Season of the Year

                                                              


This is probably my third article on the rains. There is a reason for the rainy season being one of my favourite seasons (except when I get stranded in some place away from home due to water-logging). Every season can be felt by just one parameter -temperature, the rainy season can be felt in so many other ways. It is one season which we can feel, experience and see too! We feel hot in summer, but summer never gave us any new sort of experience. You can't tell a summer day from a winter day just by looking at a picture of an empty road. But monsoons are different. They come as a relief for the earth from the scorching heat or freezing cold, they make the nature happier when they arrive. Just look around you on a rainy day. Happy children, extra green nature and a sober sky (you do find dark and scary clouds or maybe even lightning. But i guess by now we have made peace with them). You experience a freshness in everything. The beaches, the lakes, the forests or even the cities, nothing remains the same anymore. There is a sudden splash of brightness in everything around you after the very first shower. All this happens only during the rains. So if you are tired of the sun beating down on your face throughout the year in India then this is the right time for you to take a stroll outside. I am sure the water droplets caressing your soft face will be a very welcome change. Even sitting indoors and watching others getting wet is a superb idea now. So enjoy it either way. :)



Well I have two good friends in my neighbourhood. I guess they are  the ones who enjoy this season to the best. It all happened yesterday. I had an off as it was a Sunday so I could join them in their celebration of the monsoons. The first rains of the season. It was exactly what they deserved after a long, sultry, uncomfortable and harsh summer. The rains.


The smallest of my friends (pardon me because I only know them by their size. I have no clue about their age or names as they have been here long before me) popularly known as taru or Kochu in Bengali seemed to be the happiest of all. The whole gang flushed with joy as the first raindrops fell on them. They just couldn't get enough of playing with the water droplets! Even you can see the joy in their leaves! :)

the wet leaves

                                       
                         See how green they have become!

                 This one is just trying to hold as much water as possible!

Its really a wonderful feeling to see your friends so rejuvenated after such a long time!

After them I turned to the baby coconut tree in front of my window. I have always been scared of coconut trees since childhood. So huge and tall! If I were asked "define a mature and strong adult with respect to trees" then my answer without any second thoughts would be the coconut trees. The tall ones looking tired and unhappy for days, burning in the sun yet providing us cool coconut juices. They are the first ones to take in the harsh sun rays so that we can stay cool. As a kid, just as I was scared of my mother, I was scared of the coconut tree. But this one in front of my house is different. It is a livelier and a smaller version. It looks happy enough to play all children's games, happy enough to ignore the fact that many of its good friends were cut down by human beings for their own selfish needs. It was enjoying the droplets falling on its leaves only to slide them down!

can you see the tree feeling the water droplets on it?

It didn't stop its game after the rain ceased. It looked up at the sky and asked for more.

it gathered many friends in its endeavour too!

When it didn't work it started another game. It send the tiny droplets it had preseved during the rains down to the pond beneath. Those  tiny droplets created ripples throughout the pond! I guess it had great fun doing that. See for yourself!

ripples in the pond

I am sure others enjoyed the day too. I couldn't catch up with everybody but these new friends sure had some gala time.

I would have liked to think the same about humans but they were busy scampering from one shelter to another with umbrella in hand as if one vicious drop would melt them. :P ;)

So my message to all living things -- Good things shouldn't last long and so Rainy season is a very short season in Kolkata. Enjoy it till it lasts. But of course... Stay safe... :)


Thanks for taking out time to read this :)

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.

The Beautiful Andaman

Now it must be almost two years… or maybe three years back when I took a break from my monotonous life to chill out in the beaches of Goa. What actually captured my mind was the extra green surroundings and the mad sea. It was beautiful to see the dark sea hit the rocks with all force while feeling the rain. It was nature at its best I thought. The roaring seas, lush green surroundings and a small beautiful waterfall – things can’t get better. (check my post “a rainy paradox”).

Little had I known that the best was yet to come in my life. Last month we took another break from our lives. I was skeptical about the trip as I did not really think it was worth travelling so far just to visit a small group of islands at the juncture of Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. But my father was adamant about visiting the island territory so we packed our bags.

The nearly isolated island fascinated me almost instantly. The pristine sea beaches and serene greenery must have been a replica of the paradise itself. Each island had its own charm and was different from the other.

Viper island was wild

 

 

while Havelock was beautiful and untouched

 

and  the picturesque Chidiya Tapu at Port Blair was serene and specially more charming during the sunset time.

 

And yes I forgot to mention, it was also my first journey in a cruise! The 57km journey from Port Blair to Havelock was a memorable one.

 

 

 

It was nice… take a further look into some pictures taken from the ship when we halted very shortly in some Neil Island

 

Well if you are a shopaholic you might not find this post very interesting. Due to less population you won’t get many decent shops but you do get good coral material there

 

However we did have connectivity problems. We were completely cut off from the world without mobile connection but that is another story .