A torn picture, a shattered dream??Could be a combination of both!
Actually it is a view from the parapet of Tipu sultan's summer palace atop Nandi Hill. Me and one of my colleague(an art guy in my agency) on one weekend had planned for a trip to Nandi hills. While my colleague has sold his Maruti Zen, for a better life, and is awaiting his new Volkswagen Polo to arrive in a couple of months(that the usual waiting period for any VW cars model in Bangalore), my car is giving a good service to my wife at my home town. So we had no other choice but to take KSRTC bus service for going to Nandi hill, which was an experience in itself..We left the KSRTC central bus stamd at Bangalore city railway station for Chikballapur around 10am.The bus was moving slowly and picking up passengers every now and then untill the conductor found it sufficiently crowded enough to make his way inside as difficult as it is for those who were trying to come out and get down from the bus.
Around 11.50 we finally reached Chikballapur. This was my first experience with rural Bangalore and was quite surprised to notice the stark difference between the two.Anyway we somehow managed to find a decent restaurant, a south Indian of course, and had some dosas before we left for the hills in a auto rickshaw. Here one thing is required to be mentioned, The Karnataka State Tourism Department have not developed or at least have not tried to develop the transportation facility to Nandi hill in any possible way. For this reason we were easily fooled by the autodriver who dropped us at a place called Nandi hills cross, instead of the foothills, which was some 4kms from that place.
So after another round of bargaining with the autodriver, we finally got one that took us to the top. While we were on our way we found hoards of people in their cars of every possible make and engine capacity, were either making their way up to, or down from, the hill. The hilltop was usually crowded by Bangaloreans, making one feel that ‘you can’t escape the Bangalore crowd anywhere’. After buying tickets we entered Tipu’s Summer palace.
Its parapet and surrounding compound wall is spread over the entire circumference of the hilltop. Though there was a mettle road that leads to the topmost part where one would find several eateries, we opted for going by walking along the parapet of the palace compound wall.
The short walk to the topmost part of the hill gave some breathtaking views of the areas and the hills surrounding Nandi hill. On one such occasion there was a huge gaping opening on the wall with an abrupt drop to the bottom of the hill, that would as if shatter the silence of this whole area and shake up one from his dreams, by suddenly throwing up a panoramic view of the distant hill. It was almost spontaneous that I immediately captured the moment in my camera.
Soon we were on the topmost part of the hill after taking a few more snaps and found ourselves gorging up egg noodles at one such eatery, before leaving for Chikballapur and finally from there to Bangalore.
Around 11.50 we finally reached Chikballapur. This was my first experience with rural Bangalore and was quite surprised to notice the stark difference between the two.Anyway we somehow managed to find a decent restaurant, a south Indian of course, and had some dosas before we left for the hills in a auto rickshaw. Here one thing is required to be mentioned, The Karnataka State Tourism Department have not developed or at least have not tried to develop the transportation facility to Nandi hill in any possible way. For this reason we were easily fooled by the autodriver who dropped us at a place called Nandi hills cross, instead of the foothills, which was some 4kms from that place.
So after another round of bargaining with the autodriver, we finally got one that took us to the top. While we were on our way we found hoards of people in their cars of every possible make and engine capacity, were either making their way up to, or down from, the hill. The hilltop was usually crowded by Bangaloreans, making one feel that ‘you can’t escape the Bangalore crowd anywhere’. After buying tickets we entered Tipu’s Summer palace.
Its parapet and surrounding compound wall is spread over the entire circumference of the hilltop. Though there was a mettle road that leads to the topmost part where one would find several eateries, we opted for going by walking along the parapet of the palace compound wall.
The short walk to the topmost part of the hill gave some breathtaking views of the areas and the hills surrounding Nandi hill. On one such occasion there was a huge gaping opening on the wall with an abrupt drop to the bottom of the hill, that would as if shatter the silence of this whole area and shake up one from his dreams, by suddenly throwing up a panoramic view of the distant hill. It was almost spontaneous that I immediately captured the moment in my camera.
Soon we were on the topmost part of the hill after taking a few more snaps and found ourselves gorging up egg noodles at one such eatery, before leaving for Chikballapur and finally from there to Bangalore.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete