that there is
no other building which could stand comparison with its florid
magnificence.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– D. Devakunjari </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDonBNKATxpWFz51cyYuu9PhrGK9aEXAS9rR8Nt75baM-heIMJ1ZUVJ801KI_f9pQV_gy8LJZI_dZ3kAAmPWoXTIv152fFnoNYxYKalmduR2gwADibi6Nm7dgDj_SZLXsvZTh0S4Rp5mcO/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252837%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDonBNKATxpWFz51cyYuu9PhrGK9aEXAS9rR8Nt75baM-heIMJ1ZUVJ801KI_f9pQV_gy8LJZI_dZ3kAAmPWoXTIv152fFnoNYxYKalmduR2gwADibi6Nm7dgDj_SZLXsvZTh0S4Rp5mcO/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252837%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Flourishes, patterns and unbelievable sculptures - Inside the </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Vitthala temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
remains of the exceedingly ruined superstructure of the temple
complex’s substantial gateway explodes into a pinkish-red conflagration
of richly textured sculptures illustrating numerous singularly unique,
artistically evocative and breathtakingly realistic representations of
powerful heavenly gatekeepers, anthropomorphic entities, ascetic saints
engrossed in millennial contemplation, exaggeratedly attired royalty and
voluptuous, finely proportioned celestial damsels crafted to erotic
perfection. It is no coincidence that here too is portrayed the famed
“Shikarika” (“Huntress”), previously photographed by me in her
extraordinarily vividly-detailed expression at the unsurpassably
graceful Chennakesava temple of Belur (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple</a>), as symbolic of the
auspicious divinities associated with fertility and their inclusion in
the context of the philosophical understanding of existence. <br />
<br />
Unarguably
the most spellbinding edifice envisaged during the reign of Vijayanagar
Empire, the temple is undeniably an epitome of religious architecture
and sculptural art, accommodating within its superlative being hundreds
of perfectly-described sculptural portrayals of mythological deities,
anthropomorphic entities and mythical creatures besides well-chiseled
geometric and floral patterns bursting into an enviable rococo of wildly
ecstatic foliage, overhanging pinecones and a never ending profusion of
flowers and fruits.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhujYKId8AxPKJ9y8taK_Prz-AgBTXxFiwrglza-fKOHImCY-MNCb-GLqJg0ozOO9CRL5WwaNinX4RvnFjrClrLmN6zNOQQtoQHiAFQvB2ouOl7WpHUoIkhb5POPd7PrCUg7nIGWRAtlc69/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhujYKId8AxPKJ9y8taK_Prz-AgBTXxFiwrglza-fKOHImCY-MNCb-GLqJg0ozOO9CRL5WwaNinX4RvnFjrClrLmN6zNOQQtoQHiAFQvB2ouOl7WpHUoIkhb5POPd7PrCUg7nIGWRAtlc69/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Flamboyance! - Gateway,</b></span> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>Vitthala temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Each composite pillars (“Aniyottikkal”) metamorphoses into a vividly-detailed
cubical pillar shaft enveloped along the entire span of 360 degrees by
the introduction of an infinite variety of slender decorative
columnettes, intricately fashioned celestial dancer-musicians, rearing
ferocious lions, Yali figurines (entities possessing the body of a lion and the
tusks and trunk of an elephant) and iconographic sculptural
portrayals of divine adventures and events as described by the numerous
epic scriptures, besides the widely renowned corner monolith composite
units 3.6 meters tall which encompass numerous solid cylindrical granite
“musical pillars” or “Sa-Re-Ga-Ma pillars” which when tapped can
resonate to four (Sa, Re, Ga, Ma) of the seven basic musical notes
and provide indisputable testimony to the unparalleled sculptural and
acoustical knowledge of medieval Hindu architect-craftsmen. The
musical pillars till date perplex scientists and engineers who
tenaciously continue to conduct resonance and material composition
studies in an attempt to understand how these were envisaged and
constructed so as to resonate at a certain frequency – a striving for
understanding rendered even more challenging considering that the
intricate knowledge prerequisite to determine the presence of
silica-rich granite stone and sculpting it has since been sadly lost and
so is the inherent musical ability and inclination to thread into an
aesthetic composition the sonorous notes from these marvelous pillars.<br />
<br />
One would not be resorting to hyperbole in stating that the highly
ornate temple and its associated subsidiary shrines and freestanding
pavilions are amongst the most extraordinarily impressive edifices to be
built in the country and it is explicably impossible to condense into
mere words the unequalled prowess of the sculptors and the fantastical
magnitude of the innumerable spellbinding sculptures admirably employed
by them in the construction of the gigantic shrine.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9pv9m7By3mp_axQ6B8gyVal_Q6xT_OAr2ujlqLNy9_ivZWM_LFudXsFCk9dOjlO1-DJto3GqrX7TGxjxKeaw0lnAyFZM_2ioEHj_LWBhNn4i54EANmGVRAfTQ922dpTeENRYdLigjH9z/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252834%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9pv9m7By3mp_axQ6B8gyVal_Q6xT_OAr2ujlqLNy9_ivZWM_LFudXsFCk9dOjlO1-DJto3GqrX7TGxjxKeaw0lnAyFZM_2ioEHj_LWBhNn4i54EANmGVRAfTQ922dpTeENRYdLigjH9z/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252834%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Poetry in stone! - Tales from the eventful life of Lord Krishna, Vitthala temple </b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Interestingly,
although most historians consistently maintain that the gorgeous shrine
was never completed and deified since it was continuously being
embroidered with sculptures and superfluous embellishments by a
succession of enthusiastic rulers, local lore points to a more alluring
tale, undoubtedly a sentimentally delectable product of the boundless
imagination of an excessively flattering poet – it is said that the
shrine was specially built for the famous image of Lord Vitthala at
Pandharpur (Sholapur district, Maharashtra) and the eminent deity,
assuming physical form, himself came to examine the progress of the
construction, but despite being impressed beyond measure he refused to
relocate saying that the shrine was too grand an abode for him and he
preferred his own humbler sacred home at Pandharpur! A portion of the
awe-inspiring (though probably structurally unstable) sanctum had
collapsed ages ago and some sections of it were being conserved now. The
ASI guard was extremely busy preventing people from walking in;
thankfully however, after many disagreements, he did allow me to peep in
from a corner for two entire minutes after I expressed my unavoidable
requirement for photographs. <br />
<br />
Despite the exaggerated
ornamentation, the intriguing musical pillars and the presence of
identical visually-uplifting pillared pavilions flanking the
overwhelmingly impressive central shrine which undoubtedly betrays
unequalled charisma despite being irreversibly ruined and narrowly
confined within a miserably desolate heritage zone, the architecturally
extravagant temple cannot be considered the epicenter of Hampi’s
world-renowned attractions since that eminence unanimously belongs to
the sprawling, lesser ornamented Virupaksha temple, unquestionably a
celebrated living monument located in the heart of the settlement and
fervently revered by dedicated pilgrims travelling to it throughout the
year from far and wide. This interesting anomaly is, I believe,
universally witnessed in most cities of ceaseless antiquity and
excessive architectural and religious heritage – for instance, Delhi
where Humayun’s otherworldly magnificent, although lifeless, mausoleum
complex competes for renown and patronization with the multihued
Nizamuddin Dargah complex effervescent with an intermingling of myriads
of emotionless histories, mythical legends and enriching flavors (both
gastronomic and cultural!), or Calcutta where the grandly opulent
Victoria Memorial looks on to the ancient Kalighat drenched with the
blood of innumerable sacrifices since time immemorial to quench the
primordial Goddess’ relentless bloodlust.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcADx_eSERKMytWBmQVLCxtfCtmTNrP1eDnrlKrZ5G64HAMGdCNGHacQ4LlyJ21MMOAP2Fbm7PCQSmqx5adTzxZaV49tknmBx8hnavPxrlG-QHSDjBjIC7fRVqY5eSzsDCGbqVUgJPs1Jm/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252830%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcADx_eSERKMytWBmQVLCxtfCtmTNrP1eDnrlKrZ5G64HAMGdCNGHacQ4LlyJ21MMOAP2Fbm7PCQSmqx5adTzxZaV49tknmBx8hnavPxrlG-QHSDjBjIC7fRVqY5eSzsDCGbqVUgJPs1Jm/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252830%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Granite turned malleable!</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
In
and about the temple are over a score inscriptions dated from AD 1513
to 1564 recording the substantial expansion and embellishment of the
shrine and endowment of the revenue of several villages for its
maintenance by Krishna Devaraya in AD 1513, the construction of the
outstanding gateway and the betrothal of expensive gifts by his two
queens Chinna Devi and Tirumala Devi, the numerous magnificent
structural additions commissioned by his step-brothers and successors
Achyuta Devaraya (reign AD 1529-42) and Sadasiva Raya (reign AD
1542-70), besides numerous grants and lavish gifts made by private
individuals and eminent military commanders and ministers. The
supremely exquisite pillared hall adjoining the sanctum was added in AD
1554. It is conjectured that originally the elegant temple and its
sub-shrines were gorgeously painted multihued with special brilliantly
vibrant highlights reserved for the more exemplar sculptures and
artistic features while the exteriors were drenched with a minute layer
of reflective golden-brown copper, perhaps like the repetitively
paint-smeared Virupaksha temple where gaudy blue and cream-white
plasterwork claddings enclose the fragile old sculptures and several
shades of white, red, yellow and orange are splattered over the grand
gateways and soaring flag towers. Affirming the presence of foreign
traders and dignitaries and honoring eminent ambassadors, one of the
flanking pavilions even depicts on its sculpted pillars representations
of mustached Portuguese horse traders with unsheathed curved swords and
well-dressed, top-hatted Persian merchant-travelers riding intricately
carved, ferocious rearing lion/Yali figures.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUAeYy0i-kDazvmacBdL-TEusEMus-un0wvLuJWRtzxInhRjQQEldHeH2XtVz_iUesWeMZmuZZ-rWW8zYhiYAgVbS65Z0jYgFfTawjDu5j6X2xERo9c21M0_Gyg9wTby5SzYLnB1zIb4n/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252829%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUAeYy0i-kDazvmacBdL-TEusEMus-un0wvLuJWRtzxInhRjQQEldHeH2XtVz_iUesWeMZmuZZ-rWW8zYhiYAgVbS65Z0jYgFfTawjDu5j6X2xERo9c21M0_Gyg9wTby5SzYLnB1zIb4n/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252829%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A procession of stone sentinels come to pay their tributes!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Standing
opposite the central shrine and corroborating the legendarily unerring
dexterousness of the craftsmen, who saturated the settlement as well as a
numerous other south Indian cities with their delightfully inscribed,
ethereally beautiful raw stone monuments, is Karnataka tourism’s
renowned icon and Hampi’s architectural highlight – the intensely
sophisticated stone chariot that is so tastefully conceived, excellently
proportioned, finely crafted and imbibed with superb painstakingly
emblazoned flourishes that every onlooker is rendered unmovably
transfixed with wide-eyed deferential bewilderment and wondrous
admiration. The many layered edifice is indescribably evocative – one
might go even as far as terming it richly haunting – in that it
instantaneously becomes irretrievably burned on one’s retinas and arises
every single time one reminiscences the affable memories of the
romantic ruins. And that’s not the end of its ceaselessly astonishing
conception and embellishment – the joints between the various granite
panels are so exceedingly fine and skillfully concealed that it
justifiably appears monolithic! Furthermore, faithful pilgrims have
always believed that religious merit may be accrued by turning round the
chariot’s stone wheels which are independent of the chassis – the
government regrettably delayed its reasonable order to permanently
cement them and was propelled to action only following the wearing away
of the axles to an alarming degree. Undetected by most, the small
elephant statuettes depicted pulling the substantial chariot are
actually later additions and, if observed carefully, one can still
notice the fragmented rear legs and tails of the horses that were
