As part of our evaluation programme, our team was in Chitradurga. I was truly amazed at the roads which took us to Durga; such smooth wide corridors free of vehicles that vehicles can practically fly on the roads. The toll charges too are as impressive as the roads! Close to the city, we saw giant wind mills in all the surrounding hill tops and they seemed to form a ring around the city, like huge watch towers.The barren plains suddenly burst into greenery and people once we entered the town. The avenues were lined by trees like back in Bangalore. The urban dweller that I am, I felt re-assured once I saw a couple of shops of Lee, Wrangler etc.
On a free day, we visited the Chitradurga Fort. I thanked all the stars the moment my taxi stopped in front of the fort gates. A moment more and I would have thrown up from motion sickness. I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have wanted because of the stupid Chemoreceptor trigger zone in my medulla doing things to my GI tract. Once that cleared up, the rain started and I was watching my feet so as not to slip up on the smooth slate stones lining the walkway.
Now coming back to the Fort, the name of the fort was actually Chitra-kal-durga which roughly translates as "Picture-Stone-Fort". This came about because some of the boulders around the fort apparently resemble a rabbit or a human face or a prostrate elephant if you look at them. What most impressed me about the fort is its architecture. It has seven turns and seven gates and so it is also known as ' Yelu suttina kote' or seven-circles-fort. The winding nature of the fort walls and its 7 curves makes it an impregnable fort, impossible to capture. There are many temples and water tanks inside it.The living quarters where made in mud and has disappeared in the monsoon rains over the centuries. Another interesting thing was the way cuts where made into huge boulders in the fort by masons. Apparently they would create small wedges with chisels. The rain water would seep in and the hard granite rock would easily be chiselled away in sheets along the cuts made previously. Truly 'Cutting edge technology'.
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That's one of the turns of the fort.
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A step well inside the fort
On a free day, we visited the Chitradurga Fort. I thanked all the stars the moment my taxi stopped in front of the fort gates. A moment more and I would have thrown up from motion sickness. I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have wanted because of the stupid Chemoreceptor trigger zone in my medulla doing things to my GI tract. Once that cleared up, the rain started and I was watching my feet so as not to slip up on the smooth slate stones lining the walkway.
Now coming back to the Fort, the name of the fort was actually Chitra-kal-durga which roughly translates as "Picture-Stone-Fort". This came about because some of the boulders around the fort apparently resemble a rabbit or a human face or a prostrate elephant if you look at them. What most impressed me about the fort is its architecture. It has seven turns and seven gates and so it is also known as ' Yelu suttina kote' or seven-circles-fort. The winding nature of the fort walls and its 7 curves makes it an impregnable fort, impossible to capture. There are many temples and water tanks inside it.The living quarters where made in mud and has disappeared in the monsoon rains over the centuries. Another interesting thing was the way cuts where made into huge boulders in the fort by masons. Apparently they would create small wedges with chisels. The rain water would seep in and the hard granite rock would easily be chiselled away in sheets along the cuts made previously. Truly 'Cutting edge technology'.
That's one of the turns of the fort.
A step well inside the fort
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