A Fort Made For Us

We are not joking… It is quite true. A truth that is difficult for most people to accept.There is a fort that is built specially for us. Our fort is built at a height of 120 meters with an outer wall that is 10 km long. It was built between the years 945 CE and 970 CE(isn’t that really cool!). History says that our fort was in use even in the year 1143 AD. It was built by the great kings of the Hindu Kakatiya Dynasty. They originally built a mud fort (we offer our deepest gratitude to them as we feel that taking an initiative is always the toughest part of any job). Notwithstanding the simplicity of the fort it was conquered by the Islamic Bahmani Sultanate. After their collapse the fort went into the hands of The Qutub Shahi Kings.These kings obliged us even further by extending and renovating the mud fort into a massive fort of granite. It took them sixty two years to do that (we thank the Qutub Shahi Kings for their perseverance. Had they not been there we probably would never come to know of the fort’s existence). Finally the fort fell into the hands of Mughal Emperor Aurangazeb after a siege (our fort has really been through difficult times!).

Henceforth our precious and dear fort shall be known as The Golconda Fort (as it has always been called).

 

Today we will be taking you through the journey of Dash (me) and Man’s(my best friend) first expedition into the fort.

Entrance

We entered through the Fateh Darwaza (Victory Gate). History says that about a thousand years back  Aurangazeb’s triumphant army had marched in through this very gate. Almost a thousand years later we enter this very same gate and declare victory over a number of guides who claimed to know everything about our own fort (just imagine!).

 

Just four steps into the fort and we wanted to take them back. Reasons are mentioned below -

• It was too hot out there.
• The sun was too harsh to bear
• We had a fear of getting burnt
• There was a pest of a guy who claimed we were so different from the others in the fort and wondered if we would join him…

We felt defeated. We forgot the very purpose of our trip to the fort. We planned our retreat and decided to stay in the shade till fate shows us a way further. But planning a retreat was not easy. We had the whole day to ourselves with nothing else to do. Then finally we decided to stay at the ground level of the fort exploring all the shady areas inside.

Man took charge of deciphering and explaining the mystery behind the very existence of the huge room or hall or conference inside the fort.

 

The first stretch of cave like rooms with windows on top leading to a new room became the kitchen.

“See the chefs of the olden days cooked down here. They just simply passed on the dishes to the waiters from these windows.” she explained.

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Thus the first floor became dining room of the ancients.

 

The Discovery

The kitchen at the ground floor led us to the dining hall on the first floor. The dining hall on the first floor led us to a flight of ruined staircase. The ruined staircase led us to another desolated  structure.

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It was then we realized that we were in the following situation -

• The staircase is too damaged to climb back down until we are ready to meet death.
• The building was too scary to enter.

To add to our ordeal a mushy couple had just followed us all along making it unbearable for us to stay there. Now we had to take a decision (that too a quick one).

We chose to explore the building in front of us.

It was stinky, dark and scary inside but fortunately the exit was just a turn and a few steps away. The exit opened up into a thorny and bushy way.

We thought we were lost in this huge fort. Then we noticed people going up at a distance and our hearts leapt up with excitement.

 

On our way to the palace!

It turned out that we actually found a shortcut when we had given up all hopes. We could see the palace from here. Now the palace was just a few steps away from us. A magnificently carved stone structure overlooking the city of Hyderabad!

 

Nothing could stop us from reaching the top now. Neither the blazing sun, nor the scorching ground mattered anymore. All that mattered was reaching the palace. We were determined to be there. Our only distraction was the beautiful view of green and white Hyderabad which we assumed could be found from the palace too.

The palace was right in front of us. A few more steps and we will be standing in front of the structure. Our hearts could not believe that now we are going to visit a royal place.A place of utmost importance (in the earlier days), where the kings and the queens lived!

A few steps further and all our excitement was washed down. The structure we thought to be the palace was actually a very beautiful mosque. The palace, we learnt, was further up.

The Palace

 

 

 

“Dash! These steps are so awkward! I can’t climb up any further.”

“Blame it on erstwhile corruption. Those people must have carved such difficult steps to save material.”

“No re… They were not intelligent enough to know about corruption. After all it is the hot topic of our generation. Founded in our generation. Those people were not corrupt”

“Then why such stairs?”

We both fell silent for a while. After all what could be the reason for having such complicated stairwells. The answer did not come easily to us, but when it did we laughed at its simplicity-

Do you guys think there were gyms in the good old days?

No. Right?

Then what else could the king do to have a fit queen? (not to mention his own waistline)

Such conversations kept us going and before we could even realize we were close to the palace(our second assumption of the day). It was really a castle in bad shape. But there were people all over the place. So we concluded this must be the palace.

The walls of the palace were full of confessions (it was difficult to understand the emotions behind them… but we assume they must have been intense enough to have been given importance over this historic structure ).

Although we were in a position where we could not give much thought to the writings on the walls. We had noticed something far more intense than that. Someone had gone up to the ceiling to confess(it was quite high).

 

We saw many people looking out of the window and remembered the view of Hyderabad

We too decided to go to one of the secluded windows and look down.

The view was really breathtaking! A stretch of green and white lay before us.

Man declared that she was the erstwhile queen of this palace.

It took the erstwhile queen and her best friend ten whistles of warning from the security guard to move from that place.

 

Secrets in our Fort

We all love having secrets within ourselves but dislike secrets being kept from us. Same was the case with us. We were furious when we were not allowed to venture into one of the castles. We wanted to know the reason but no one came up with one. This enraged us even further.

Our inference – We must explore the other hidden corners for any sort of fishy practices.

So we found another isolated spot with no one around. No one to stop us.

We came back the same way we entered (it was too dark and scary inside).

 

Happy Ending

A few selfies and a few pictures later we stopped exploring and joined the path that everyone was following. It led us to the exit of the fort. Probably everyone out there was tired like us after going through the fort. After all it is their fort too. The fort that was specially built for Man, Dash and everyone to visit at a later date.