formerly existential here.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFAGPQCNqRv3oGplZLGzLxS6p2qohqIKghjfOkXpTTUbHkY3LLxFGxy9TpG7UnsqNOzOvaEmickKnNjxOBb88PUON-fRkF4_6wC9WVMECFHkoa4em2P-HzejciafYODIKtFI5FvQDnV8Ug/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252822%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFAGPQCNqRv3oGplZLGzLxS6p2qohqIKghjfOkXpTTUbHkY3LLxFGxy9TpG7UnsqNOzOvaEmickKnNjxOBb88PUON-fRkF4_6wC9WVMECFHkoa4em2P-HzejciafYODIKtFI5FvQDnV8Ug/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252822%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Karnataka's most iconic monument - The Stone Chariot, </b><b>Vitthala temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Like
all major temple complexes in Hampi, Vitthala temple too had a large
sprawling village – Vitthalpura – circumambulating it which supplied
it with the revenue and the everyday necessities like flowers and
vermillion for the idols of the deities, food and recreation for the
priests and sculptors/stone masons for additional constructions and
necessary repairs. The village is no longer in existence, not the
slightest trace of it survives except for the cursory mentions in
historical epigraphs and literary documents, which does make one pause
and wonder at this disturbing facet. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“It
is a curious fact that, although the temples, palaces and civil
buildings were built on such a lavish scale, the domestic dwellings and
private houses must have been of the poorest description as no trace of
them other than the ruined car streets survive. It is unlikely that the
Muhammadans would have troubled themselves about wrecking these when
there were so many more valuable buildings to destroy. In all
probability, the dwellings of the humbler classes were even more squalid
and ill-arranged than they are in any big city in India at the present
day. The glowing accounts of the "beautiful streets with very beautiful
houses with balconies and arcades" which the old chroniclers have
furnished us with, relate almost exclusively to the few car streets of
the larger temples. One would imagine that even these descriptions were
rather overdrawn judging from the style of the houses that still remain
in Hampi Bazaar, which is said to have been the finest street in the
city.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– A.H. Longhurst, “Hampi ruins, Described and Illustrated” (1998) </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbFgBAOIu55oHZqa0GGTBldUY2h3UJIzWBBRtYR3qksiSAJ4zbq-EPKjeYqq_NT9-ANbxxDBp7HC7ZuWYUCbZmo-4Zcump2R_K2b1Nf84uBscV8l_yBexfbB7feSMMq2xElNlVLU81RwZa/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252839%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbFgBAOIu55oHZqa0GGTBldUY2h3UJIzWBBRtYR3qksiSAJ4zbq-EPKjeYqq_NT9-ANbxxDBp7HC7ZuWYUCbZmo-4Zcump2R_K2b1Nf84uBscV8l_yBexfbB7feSMMq2xElNlVLU81RwZa/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252839%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A little corner in the lap of nature - The </b><b>Brahma Vitthala temple, roughly flanking the erstwhile Vitthalapura settlement</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Surrounding
the Vijaya Vitthala temple, numerous ruins in various stages of decay
and disintegration do survive. The most conspicuous of course are the
numerous shrines protruding from almost every corner and claiming as
their own even the slightest of the plain patches along the undulating barren hill surface. A
few extremely plain open pavilions, derelict crumbling colonnades and
imposing double-storied gateways flanked by sentry posts too do pop-up
along the boulder-strewn hill ridges leading onwards to the peacefully
serene banks of the sluggishly meandering river Tungabhadra. The most
curious monument however is situated only a few dozen meters south-west
of the Vitthala temple – the "King's Balance" was employed on especially
auspicious occasions like coronations, marriages, lunar or solar
eclipses and important festivals and celebrations for the ceremonial
purpose of “Tulapurushadana” whereby, accompanied by the sanctified
chanting of the ancient Vedic scriptures, the immeasurably wealthy
emperor, regally attired and armor-clad, would be dutifully weighed
against his own weight in gold, jewels, pearls and grains of which
the former would then be conferred upon high-ranking Brahmins and the
officious priests of important temples and the latter would be
distributed amongst the distressed poor (which goes on to reveal that
the illustrious Vijayanagar Empire too was far from utopian and served
the avaricious interests of the pompous clergy over that of the
neglected underprivileged). <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“He
who weighs against his own person in gold and distributes it among
Brahmins will extricate his forefathers from ten generations (past and
present) and from all misery.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Danasagara, 11th-century Hindu scriptural manual </b></div>
<br />
The
balance consists of a large stone beam designed to appear like the
crown of a miniature temple gateway spanning two elegant granite pillars
and possessing along its underside carved stone rings where were
affixed the pair of scales for the purpose of the religious ceremony.
The brothers Krishna Devaraya and Achyuta Devaraya are historically
recorded in inscribed legends to have generously undertaken the ceremony
following their coronations and military victories, donating immense
sums of priceless jewels and pearls.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBifT7pXmO7T8l5Fe_qHl-9MN2Vx-jERXWsd5ibhkcv_vg3KjE7vV5dumDdKN2XW6irf2gAbrlcONetYfMNGKQGJhgUqNgU9Ejf4D0a7wc9rFoAYP88ZGQBqf-S7UAzOFcdz03_TmAGLZv/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252818%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBifT7pXmO7T8l5Fe_qHl-9MN2Vx-jERXWsd5ibhkcv_vg3KjE7vV5dumDdKN2XW6irf2gAbrlcONetYfMNGKQGJhgUqNgU9Ejf4D0a7wc9rFoAYP88ZGQBqf-S7UAzOFcdz03_TmAGLZv/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252818%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Relic from a forgotten past - The King's Balance</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
From
here on begins the trek down the incredibly scenic Gandhamadana Hill, a
tiring journey over ridge paths that are interwoven with narrow tunnels
bored through between the boulders and grass-carpeted pathways skirting
the ravine only by a hair's breadth and commandingly overlooking the
majestic flow of Tungabhadra. The company of crumbling shrines and
abandoned pavilions is an unspoken but much appreciated constant, so is
the deafening racket raised by the roaring wind whistling between tree
tops and beautiful avian species of myriad hues swooping from shrubbery
to another. Excluding a few exceptions, the numberless shrines and
pavilions – Kodandarama temple, Yantroddharaka Anjaneya temple, Varaha
Perumal temple, Tirumangai Alvar temple, Rama Vitthala temple, Hastagiri
Ranganatha temple, Purandaradasa Mandapa and Narasimha temple amongst
others – simplistic in construction and ornamentation and ruinously
weathered by the inexorable ravages of time and nature, aren’t worth
pondering over and commenting. A congested pathway through the boulders
built by and christened after Kampabhupa, son of Emperor Harihara II
(reign AD 1377-1404), needs to be managed on the way – certainly a
terrifying experience considering that the cave-like cavity appears
extremely claustrophobic and one keeps imagining that even the slightest
of earthquake tremor will easily collapse the entire mountain on the
trapped visitor – plus there are the occasional frighteningly huge (half
a feet long at the least!) black centipedes also slithering around,
seemingly confused about which side of the handsome hill they actually
want to be!<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpGjoQtMU9RC11ny6g6HVPOlw6_ggpghJpWHExrQEJzKnbDKCT65LxU2u3F0fBusdJ1fEPjIafr9CJelkCFDr3ivVhMbmiqmA4INIjcAq-yAJlRs4rUEGCqE90iqJgXDbz7D_YIh9qBHD2/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252862%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpGjoQtMU9RC11ny6g6HVPOlw6_ggpghJpWHExrQEJzKnbDKCT65LxU2u3F0fBusdJ1fEPjIafr9CJelkCFDr3ivVhMbmiqmA4INIjcAq-yAJlRs4rUEGCqE90iqJgXDbz7D_YIh9qBHD2/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252862%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Kampabhupa's pathway - Terrifyingly claustrophobic!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
green-tinged river, dreamily reflecting the listless movements of
featureless clouds overhead and the shapes and contours of the hill
boulders flanking it, sluggishly flows on in a perennial undertaking to
meet the sea and in the process renders its enormous flood plains
bountifully fertile. Occasionally and only momentarily, its waters might
be disturbed by the ripples enveloping the coracles (shallow round
boats fashioned from thin bamboo strips and then layered with treated
leather and coats of water-resistant tar) cheaply hired by tourists to
cross over to old untouched Anegundi on the other bank. Nirdesh Singh, a dear friend, mentor and an infinitely better writer
compared to me, has beautifully documented Anegundi's history and
monuments on his blog here – <a href="http://justrippingg.blogspot.in/2015/07/anegundi-fort-and-origin-of-vijaynagara.html">Justrippingg.blogspot.in - Anegundi Fort and Origin of the Vijaynagara Empire</a>. Twilight was
slowly beginning to gather its dark covers and distant rays of soothing
red-orange sunlight, fighting a losing battle, were beginning to
dissipate rendering the entire river front a breathtakingly multihued
picturesque landscape, the whole hillside appearing as if sprinkled down
and condensed like chunks of chocolate frosting – dark green stained
larger, smoother boulders underneath surmounted by thousands of immense
lighter brown irregularly shaped masses of rock, the entire framed by
the delineation introduced by the green (gradually turning blackish)
forest cover and the orange-red skyline. Against the brilliant
purple-blue sky overhead, a pair of sleek-tailed, light green parakeets
tinged with brilliantly vibrant reds, oranges and blues would
occasionally take flight across the wide river, quickly rolling, diving
and swooping acrobatically, singing paeans of inextinguishable love to
each other. A virgin patch of picture perfect magically blissful heaven
on earth! Standing on a boulder and seeing nature’s unequalled palette
unfold, one desires never to leave. <br />
<br />
But back to the
jarring reality, the second camera battery too died just about then and
as a rapidly advancing twilight began to settle over the village and the
last of the tourists disappeared in their guesthouses or hopped on
buses back to nearby district of Hospet, I walked downhill and then
along the meandering pathway crisscrossing the valley between
Gandhamadana and Matanga hills intending to return the next morning to
explore Matanga Hill as well.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU10xpSs82MbZoTzfW2gAeuE-gxJA2KAz3p-xYcXYrHJ4Q5z0PfVymV03Kw3Gq6-BKvjOmxBtY0EM9vb5OgYptyzYJ6T47MNlIod-g_hSa2v1wvSbWcp-Raw1U5IYmcLv5qWA8pXQKJwp0/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252815%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU10xpSs82MbZoTzfW2gAeuE-gxJA2KAz3p-xYcXYrHJ4Q5z0PfVymV03Kw3Gq6-BKvjOmxBtY0EM9vb5OgYptyzYJ6T47MNlIod-g_hSa2v1wvSbWcp-Raw1U5IYmcLv5qWA8pXQKJwp0/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252815%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Twilights in Hampi can be terribly solemn</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
As
previously mentioned, nights in Hampi are characteristically slow and
silent and therefore appear far, far longer than they actually are.
Following an entire day of running about exploring and trekking, as soon
as I sat down at a roadside eatery near the guesthouse with a cigarette
and coffee, I realized my joints were aching terribly and a groggy
tiredness had begun to manifest itself slowly as well – nothing one
could not sleep off in a couple of hours. Three hours later, 10 pm by
the dot, following a two-hour nap and a very late delectably good north
Indian meal (delicious and aromatic garlic naan and wok-stirred kadai
chicken consisting tender well-roasted chunks of chicken dunked in
mouthwatering gravy) at “Bamboo House”, a dimly lit rooftop restaurant
with cushions and bolsters strewn about a large dining area open to cold
breeze on all four sides except for a few light curtains fluttering
about, when I ventured back on the streets, recharged camera in hand, to
click the faintly bluish glow attributed to the colossal tower of
Virupaksha temple by the many incandescent tube lights illuminating the
area around it, I could not spot a single soul on the streets except for
a few restaurant and souvenir shop owners/caretakers sitting idly by or
gossiping, a couple of tourists streaming in for a good night’s sleep
and of course, the beggarly bearded (and now incredibly stoned) man
still struggling to sell marijuana outside Virupaksha temple (“Hey!
