#TravellogGolconda

Beyond biriyani, Karachi biscuits and various other nizami cuisine the city has a lot more to say. I had always wanted to become a lone traveller. End of the tryst for quite a few years I succeeded  in visiting the Golconda Fort this Sunday.

I happened to visit the city for a short professional trip. Being a Quality Analyst in a growing Start up, food industry is my arena. I happen to visit various kitchens and give quite a lot of wisdom for which my company pays me. Now let not get into more details of what I do generally. Let's talk more of what I did this Sunday.

Tales at Golconda Fort:

Visiting Hyderabad for the first time, I ended up booking a cab who dropped me at the Golconda Fort entrance. Before that, he had asked me to get down at the first entrance of the Golconda fort premises. The reason when enquired he said the entrance gate is too small. And eventually on the way we faced traffic. After jostling for fifteen minutes or so, cab driver dropped me.

Now first note is, Foreigners-200, Indians- 15. Felt privileged being Indian. Perhaps at this archaeological heritage I wont face any new rule for entry. Now putting hands into my pocket I pulled out 100 rupees note and a 10 rupees. The national crisis of currency is doing rampant. To curb black money 500 & 1000 are out of stock. What about 5 rupees coin. The entry ticket cost me 20 due to lack of coins.

After the entrance met a middle aged man. Now this is another funny man of India who claimed himself to be guide. "Madam ji diwaron ki kaan hain iss Killein mein" ( Madam, this fort has ears in its walls) I got little convinced. In his next sentence he won me over, "madam ji itihas, kissen iss khandar mein hain, agar itihas aur kissen na jaan payi toh iss khandar ka kya hoga"... I checked how much can I pay him. At the entrance of the Fort entry a number of guides are standing. The middle aged man who caught me was one of the sales commanders who hunted upon me. Asked from me Rs.750 for the whole Fort demonstration. I can't afford, I felt. Then came Ashfaq Miya. He said only one word, "paise aap ke pass hain, kissa mere pass, agar aap ko achha laga toh dam dijiye ga... warna Banda khud nahi mange ga kuch" (money is with you, story is with me, if you like it pay me, or else I wont ask you for money) What a marketing strategy I wondered. Money is power.

Coming down to story, Ashfaq Miya started... this is the entrance. The strategic entrance has guards, the hole in the wall was used to drop hot oil if anyone wanted to break in.

Entry point is very fascinating, Ashfaq Miya took me to the middle of the arch. Started clapping. To my bewilderment, echos. Such echos I never heard. Ashfaq elaborated, how the codes of sounds used to keep the security of the Fort. I felt only one thing, physics is such an old subject. Unless someone understand how things happen, till then it's all magic to the commoners, method to the operators, and astonishment to a visitor.

This is the load which a soldier at the Sultan's army had to lift. it weighs 250Kg, if they can weigh it they enter the regime. I am not one of them.  

We went ahead, the entry of the Fort was so fascinating. The entrance is made in such a way that the visitors enter bowing down to the majestic guards of the Fort. Names and dates did not fascinate me much but the story of Bhagwati and the tale of the fake door. The Fake door on the fort is a camouflage for invaders who eyes to reach to the Queens. They reach upto the door and never returns. There used to be a deep hole (dal dal) where people used to fall and die.

Bhagawati used to be a common farmer's daughter. She used to be beautiful and the prince fell in love with her. The Sultan came to know, and asked him to choose among any one. Either the inheritance of the royalty or the girl. Prince chose his love. He left the royal riches and went to live along with his love. After realizing the sacrifices of the prince one day Bhagawati got converted to Islam. This news reached the Sultan and he brought the couple home back. This Bhagawati, later came to be know as Hyderi Begum, and thus the name Hyderabad. (The Story and the storyteller, both were so fascinating that I kept listening to him)

Walls do have Ears:

After reaching to the Queens mahal, Ashfaq made me stand at one corner of the room and then he went to the other corner. And suddenly, "madam ji, Rani log jab baat karni thi raja ko sab sunai parti thi. Raja ka kamra upar mein hi tha" (Madam, when the queens used to talk among them selves the sultan could hear from the room above)... felt so weird about the Sultan. These females were always heard. There were no secrets to be kept hidden from the Sultan. They were also a part of his royal property.

