Sitting tired on an uneven granite step, halfway to the battlements at Krishnagiri in Gingee, I felt horrible. The May summer equatorial sun was searing and pierced into my head. I was sweating profusely. Dehydrated, every now and then, I felt, I would throw up.
With water down to the last drops, I wished the ordeal to get over and I would leave the town at once. So much for a place that had consumed my mind, body and soul, ever since I had read about it, called “Troy of the East” by Father Pimenta, a Portuguese Jesuit priest visiting Gingee in 1597. So overawed he was by the sight, that he went on to call Gingee ‘the greatest city he had seen in India, bigger than any in Portugal, except Lisbon.’
Father Pimenta, a Portuguese Jesuit priest visiting Gingee in 1597 called it "Troy of the East." Click To TweetI had arrived by bus, from Pondicherry, 70 km, the night before. Finding a place to stay wasn’t difficult. Being a small town Gingee didn’t offer much choice either. The first Taj Lodge, contrary to its name derived from the famous Mughal mausoleum, Taj Mahal at Agra, turned out to be a ghetto. The next, Hotel Sivasand was decent.
Tired to venture out into the town to look for a clean eatery for the region’s plain idli, dosa or uttapam dinner, I opted for the hotel’s non-vegetarian restaurant. As the menu was presented in a dimly lit bamboo environ it whetted my appetite. I ordered fish fry.
And regretted when it arrived.
They were greasy and reeked of coconut oil, the main cooking medium in South India. Fatigued, famished and close to midnight I ate while I prayed. Next morning when I woke up, I was glad to find that my stomach had withstood the onslaught. Light breakfast and a glass of fine steamed tea at the bus stand; I was ready to hit the roads.
Gingee – A tale of three hill fortresses
Three inaccessible boulder-strewn hill forts – Krishnagiri, Chakkilidurg and Rajagiri – forming a triangle, 3 km away, dominate the landscape. Almost 160 km southwest of Chennai (formerly Madras) in Tamil Nadu state, they are enclosed by a 45-feet thick rampart and guarded by a moat 80-feet wide. At the top, there are temples, rudimentary residential quarters and some huge granaries.
But at Gingee, it is not the architecture that is fascinating. Rather it is the location that holds one spellbound. A craggy spectacle, broken intermittently by green paddy fields on one side and Muthakadu Forest Reserve on the other, how Ananda Kone even thought of fortifications in AD 1200 is amazing. Perhaps it was a strategic move.
Such is the location that control over Gingee was fiercely contested. With the arrival of the European trading companies, it took a bloody turn. The French occupied it first. But when the English decisively defeated them, they surrendered it in 1761.
The gradient is steep. The steps are uneven. To lay them must have been a Herculean task. Hanging precariously on one another, it appears as if a ‘Goliath’ had played with these ‘granite pebbles’ and left them, as it were, when he was fed up. Even the slightest tremors, it seems, would set the rocks tumbling down.
It appears as if a ‘Goliath’ had played with these ‘granite pebbles’ and left them, as it were, when he was fed up. Click To Tweet
Gingee – The most spectacular Rajagiri
The most spectacular amongst the three, is Rajagiri, at some distance. It is an unusual sight—one massive boulder that juts out from its craggy brethren almost midway and seems to be touching the sky.
As I size up the hill, yearningly, perhaps aware that I won’t be able to scale it, I wonder how fortifications atop this boulder have been constructed. The sides are straight and smooth and except for rock climbing one couldn’t have reached the top. Gingee had been planned to withstand long sieges.
And here I was amidst such an incredible location feeling utterly hopeless. Dinner of the previous night was taking its toll at 11 the next day. Throat had become parched. Coolness too was enveloping the body and my head tingled. I felt I was about to faint. With all fervor I prayed for a miracle. Gingee can wait for the next time.
Minutes earlier a family, eyeing me with concern, had gone past. Except for their excited voices at the top there were not many people around. Only monkeys prattled around lazily. They returned about an hour later. I was still there. Feebly I request them for tanni, water as it is called in local Tamil language. The man answers back.
“Tamil ille, I don’t know Tamil.” I reply.
He then shows me the empty bottle. They are concerned but the language forestalls conversation. And they leave.
Some minutes later I see the man again. He clambered, huffing and puffing, with a young boy in tow. From some distance he pointed him towards me, and the kid came running right up to me. He clenched water in his hands. He poured some into mine. As the water gurgled down my throat it was close to boiling. It didn’t quench my thirst. But some time later a miracle happened. I was fit, hale and hearty again. So much so that, I didn’t climb down but went up instead.
Gingee can’t wait.
Photos (scanned from slides): Anand Jha