CHITTORGARH

CHITTORGARH

It was a huge super-deluxe tourist bus. It managed to negotiate the narrow entrance point, at the foothill, on the road that took you up through sharp hairpin bends to the top. The driver was a well built young man who was perfect in managing the roads. An ordinary driver could not have taken such a huge bus through those sharp hairpin bends.

When the bus arrived 'up above' at the chittogarh fort grounds we heaved a sigh of relief and had a birds eye view of Chittor town below and the chittor railway station. ( Buses were not allowed to go up on my subsequent visit two years later. Auto rikshaws had then been introduced to ferry the tourists up and down for a reasonable payment. A wise step ! ).

I had seen so many forts earlier - the red fort of Delhi and the Allahabad fort for example. These are noted for their grandeur-in-stone. These forts are essentially massive strong fotified areas into which army and people retreated when under attack by a much more powerful enemy batallion, in order to protect themselves while reassessing their strategy.

Chittorgarh was a different cup of tea altogether. It is not just a massive fortified structure, it is a small township atop a hillock and the hillock itself has been fortified. In a way, thus, it entitles itself to be one of the largest forts in the world. It is a vast flat land up there. There are roads, trees, vast water catchment areas and grass lands. There are temples , magnificent buildings and ofcourse the famous VIJAY STAMBH, a breathtaking tower that takes you up through a winding staircase for a good view of the whole area around and the lands yonder! Vijay stambh was, as the name suggests, constructed to commemorate a victory.

And at Chittorgarh there is the LEGEND of the valiant Rajputs, of Rani Padmini ; of the 'Jauhar' (self immolation) of hundreds of women when Allauddin Khilji broke through the resistance of the valiant rajputs to get what he had come for - the stunningly beautiful Rani Padmini, the Queen of Chittorgarh.

In the company of a good guide you can 'live through' a period now buried deep in history. The guide takes you to the room where Allauddin khilji saw Rani Padmini's reflection in a huge mirror while she stood in the adjascent room. The guide takes you to the ground where, in the year 1303 CE the rajput women consigned themselves to fire, to save their honour, in the ceremony called Jauhar. The very ground on which I stood was the theatre of one of the bloodiest pages of Indian history and the thought sent a shiver down my spine. It was a very spiritual moment for me. I felt that I was myself actually witnessing those events unfolding before me - events of centuries far back in time, the war cries, the battles, the jauhars, the mystic singing of Meera bai the sufi saint, and the courage of queen Karnawati the grandmother of the great Maharana Pratap. There is a legend of Karnavati sending a Rakhi (the sacred thread that a girl ties on the wrist of her brother during the hindu festival of Raksha bandhan) to moghul emperor Humayun when chittorgarh was under seige by Bahadur shah, asking for help. Humayun abandoned an ongoing military campaign to ride to her rescue, thus her name became irrevocably linked to the festival of Raksha Bandhan .

I will be remiss in these reminiscences if do not mention the great son of Rajputana, Maharana Pratap (1540-1597) who dedicated his entire life fighting the greatest of the moghul emperor, Akbar. While he could not recapture Chittorgarh , he recaptured vast areas of Rajputana. His last epic battle against Akbar at Haldighati (june 1576) has been immortalised by the hindi poet Shyam Narain Pandey in his epic poem HALDIGHATI.

The journey back into TIME being over now , our bus left the fort on its long journey back to Delhi. As the bus travelled downwards I had the strange feeling of stepping out of the pages of history into the material world of the day. Somewhere inside me was the feeling that a long time back, in another life, I belonged to this place, Chittorgarh, which will always be remembered for the valour of the Rajputs men and women.

Legends never die. As Tennyson puts it, "men may come and men may go but I shall go on for ever".

Chittorgarh will always be there . . . far into the future , in timelessness!!

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