Bijapur. Road Trip, April-May 2008, Part I

Sunset on the Deccan. The flat hinterland.

Prelude

It's been a couple of months since I have got back from this trip and finally I take it upon myself to note down the trip least I forget about it or the minor details which enriched it.

I had been looking forward to a trip for quite some time. I tried to rope in friends and other to plan one, but nothing happened. So I took leave and decided to drive. I took my brothers Honda City as my Esteem was at the garage and moreover had old tires.

So I drove down to Poona. Cousin Unmesh from Solapur met me there having come from Pundharpur where he studies. The journey to Poona was uneventful - it was not the first time I was doing Mumbai-Poona alone. Met Unmesh at Swargate and we immediately headed for Solapur.

The 250 odd kilometers to Solapur was extremely hot, but uneventful. Temperatures in the shade exceeded 40 deg C. I was traveling this arid flattish landscape (called malran in Marathi) by road after more than a decade.

I spent a couple of days in Solapur visiting relations - I was born in this town. Aniket my young cousin had just finished his exams. We visited the Nannaj bird sanctuary and sited the Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps, Maldhok माळ्ढोक in Marathi, also Sonchiriya locally).

So on 22/4/08 at about 1600hrs me and Aniket headed for Bijapur.

Bijapur

The road to Bijapur is the NH-13 going south. The hinterland is flat and mostly barren. We reached much after dark and started hunting for a place to stay. The hotel we found was pretty good but only had one suite empty. So we forked out 1200 bucks to stay in a large room with A/C. The temperature at 10pm was 38 deg C so the A/C was pretty welcome.

In the morning we started. After some consultation with the reception, we decided to start with the Upli Buruz and then head further to the other places.

Bijapur is a quaint old town and one gets the feeling that it is still living in the past. There is poverty everywhere and old derelict building. This was the seat of the Adilshahi dynasty from 1490 to 1686. Yusuf Adil Shah was a governor of Bijapur for the Bahamani empire before he broke away and created the sultanate of Bijapur. The dynasty ruled the sultanate till 1686 when the Mughals conquered it.

The last three sultans, Ibrahim Adil Shah II, Mohammed Adil Shah, Ali Adil Shah II, build most of what we see of Bijapur today. It is some of the best deccan Indo-Islamic architecture.

The Upli Buruz (80 ft) is a massive buruz (round bastion tower) built on a relatively higher part of Bijapur by Hyder Khan. It is also called Upri or Hyder buruz sometimes. It has 2 cannons on top, one of which is really massive. You can see most of the town from the top. But buruz is surrounded by the encroachments of the city .. the gutters the overhead wires the animals.

Form here we walked down to the Malik-E-Maidan ("lord of the battlefield", "The Monarch of the Plains") Cannon. This cannon is 4m long, 1.5m in diameter and weighs about 55 tons. It is build of some alloy metal which has not rusted in all these years. It is housed on a platform specially built for it on the Sherza Burj. This gun was brought from Ahmednagar in the 17th century as a war trophy.

The sun was getting higher and temperatures were touching the 40deg C mark. So we decided to hire a tonga. The old man of the tonga said he would should us the rest of the monuments for a 100 bucks. We jumped in and headed for Ibrahim Roza.

This monument was a shocker for me in terms for the grandeur and size. I loved it. The twin buildings are similar and distinct at once. This is the mausoleum of Ibrahim Adil Shah II. It is said to have inspired the Taj Mahal.

From here we headed for Bara Kaman. This large melancholy structure stood stark in the noon sun like a bleached skeleton. It had got extremely hot by now and impossible to bare the head. This is the mausoleum of Ali Roza.

From here we visited the Chand Bawdi (water place) and the Jod Gumbaz. Both were ill maintained and dirty. We also visited the Jumma Mashjid. This is a beautiful structure which is used even today for prayer.

Then we headed for the Gol Gumbaz. But it was past lunch time so decided to eat before entering it. We had lunch in a small restaurant outside the Gumbaz gates. The tonga man was delighted when I tipped him 50 bucks. It had been a good ride through the old city.