Which country, man? Want some marijuana? I have – very good quality.” (It
did actually turn out to be of pretty decent quality when I shared some
the next day with another tourist.)). Two-faced Hampi is unquestionably a
spooky ghost town when the tourists disappear, a fact also resonated by
my frustrated guide perturbed about the lack of avenues for livelihood
in the off-season.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SFbsHt4nDU4q5r4arJ7eTN8WgEPpi6HMWqsWnVFqVU9BcIzDDNOnUlqKCBX58mkw-mPgFqjCS1fCOERL13oshf5Cw0qqWxQ8pp_WPTq7nMPE6zxbcO2aQ3KZrTL7MSdSl4wyksAsaS3J/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252847%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SFbsHt4nDU4q5r4arJ7eTN8WgEPpi6HMWqsWnVFqVU9BcIzDDNOnUlqKCBX58mkw-mPgFqjCS1fCOERL13oshf5Cw0qqWxQ8pp_WPTq7nMPE6zxbcO2aQ3KZrTL7MSdSl4wyksAsaS3J/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252847%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Beacon in the dark</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
temple nonetheless does look relatively more impressive late at night,
towering over the sleepy settlement like an immense beacon distantly
glowing blue-black, however there is a limit to how many angles and
compositions one can click it from, especially if one is the only person
roaming around the streets and the deafening silence and the abnormal
solitariness, broken only by the high-pitched orchestra enthusiastically
conducted by hundreds of frogs and grasshoppers, is actually strangely
unsettling. Three quarters of an hour later, after much roaming about
with only a few discreetly soundless and suspiciously identical cats (or
maybe there was just one idiotically roaming around in circles!) and
wide-eyed bovines for company, I was obliged to call it an early night
and ended up spending a couple of hours consulting maps and engrossed in
a book I purchased at Virupaksha Bazaar (“Hampi: World Heritage Area”
by Dr. C.S. Vasudevan and Melukote Muralidhar – barring few grammatical
mistakes and dull repetitions, a seamless and quick read possessing an immensity of details and
some stunning photographs clicked from unique perspectives). I fell asleep chuckling at myself
for missing the obvious allusion to “Breaking Bad” by the numerous
mouthwatering restaurants and cafes in this holy town which, in keeping
with the local religious tradition of avoiding non-vegetarian fare,
refrain from serving chicken but instead have “pollos” on their menus! <br />
<br />
As
already described, I was up and about pretty early the next morning to
comprehensively explore and photograph the ancient Virupaksha temple.
Following a quick south Indian breakfast thereafter (at Sagar
Restaurant, a small, incredibly cheap street-side shack managed by
several old and very thoughtful ladies) and check-out from the
guesthouse I had lodged in, I headed back up the inclined,
extraordinarily featureless plain rock sheet that is the hallowed
Hemakuta Hill whose lower slopes, where are located the aforementioned
classically constructed and vernacularly christened Kadlekalu Ganesha
and Sasivekalu Ganesha temples, have already been incorporated within
the “sacred center”.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiheLImvRfibycK2lL0aWk4iOgW9YqMw1fF791mCVHsJvqxJySqdaLKpZwzWqHF72-ECskprWSwTSRPc6QRz0vc0sJMUfqmzpS6NC_lBqj9PJGM_2m5pQwNfK_Szw8OWUObNWA0J1x2q2D4/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252841%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiheLImvRfibycK2lL0aWk4iOgW9YqMw1fF791mCVHsJvqxJySqdaLKpZwzWqHF72-ECskprWSwTSRPc6QRz0vc0sJMUfqmzpS6NC_lBqj9PJGM_2m5pQwNfK_Szw8OWUObNWA0J1x2q2D4/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252841%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>"Let me adjust this crown" - Another ordinary day at </b><b>Sasivekalu Ganesha temple </b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Commanding a majestic panorama of the entire settlement,
including the entire vast expansiveness of Virupaksha temple and its
enormous pyramidal tower projecting perpendicularly straight from the
bedrock underneath, a
trek along the sheer granite cliff skirting around Kadlekalu Ganesha
temple leads one to a cluster of thirty-three
unsophisticated pre-Vijayanagar temples (predominantly dedicated to Lord
Shiva and his immediate family, dearest followers and mightiest
manifestations) chronologically dated to 9th-14th centuries and
compositely classified as “Hemakuta Group of Temples”. Ranging from
exceptionally simplistic, almost rudimentary, pavilions and massive
buttressed gateways to unadorned comparatively larger shrines (these too
displaying considerable spatial, architectural and artistic diversity,
right from the floorplan (single cell (“ekakuta”), double identical
(“dwikuta”) or triple-cell cross-shape (“trikuta”)) to the presence of
associated adjoining pillared hallways and whitewashed surface
plasterwork disposition), these neat little shrines dot the entire
sacred hill surface and present several hundred possibilities in terms
of composition and perspective to a photographer. Moreover, trekking the
steeply inclined hillside and juggernauting one’s way from one revered
structure to the next is definitely adventurous, especially with the
swift fingers of relentless wind coursing through one’s hair and clothes
– though a point of restraint, in certain sections the rugged surface
is considerably slippery as a consequence of the slow seepage of
rainwater accumulated in the numerous deep surface undulations and one
can never be too cautious while navigating these!<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQudY_8D4cqWntV2chMEToDcWoDGJrzpb73jCKPVIqnO2HyXu2PSPvP8iQD1dVvZZ1XCRtdwq9ziYQafON69iZbnzCi3ED73S0HVOkfSO7B33Pe8zNHDWa8aQ4v94SmctPHFKjjG0tmlf/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252843%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQudY_8D4cqWntV2chMEToDcWoDGJrzpb73jCKPVIqnO2HyXu2PSPvP8iQD1dVvZZ1XCRtdwq9ziYQafON69iZbnzCi3ED73S0HVOkfSO7B33Pe8zNHDWa8aQ4v94SmctPHFKjjG0tmlf/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252843%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Against a rugged backdrop - A rudimentary shrine and a buttressed gateway,</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b> Hemakuta Hill</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
While
the rudimentary pavilions are simply a delight to observe and
photograph juxtaposed against the background of boulder-composed hill
outcrops or other edifices nearby, the place of honor belongs to the
conspicuously out-of-place triple-celled shrines surmounted by minimally
ornamented pyramidal stepped roofs (“Kadamba Nagara shikhara”) that
were inspired by and christened after the singularly unique style of
architecture popularized by the ancient royal Kadamba Dynasty (reign AD
345-525) which is categorically regarded as the first indigenous
sovereign state to rule a major portion of Karnataka (and therefore be
incontestably considered the imperial precursor of Vijayanagar Empire). A
commemorative inscription engraved on one of these triple-celled
edifices notes that its construction was commissioned by Vira
Kampiladeva, son of Mummadi Singeya Nayaka, the courageous warlord of
the state of Kampili who fiercely resisted the barbaric Muslim
onslaught. A spooky small little temple dedicated to Sri Prasanna
Anjaneya (or Lord Hanuman – the noblest and wisest of Vanara commanders,
allegedly capable of flying across continents, changing his dimensions
from minute to colossal, tearing apart immense mountains and defeating
entire legions of demonic armies and contemptuously hurling them around
with his tail – as he is referred to in south India, an etymology derived
from his mother Anjani who is said to have lived in a small undisturbed
cave in mystical Anegundi), graced by a vibrantly painted embossed image
of his, is still venerated fairly regularly and its decrepitly
crumbling walls and diminutive pyramidal roof are therefore coated with
layers of whitewash little by little peeling away to reveal the
haphazard layers of stone underneath. In the vicinity are numerous small
votive Shivalinga commissioned by enthusiastic devotees. A miserably
ruined shrine nearby slowly being overtaken by dense foliage still
retains fairly well-preserved remnants of painted plasterwork
depictions of charging adorned elephants and bearded devotees venerating
a Shivalinga, compelling one to wondrously consider if each of the
edifice here too was once such gracefully painted and ornamented.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnhA9DMVksC1yb1LMyJ5GTd61u_9ay6r9Xq-WGVkzjmY2wNLKNeZNZ6kp7vLB-tDyFIL20ArdGElVL-FUD6DXIMmbox78uSpauvDwCnj4XSRF2wl8XuNv8sS1n_214Rzz5TAusp5IuTiQZ/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252838%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnhA9DMVksC1yb1LMyJ5GTd61u_9ay6r9Xq-WGVkzjmY2wNLKNeZNZ6kp7vLB-tDyFIL20ArdGElVL-FUD6DXIMmbox78uSpauvDwCnj4XSRF2wl8XuNv8sS1n_214Rzz5TAusp5IuTiQZ/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252838%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Singular solitude - Kadamba-style shrines, Hemakuta Hill</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Know ye this in the way that this example of mine shows:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>There
was a Chandala (untouchable) of the Sopaka caste, well known as
Matanga, who abandoned sensual desires and reached the highest fame,
such as was very difficult to obtain, and many Kshatriyas and Brahmins
clamored to serve him. He having mounted the vehicle of gods entered
their flawless citadel and forever and ever after lived with them in
their world. His low birth did not prevent him from being reborn in the
realm of the universal god. </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>On
the other hand, there are Brahmins, born in the family of preceptors,
friends of the hymns of the Vedas, but continually caught in sinful
deeds, who are to be blamed in this world, and blistering hell awaits
them afterwards. Their elevated birth does not save them from hell nor
from blame. </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Therefore,
know this: not by birth does one become an outcast, not by birth does
one become a Brahmin, by deeds one becomes an outcast and by deeds one
becomes a Brahmin.” </b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– The Buddha, (Sutta Nipata, section Vasalasutta) </b></div>
<br />
Majestically rising like
an enormous dormant beast, Matanga Hill at the other end of the strikingly symmetrical
Hampi Bazaar immediately opposite the extensive
Virupaksha temple complex derives its name from Sage Matanga whose extraordinary
story is recounted in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the two most
fanatically venerated Hindu epics, and is also immortalized in the
extraordinarily wise parables of the Buddha. Regarding Sage Matanga, the
severe ascetic, it is documented that for several hundred years he
immersed himself in fierce spiritual austerities and physical penances
and only reluctantly relented when Indra Deva, the supreme sovereign
over all celestial deities, blessed him with unparalleled
fame for several millennia to come and the powers of flight and
shapeshifting.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBfP_FScLby3bZVMYmOjiYLfoioRtr_c7P344vwm_iu3EVd8CSt3lNpJnvBiAsYRYfWR5Oja_nRofiTWZ77QleOyqnae8I21UnRD4KeWMHhSSS_5BLCjUh68cXxM2G7BVTGaFsMVbh1Djh/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252845%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBfP_FScLby3bZVMYmOjiYLfoioRtr_c7P344vwm_iu3EVd8CSt3lNpJnvBiAsYRYfWR5Oja_nRofiTWZ77QleOyqnae8I21UnRD4KeWMHhSSS_5BLCjUh68cXxM2G7BVTGaFsMVbh1Djh/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252845%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Guarding its domains!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Dreadfully
furious as a consequence of the sacred sweet-smelling atmosphere of his
peaceful dwelling being fouled when unanticipatedly fell in it the
putrefying, blood-dripping mountainous carcass of Dundubhi, an armored
amphibious buffalo-demon that Vali, lord of the Vanara forces, had
derisively flung after the deadly, year-long battle between them, Sage
Matanga irrevocably cursed the powerful king that his head would
spontaneously explode into a hundred little pieces even if he mistakenly
tread near the ascetic’s consecrated hermitage and the impenetrable
forest encircling it. It was therefore in the dense woods around the
moderately-proportioned Matanga Hill that Sugriva, Vali’s vanquished
identical twin, sheltered while fleeing from his brother’s insufferable
rage and met the exiled princes Rama and Lakshmana devastated by and
seeking to rectify the abduction of Queen Sita. <br />
<br />
Proximately gracing the base of the hill have been constructed
several spacious double-storied pavilions, one of which houses a
massive, crudely-sculpted monolithic crouching Nandi, the bull mount of
Lord Shiva and a patron of spirituality and religious dedication,
referred to as “Yeduru Basavanna” which roughly translates to “Lord Bull
seated in the opposite direction” (i.e., opposite Virupaksha temple).
