A Night On An Ancient Fortress in The Deccan , India !
A story from my life that goes back over 40 years ago ! Anyway , who is counting ! I was a medical student and studied in a city near Bombay ( now known as Mumbai ). Poona ( also now called Pune ) . Being a medical student was one of the best times of my life . Yes, I knew if I kept walking on the path of this college life , I will become a medical doctor ! I also wanted to grow in so many other ways too . Being a doctor was going to be great, but , greater still is being a person who will understand himself ,others and Life !
That in mind and as my mission statement to living , I was going to have fun , and fun I did have !
My simply philosophy of Life was that I have come into life to experience life . That's it .
So , I followed my bliss but it created alot of non-bliss or un-bliss for others !
Anyway , now coming to my story of spending a night on this ancient fortress .
Was it planned or was there any agenda to this trip ? No , of course not ! My life was one of living in the now ! I lived for the moment and always in the presence of being ! I can tell you it is difficult to live with such an unpredictable person ! My professors were actually giving up on me ! Some how , I kept surprising them and the show went on !
So , out of the blue , I felt I had to do something . Two of my buddies were ever ready to explore life with me ! I had shared with them my thinking that we will not have this wonderful student days again ! We decided to just go with minimum of preparation to this ancient fortress on the Deccan . It was a fortress built bu a great warrior called Shivaji . He was a great Marathi warrior . He simply was fighting a life long battle with the conquering Mughals . You can easily read the details of the history by Googling !
We just went to the bus station and asked around for the bus that would take us to a small village at the foot of this hill where the fort was built . We found a bus and it appeared that all of India too had decided to go to that small village that day ! The bus was so crowded ! We literally were hanging from the bus and it was driving away ! It's unbelievable how we played with our life's . Never heard of risk management !
The bus went on and on stopping at all the villages on the way to the fort . It was a long ride and we were so high on the coming adventure that we had no concept of tiredness or hunger . Finally , after an eternal bus ride we arrived at a small village late in the night . It was pitch dark when the bus came into the village . The last of the passengers got off and walked away into the darkness ! We three heroes stood there looking at each other and wandering where to go ! Finally we saw a light in the darkness and realised that it came from the local Hindu Temple . So ,we walked over to the temple and were comforted that it appeared like a nice place to rest or maybe even sleep . As we started to get comfortable and took out our packed food , the temple priest came out from behind the temple . He saw 3 soldier type youngsters sitting and enjoying a simple meal . He was really very warm and welcoming . We really appreciated his warmth . Had a wonderful moment sharing about our life's . We were allowed to sleep there in the temple comfortably .
The next morning we got up to the cock crowing in the village ! Cattle moving about in the dust and goats rushing about as they were being taken to the feeding countryside . We actually found the village very peaceful . Had a wonderful breakfast , all organic and plenty of fresh milk . Decided to fill our water bottles with milk instead of water as we found the milk so fresh and cheap ! At that moment we thought it was a great idea . Later during our walk we realised that water is what we needed when we are thirsty ! We had to walk up the hill or I would say semi-mountain !
The walk was tiring to say the least . It was also getting very hot . Slowly we kept going up and had to really climb the last part of the hill holding on to a solid rock by an old rusting ladder .
Finally we were in the old fortress on top of the hill . We could now see the wisdom of the old warrior .The view was just great . We could see all the surrounding countryside as far as the eye could see !
We went through the old ruined building and saw what the ancients had to endure . It was really a great place . After our exploring around , we decided to sleep in an old ruined temple again ! Felt good to be near a temple on the remote and lonely fort ! Who knows what spirits were here !
As night came , we decided to really climb on the roof of the temple as the tall grass made us unhappy as to what could be in the grass .
When we were about to sleep , a sudden wind started to blow out of no where .The wind got stronger and it kept hollowing the whole night ! I can never forget that one night in my life ! The night of the hollowing wind . We 3 musketeers sitting the whole night and waiting for the sun to come out and rescue us !
Thank the great Whatever , the sun did come out and it was the most appreciated sun rise ever in my life !
We were not going to wait around to experience another night on this great fort that belonged to the brave Marathi Warrior , Shivaji !
We came back to college to share our adventure with our college mates and had many days of great fun talking about the hollowing winds of an ancient fortress on the Deccan in India .
Thank you and good bye till we meet again . Dr Dhali /Amar.
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