The Great Ramdas prison:

This prison is a totally blocked room where Ramdas the collector was imprisoned. Ramdas was the tax collector of the Sultan. So, one day he went to the villages, collected taxes, and on the way back he met village people. It was plague that time. Several people died of the epidemic. The goddess of epidemic came in vision of one Hindu pandit and asked him to make a temple. But there was no money. So, they approached collector Ramdas. Ramdas being a Hindu got convinced. He asked he villagers to keep it secret. But after some time when the temple was already made Sultan came to know about it. On further enquiry it was discovered that Ramdas had given money from the same. He was captured and imprisoned. Twelve long years of improvement in a dark room. One night Sultan got a dream of Goddess of Epidemic. She asked Sultan to scot Ramdas free.

After all these fascinating stories and his handsome smile. I realised, this broken architecture has some much life in them still. Hundreds of people visit this place. Such a good market, money is flying in air.

A guide is not just a story teller, but an actor, a joker, and a great sales man. Ashfaq Miya sold me moments, imageries and it costs me not less than 500INR.

When the dead ruins rise,

A misty mystic phantom grow,

It dances, it sings, it cries,

Aloft in the listeners eyebrow...

Eyebrow rises, contracts, and awe.

Its not story, its alive what I saw.

#travelloggolconda

(Click Here) To see Golconda Fort Photographs.

Survived Pup

OPen-2

It's almost middle of the night, Prema switched off the laptop and the table lamp. She stretched back on the fluffy chair. "You are a girl after all, who has the treasure of the world," she recollected the chuckle on his face.

"If I am a girl, and with treasure, why do I always face such weird fuss?" She thought. Prema is in her early twenties. A graduate engineer placed on-Campus with a huge lump sum package. Life was like those in movies. Everything was going on like that of a cinema until she came to the new city of Bangalore. The garden city, with more flowers-tree cover, less humidity and better opportunities.

But 'expectations are the source of disappointment' and that got proved when one by one all of her dreams started encountering with the reality. Prema closed her eyes and a bead of tear crawled out of her iris, and crawled down her cheek, and disappeared into the open dark hair.

She switched on the table lamp again and pulled the notebook.

She started scribbling.

"If things were to go worse then why the good time had come. I feel like hitting the bastard like the way how the girl had kicked her boss in the blog. I also want to kick him hard. How dare he touch me!....."

To be continued...

(stories are happening here and there, why don't you tell it all)

Survived Pup

OPen-1

When the bitch was in labour pain no one came to help her out. Fellow brother dogs were loitering in tension perhaps when a deeper cry brought a pup out of her womb. Another pup came out in a second, and another in another second..and it continued...

But the story is not about these puppies... it's about the one who will be dying soon in various ailments. The mother will cry, lick the body till she smells the warmth of her pieces of flesh, then sleep by the side of the corpse. Soon swarms of ants will come and dine upon her piece of love and she will see that dead child of her vanish in front of her eyes. 

Few more will die... and the strongest one will survive.

I never believed that I will survive the torture that the manager was doing to me from past four months. I could never get rid of the trauma of how he insulted me in the global meets of the managers. But that night was the night when I made my almost dead body come back to life when I implanted a zestful slap on his glowing greedy face. I threw my resignation on his face and kicked on his protruding tummy, aiming at the meat piece some inches below. Huh! " 

Prema was ogling at the laptop screen, she read the blog again and again. She smiled in between changing lines. A strong urge to survive lurked in her mind. She can survive the tensions that were on from past few months. If the puppies survive, if the woman can kick her managers tummy. Why can't she!

To Be Continued...

(stories are happening here and there, why don't you tell it all)

Beyond the Boundary: Eternal Bliss

After nine months of exile I joined in with my mother to stay along with her. She happened to have been sent far away from her previous work area to a remote area in Tamil Nadu. But to my amazement I found her to be more energetic and lively like my childhood days. I discovered she has grown young in her looks and energy. When I asked about the reason behind, she took me along with her for a long walk. What I discovered is the "God's own Country".

While strolling along the meadows, they grabbed my attention. They are love birds, bond with the eternal relationship to unite and procreate. The elegance was more captivating since the instinct of love has united them when I found them mounted like the love God sitting atop of a lampost, maybe 13 ft high from the ground level. I thanked the almighty for letting me click the shutter in the correct time.

The road took us right through the unkempt meadows to the blue and beyond the edge of the horizon, I found solace succumbing my pains within itself. A cooler breeze was making our hairs dishevelled to make us perceive how much civilised we have been all throughout our life in the city. Life is more to be natural than to be articulated with bindings. This road was making way for me to reach eternity.

