Revisiting Har Ki Dun

Revisiting Har Ki Dun

There was a miniscule of a mention in the local newspaper about a “Talk on a Trek to Har Ki Dun” at the India Habitat centre. Such a small news for a such a mega trek.

Having done the trek recently to this “God’s Own Valley” I still decided to listen to this talk. Why? You may ask. It is because the talk is to be by “Young Senior’s” as they are aptly called. All of the small team of three veterans are above the age of 70!!. The youngest was 72 years young and the oldest at 78.

It was incredible to listen to their trek details. More than the actual route and the description of the place, the attitude of the team to muster energy and do this arduous trek is remarkable. One of them, the 78 year young veteran had been doing regular walk of 3 hours a day and never skipped it. It is a lesson to be learnt from him. Keep fit.

One of them started trekking at the age of 76, so folks it is never too late to do anything. They are all industrialists and had been on many a treks together – the three musketeers they call themselves.

We, the younger group in their 60’s should take this as an inspiration and start atleast a walk if not a trek. And all the younger folks don’t even wait, start trekking. It is such an adventurous sport, so rejuvenating. Added to this is the benefit of seeking the various planets and their satellites. The skies are so clear, void of any pollution and you can clearly see the stars and the milky way. Take a good binoculars and you can spend hours gazing at the beautiful stars in the galaxy.

It was worth the trip to the Habitat centre for the talk. I am planning to do something similar in Gurgaon if there is an organization like The Himalayan Club to sponsor.

With three cheers to the trio.

Tughlakabad Fort Visit

Tughlakabad Fort Visit:

It was the death anniversary of the Great Mahatma Gandhi. A day to remember. It was also a Sunday, 30th Jan 2011. Felt like a walk, a long walk but with a purpose.

Thanks to a news item in the Timeout magazine I came to know about the heritage walk at Tughlakabad fort.

It is a common nature NOT to visit interesting places when they are very close. There is this feeling that as it is so close we can visit it at anytime, but this ‘visit’ never happens. Tughlakabad fort is one such place, right in the middle of the capital city of Delhi but never visited it in the last 25 years I had been here.

The Heritage walk was organized by India Habitat Centre and the lead was Mr Sunil Raman, a freelance journalist. Me and my friend joined the group at 3pm at the fort. It was quite a big group. Surprised to see so many people being interested in revisiting history.

The entrance is majestic and the fort from inside looks huge with its boundary walls not because it was forming the most part of the ruins. They used rubble masonry, consisting of rubble type of stones with mortar. We walked along the wall to a “baoli” a step well. It was very deep but no water. There are a few such wells in Delhi, the one in Mehrauli was neat and magnificent.
There were only ruins of the so called residential buildings. Unfortunately not much about the place is known as there were no records in history. All the documentation ever talked about was about the ruins of Tughlakabad fort. Nobody wrote about the fort in its original form.
The Fort was built Giyasuddin Tughlak, a governor of Turkish origin. He reigned over the western provinces in a very prominent way. It was between 1321 and 1325 AD, that Tughlakabad was founded, 8 kilometers from the Qutab. They say that after 5 years the place was never used again. There are theories that it was abandoned due to lack of water but not authentic. According to certain legends, Tughlakabad was devastated due to the curse of a religious leader, sufi saint named Nijamuddin. There were eleven rulers from the Tughlak dynasty but only the first three generations were interested in architecture raising mosques, , madrasas and laying canals

Across the road (earlier a water causeway) is the tomb of Giyasuddin Tughlak. It was a very simple construction with out much of art work. This tomb seems to be in good shape and well maintained.

There seems to be no efforts being made to maintain this place. How can Government do it if they charge a pittance as entry fee of Rs5/-. This may be a rouge to get more visitors. I think the interested will come irrespective of the entry fee (within reasonable amount).

On the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi I should have been at the Rajghat, instead I was at the Giyasuddin Tughlak’s tomb. But as you know Rajghat is so near so can visit it any time.