Against the interesting backdrop of a heap of enormous boulders, another
pavilion nearby functions as the village police station – an occupation
several other monuments in the country can also attest to! (Refer
<a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/adham-khans-tomb-and-mehrauli-phc-delhi.html">Pixelated memories - Adham Khan’s Tomb</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2012/01/sabz-burj-new-delhi.html">Pixelated memories - Sabz Burj</a>, both located in Delhi). Directly behind the Nandi pavilion rises a roughly constructed wide medieval staircase, thoroughly populated with
yellow-tinged chameleons and carved through the
moderately inclined rock face, that leads past several inconsequential
shrines, lesser pavilions and childish rock sculptures to a clearing flanked and rendered
inaccessible on every side by rugged boulders and dense vegetation.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvb_W4V_DpLsk69inWPDC_zLVrIj85B3dHLFqsdOiDgvr7_HSZ014KNa_-WfgbkVVlSNAzV_M7mXgD1ejb7Am3mzIkswYN4vx8QbLSOrujNzAdx5J36grQMB9iajy3dA5dU1PQgpM7Cqxm/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252840%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvb_W4V_DpLsk69inWPDC_zLVrIj85B3dHLFqsdOiDgvr7_HSZ014KNa_-WfgbkVVlSNAzV_M7mXgD1ejb7Am3mzIkswYN4vx8QbLSOrujNzAdx5J36grQMB9iajy3dA5dU1PQgpM7Cqxm/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252840%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Discovery! - </b><b>Achyutaraya temple</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Standing
here at this high altitude, surrounded only by thorny bushes, wildly
twirling faded yellow and glistening black butterflies and clever
chameleons dexterously camouflaged amongst the similarly-hued boulders,
one gazes down at the enormous expanse of the artistically noteworthy
Achyutaraya temple enclosed within two gigantically-proportioned
concentric rectangular colonnades sentinel-like attending the handsome
temple in the middle of lush forgotten wilderness long since abandoned
by humanity and relegated to a realm of contemptuous ignorance and
wretched desolation. Distressed by the sudden unwarranted intrusion,
startled birds, rather firework flashes of red, black, gold and green
accompanied by shrill warning cries, suddenly shoot out of the
innumerable crevices and dense bushes, and having noticed the intruder
hopping from boulder to stone in their midst, the reconnoitering
chameleons, slyly smiling to themselves like only a agreeably satisfied
reptile could smile, quickly scurry off to inform their friends and
relatives.<br />
<br />
Dedicated to the Tiruvengalanatha aspect of Lord Vishnu and
commissioned in AD 1534 by Hiriya Tirumalaraya Wodeyar, a
“Mahamandaleshvara” or provincial governor serving under Emperor Achyuta
Devaraya (reign AD 1529-42) after whom it was flatteringly christened,
the impressive shrine is an exemplar, sadly considerably less
appreciated compared to its other well-known neighbors, of
Vijayanagar-era architecture and refined artistic sensibilities,
possessing a fantastical array of meticulously ornamented sculptures and
dexterously executed wall motifs involving mythological
anthropomorphic deities, mythical entities and an immense assortment of
geometric and religious symbolism. That the notable shrine possesses
some of the most comprehensively detailed, thoroughly ornamented
sculptures carved in sheer granite is self-evident, as is the
comprehension of its being subjected to a punishing step-motherly
treatment by archaeological departments and conservation authorities,
perhaps as a consequence of the unbelievably insignificant number of
visitors and tourists ever trekking to this forlorn corner of the
erstwhile vast capital. Archaeological institutes and tourists –
everyone avoids the hill as if realistically terrified of being
afflicted by the very curse that the sage pronounced on the invincible
monkey king! Sadly of course, curse or no curse, nothing prevents thick tufts of wild
grass from sprouting through the gaping crevices of the ruined gateways.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuJZ5fN7kazbPRuVxiot72RMWnhnoSDLTGZhHBiydbMzZCxyWSx5-IFYwu79SW_jgJykvtffZG0Q8pSQxftdL75DEeAZHN_FWWwOlq0b8zt4p-398WmRxVrEQ5TAnEFvMMQwOb6NTCu8c/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQuJZ5fN7kazbPRuVxiot72RMWnhnoSDLTGZhHBiydbMzZCxyWSx5-IFYwu79SW_jgJykvtffZG0Q8pSQxftdL75DEeAZHN_FWWwOlq0b8zt4p-398WmRxVrEQ5TAnEFvMMQwOb6NTCu8c/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25288%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A pity that the architects and craftsmen are not remembered - Gateway, Achyutaraya temple</b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
magnificent temple too is surrounded by an enormous bazaar –
“Achyutarayapete” (“Achyuta Raya’s marketplace”), also otherwise known
as “Soolai Bazaar” (“Courtesan’s street”) since here resided the
prominent prostitutes and dancing girls patronized by the powerful and
affluent – like the other bazaars associated with temple complexes, the
commercial establishments and pleasure pavilions here too probably
belonged to the temple authorities and in all estimation the amount of
rent they must have collected every year must have been considerably
significant. <br />
<br />
Horrifically, it was at this point that
for some inexplicable reason the camera's batteries went off as
soon as I gingerly switched it on and consequentially I was obliged
(very miserably!) to sit at the small Sagar Restaurant (previously mentioned) for slightly over two
hours to charge it enough to last the day. As per the original (much
glossed over) plans, I had hoped to hop on a coracle and explore across
the pretty river the ancient fortresses and revered temples of
historical Anegundi, but now that it already was 2.30 pm, I wasn’t
really confident if I’ll be able to locate and photograph all the
monuments on that forgotten side and be back in time to catch my
return bus at 7.30 that very evening. Therefore, I impulsively decided
to instead explore the perennially overlooked outskirt villages of
Kamalapuram and Kadirampuram (pronounced Kamalapura and Kadirapura),
which although originally enclosed within the defensive fortifications
of the capital and encapsulating within their peripheries important,
regally patronized temples and frontier militaristic outposts, have long
since been physically and administratively separated from the latter
(despite the immediate geometric proximity) which explains that the
monuments here are seldom visited by tourists and photographers and
cannot be regarded as being in the pink of health, in terms of
conservation and preservation – thoroughly surrounded by waist-high
grasslands (and even in many cases surmounted by thick tufts of green
grass too!), these are primarily used by locals to graze large herds of
goats and buffaloes, or to camp in with homemade coffee and snacks to
gossip and doze in.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTkp269tfDrnSUa9frMwYFUgU0EVS81zzuSIGlngO9Xs5bLYxXGmwh1CuEBd4cR40m1rjIXVftScOzQUYDCu7ZfUnp33wIFxKTmrGIjD4KWI2l7ATUrDTmNyzSuz1sZIpBJZ7CLUAa-ra/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252849%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTkp269tfDrnSUa9frMwYFUgU0EVS81zzuSIGlngO9Xs5bLYxXGmwh1CuEBd4cR40m1rjIXVftScOzQUYDCu7ZfUnp33wIFxKTmrGIjD4KWI2l7ATUrDTmNyzSuz1sZIpBJZ7CLUAa-ra/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252849%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Life - An incessant circle of endless creation and destruction</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Kamalapuram
is located barely 20-30 minutes away by local buses which can be
availed from Hampi bus stop, though in all earnestness, it takes longer
for the bus to fill up followed by the idiotic last minute decisions
that another bus would actually go on that route and the one you are
already sitting in will actually sojourn elsewhere. The primary
attraction of Kamalapuram, considerably well frequented and properly
maintained, is the low rectangular building of the tiny Archaeological
Museum which faces a large manicured garden and whose four galleries as
well as the adjoining garden display an assortment of sculptures and
archaeological discoveries, including blackened copper
plates engraved with regal inscriptions recording religious grants, rusted weaponry,
commemorative hero stones and valuable gold and copper coins, unearthed
in and around Hampi. However, its most appreciated highlights are the painstakingly constructed huge cartographic reproductions revealing in
minute detail the exact geographical location and physical features of
the numerous monumental edifices besides topographical information and
the major arterial roads and pathways crisscrossing Hampi and the
contiguous green villages. Interestingly, the small museum was initially
established by British archaeologists and civil officers in the
elephant stables and the antiques were later moved to this distant
location in 1972 – necessarily a welcome decision, notwithstanding the
unshakeable realization that these sculptures and archaeological finds
would have been visually better presented there, considering that it did
bring some tourists and archaeological officers to this far-away
settlement that till date remains entirely eclipsed by its renowned
neighbor and therefore almost undocumented.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy_8oIY5f3X98Qm3l1Yxtkg7yaXL2W3-9_tSzUBwoX7Dr1EfYsf6yAltNOSWIAGNCmFe4cpaTkid35Txqb49YqpblKLDIpn-ulCwAa8VqJoPtNnUDErq6wx0dV0WsmNzsBocqYlc1Kmna0/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy_8oIY5f3X98Qm3l1Yxtkg7yaXL2W3-9_tSzUBwoX7Dr1EfYsf6yAltNOSWIAGNCmFe4cpaTkid35Txqb49YqpblKLDIpn-ulCwAa8VqJoPtNnUDErq6wx0dV0WsmNzsBocqYlc1Kmna0/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lilliputian </b><b>Hampi, Kamalapuram Archaeological Museum</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The
modest place remains open for tourists throughout the week except
Fridays, and like all ticketed destinations in and around Hampi, it too
can be covered on the common ticket purchased for Vitthala
temple and the elephants' stables if visited on the same day. Photography is sadly
not permitted within the premises, a perplexing decision considering
that the beautiful artefacts and antiques are not being touched or
harmed in any way (even the National Museum at Delhi allows photography!
Refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/10/national-museum-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - National Museum, Delhi</a>). <br />
<br />
Existential in a considerably bad state of
preservation, its five-storied huge gateway especially so precariously
deteriorated and reclaimed by dense clumps of wild grass violently
swaying with the unrelentingly furious wind that it literally appears to
be perpetually susceptible to immediate grievous collapse particularly
against heavy rain and harsh weather, the majestic Pattabhirama temple
is located approximately two kilometers from the museum at the end of a
network of successively narrowing roads in the pleasantly tranquil heart
of the full flung Kamalapuram village with soothing green banana
plantations and fertile vast grasslands in the idyllic background where
slothfully graze hundreds of sheep and lean buffaloes with immensely
long curved horns. Ignominiously relegated to the realms of forgetful
ignorance and partial reclamation by all-pervading foliage, the grand
shrine appears straight out of a vintage photograph enthusiastically
clicked by a judicious explorer coming across a massive set of ruins
long since lost to mankind – there is an undeniable thrill of immediate
discovery, interminably enthused with the strangely delightful sensation
that previously very few have actually tread the ground that you are
treading, at least for the selfsame purpose, and as the landscape
gradually evolves from featureless suburban to vibrantly vegetated with multihued beautiful
butterflies and birds darting around quicker than one could photograph
them and
an infinite variety of plants and weeds carpeting the ground and rendering
the opaque shields of trees even more impenetrable, one feels like a disembodied spirit romping about peacefully in
the shadows without causing any commotion or disturbance and taking in
the myriad subliminal sights and remembrances that have not changed in
the slightest for over five hundred years.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5RSbPXGAs1mQe38LZUoMSqZDcogGKzu9xgyHMqWgAdahA2gv9CGXm_vYW5N5iGjH4BohMxn-y67p6WYt0CSi6OKoJ5fDW0uWgkWex-AK1uSYN33yLAet6qjaMAcs-3gP4fk0ILKFsoxcz/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5RSbPXGAs1mQe38LZUoMSqZDcogGKzu9xgyHMqWgAdahA2gv9CGXm_vYW5N5iGjH4BohMxn-y67p6WYt0CSi6OKoJ5fDW0uWgkWex-AK1uSYN33yLAet6qjaMAcs-3gP4fk0ILKFsoxcz/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25289%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Pattabhirama temple - Lost to (almost) all humanity </b><b><br /></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Sadly
though, despite its vivid ornamentation and the pillared
hallways, the shrine does not really
hold a candle to Vitthala and Virupaksha temples in terms of surface
ornamentation and sculptural artworks, nor do its crumbling,
grass-ensconced features facilitate as many photography perspectives in
view of its physical immensity that very nearly renders the
multidimensional individual features, such as the ruinous multi-tiered
dome crowning the central shrine, incredibly distant and
inconsequential. <br />
<br />
The temple’s
associated sacred water tank (“pushkarni”) is located in a secluded
corner of a nearby vast grove surrounded by impermeable banana
plantations and row upon row of tall coconut trees bent heavy with fruit
and swaying against the furious wind. The grassy plains around the
tank, dotted here and there with dark green weeds proudly flaunting
their electric blue and orange flowers, support scores of cadaverous
buffaloes (with massive curved horns!), absolutely oblivious to the
world around them and only very sporadically giving way to the sudden
temptation of taking a minute break from their continuous rumination of
greedy mouthfuls of grass to adoringly gaze with slothful,
indifferent eyes at the soothing violet-blue water in the cool
sensuousness of whose slimy green mud they would perhaps have loved to
wallow while reflecting upon the all-pervading contentedness of their
uneventful lives (or perhaps thinking too would be too strenuous for
these gentle, sleepy creatures who, from the looks of it, are not even
in the slightest bothered about the gluttonous survivalist crows pecking
on their backs or the slender egrets running around on their
spindly thin legs).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2hMl8-b8CelSYbPw5YQ1-CfMls3qxP-No0C06YDGokELtVufBRZPhn6ajpAE0IKW4dCoZfS4UnNy9Gnvj3GZ1tmq2RbrbB5OFHlBg-_1QKjTLSdf0VqX2PDnrgCTiZ-VhwWMYo5bMCp9/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2hMl8-b8CelSYbPw5YQ1-CfMls3qxP-No0C06YDGokELtVufBRZPhn6ajpAE0IKW4dCoZfS4UnNy9Gnvj3GZ1tmq2RbrbB5OFHlBg-_1QKjTLSdf0VqX2PDnrgCTiZ-VhwWMYo5bMCp9/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252811%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>In the middle of nowhere - The Domed Gateway</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Nearby
looms the vertically prominent “Domed Gateway”, whose 18-meter high
lofty and ornate entrances were regarded as physical illustration of
how the divinely accomplished Hindu craftsmen-architects transformed
even the most mundane of utilitarian works into handsome
exemplifications of their skills. Functioning as one of the chief
entrances interrupting the formidable fortifications of the erstwhile
capital, the multi-tiered gateway crowned by a low dome, conspicuous in its majesty and spatial
dimensions, projects in this forgotten wilderness like a elegant relic
from the glorious golden past which has altogether been totally
obliterated by the inexplicable avariciousness of mankind and the
furiously all-consuming ravages of endless time and ever-ravenous
nature. <br />
<br />
I could not help notice the exceedingly humble
locals continuously and sheepishly observing me from the corners of
their eyes as if a terrible wild animal was on loose amidst the
magnificent ruins and forested grasslands even though superficially they
pretended as if they could not care less for a nosy-goofy photographer
stranger straying in their timeless settlement. Pinpoints of
relentlessly sharp gaze prickling through one’s backside and even the
most inconspicuous of sudden movements sending hormone-induced alarm
triggers coursing through one’s spine – the realization of being
endlessly under observation is literally as described by authors-poets
for centuries. It was only later that I realized that there also was a
sartorial factor that set me out from them – the perennially kindhearted
people here are in reality so inconsolably poverty-stricken
that they cannot even afford proper footwear and most of the time roam
about, run and graze/herd their animals on the uneven, pebble and
glass-shards strewn coarse roads and clearings without any shoes or
slippers! And yet, considering every difficulty and injustice as the
most trifling of issues, they are always soft-spoken and generously
considerate of
their fellow human beings, even going so far to offer fellow travelers on buses money if the latter does not have loose change to
give to the conductor, and exemplify why ruinous Hampi, a resplendent
paradise for backpackers and history-enthusiasts strewn about with
impregnable fortifications, magnificent monuments and enormous boulders
and in its entirety an impeccable, gloriously eulogized visual
composition threading an abundant wealth of unsurpassed architecture,
outstanding art and picturesque landscapes with impressive tales of
valor and conquests, nonetheless remains a profoundly humbling
experience for every visitor.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBo1IZGl1NH0nWofV6AaCRyolahZWhoWpOR08YHswg2-_7Lc1oHZe_EsRi2dHMp5IdJbjKKsX3D_UleTad1ogsus73IbztUZpcjwkSIiteycMOlYhJ3SkJgDgI_6KHZabYd1NHQPW5sdaK/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252824%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBo1IZGl1NH0nWofV6AaCRyolahZWhoWpOR08YHswg2-_7Lc1oHZe_EsRi2dHMp5IdJbjKKsX3D_UleTad1ogsus73IbztUZpcjwkSIiteycMOlYhJ3SkJgDgI_6KHZabYd1NHQPW5sdaK/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252824%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Those horns!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Requisite
to a tremendously progressive pragmatic society contributing to
continuous peaceful nation-building on the principles of socio-economic
and religious equality in the eyes of the judiciary, even while the Islamic
realms of north and central India were the quintessential enemies for the Vijayanagar empire, there
wasn’t any religious animosity towards Muslims per se who did
constitute a considerable segment of the fearsome military and the refined nobility. Nonetheless, very little tangential evidence survives
now in the physical form of religious edifices and inscriptions to
indicate the gradual percolation of Islam to southern India and the only
monuments tantamount to the said conclusion are the two adjacent mausoleums, not of
considerable architectural importance,
existential in the featureless plain heart of a large walled enclosure
thoroughly overgrown with waist-high weeds and impenetrable shrubbery
and encapsulating within its peripheries the remains of an extensive
Muhammadan cemetery in the contiguous laidback rural settlement of
Kadirampuram. <br />
<br />
Nothing is known concerning the
histories of the personages interred in these cubical mausoleums,
however, gauging
from the physical proportions of the edifices, one might assume that they were eminent personalities. Faced with well-dressed
stone, both monuments, not unusual from the thousands of medieval
Islamic funerary structures that pepper the entire subcontinent, are
nonetheless handsome structures, prominently projecting through their
wild, weed-carpeted surroundings. Interestingly, the larger of the two,
externally projected as a double-storied structure through the visually
striking employment of narrow arched depressions, does not possess a
dome but instead is open to the frolics of the fluffy white clouds
against the vast sky spontaneously metamorphosing from one shade of blue
to another with every passing hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzv04G9Cqpl48cAv9yPLoBFhFtjJ5ALLGB7TuxfVrG605pF3IF9pypz5rxTxQ8kOUekOLtEDTG94RwveWmFDc7GFXYof_MGVevqKTSHZBfjTL24lY3DsrU4PmaHxO3OrTlGBSAPhTGNHw/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252812%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzv04G9Cqpl48cAv9yPLoBFhFtjJ5ALLGB7TuxfVrG605pF3IF9pypz5rxTxQ8kOUekOLtEDTG94RwveWmFDc7GFXYof_MGVevqKTSHZBfjTL24lY3DsrU4PmaHxO3OrTlGBSAPhTGNHw/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252812%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Kadirampuram's claim to fame</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
It
was evening already and soon enough it would be time to return to
glittering glimmering Bangalore, the aggrandized metropolitan
agglomeration of shimmering glass and concrete that is the IT heart of
developing India. Overlooking the Hampi bus stand, upon a protuberant
projection jutting against the cliff face of Hemakuta Hill, now drenched
in utter impermeable darkness, I sat gazing at the gradual
transmutation of the crystal clear sky to threatening purple-black
accompanied by the soothing touch of slight drizzle. The magnificent
hills reverberated with the muted roars of distant thunder and spears of
lightning cleaved the enormous masses of thick, rain-bearing clouds
overhead. In the distance, a few incandescent bulbs twinkled upon the
summits of the majestic hills like fireflies threading their way in the
darkness while underneath, tiny beetle-like buses and autos scurried
about quickly, their headlights a flow of glowing amber lava against an
endless background of purple-black. The sheer granite hill face,
saturated now with several dozen old men and women who congregate here
every evening to share daily gossip of business, relations, disease and
deaths, and several dozen (by now subdued) monkeys acrobatically and gallantly
poised along the precipitous crags and summits and possibly discussing
the same topics, resounded with the continuous hum of chatter, rendered
ever more cheerful by the pleasant weather. Nonetheless, a guarded
suggestion of all-enveloping melancholy hung about the atmosphere – the
long weekend was rapidly drumming to its inevitable conclusion and the last of
the wide-eyed tourists were heading back home, soon enough the small
inconsequential village would be compelled to revert to another despised
phase of its ghost-town existence, numberless restaurants and
guesthouses would be rendered empty, the competitive guides patron-less.
Besides the monumental conservation, the government grandly envisages
to develop ancient Hampi into a world-class tourist destination through
inclusive development focused on geographical landscape restoration,
horticultural management, access for the differently-abled, visitors'
amenities and numerous social improvement plans aimed at benefiting the
resident communities. On the ground however, all this is yet to
materialize and there is little I could do for the beautiful World
Heritage Site, encompassed within its impregnable fortifications and so
enviously abounding with visually fulfilling scenery, highly embellished
mythological references, cultural vibrancy of a medieval capital and
delectable gastronomic haunts, except stating that very, very few
ancient monuments and heritage cities shall enthrall and impress me like
this hereafter. I do sincerely hope that I could do unflawed justice to its
vivid description. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Whatever force outside me moves my hand and gives me strength to dream and understand, </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Let me, by grace enlivened and by skill, enliven those who lived, and those who will.</b><b>”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Vikram Seth, Writer </b></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnNBimMFRf_pCXhcOS5cKFrqwJQCOtnp3h3Dc9rdwhL_r85L4Z225pKvjVNElOqexdOZvxdFeL3Lk4hCN8YFAmK-USrmBrff3h4UWTcmsI3GwHoiuooVs-mn52xZyWCiKQiLrq8Ip40_N/s1600/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252816%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnNBimMFRf_pCXhcOS5cKFrqwJQCOtnp3h3Dc9rdwhL_r85L4Z225pKvjVNElOqexdOZvxdFeL3Lk4hCN8YFAmK-USrmBrff3h4UWTcmsI3GwHoiuooVs-mn52xZyWCiKQiLrq8Ip40_N/s640/Hampi+Karnataka+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%252816%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Goodbye, old friend!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<b>Location: </b>Hampi is located in the district of Bellary 372 kilometers from Bangalore. The nearest township is Hospet 13 kilometers away.<br />
<b>How to reach: </b>Regular buses are available from Bangalore (Majestic/Kempegowda Bus stand) to Hampi every night. One way fare for KSRTC Non A/C Sleeper bus is Rs 650/person
