Tour De Fort - GolKonda

I have been thinking to write something….on something….since long time…but had been delaying it for some reason or the other!  But today, after visiting an old place with lots of history, finally I couldn’t resist but to pick-up my pen and paper…oops….sorry….I meant my laptop and start typing! (We are in digital age now….gone are those good old days of writing on paper with a pen…and if it used be an ink pen…then that smell of ‘Camel’ ink and hands all blue!)  Am I sounding like an old nostalgic man….then I am afraid it won’t be any different as you read further…lots of history…lots of ‘good old days’ dialogues! But what to do…can’t help…sometimes I do feel I am born in wrong era!  :-)

I visited The Golkonda Fort today…around 10-11 km from Charminar, Hyderabad – The capital city of QutubShahi Kingdom some 450-500 years back. While on route, my cab driver said you can also visit the 7 Qutubshahi Tombs on the way to fort. The interesting thing about these QutubShahi Kings was that they used to start preparing for their resting place after death during their lifetime itself, by constructing these grand Tombs with a big Dome (Gumbaj)! So I first decided to see the tombs first, but upon reaching at the gate, found that it opens only after 9.30 am, so could see only one of the tombs, outside the main gate. But as soon as I saw these old monuments, immediately I was convinced that it’s going to be a great day ahead & I have come to the best place in Hyderabad, matching exactly with my taste and temperament.

So after taking few snaps of the tomb with my camera, I headed to the GolKonda fort with enthusiasm. The entry fee was some 30 odd Rupees including permission for camera. Here comes the character that made this tour memorable and interesting…Mr. Mazhar Khan the Guide! He told me that he and few other guides are here government appointed guides and showed his ‘official looking’ ID card to win my trust, and then gave a short snapshot of the proposed tour of Fort for free and asked if I am interested. I thought it won’t be a bad idea to have some company, rather than roaming around alone, so I agreed.

The guy was speaking in not very typical Hyderabadi Hindi…but nearly the same….was very courteous and not loud in the sense that he told all those interesting legend and stories associated with the fort, which we generally expect from a Guide, but not forcefully….probably was aware that not all of that is history. But then….as time passes…after so many centuries the line between history and legend can get blurred…and quite often history becomes legend…and legend turns into history!  (Well…now this isn’t me…I can’t recall from where I stole this phrase…probably from some Hollywood movie! :-) )  I had gone through a few websites about Golkonda fort’s history and I found that Mr Guide was quite accurate with the dates, such as the year Aurangzeb attacked this fort and won, and mostly all matching with the information on websites.   I will take you through this tour of fort, mostly with his entertaining stories and ofcourse with my observations:

So we start at the main gate – filled with iron spikes for protection, in case of an Elephant tried to break it down, while a soldier would be ready at the top, to pour boiling oil on that poor Elephant’s head!  A scene instantly gets created in my mind going back to those days of Kings and wars with Elephants and Horses, with swords and lances. A face to face war with such lethal weapons must be so cruel so ruthless, as compared to today’s wars with long distance missiles and automatic guns.

He told how the fort was surrounded by 10 km line of big outer wall (40 ft high), and then 3 more such protecting walls as we moved up the hill.  At the gate, information plate said the name of the fort as: ‘Bala Hissar’, he told this name of Fort is due to the fact that Qutubshahi Kings were originally from Persia (Today’s Iran), so it’s in Persian language.

Once we enter the gate, beautiful lawns make for a soothing sight, before the climbing steps.

He shows me there a heavy iron cube sort of object, of around 240 kg which he said even Salman Khan couldn’t lift when he came here for the shooting of Bollywood movie ‘Tere Naam’ and ‘Wanted’.  He claimed that this iron cube was used as a test for recruiting men for the King. If you can’t lift this up, then you must leave the fort and if you can, then you get the job!  And what that job would be:  Carrying such heavy items like stones, wood etc, climbing up the hill and building this majestic fort, for the KING!  What a life, what an era!

After this, I said to him, please don’t tell me about movie shootings and all, as I have hardly any interest in which celebrity came here and what they did, instead tell me whatever you can, about the history of this place! (I knew he wasn’t a scholar or a historian, but I also knew that still his stories would give me something better, than this crap Bollywood general knowledge!)

So we start moving up, he shows me the remains of King’s office or secretariat building wherein 2 Telugu officers named ‘Akanna and Madanna’ used to work for King. The building came to be known with same name.

Further up, he shows water tanks built to store and supply water upto the top of the hill. There were 3 such tanks as we moved up the hill and he told how the water used to be brought up in these tanks from a freshwater lake ‘Durgam Chevuru’ some 8-10 Km away. I was wondering how without any pumps and electricity, they used to achieve this bringing of water from so far to up at top of the hill, in those days?

He tried to explain how it was achieved through the underground pipelines made of stone or wood I don’t remember now, and then some mechanical pumping operation involving manually rotating a wheel/Charkha or something.  Boy… so much human labor was involved to build a fort like this and then making it livable!

