Photoblog: The Chitradurga Fort

 Here's a summary of the history of Chitradurga fort:

The first part was built about a thousand years ago.
Heaps of dynasties like the Chalukyas and Hoysalas and Nayakas - the usual suspects - have occupied it in the past.  Hyder Ali and Tipu jammed around for a bit here as well until the Brits got them out, the Wodeyars did a wall or two because they had more money than common sense.  Everyone generally added something (except for the Brits whose primarily skill in arithmetic was to subtract), so there's a lot of rock that has been cut in there.  Lots of rock left as well.  
End of history lesson.

7 am on a wet Wednesday morning in August.  Anand and I begin walking by the ramparts of Chitradurga fort, knowing that it will be a long walk in rainy weather, but we are looking forward to it (some people with advanced English in their genes would term such behaviour masochistic.  We know no such people though and are hence thankful).

Right up, I will tell you that the Archeo Survey of India has done a splendid job of keeping the place tidy.  Their information tablets are neatly done and are thankfully not defaced (yet), so we walked from one point to the other, learning our history from them, as we went.  

There were fetching low clouds hanging over the formations of rocks on the 'betta's or small hills that dot the landscape, many of which are enclosed by the seven lines of fort walls (succeeding dynasties seem to have found earlier walls pregnable, so they just said, 'What the hell, let's do another one'.  The result of such obsessive insecurity is 32 kilometres of walls (and some very sore hands)).

Here's one such wall.

To its credit, this part of the wall is aesthetic and done with a certain taste.  These views are personal: a potential invader is unlikely to focus on the aesthetics with an approving eye, the design being such that he'd have to be super human to scramble up. 

Just another picture to let you know what you missed.  This is the remains of the palace with granaries and baths and all the rest of it.  

The fort has a number of temples (in the distance), some under giant boulders, and an incredible tapestry of ruins, rocks and random rubble (which is the principal masonry style).  

And, for a change, the grass isn't greener on the other side (the other side of the fort is the town, so that sucks).

That structure up close - two pillars, with a beam on top, was apparently to host a couple of hooks from which a swing would dangle: for the queen, the princess or someone who was, at any rate, pretty loaded.    in comparison, the swings you see in a park look like Chihuahuas with protein deficiency.

A temple complex ahead in front, with the rocks in the distance.  If the only way of seeing this view everyday was to visit the temple, the most agnostic of rulers would turn deeply religious.   So, you kind of get the feeling that the folks who chose locations for temples had an early career in psychology.  

I take just a step to my right and am now in this verandah with pillars.  And this is the thing about photography: everyone just has to take a photo or two of a bunch of pillars in a straight line, its Pavlovian (about which you can learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning.  We believe in holistic education).  

The building held up by these pillars isn't arresting enough, so we look inside and see at a vast empty space with a strong suggestion of mice and bats that are competing to produce smells with higher pungency,  and move on.  

The structure to the left is a 'gaali dwar', for the royals to get the breeze and the one to the right is the entrance to the temple in front of which I stood while taking this photograph.  Isn't the scene surreal...utterly beautiful?  We just stood soaking it all in (well, literally as well...).

And the question that haunts me is: just how did those folks lift all the stones up a couple of storeys? Where did they get that superhuman strength from?

No, Horlicks has been around for a while, but not that long.  Even I know that.

Now, this is just the sort of photo I'd take to show off.  

Anand was blocking the doorway, so I asked him to crouch behind the pillar in the larger interest of Art and he nearly threw his slipper at my Nikon.  

After all that I have done for him over the years......

The pillars all over had some lovely carvings 

...but this one sort of freaked me out a bit.  Which probably was the intent anyways (not to freak me out, if you see what I mean, but humans in general).  

I wouldn't want to meet this guy in broad daylight on MG Road, let alone anywhere else.  Which brings me to contemporary dangers in the fort: leopards and bears are known to wander around, so stick to your paths and mind your language.

The panther is like a leopard

Except it hasn't been peppered

Should you behold a panther crouch

Prepared to say Ouch

Better yet, if called by a panther

Don't anther

(not me, Ogden Nash)

The stuff that I did not photograph were the outstanding rainwater harvesting ponds, carved and teased out of rock (a sure sign of genius this, missing the ponds for the rocks.  Runs in the family). 

Back to serious reporting.  This is where one of those Hyder-Tipu Universe Boss chaps set up a grinder for gunpowder, using circular grinding stones turned by horses and bulls, managed by, of course, humans.  I cannot think of a riskier thing to do in life, but, of course,  it's a free country (well, not in those times, I agree).  Plus, both those chaps were a bit cuckoo (else why would you conquer Mysore, for Heaven's sake?  The most innocuous folks around live there).

On second thoughts, I would rather grind gunpowder than cross Outer Ring Road.  

And, that brings us, finally to the tale of Onake Obavva (now, that's a name to have).  She was a warrior woman who fought the soldiers of Hyder Ali in 1779 and knocked off several of them with her Onake (a heavy wooden pestle that gets the shivers doing a decathlon on your backbone).  O2 hid near a narrow passage that they had to cross and then bumped them off (literally, of course) one by one.  Smart woman this, but looking at the passage - which is now called Onake Obavvana kindi - you do feel sorry for those soldiers, even if they were daft enough to be with the Hyder-Tipu mafiosi.  Getting your skull fragmented isn't (at the best of times, even with air-conditioning and Dettol invented) a pleasant experience.  At some point, she met her end as well, so that was heroic.  

We stood for a moment in silence as a mark of respect to O2 for what she had done and then hurried off towards the exit.  It was mid-morning - 11 am - when we left the fort, soaked to the 206th bone (it had been raining without a break all the while) and feeling just what a wanderer would feel without an agenda or mobile connectivity.  In a word, bliss.

About a kilometre down the road, at Lakshmi Bhavan - hugely recommended to us as a venerable eatery - idlis and dosas were calling out to be eaten, so one needed to be responsible and fulfill that duty.  

Someday, we might return to add an eighth wall.  Stay posted.