The unkempt grasses had something hidden as treasure, and what I saw made me overwhelmed with awe, and bewilderment. It was a peacock, walking along with us some yards away. I could only click him along with me. The feel of having an evening walk with a peacock is just beyond my thoughts. I could never forget the walk in my entire life. Real beauty is tresured in nature. I felt the harmony of equality in nature.

Perhaps we walked 3kms when we were greeted by a huge nimbus cloud. The rain was approaching, slowly, and with a devouring enchantment, got us drenched. We took shelter in a small hut nearby, probably made for passers-by. After a while, the rain stopped. We had no other option than to take the route back to our quarters. 

The after shower sky was such marvellous picturesque. After every bad time, good hope lurks behind...like 'every cloud has a silver lining'. I saw such a cloud, so, I clicked it home to share with you all.

When I was back home, I found many such visitors waiting for a flight back to home. I call them my friends. They were waiting for the right time to go home, and I waited fror then to take their flight. Such amazing experience I shall  cherish life long.

*** 

Peter, Pattar Rain Drops

It started raining all of a sudden when the taxi was stuck in the traffic near the four point crossing of EM Bypass. The durga puja festival clogs the traffic like clusters of polythene in drain. I had no other way than to close the window glass. I helped myself with a better lean on the back. An started capturing the perspiration on the taxi window glasses. 

The rolling beads of the complex compound made me feel relieved of the sultry heat of the city. I felt hopeful for the upcoming days. Hope larked when I could take out the camera from the untidy backpack, and started clicking anything and everything.

Click One

When the rain fell on the glasses, I looked through the hazy. The hot air from my mouth made vapour on the glass. I felt like child. The unputdownable spirit of drawing a smiley on the vapour made me ecstatic. I remembered my childhood days, when I had tried hard to keep the vapours on the dressing table glass. I used to press my nose on the glass and breath heavily, and kept doing till I used to get a good area of vapour on the glass. I drew smileys on it.

Today in my almost mid twenties I felt the curious spirit of that old happy child. I drew the smiley.

Click Two

Click Three

Dusking Night

A darkening evening brought me with many skeptical thoughts. And guess what? I am charged again to write my own poems. And here it goes....

How the Sun plunges deep?

Has he many promise to keep?

When the day dusk, does hope goes to sleep?

Does night has many promise to keep?

When I look through my window,

I see the world, has miles to go?

When I see the dark to creep,

Does night has many promise to keep?

If its never gets bright tomorrow?

Does death, not have a sorrow?

If never comes the day to peep,

Will night have many promise to keep?

If night never grows white, 

If dawn 'n dusk get into fight;

When will the hope lark?

Wish nights would never be dark...

***

Sparrows of Sunday

Sparrows are tiny playmates to me since my childhood days. I used to run behind them. I had only one wish, I wanted to catch one sparrow and kiss it. But could never kiss. Now I am grown up. I don't run behind them. But I keep clicking them whenever I fiddle with my camera.

The Sparrow

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

A LITTLE bird, with plumage brown,

Beside my window flutters down,

A moment chirps its little strain,

Then taps upon my window-pane,

And chirps again, and hops along,

To call my notice to its song;

But I work on, nor heed its lay,

Till, in neglect, it flies away.

So birds of peace and hope and love

Come fluttering earthward from above,

To settle on life's window-sills,

And ease our load of earthly ills;

But we, in traffic's rush and din

Too deep engaged to let them in,

With deadened heart and sense plod on,

Nor know our loss till they are gone.

***

Love Birds

Love nests in every heart. Love is perhaps the first feeling a life is born with. Love unites us, love binds us in a line of homogeneity, and cures us from all malice, and renders with malevolence. I love capturing moments with them who are unbound with the woos of human hatred, and the vices of cruelty.

Often I find these innocent creatures sitting and love making near my window sill. Mesmerized with the charm of togetherness, I love to photograph them in my heart, in my Blog.

Find more of them in the link below:
Comfortably numb SULU

GROWING UP

I have held my dad's finger to grow up,

I have talked in sound trait,

I have Messed Up his Ironed Shirt,

I have soiled his dry clothes wet.

I felt his warmth during the winter,

I felt his cold in his absence,

I felt his slaps in my mistakes,

I felt his happy tears in my success.

Today, I am Equally Tall,

Today, I am Grown UP Man, 

Today, I am Tuff & STRONG,

Today, I am swift, I RAN...