Gol Gumbaz is the second largest dome in the world. It is the mausoleum of Mohammed Adil Shah. I have visited the Gumbaz as a child. The area around the monument has been very well maintained. The Gumbaz itself is massive. The 4 corner towers are 7 stories high. It was a crowded day and because it is so famous it is difficult to photograph this massive structure without being cliched. One has to visit it to feel the grandeur.

We wrapped up pretty quick as we had planned to head for Badami and did not want to be too late ...


p.s
I have freely used the wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijapur,_Karnataka) for reference.



Loaded!



The Upli Buruz


The large cannon


Structure which houses the Muluk maidan cannon


The muluk maidan cannon


The head of the cannon


At the Mulluk maidan cannon


The tonga wallah



The tonga and the horse



Ibrahim Roza


One of the buildings of Ibrahim Roza


The other building


The Adilshahi architecture


Inscriptions


The tombs 'thadgi'


Ibrahim Roza


Barah Kaman


Jumma Mashjid



Chand Bawdi



Gol Gumbaz


At the gol gumbaz


Massive construction


Whispering gallery, Gol Gumbaz



The flickr set for Bijapur is here

Kanheri Stream

It was raining hard. I watched it from my 11th floor window on the hill overlooking the bus depot. The few buses left looked like wet hens. The rain made me restless. So I headed for the park. It was raining hard. The only company I had were lovesick wet couples trying to find some privacy. I walked on to the low bridge.












kanheri stream in monsoon glory

Sunflower fields

The day was nearing an end. I had driven the whole day and was all in. Then in the Badami hinterlands we came across this sunflower field ... this glorious vision of innumerable specs of brightness. Here all the flowers were wide and happy.

The sun was going down.

I had to stop.

Freedom

Free as a bird, they say. High above, seemingly at peace in a vast space, without restrain, without paths, without signs - at will. But the bird is tied to its mother, the earth, by an invisible force. It has to keep flapping its wings least else it will fall down. But the force is not the villain here - it is life itself, or maybe, love - in restraining the bird it also protects it from the infinite space beyond. The bird would not be 'free' as a photon is not free, even though it travels across the universe. The bird's freedom is defined by its boundary. Without context there is no meaning. Without boundary there is no freedom. The choice is not if we want boundary, the choice is in what boundary we define. And we keep redefining the boundaries when we feel the urge to venture beyond or within.



I was going through my old emails ... and I found the above piece I had written for someone dear on 22/4/2005. It is quite interesting and sometimes funny to read oneself after a gap.

Poona

Puneri Pati

Couple of weeks back we travelled to Poona. Went to Appa Balwant Chowk to try my luck with books. But all I found was old outdated computer literature. Stopped there to eat bhel and saw one of them famous "Puneri Pati"'s. On the way back to Mumbai, the sky was so clear the we could see miles and miles. It was just amazing. I dont think I have seen Duke's Nose this clear before ...



A decked up groom



Duke's Nose

All photos with SE K790i phone camera

Restarts in Common Lisp, A tutorial.

My good friend Chaitanya Gupta has written a very good introduction to Restarts in Common Lisp. He explains with an example.
You can find it here http://chaitanyagupta.com/lisp/restarts.html
Check it out!

Film City Rd.

Megh Malhar, Film City Rd.

Finally some experiments. I seem to have lost my tripod. These were taken by resting the camera on the window bars. Long exposures. Three bracketed exposures were merged. My first experiments with High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. I think they have some potential. But they are also full of pit holes - one needs to be careful.



Dindoshi Depot


Photographs by Abhijit Rao with a Sony A100

At the Naka. In the night.

Vasu


I have found numerous friends on the Naka. Some close, some closer. We are all bonded by the space where we spent so much empty time. Empty to observers, but in fact, filled with dreams and aspirations. Most have moved on to chase these very dreams, but all come back to the Naka to remember that time when time slowed down and we lived a life.



