Wondering as always where I came from…

A place of the unknown, a land of the unconquered…

The beauty of this town always echoes in my face…

With my true roots I belong to this place…

Gol Gumbaz

On this day, something about my life changed… Well, a significant change, in fact more so, in my parents lives… I finally arrived in this world, this universe… Right at this place.. A place that has been in my memories and always will be… They say when you are about to die, your entire life flashes in front of you and the best memories really hit you as visuals that you always cherished… If that is true and if it were to happen to me when I do eventually go back to nothingness, then there would certainly be a lot of images from this town…

There is always beauty and joy to talk about a place where you have come to life at… Most of the times, people live in places long enough to make it their own. Some enjoy going back to their roots to find out who they truly are… and some after being to places like this, still don’t know the true beauty of what your birthplace really has to give you… I think I’m one of them… But I’m going to change that soon.

The irony of it, I’ve traveled across so many places and as a matter of fact, I’ve been here many times, yet I’ve not written a single travelogue about a place that is so important to my life… Strange isn’t it?? Well, that ends here, right now… A couple of months down the line I am going to get an opportunity to visit that place… My birth place a small town in Karnataka called Bijapur!

So I’m probably going to do a short #SriniOnTour of this beautiful and enchanting place…sometime soon… But before I do that, I thought of introducing the majestic place to all you folks and give you some insights on what is really amazing for me about this place…

One interesting fact I need to tell you about this place and my family… While I’m the only son, I do have a lot of relatives and close family members from my mom’s side… who all have been born here, but are living across different parts of the country… My two uncles, one aunt, at least my 10 cousins… all of them have been born in the same town… My mom’s aunt (My grandmom) owns really amazing place here and that is where I remember spending a lot of my vacations as a child.. Fighting with most of my cousins over small things such as what we are to eat, what game to play and who gets to sleep on the terrace and a lot of ther silly issues. When I look back at all the pranks we played, the fights we have had, the wrestling matches we indulged in… it truly brings back memories… Memories that I will cherish forever in my life…

I still remember some times being alone during my vacation, of the most recent trips having gone there, enjoying listening to Guns & Roses tracks sitting on a cannon across a fort that is right across our house at Sunset… Enjoying the wide horizon and the rock music sinking into my head… Wandering sometimes on bicycles in the city… Yes, this is the place  where I actually learnt riding a bicycle during summer vacations as a kid.. This is the same place where I fell, I rose and I fell again… This is the place where I learnt to fight, this is the place where I learnt to use a catapult and pelt down some really delicious mangoes, thankfully in our own backyard and not someone else’s. This is the place where we used to spend hours and hours on the terrace playing board games, winning, losing fighting, playing ‘Rummy’ and other card games… This incidentally is also a place where I had my first crush on a girl who was my neighbor’s cousin and just like us, visiting them during summer vacations… These are strong memories that will refuse to fade away of course…

But apart from that, I also cherish the beauty of this amazing small town also very famous for its monument ‘Gol Gumbaz’ built by one of the Mughal Emperrors Adil Shah… I always remember telling my school friends that this is my birthplace… when we used to learn about it in History… Feeling proud and having a sense of heightened achievement for a simple fact that I’m born here and have been to the monument like a million times… What’s so special about this monument?? Well it’s really beautiful for one, secondly the unique element to this is that architectural significance it holds in Mughal history… A place so magnificently built, it has a unique feature about it… Once you go inside and climb up to the dome… You can go inside and shout at the top of your voice… You’ll hear the echo seven times!!!  And another interesting thing about this place is, if you even tear a piece of paper on the wall at one end of the dome, you can hear it in the wall exactly parallel to it… Talk about telephony back then 😛

Besides this one superb attraction Bijapur has a lot of other Mughal forts and historical places of interest that you would enjoy visiting. One thing we always enjoyed was going in the ‘Tonga’ (horsecart) yes, that was a routine or a ritual I must say as soon as we arrive at the bus stop… In fact, there have been so many tours of the city our parents and I took in the tonga itself. As a kid I also remember my eagerness to sit next to the horse cart driver and get my hands on the reigns sometimes to just feel the power of driving the cart… Well, men will be men 😛

The Infamous Tonga of Bijapur 🙂

Image Courtesy: Jorge Reveter

Be it the Upali Burz… A huge tower fort with bunch of heavy Canons to protect the town from invaders, or the amazing Jama Masjid… This town still has a great aura for its beauty and historic significance is still retained. The museums in the Gol Gumbaz still retains heavy armours that the Mughals used to fight in battles and the sharp swords they used to slay their enemies…

Uppali Burz

Another beautiful place in this is the Barakaman.. It has a legend to it… A mausoleum of Ali Roza built in 1672. It was previously named as Ali Roza, but Shah Nawab Khan changed its name to Bara Kaman as this was the 12th monument during his reign. It has now seven arches and the tomb containing the graves of Ali, his queens and eleven other ladies possibly belonging to the Zenana of the queens.

Barakaman

Besides the Mughal attractions, one of my favorites and something which is really close to my home here is the  Lord Shiva Statue.  The 85-foot tall statue of Lord Shiva installed by the T.K. Patil Banakatti Charitable Trust in Bijapur at Shivapur on Sindagi Road is gradually developing as a pilgrimage place.1,500 tonnes statue considered as the second biggest statue of Lord Shiva in the country was prepared by sculptors from Shimoga for more than 13 months and the civilian design was provided by Bangalore-based architects. The statue weighs around 1,500 tonnes.

Lord Shiva

Well there are many more places that I would want to talk about… but I’d do that when I do another short blogumentary a #SriniOnTour to the land of my origin… Pretty soon… That is when I would love to give you the dough on this mysterious yet enchanting and beautiful place… Till then, you guys do stay tuned to my blog 🙂 Happy Reading!!