The crumbling remains of the Tughlaqabad Fort are reminiscent of its lost grandeur. Ghazi Malik would toss and turn in his grave seeing his dream city in such neglect and disrepair. The fort itself is a desolate place with only a few visitors coming to catch the glimpse of this relic of past. My friends and I arrived at the fort by 7:00 in the morning and we were the first one to buy the tickets. The view of the magnificent façade of the fort from the road got me excited even before I could get inside.

Arches and lush lawn inside the Tomb of Ghyas-ud-Din Tughlaq

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Day 4 –Udaipur Journey completed (and back to boredom)

The checkout time in hotel was 11. So I asked them to take care of my bag and before starting to Fateh Sagar Lake I called Jai Prakash, the guy I met at the first day of my journey and to my luck he was there in Udaipur and readily agreed to accompany me to Fateh Sagar Lake and Nehru Garden.

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We (me, wife and our two month old son) went to Panchgani for a day to unwind after a long hiatus. We did not want to do sightseeing, just relax in cool environs. This was the time when winters were ending and summers were starting and wanted to savor cool atmosphere for one last time in this season. We were looking for a hotel/resort nearby Pune where we just check-in and don’t have to go out for anything, serves food, have lots of garden, trees and quite interiors. Around Pune, Panchgani is a location where we could get all these; nice resort type accommodation, salubrious climate and easy connectivity.  After some search on the internet we zeroed in on Prospect hotel in Panchgani which is a heritage hotel build almost 100 years back and rated one of the best in Panchgani. They have various cottage accommodation spread over a sizable area just below famous Table land with greenery all around and also provide in-house food about which I read a lot of praise. My wife teased me that I chose this one just for its food which was partially correct. The other reason being I am partial to anything wooden & vintage.

Insignia of the hotel

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The Mahashivaratri festival is upon us, so I thought it appropriate to post about the World’s Largest Bronze Nataraja at Konerirajapuram.

Konerirajapuram is a sleepy little village surrounded by paddy fields in Tamil Nadu’s fertile and historic Cauvery Delta. In ancient times it was known as TiruNallam. Konerirajapuram’s claim to fame is the huge bronze cast icon of Lord Siva as Nataraja at the Uma Maheswarar temple. This is bigger than the Nataraja at Chidambaram.

Priest Gnanaskandan next to the idols of Nataraja and Mangalanayagi

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