Oh yeah…and another interesting example of engineering marvel of those days, which I forgot to mention was just after the main gate entrance, there is a dome and if you clap standing at the center, Mazhar claimed that you can hear that at the top of the hill.  This was the virtual telephone of those days, a warning system in case of an attack on the fort. He promised to show me this, once we reach the top, and he shall signal his colleague down at the dome to clap.

Then there was story of some ‘Ramdas’, who used to take care of tax collection for the King and was jailed by the King on charge of stealing from Royal Treasury, for 12 years in one of the chembers in the Fort. But he was such a devotee of Lord Rama, that it is said that the Lord himself appeared in King’s dream and cleared the misunderstanding about the money so the King released him! Since then he came to be known as ‘Bhakt Ramdas’.  Here the Guide was aware of ‘Samarth Ramdas’, the spiritual guru of Shivaji Maharaj, as he said to me…this Ramdas is different from that Ramdas of ‘your Shivaji’. 

Then he told about 2 court dancers named Taramati and Bhagmati, who used to dance in the royal court and King was too impressed by their beauty. He wanted to marry them, but both were Hindus, so he first converted them to Islam and then married them. Both were buried in their respective Tombs after their death. The old name for Hyderabad, that is ‘Bhagya Nagar’ was named after Bhagmati, as per Mr Mazhar, and not just that but the new name Hyderabad was because after converting to Islam, the King changed Bhagmati’s name to Hyder Begum! 

Since these QutubShahs were Shia Muslims whereas Mughals were Sunnis, Aurangzeb decided to destroy this kingdom and attacked Golkonda fort in around 1687 and finally won the battle after 8-9 months of siege. He captured the 7^th Qutubshah king and jailed him for 12 years or so in Aurangabad, wherein he took his last breathe. As mentioned before, that these Kings used to construct their Tomb, he too had started it, and it can still be seen half constructed at 7 Tombs area, with the dome at the top missing.

Aurangzeb, as usual demolished, damaged half of the fort buildings/courtyards and only because there was a mosque at the top, that saved at least some of the Fort from Aurangzeb’s wrath, for guys like me to visit today!

The Guide told me some other things like how the royal rooms for King and Queen used to be lighted, with series of diamonds on the walls and oil lamps, whose reflection from the diamond would light the whole room!

The King had his room at the 1^st floor and her Queen at the ground floor, and he could hear even a whisper from Queen’s room and all her plans of adultery or treachery if any!

The guide demonstrated the same, by whispering at one corner of the room wall, and I was able to hear it clearly standing at the diagonally opposite corner near a hole in the wall.   And he was right, when we reached top of the fort, his man down at the dome, clapped and I could hear that sound clearly.

Indeed these are the examples of engineering marvels of those times, when the modern science and machines were not there, they might not be aware of the formal scientific laws of physics and chemistry, but human beings found the ways to use the common sense and macro observations of life to their advantage.

By the time I descended down the hill, the Deccani Sun had started baking the very earth, so I had a glass full of sugarcane juice at ground zero and felt just great. Mr Mazhar’s few stories are recorded by me, but now I regret I didn’t record them all. I thanked him for giving me an entertaining company and he was happy to get an extra 100 bucks as tip. He made me aware that this is also an occupation that requires lot of hard work and at the same time wit to engage the customer. He and other guides like him, are the ones who are keeping the history (Or the Legend..?) of Golkonda alive!  :)

After visiting the 7 Tombs, I asked my cab driver to drop me at InOrbit Mall where I planned to watch a movie ‘Lakshmi’ by Nagesh Kukunoor. But about the movie….some other time.

Before visiting this Fort, when I had asked few of my local colleagues from office about it, they said there is nothing much, it is just full of rocks and walls! 

Well….for me it was a treasure…full of history…rich and eventful. These rocks and walls have witnessed rise and fall of Kingdoms, Kings…these rocks and walls tell you the long forgotten stories…I find them much more interesting than the same boring walls of a shopping Mall…the queue at the MacDonald…and the same pepsi and same Coke..and same Ranbeer Kapoor!  

But it was pathetic to see all the walls at the Fort and the Tombs ….with full of crap written by fools….it seems as if same standards are followed all over the country at least in this department – art of desecration and destruction! We, as a nation are so insensitive, so irresponsible towards preserving our history, our heritage while the West is so good at keeping their historical monuments in such good order that even 'nothing' is made to look like something majestic! I remember going to Urquhart Castle in Scotland, it was indeed same as my colleagues described Golkonda…’just rocks’ in the name of a castle, but it was well maintained and well publicized, well connected via roads and hence it is a famous spot for tourist in Scotland. Yet I must say, that GolKonda fort was well maintained as compared to other monuments I have seen so far in India – there was a comparatively cleaner toilet, there was less waste scattered around.  

Why as a society we live in such dirty places, why we clean our house and dump the waste either on the road or in neighbor's backyard! Why we urinate on roads, why we spit on roads, walls and everywhere, why we throw all sort of junk in our lakes, ponds, rivers...why are we making them a 'Nala'?

We learned a lot from West –  we learned how to speak fluent English, we learned how to wear a Tie and Suit, we learned how to eat a Burger, we learned how to drink, how to party but when we will learn cleanliness, neatness, discipline as social virtues and not personal? When we will learn about social responsibility and accountability?