inclusive of taxes. The frequency of buses plying between Bangalore-Hospet and vice-versa is more and one can avail those as well.<br /><b>Time required to explore the settlement: </b>2 days<br /> <b>Charges/person inclusive of food, lodging and to-and-fro travel from Bangalore:</b> Approx. Rs 4000 for a two-day, one-night stay (including the cost for hiring a guide for an entire day).<br /><b>Accommodation: </b>Spartan, simply furnished guesthouses are plentiful in Hampi. Most of these are located near the beautiful Virupaksha temple and can be booked for a day for 300-500 depending on the facilities available (room size, attached washrooms etc).<br />
If however one intends to undertake a single-day whirlwind tour of the settlement, freestanding bath and toilet facilities (though not considerably hygienic) are also available near Virupaksha temple.<br />
<b>Entrance fees for the monuments: </b>Nil for all, except Vitthala temple, elephants' stables and Kamalapuram Archaeological Museum for which entrance fees are respectively Rs 10 for domestic visitors and Rs 300 for foreigners. A single ticket suffices for all three if covered in a single day. All monuments are open everyday from sunrise to sunset everyday. The Archaeological Museum remains closed on Fridays.<br />
<b>Photography/video charges for the monuments: </b>Nil for all, except Virupaksha temple where Rs 50 and Rs 500 are respectively charged for photography and video-cameras. Vitthala temple too charges Rs 25 for the use of a video-camera.<br />
<b>Note:</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>It is advisable to carry sufficient drinking water throughout the stay at Hampi since the weather can get extremely punishing and cause dehydration. Comfortable footwear is also recommended since one has to walk considerably long distances across undulating topography to cover all the monuments.</li>
<li>Virupaksha temple is still fervently revered by faithful pilgrims and footwear is not allowed within the central courtyard. The same can be deposited (for a miniscule sum of Rs 5/pair) at the makeshift counter inside the temple complex near the massive gateway. Occasionally, one might be ordered to leave their footwear outside the smaller shrines as well by wandering priests who might have taken temporary residence in them.</li>
</ol>
<b>Relevant Links -</b><br />
<b>Other shrines across Karnataka embellished/expanded by the Vijayanagar sovereigns -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/03/nandi-hills-bhoga-nandeeshwara-temple.html">Pixelated Memories - Bhoga Nandeeshwara Temple, Chikkaballapur, Bangalore</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/sri-chamundeshwari-temple-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chamundeshwari Temple, Mysore</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/sri-chennakesava-temple-complex-belur.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chennakesava Temple complex, Belur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/seringapatnam-mandya-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Ranganathaswamy temple, Seringapatnam, Mandya</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Suggested reading -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/others/ASI-on-the-brink-of-excavating-more-Hampi-historical-marvels/articleshow/45737148.cms">Bangaloremirror.com - Article "ASI on the brink of excavating more Hampi historical marvels" (dated Jan 3, 2015) by Chetan R</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/others/ASI-starts-3-D-laser-scanning-at-Hampis-Vittala-temple/articleshow/27921909.cms?">Bangaloremirror.com - Article "ASI starts 3D laser scanning at Hampi's Vittala temple" (dated Dec 26, 2013) by Chetan R</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415485432/21.asp">Cw.routledge.com - A History of India: Domingo Paes, Vijayanagara: "The best provided city of the world"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2444871/Hanging-gardens-Hampi-Grass-grows-473-year-old-World-Heritage-site-despite-Rs-14-87-crore-spent-renovation-maintenance.html">Dailymail.co.uk - Article "Hanging gardens of Hampi! Grass grows on 473-year-old World Heritage site despite Rs 14.87 crore being spent on renovation" (dated Oct 4, 2013) by Vanu Dev</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/489518/hampis-stone-chariot-set-gain.html">Deccanherald.com - Article "Hampi's stone chariot set to gain new currency" (Dated July 16, 2015)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://archive.financialexpress.com/news/hampi-is-not-history/271120/1">Financialexpress.com - Article "Hampi is not history" (dated Nov 12, 2015) by Smita Joshi</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hampi.in/">Hampi.in</a> (A fascinating compilation of articles and maps regarding Hampi and its monuments)</li>
<li><a href="http://iiacd.org/murals-south-india/#/hampi-virupaksha-temple-ceiling-paintings-interactive-plan">Iiacd.org - Interactive Plan of Hampi Virupaksha Temple ceiling paintings</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://justrippingg.blogspot.in/2015/07/anegundi-fort-and-origin-of-vijaynagara.html">Justrippingg.blogspot.in - Anegundi Fort and Origin of the Vijaynagara Empire</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in:8081/~yogesh/hampihistory.html">Ncra.tifr.res.in - A.H. Longhurst, "Hampi Ruins, Described and Illustrated"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://przmm.blogspot.in/2011/08/birth-of-karttikeya-slayer-of.html">Przmm.blogspot.in - Birth of Karttikeya - The Slayer of Tarakasura</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m12/m12b111.htm">Sacred-texts.com - The Mahabharata, Section CCLXXXIV</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Hampi-Machu-Picchu-may-be-twins/articleshow/48704733.cms">Timesofindia.indiatimes.com - Article "Hampi, Machu Picchu may be twins!" (dated Aug 28, 2015)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.vijayanagara.org/html/Conservation.html">Vijayanagara.org - Conservation</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.vijayanagara.org/html/virupaksha.html">Vijayanagara.org - Virupaksha Temple</a></li>
<li><a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/241/">Whc.unesco.org - Group of Monuments at Hampi</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_City_of_Vijayanagara">Wikipedia.org - Ancient City of Vijayanagara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daksha">Wikipedia.org - Daksha</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishnadevaraya">Wikipedia.org - Krishna Devaraya</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidyaranya">Wikipedia.org - Madhavacharya Vidyaranya</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenali_Rama">Wikipedia.org - Tenali Rama</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_architecture">Wikipedia.org - Vijayanagara Architecture</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire">Wikipedia.org - Vijayanagara Empire</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.wmf.org/project/krishna-temple-complex-hampi-archaeological-site">Wmf.org - Krishna Temple Complex, Hampi Archaeological Site</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-39467864630073006932015-10-16T19:19:00.003+05:302015-10-16T19:19:44.035+05:30Mubarak Shah Saiyyid's Tomb, Delhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>“Na kisi ki aankh ka noor hun, na kisi ke dil ka qaraar hun,</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Jo kisi ke kaam na aa sake, main who ek musht-e-ghubar hun</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Paie fateeha koi aaye kyun, koi chaar phool charhaae kyun,</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Aa ke shamaa koi jalaye kyun, main wo be-kasi ka mazaar hun”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>(“I’m the light of no one’s eye, the joy of no one’s heart am I.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>That which can be of use to none – just a handful of dust am I.</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Why should someone sing my dirge, or come lay a wreath?</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>I’m the mausoleum of helplessness, better left in dark.”)</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>– Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah “Zafar” II</b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>(Reign AD 1837-57) </b></div>
<br />
One of the city’s oldest monuments, and then too not just a mere medieval edifice but the mausoleum of Sultan Muizuddin Mubarak Shah Saiyyid, the resourceful sovereign emperor (ruled AD 1421-34) who reigned over vast territories extending throughout northern India and contiguous sections of Pakistan, is a picture of gross mistreatment and semi-urban squalor in the heart of Kotla Mubarakpur, the fortified citadel he adoringly commissioned which is presently classified as an overpopulated, densely inhabited urban village (an oxymoron of course!) where an unfeasibly enormous number of multistory box-like, uninhabitably ramshackle residential buildings have so thickly mushroomed all around the mausoleum with such an unrestrained unconcern for civic facilities like roads, electricity and drainage that there are numerous stretches in the administratively unregulated colony where the buildings inch so dearly close to each other and tilt in such an alarmingly precarious fashion that they unbelievably render the clear sky a minute sliver of light peeping through – in fact, so dense is this semi-urban agglomeration, renowned as a commercial hub for sourcing construction material and interior furnishings, that Google Maps very nearly becomes worthless here considering that primarily there are no roads snaking through a majority of the urban village’s expanse, and where there are, the buildings have cropped up so close that no satellite can possibly visualize the road’s existence! Although the word “Kotla” translates to fortifications, which have long since disappeared under opposition from the relentlessly vicious forces of burgeoning urbanization and cataclysmic commercialization of land space, I shall nonetheless continue to refer to the urban village as the same for lack of a better term capable of indicating the delineation of the region’s boundaries.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0kPQEc5WlqdGDtuHqBQ5N4fcMABh8gzI04k4_GIY7UcawsHZgjgtLefIL_eeOo0zdfCLkwccDry5OPI7oSjwOEom7gHni4k8gqlJl8rj3Jb_qiHl7banDZQKdEraYjuwBLxyBzCK_1-D/s1600/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0kPQEc5WlqdGDtuHqBQ5N4fcMABh8gzI04k4_GIY7UcawsHZgjgtLefIL_eeOo0zdfCLkwccDry5OPI7oSjwOEom7gHni4k8gqlJl8rj3Jb_qiHl7banDZQKdEraYjuwBLxyBzCK_1-D/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Outrageous!</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Mubarak Shah is said to have inherited a perilously fragmented empire from his shrewd father Sultan Khizr Khan Saiyyid (reign AD 1414-21) and the country was still healing from the tremendously brutal wounds inflicted by the remorseless Mongol invader Timur who aggressively plundered Delhi and all the magnificent cities that led to it in AD 1398. Nonetheless, Mubarak Shah proved to be a formidable emperor and an able administrator who incontestably commanded the unquestionable loyalty of a powerful army and continuously undertook fierce punitive expeditions throughout his short reign against rebellious governors and local Hindu chieftains who had transformed the country into a perennially explosive keg. Unlike his forever-cautious father, he also possessed the resolved pugnacity to forfeit any allegiance to Timur and his equally ruthless descendants. Sadly though, he did not show the same cunning in appointing government officials – unchallenged by any administrative or financial checks and balances, powerful local chieftains and conniving court nobles ran the entire country like their own personal fiefs and soon enough, his prime minister ("Wazir”) Sarwar ul-Mulk, blinded alike by his own considerable influence and his contempt for the government of the day, physically assaulted and assassinated the Sultan soon after he dismissed him from service. The magnificent octagonal mausoleum is said to have been planned by Mubarak Shah himself during his lifetime but was commissioned after his demise by his nephew and successor Sultan Muhammad Shah Saiyyid (reign AD 1434-44) – wretchedly however, the massive edifice is so thoroughly surrounded by cramped multistory residential buildings and shop clusters that it is presently impossible to observe any aspect of it appreciably well and one has to eventually rely upon Muhammad Shah’s own strikingly beautiful mausoleum to properly visualize the former’s erstwhile impressiveness (refer <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/muhammad-shah-saiyyids-tomb-lodi.html">Pixelated Memories - Muhammad Shah Saiyyid's Tomb, Lodi Gardens</a>).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm4Hw034XPdB5swrMsLWMUJYj0-k9lEnP8e6UT7t7xL8ZwzCsU6RRIHqE_t29OSmAj4dKFDGz4sZQiuI61ZeAMDbetYCMHe5QIy5GuqgEzpMzmuZJeOdeinLo3MDQhyphenhyphentzyUcNYZKewqo-K/s1600/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm4Hw034XPdB5swrMsLWMUJYj0-k9lEnP8e6UT7t7xL8ZwzCsU6RRIHqE_t29OSmAj4dKFDGz4sZQiuI61ZeAMDbetYCMHe5QIy5GuqgEzpMzmuZJeOdeinLo3MDQhyphenhyphentzyUcNYZKewqo-K/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A sliver of magnificence</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The satellite view of Kotla Mubarakpur on Google Maps facilitates an interesting observation – the tomb, or its enormous dome rather, stands out prominently in the center and the entire unregulated colony separated from it only by a circumambulating street has developed around it in such a cheek by jowl manner that the contours of the beyond belief narrow streets and the numerous rows of houses turn correspondingly along its octagonal peripheries as if reluctant to let waste even a single square inch of encroachable land! On the ground, owing to the presence of several shops dealing with construction material such as cement and the like, an impenetrable cloud of bleached dust and cement which imparts an unpleasantly hazy appearance to everything perpetually hangs over the road and is stirred up furthermore by the continuous passage of pedestrians, cyclists and children wantonly sprinting around. Good-naturedly hoping to prevent defacement and suspected demolition of the medieval monument but also perhaps in no small measure attempting to escape their own fundamental obligation towards its protection and conservation, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has erected a high iron-grille all around its peripheries, although that laughably doesn’t in any way prevent the locals who stack gunny bags of sand and cement all around it – I suspect that ASI assumes that like an impermeable shield, the thick cladding of invasive plants and weeds emerging from the monument’s roof and immense dome would unarguably protect it from the relentless pressures of urbanization and vandalism!<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6UnR2MpYmpSLbdmaKLI8Sgx65VC1NmYugS7zt-jbsHdpt55QcVTkEDFyi0hO7tEl599hngPnNvgJq3XP0_ClYo1UrtBnnSBEjE9-rDHaGylUXU9-2LB9lLFVxM63U6DLLjGtgOiOHk_8H/s1600/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6UnR2MpYmpSLbdmaKLI8Sgx65VC1NmYugS7zt-jbsHdpt55QcVTkEDFyi0hO7tEl599hngPnNvgJq3XP0_ClYo1UrtBnnSBEjE9-rDHaGylUXU9-2LB9lLFVxM63U6DLLjGtgOiOHk_8H/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Overlooking history - Mubarak Shah's immediate neighbor is a lavatory!</b></span></td></tr>