Yo



Ajju


All Photos by me using a Sony A100 and Minolta 50/1.4

Edit: Sunday 10 Feb 2019. Added a few other photos shot at the Naka.

Ajju

Sujay

Harsh

Dinu and Shot

Birding at Kavdi paat near Pune

Little Egrette

Vivek Belhekar, my friend and faculty at the Psychology Dept. Univ. of Mumbai, and me had been planning to go birding for a couple of year. He is an enthusiastic bird watcher from his early days. Busy schedules and a general apathy from me kept the plan hanging. But Vivek's enthusiasm did not vane - he kept calling me and inviting me over to his place in Pune. Finally we went, and man it was a great experience.

Vivek's family have a nice house in the Koregaon park area. They were typically excellent Indian hosts. I reached late afternoon and Vivek picked me up from Sadhu Vaswani chowk and we went home. After a tea and excellent poha, we headed for Kaudi which is about 12-15km away, on his bike. We reached almost at sunset time. It was my first time officially "birding". So the sight of the Chakrawak and Kingfisher excited me. I even got to steal up to the Khandya and get a neat snap.

I had just purchased (this trip actually made my decision to purchase) the Sony Alpha 100 DSLR. Sony purchased Minolta and are continuing with the Minolta mount on their DSLR's. Which is excellent news for folks like me who have several Minolta mount AF lenses. I was carrying my Tamaron 200-400. With the multiplying factor of 1.5x for the DSLR, it was 300-600 - which is great for birding. Vivek has a Nikon D40 with the standard lens. He is getting a birding lens soon. In the night, when I connected the card reader to my Mac laptop, the card was data was corrupted. This was a big set back as I had got a few good snaps. I carried out a few experiments and those worked. So next day early morning we again went back. This time we spent about 3-4 hours photographing and got several nice snaps. It was saturday and we had the company of several bird photographers with long lenses. We returned home and the same problem occurred - all the photos were lost. I was devastated.

So we cancelled our evening plan of Kaudi and headed, instead, to the camp area to have some fun. I was visiting "camp" after several long years and I was amazed at the transformation. We had good time watching nice chicks - of the human variety this time. We also purchased camo gear from a Military dress shop.

Next morning we were back in Kaudi - this time in Camo. :) We had lots of fun. We stole up to the Chakrawak's through the bushes on the river bank in cammando style. We stalked the Painted Storks. When I got back, I transfered the photos to Vivek's old desktop and then to my Mac via a thumbdrive.

We saw Painted Storks (Rangeet Karkocha), Brahmney Ducks (Chakrawak Pakshi), Wagtails, Bushchats, Egrettes, Herons, Kingfishers, a Marsh Harrier (Daldal Sasana), Stilts, Dab-Chicks, Common Hoopoe's and lots more.

We managed to click a few of these species, and these are a few of those photos. A glorious Sunday morning at Kaudipaat near Pune.

- Abhijit Rao aka quasi

p.s. Conservation. We all have to become conservationalists if we want the future of Humans to be beautiful, if we want our Earth to survive, if we want to survive.

Brahmney Ducks (Marathi: Chakrawak Pakshi) Painted Storks (Marathi: Rangeet Karkocha) Pied Bushchat, male. Common Kingfisher (Marathi: Khandya) Black Winged Stilt (Marathi: Shekatya) Painted Stork (Marathi: Rangeet Karkocha) Egrette White Wagtail Pond Heron As a Flickr set. At Indianaturewatch All photos © Abhijit Rao 2007. All photos taken with a Sony A100 and Tamaron 200-400 lens in RAW mode and handheld.


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Ranthambhore National Park

The Cracked Pot

flower



A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the masters house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his masters house.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."

"Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"

"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your masters house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts." The pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the masters house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again the Pot apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pots side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my masters table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We re all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace His Fathers table. In Gods great economy, nothing goes to waste. Don't be afraid of your flaws. Acknowledge them, and you too can be the cause of beauty. Know that in our weakness we find our strength.

~Anonymous

Hahaha

Life is funny.