My dad has grown OLD now,

He Grows Worried sometime,

He Scolds me, but cannot slap my cheeks,

He silently cries, every night time ...

Did I ever Heard his SOBS?

Did I ever Felt His Heart?

Did I ever know how lonely he felt?

Did I ever ask how he was, when I was APART? 

***

sketch & poem ©Sulagna Dutta, 2014

A Chennai Sunday

A small shower in the midnight,
Gust of wind disheveling hair, heart and mind...
Its cloudy out of my window,
old-withered leaves have flown away...
has also taken along my thoughts,
I couldn't find...

-A Sulagna Dutta Poem

Friend

Clay Modelling Competition @ SRM University on this Milan'12 Fetched me a 1st Prize... LOVE IS FRIENDSHIP, used this cliche for the theme of the model.

When you are in and around,
When wind seems to have swept,
All those promises,
I have never kept...
Astonished!! what I have found!!
Friend,
My friend...
You were always here,
And there...
And now everywhere..."

♥ ♥

- Sulagna Dutta

(SRM University-17.2.2013(10:16pm)

Behind The Capture

The shutter closes,
and captures the moments,
I grow old capturing my life
throw the lenses and the display...

I focus on trees,
I focus on leaves,
I focus on sky,
I focus on time,
and tides,
and birds flying by.

I capture youth,
I capture senescence,
I capture death...

I treasure love,
smiling faces,
tear on cheeks,
happiness in eyes,
expectations in heart.
and I shall continue till
I depart...

But I forget
Myself.
The man behind the camera
I get neglected...
and forgotten...

I AM IMMORTAL,
I LIVE IN MY WORKS,
I LIVE WITH THE CAPTURES OF MY LIFE.

I am the one BEHIND THE CAPTURE.


A Sulagna Dutta Poem

A WALK INTO THE BLUES

A Walk into the SEA

When the blues were on the head, 

and in the eyes too...

I felt my cheeks greased with sand,

I was late that evening,

I had a torn shoe...

I sat by the sea, 

and gazed over moments, 

gone and going...

I saw two figures...

Walking by the shore,

and was zooming out each moment...

I forgot my SLR on my bed,

or else the friendship they carried along,

I would have captured then...

Yet I captured it in through eyes,

and stored it in my heart...

I wet my feet in the saline water of  BAY OF BENGAL,

but never seen those friends again,

I carried my SLR everyday since then...

That evening I have missed THEM for moments and ages,

who were made for me,

who were very present yet absent all around,

who made me laugh and cry,

who said "hi" and never told a "bye"...

That was the evening,

when they walked along the shore...
I have seen their shadows grow liquid in the saline water of BAY OF BENGAL,

They were friends,

Holding hands tight...

A second's transition they sublimed into air,

I knew they were made for each other...

A SULAGNA DUTTA POEM

I Travel Alone

I Walk Alone

If I go to pray in the church I don't dress like a widow,
All the way from my small flat,
I travel alone.


I am a retired teacher,
Old, yet living for myself.

I have a car of my own,
I am too old to drive a car,
So I kept a driver who drives me twice a day... here and there;
I travel alone.

I have sons to call me mother,
I have grandchildren to play with,
I have lots of memories to cherish and perish,
and when I feel lonely...
I don't give a scope to my heart to cry.
I live for myself,
I smile for myself,
I take long drives...
I travel alone.

I keep my purse always with me,
I fear of taking loans,
I meet people and try to love them.
I love to talk so I have two phones in my flat.

And when I am short of words
I lie down on my bed to relax...
to give time to myself,
to brood over,
to think about...
All memories which makes me cherish and perish...
With all the way down the memory lane.

I travel alone.

INSPIRED BY A MESMERIZING LADY WHOM I MET IN THE COURSE OF TIME...
WOULD LIKE TO MEET HER ONCE AGAIN.


A Sulagna Dutta Poem

After the TEA

After The Tea

The wind was sultry,
his eyes stood fixed in the horizon.
An orange sun kept falling due to gravity.
He had an earthen cup fuming hot in the air.



Next morning, 
early enough,
I saw the man again...


With the earthen cup fuming hot in the air.


After the tea he threw the cup


straight into the Ganges...
An auto rickshaw passed him by...


The sun kept rising all this while,
due to ANTI-gravity.
The Ganges never waits.


WITH TIME ALL ATTRACTION CHANGES.




A Sulagna Dutta Poem