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The mausoleum is nonetheless opened to visitors every Thursday since the locals refuse to accept that this grand edifice entombs a short-lived emperor and continue to regard it as the hallowed shrine of a medieval Sufi saint. A small, gated opening in the iron grille can be used for entry and egress on other days as well, but the day I visited the gate was locked and there was no caretaker to be seen around – neighborhood shopkeepers assured me he had merely gone for tea and should be back soon – I’m till date not sure how much tea did he drink since he did not return in the hour and a half I spent snooping around on the monument from people’s rooftops. <br />
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A fine monument built in the architectural style ubiquitously favored by the Saiyyid dynasty royalty, it consists of a large octagonal chamber surrounded by a spacious pillared veranda running parallel to each side and surmounted by a high, slightly protuberant but nonetheless graceful dome. Among the features displayed by the tomb are a continuous, badly damaged eave (“chajja”) along the roof supported by equally spaced brackets, “chattris” (umbrella domes mounted on slender pillars) raised on the parapet above each of the sides, strong buttressed tapering pillars dressed with grey Delhi quartzite stone along each corner of the octagon (to afford enhanced structural stability) and three arched entrances on each side along the edge of verandah.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmZNDHcbKgWQAeth7ya6aQT9BysiBYFf2cUA5WuVIbg_koV1Bg-0zef7ZOm0K7NJOqjKOvK2tCk8kVJf63CGLSaA41xvX9rBCGqmgwG6UVc60AvjlHh6LZwL6X2UIJGM0YVcQGXg08KUg/s1600/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmZNDHcbKgWQAeth7ya6aQT9BysiBYFf2cUA5WuVIbg_koV1Bg-0zef7ZOm0K7NJOqjKOvK2tCk8kVJf63CGLSaA41xvX9rBCGqmgwG6UVc60AvjlHh6LZwL6X2UIJGM0YVcQGXg08KUg/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25286%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Claustrophobic! - Enroute to Mubarak Shah's mausoleum</b></span></td></tr>
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The parapet, the sixteen-sided drum (base) of the dome and the eight-sided drums of the smaller domes of the chattris – each is distinguished by a very prominent row of “kanguras” (battlement-like ornamentation); elegantly tall slender ornamental turrets emerge from each corner of the drum of the central dome and stylishly punctuate the row of kanguras at this level, thereby further accentuating the overall image of a fascinatingly detailed, architecturally opulent funerary structure otherwise subdued in terms of grandeur and colorfulness. The only exception to the overall lack of flamboyance is an intriguingly unusual, bright red sandstone kiosk peppered with white marble highlights crowning the massive dome. Each side of the mausoleum except the western is pierced by an entrance whose heavy stone lintels culminate into painstakingly sculpted exquisite floral patterns; the western wall is filled in with a stone latticework screen so that it functions in the capacity of a mihrab (western wall of a religious/funerary structure indicating the direction of Mecca and faced by the faithful while offering prayers). <br />
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The funerary mosque associated with the mausoleum has been so irrevocably and horribly swallowed by the aforementioned surge of modern constructions that it has become irreversibly separated physically and contextually from the mausoleum and to reach it one does have to do significant legwork through successively narrower streets that invariably end in cul-de-sacs or lead to directions other than the ones one wishes to proceed to. Soon enough, climbing atop rooftops of the substantially taller buildings (of course after asking permission!) in order to navigate is the only option one can consider.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nCvHpSeWLQ-yCuEFgvSca0-jgUoOnEmAA8YEwWE3no6rVksWOJy7RdnDa5dZeLcDZgRkRYcWSFRNSMHJu4YZtSIjwnnk9BHjiDszpSUtBfQ4Vcht0RiH27Z-vWXqDQ1ddakoiVXBHah9/s1600/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nCvHpSeWLQ-yCuEFgvSca0-jgUoOnEmAA8YEwWE3no6rVksWOJy7RdnDa5dZeLcDZgRkRYcWSFRNSMHJu4YZtSIjwnnk9BHjiDszpSUtBfQ4Vcht0RiH27Z-vWXqDQ1ddakoiVXBHah9/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The funerary mosque - A monument swallowed by urbanization</b></span></td></tr>
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The mosque has been relegated to the wretched existence of a local dumping ground carpeted with mounds of polythene bags stuffed with foul-smelling rotten organic wastes, shards of broken beer bottles and even excreta that the locals projectile as obnoxious missiles from their terraces to the huge cobblestone-paved courtyard adjoining it or leave lining the outer sides of the walls that enclose it (where they do not adjoin other houses – several neighborhood buildings in fact share walls with the mosque’s peripheries! So much for the government’s Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act!). But make no mistake – the monument has not been entirely abandoned by mankind – children use occasional clearings in the garbage-stuffed courtyard as a playground and perhaps considering that not many others would venture close to a place that insufferably stenches of rotten wastes, accumulated runoff water and putrid excreta, the covered portion of the mosque is thoughtfully utilized as their very own hangout zone by local alcohol and marijuana addicts who can be seen, bottles and joints in hand, even in broad daylight whiling away their time playing cards and gossiping along the corners. One cannot help feeling heartbroken at the gruesome sight of the delightfully simplistic mosque’s present shameful existence and miniscule probability of improved future prospects. <br />
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Surmounted by three domes, the rectangular structure is accessible via five arched entrances supported on crudely crafted double-pillars that were a characteristic feature of the militaristic Tughlaq Dynasty (reign AD 1320-98) who preceded the Saiyyid supremacy. The mosque features exquisite plasterwork medallions, a wide eave (“chajja”) supported on heavy stone brackets, kangura patterns and (on the inside) sorry remains of miniature alcoves styled into numerous intricate geometric and floral patterns. The subdued grandeur, formality of architectural plan and the overall artistic starkness are heartbreaking and confer on the monument a distinctive dignity that refuses to be intimidated to submission even by its unforeseen fall from graceful sophistication to the station of a foul-smelling, visually unappealing garbage heap.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMO_c7ov0BB9mbCgBESKYG3FbZ3ZkiaBZz_QxAa_oGUjY3XiWawOkK7Mg7n8Twy6l6G42x50fiAHJB_ZpHLfUy2yzUQXXXvcHCIVQZgGE9QV2yghTdN6sZNSGdHMnfgbG45wjm1vTo6vo/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25284%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Dignified! </b></span></td></tr>
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Along one side, a staircase layered with shards of beer bottles and cigarette packs leads upstairs to the mosque’s roof from where one can rummage upon the elusiveness of even the minutest trace of optimism for the pitiable mosque while at the same time feel dwarfed by the towering buildings that flank it on either side and grievously observe and photograph the sheer scale of unwarranted devastation inflicted by inconsiderate locals. <br />
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The mausoleum is generally regarded to be the second (of only six!) octagonal tomb to be built in Delhi (three others have been previously documented on this blog here – <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/adham-khans-tomb-and-mehrauli-phc-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Adham Khan's Tomb</a>, <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/05/isa-khans-tomb-complex-new-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - Isa Khan's Tomb Complex</a> and <a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/muhammad-shah-saiyyids-tomb-lodi.html">Pixelated Memories - Muhammad Shah Saiyyid's Tomb</a>). It is also the first instance of a mausoleum to be conceived surrounded by an enclosed fortified garden (which has vanished long since). Also, the funerary mosque associated with the mausoleum is accepted to be the only one built during the Saiyyid Dynasty reign (AD 1414-51) to have survived. Given the excellent statistics associated with them, it is profoundly unacceptable that the mosque-mausoleum languish in such decrepitude and conservational poverty. I do not oppose the local population’s right to venerate the mausoleum as a shrine and frequent it on a daily basis if they so wish but I do feel offended by the sickeningly disgusting treatment they have meted out to the somber mosque. Also, agreed that ASI works with a very mediocre budget and does not have the resources or skilled manpower to feasibly undertake conservation and restoration works, but it can at the very least provide a semblance of security and cleanliness to the monuments under its aegis – and if it cannot, I can mirthlessly only suggest that they lock and board up the monuments and prevent any and every form of entry to them until they can accumulate sufficient resources to safeguard and manage them satisfactorily – at least, we wouldn’t lose another monument to encroachments and general lackadaisical attitude of the populace and civic authorities. So shameful is the present scenario that post observing the deplorable circumstances of the two remarkable edifices and the all-encompassing neglect heaped by the civic authorities on them specifically and Kotla Mubarakpur in general, one instantaneously forgets any significant hopes of restoration and preservation and barely wishes that they at least miraculously survive for the next generation to witness.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7oGdEp6Yd6bJ93mSnSSSBwsZzPWIX8JgCjJ0EC6G-UUY__oMBZurhbXCfFESQI8SO2nLe6Pz-tle8jJWLkNAtxb-4MErYZCBE-cD2lEQEUHTk0DX7EeUguGUMUaT3FGhiG05czMSaTYh/s1600/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7oGdEp6Yd6bJ93mSnSSSBwsZzPWIX8JgCjJ0EC6G-UUY__oMBZurhbXCfFESQI8SO2nLe6Pz-tle8jJWLkNAtxb-4MErYZCBE-cD2lEQEUHTk0DX7EeUguGUMUaT3FGhiG05czMSaTYh/s640/Mubarak+Shah+Saiyyid%2527s+Tomb+Delhi+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Oh, the irony!</b></span></td></tr>
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<b>Location:</b> Kotla Mubarakpur, near South Ex.I<br />
<b>Nearest Bus stop: </b>South Ex. I<br />
<b>Nearest Metro station:</b> AIIMS<br />
<b>How to reach: </b>Walk/avail an auto rickshaw from South Ex. Ask for "Gumbad" after reaching Kotla Mubarakpur village. The mosque is more difficult to find and one has to climb the rooftops of neighborhood buildings to check the orientation and directions.<br />
<b>Entrance fees: </b>Nil<br />
<b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil<br />
<b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>30 min<br />
<b>Relevant Links - </b><br />
<b>Other monuments located in the vicinity - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2014/12/south-ex-trail-delhi.html">Pixelated Memories - South Ex. Trail</a><br />
<b>Another Saiyyid-era monument in the city - </b><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2013/12/muhammad-shah-saiyyids-tomb-lodi.html">Pixelated Memories - Muhammad Shah Saiyyid's Tomb</a><br />
<b>Suggested reading -</b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://footlooseindilli.blogspot.in/2010/11/tomb-of-mubarak-shah-kotla-mubarakpur.html">Footlooseindilli.blogspot.in - Tomb of Mubarak Shah - Kotla M</a><a href="http://footlooseindilli.blogspot.in/2010/11/tomb-of-mubarak-shah-kotla-mubarakpur.html">ubarakpur</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.india-seminar.com/2011/628/628_ratish_nanda.htm">India-seminar.com - Article "A millennium of building, 50 years of destruction" by Ratish Nanda</a></li>
<li><a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/the-lost-cities-of-delhi/522056/">Indianexpress.com - Article "The lost cities of Delhi" (dated Sep 27, 2009) by The lost cities of Delhi Alokparna Das</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://sarsonkekhet.in/2009/08/05/dilli-darshan-sayyid-and-lodhi-delhi/">Sarsonkekhet.in - Dilli Darshan: Sayyid and Lodhi </a><a href="http://sarsonkekhet.in/2009/08/05/dilli-darshan-sayyid-and-lodhi-delhi/">Delhi</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420068855113295028.post-35540909081722001452015-09-29T15:50:00.000+05:302015-09-29T15:50:21.295+05:30Church of St. Joseph and St. Philomena, Mysore, Karnataka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“A good traveler is the one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler is the one who does not know where he came from.” </b></div>
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<b>– Lin Yu-tang, Chinese writer (1895-1976)</b></div>
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Soon enough, in slightly less than a month from now to be precise, it’s going to be the four-year anniversary of “Pixelated Memories”. It really is tremendously hard to believe that it has been such a painstakingly long, long time travelling and writing. Equally difficult is the dazzling comprehension about the numerous gorgeous places I’ve been to, the infinite number of fascinating people I’ve encountered, inexplicable emotions felt, colorful souvenirs and photographs collected, and most importantly, bewitching memories cherished. As mentioned once previously on this blog, the journey hasn’t always been easy – I’ve often been utterly frustrated by the lack of inspiration (writer’s block!) or the paucity of sufficient funds and enthusiastic companionship. There have been n number of times when I had to grudgingly ask myself if I wanted to eat better or drift further – and more often than not, travelling triumphed – it is somehow unreservedly preposterous to stay at one place and miss out on wandering around and admiring the magnificent landscapes that nature benevolently studded this country with and the hundreds of spellbinding colossal edifices that mankind constructed in his persistent zeal for unparalleled renown and architectural immortality. Of course, there is also the considerable pressure of maintaining a thoroughly-detailed memoir, a journal of all my sojourns and musings which I can refer to when I’m old and senescent and incapable of pinning names on the photographs I’m clicking now. Or perhaps not trustful enough to accept that massive Gothic palaces and outstanding cathedrals – like the unbelievably beautiful Church of St. Joseph and St. Philomena – could exist in this part of the world as well.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq3ShBm2_8IfStE-E50N7CKeh_gvDE9D239gBOSPhSO810VpgPa62p0XcDlMMi2IXUDcnwfBVFSiA4fqfXNBxTXLsvGA76zKqNd496-mF0SQBnmcvtaumCEhHtIV2qdYLZng2Bi3qW00vt/s1600/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq3ShBm2_8IfStE-E50N7CKeh_gvDE9D239gBOSPhSO810VpgPa62p0XcDlMMi2IXUDcnwfBVFSiA4fqfXNBxTXLsvGA76zKqNd496-mF0SQBnmcvtaumCEhHtIV2qdYLZng2Bi3qW00vt/s640/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25281%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Singular - The Church of St. Joseph and St. Philomena</b></span></td></tr>
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Inspired by the Cologne Cathedral of Germany and constructed in 1936 in the Neo-Gothic style of architecture, St. Philomena’s Church (as it is popularly referred to) can unarguably be regarded as one of the defining landmarks of the magnificent city of Mysore. Capturing brightly illuminating rays of sunshine in its numerous painted glass windows and stretching its painstakingly carved, 175-feet tall twin towering spires in a remarkable attempt to touch the sky, the handsome church dominates the beautiful city’s skyline and generously reflects upon the extraordinary amalgamation of different faiths, cultures and architectural styles that the Wadiyar/Wodeyar Dynasty (reign AD 1399-1947 over most of Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala) impressively achieved. The present edifice, an exceptional epitome of Gothic architecture and its fascinating visual impact especially in an undeniably foreign setting, is located at the site of an earlier wooden church that was consecrated in AD 1843 and was commissioned by the then sovereign H.H. Maharaja Sri Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar III (reign AD 1799-1868) for the British Catholic soldiers posted at nearby military town of Seringapatnam to pray at. The legend inscribed on the foundation stone of the original church read – <br />
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<b>“In the name of that only God – the universal Lord who creates, protects, and reigns over the universe of Light, the mundane world and the assemblage of all created lives – this church is built 1843 years after the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Enlightenment of the World, as man."</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil9mggyXQGqpuvqKeNi_ofeHgRbdhhECwdDcA5bLPez40ffOiDwoxh4POrpW2-rc5w0DGliDEpfjU373jWZmohns2UAK4q1TYxda0TIqExOhKXV8K0BJNI_E4zPkGMUMTuTm-jFFne4Rv-/s1600/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil9mggyXQGqpuvqKeNi_ofeHgRbdhhECwdDcA5bLPez40ffOiDwoxh4POrpW2-rc5w0DGliDEpfjU373jWZmohns2UAK4q1TYxda0TIqExOhKXV8K0BJNI_E4zPkGMUMTuTm-jFFne4Rv-/s640/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25287%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Exemplar!</b></span></td></tr>
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Upon the request of Father Cochet, the second church was commissioned in 1933 by H.H. Maharaja Sri Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV (reign AD 1894-1940) to house the sacred relics of St. Philomena of Greece that his personal secretary T. Thumboo Chetty had obtained in 1926. The designs were prepared by a French architect remembered only as Daly (next to nothing is known about him and his credentials) and the construction was overseen by Bishop Rev. Rene Feuga (Parish priest, 1831-41). The structure was consecrated in 1936 and dedicated to St. Philomena (lived AD 291-304), the martyred Greek princess who had committed her life and love to God and took a vow of consecrated virginity at the tender age of 13 years (soon thereafter, the Roman Emperor Diocletian cruelly threatened to destroy her father’s kingdom, relented only after he inconsiderately decided to marry her on a whim and, unnervingly infuriated at her continued refusal, had her barbarically tortured and mercilessly decapitated). Numerous churches and cathedrals have been commissioned throughout the world since after the discovery of her sacred remains in the year 1802 in Rome and her cult remains particularly strong in the Indian state of Karnataka where several charitable institutions and hospitals are financed and managed by religious organizations associated with her name. On the fronts of faith and belief however, recent archaeological developments and historical literary records and practices have cast deep doubts over whether the hallowed relics brandished throughout the world as the martyred child’s are actually hers – the hollowed rock mausoleum where they were found bore the Latin inscription “pax tecum Filumena” (“Peace with you, Philomena”), however placed deliberately in an incorrect manner which was generally accomplished by medieval clergy and church functionaries to indicate the reuse of a mausoleum for a second burial.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6FbdCdV2WOA12qtHsIXJ0FEX0Zr3Onhoyv_E5oko8_FDrQQJrRqtfSYAe4Ua8Vbkd8SFvLvntgN6opEZhlrlS_oizB-uGZSP0BYe52gdwlvvNyLhiPxvlikglZy5RWgpiNJ5SVUSkJoT/s1600/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6FbdCdV2WOA12qtHsIXJ0FEX0Zr3Onhoyv_E5oko8_FDrQQJrRqtfSYAe4Ua8Vbkd8SFvLvntgN6opEZhlrlS_oizB-uGZSP0BYe52gdwlvvNyLhiPxvlikglZy5RWgpiNJ5SVUSkJoT/s640/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25285%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sublime!</b></span></td></tr>
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This, and the numerous scientific papers questioning the veracity of the accounts of St. Philomena’s life and the Vatican’s refusal to venerate and canonize her as a saint, of course do not in the slightest deter the faithful nor do they erase the honorific “Saint” affixed preceding her name. Be that as it may, the church in Mysore is definitely unique, not merely because it is a singularly focused entity in terms of its architectural inspiration in a visually heterogeneous city otherwise renowned for its eclectic edifices conceived to blend in numerous styles and symbolic motifs, but also because it is a rare example of the cultural and architectural synergy that is becoming so drastically threatened to extinction in these troubled times – commemorating a Greek saint, financed by a Hindu King and designed following German architectural ethos by an unknown French architect for British soldiers to worship in! <br />
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The colossal church is built in the shape of an enormous cross and its two remarkably gorgeous towers pierce the sky towering over the peaceful green crowns of surrounding trees and the roofs of the neighborhood houses and can easily be recognized from rooftops around for several kilometers. The immensity of the soaring towers however do pose the often encountered (and immediately sympathized with!) extreme difficulty involved in attempting to photograph the entire massive structure justifiably well – I too was forced to click most of the photographs in portrait orientation despite my near aversion to. It need not be mentioned that Gothic edifices are always a source of wide-eyed fascination given that very few exemplar specimens were ever built in the vast subcontinent – the church here is definitely an epitome of the same.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63eDsJ0BZYkyn6nQ-umCcwB8jl6syV5QCQU4FrIVvAjVUDT5-Fjrlrs_DBrp_9Plz4_JF23CZG6bXOmtbGURJP1Mj-B6ymm6o5mUTrlFM5fh3TkIiF-JSd4dqOCmm4NQFKcixu_NhulzN/s1600/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63eDsJ0BZYkyn6nQ-umCcwB8jl6syV5QCQU4FrIVvAjVUDT5-Fjrlrs_DBrp_9Plz4_JF23CZG6bXOmtbGURJP1Mj-B6ymm6o5mUTrlFM5fh3TkIiF-JSd4dqOCmm4NQFKcixu_NhulzN/s640/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25282%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Graphic!</b></span></td></tr>
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The entire vertical immensity is finely balanced by stone buttresses, as is common with most Gothic structures, especially cathedrals, of such grand proportions. The massive structure is flanked on either side by two large sculptures (although visually dwarfed by the towers’ gigantism) composed of flawless white marble. The first is that of St. Philomena, appearing immaculate celestial and depicted with a substantially heavy anchor by her side and a small arrow clutched in her hand (proclaimed symbols of her unflinching martyrdom since she was repetitively tormented (and miraculously saved) by being fired upon with arrows and drowned tied to heavy anchors). The second portrays a bearded and robed St. Joseph, the husband of Mary (Jesus’s mother), triumphantly holding in his arms a baby Jesus – for some mysterious reason, and puzzlingly so, everybody omits St. Joseph’s name from the church’s when referring to it. The expansive grounds adjoining the leviathan church building also house the offices and residential quarters of the Order’s clergy and a school run under their aegis. Photography is prohibited within the church (and the housekeeping staff does very strictly implement the same), however the Father there generously, and quite instantaneously, granted me the requisite permissions and even had a caretaker show me around and point out the consecration stones and commemorative tablets pertaining to the Bishops interred herein and the gorgeous, vividly multihued stained glass windows. The devotees being very much Indian here, one does notice the practice, same as one would in a mosque or a temple, of leaving one’s footwear outside before stepping into the premises.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimusKL3veAE_oM8cmUUCgk1XKI90Jeb00uy1nMk_CHBfTbGpuZF7DwWBdaE8AEVI8Uf_B_ZdYvxN5wfkckXKQ6IBKT6ntRgvzbqxLANWlCxzvSvFXJMcQbQQl_Az4ZLW1KNMayHKO4M-5j/s1600/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimusKL3veAE_oM8cmUUCgk1XKI90Jeb00uy1nMk_CHBfTbGpuZF7DwWBdaE8AEVI8Uf_B_ZdYvxN5wfkckXKQ6IBKT6ntRgvzbqxLANWlCxzvSvFXJMcQbQQl_Az4ZLW1KNMayHKO4M-5j/s640/Philomena+Church+Mysore+Pixelated+Memories+Sahil+Ahuja+%25283%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hallowed!</b></span></td></tr>
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Apart from the numerous dexterously carved sculptures and bewitching scenes from Jesus’s life and tribulations and the twelve most significant occurrences in his short life painted on small wooden panels, one cannot fail being impressed by the numerous colorful, brilliantly-lit dioramas, painstakingly crafted sculptures (wreathed with flower garlands and fairy lights!) and the overall striking symmetry and immediately noticeable gracefulness of the architecture. The perspective unity introduced by the handsome Corinthian pillar shafts culminating into gorgeous bouquets of Acanthus blossoms before converging into soaring pointed arches no doubt spectacularly contributes to the effect. Numerous captions painted on wooden tablets adorn the walls to create a rather crowded mishmash of wooden boards and plastic fixtures, among them – <br />
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<b>“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.</b></div>
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<b> Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.</b></div>
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<b> Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,</b></div>
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<b>as we forgive those who trespass against us.<br /> Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:<br /> For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.<br /> Amen.”</b></div>
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Closer to the altar is a narrow staircase leading down to a small subterranean chamber harshly lit with fluorescent lights – here, in the likeness of a beautiful blonde damsel lying prone within a glass and wood case, surrounded by numerous flower vases are contained the remains of St. Philomena – legend goes that soon after the discovery of the bone dust remains, the same multiplied to a large amount and could therefore provide for hundreds of deeply venerated repositories throughout the world! Hoping for spiritual blessings, financial prosperity and physical and matrimonial well being, devotees leave offerings of coins and currency down a large well-like opening adjoining the highly realistic casket.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tragedy!</b></span></td></tr>
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On either side exist very dimly-lit narrow passages lined with black-grey stone slabs engraved with the names of hundreds of thousands of faithful who chose to be buried in crypts in the vicinity of the saint’s mortal remains – among them the Maharani of Bajang (Nepal) who lies interred so very far from her kingdom! Sadly though, visitors have vandalized these too with grotesquely etched love letters and hieroglyphs. Walking through the cool, dark passages is definitely a strange experience full of strange morbid sensations – the uninterrupted loneliness, the sudden intense feeling of walking subterranean amongst the dead, the deeply evocative darkness intermittently punctured by shards of orange-yellow light emitted by low-wattage incandescent bulbs – at the same time one does not wish to walk into the blinding illumination outside and is also inexplicably afraid to stay. But walk back to the sunshine one does. The dead are not going anywhere. For the rest, life must go on.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Spooky!</b></span></td></tr>
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<b>Open:</b> Everyday, 5 am – 6 pm <br />
<b>Mass timings: </b>Monday-Saturday: 5.30 am, 6.15 am, 7 am and 4 pm; Sundays: 5 am, 6 am, 7 am, 8 am, 9 am and 4 pm <br />
<b>Nearest bus stop:</b> Suburban sto <br />
<b>How to reach: </b>Walk or avail a bus/auto from Suburban bus stop (850 meters away) or City bus stop (1.8 kilometers away).<br /><b>Entrance fees:</b> Nil<br /> <b>Photography/Video charges:</b> Nil. But prohibited within the church.<br /> <b>Time required for sightseeing: </b>1 hr<br /> <b>Relevant Links -</b><br /> <b>Other monuments/landmarks located in Mysore - </b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/sri-chamundeshwari-temple-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Mysore Palace</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/07/seringapatnam-mandya-karnataka.html">Pixelated Memories - Seringapatnam (Mandya)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pixels-memories.blogspot.in/2015/09/sri-chamundeshwari-temple-mysore.html">Pixelated Memories - Sri Chamundeshwari Temple</a></li>
</ol>
<b>Suggested reading - </b><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philomena">Wikipedia.org - Philomena</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Philomena%27s_Church,_Mysore">Wikipedia.org - St. Philomena's Church, Mysore</a></li>
</ol>
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