Monday, February 2, 2009

The ruined city of Ghost: Bhangarh

Mano Ya Na Mano (believe it or not)... there are belief about Ghosts, Souls and often people talked about haunted place. Then what is different about Bhangarh?? Well if u can read Hindi then its here.... If you can't let me help you out. It says:
The Government of India
The Archeological Survey of India, Bhangarh
Important Notice: 1) It is strictly prohibited to the borders of Bhangarh before sunrise and after sunset.
2) Shepherds are not allowed inside Bhangarh area, violators will face legal action.
3. The Kewda or Pandanus trees belong to the Archaelogy Survey of India. It is forbidden to cause any kind of harm.
Note: Anyone violating the rules mentioned above will face legal action.
By order: Supervisor, Archaelogical Survey
It might be the only place where ASI gives a notice not to enter after sunset!!

While browsing information about the myth of Bhangarh, I came across two stories which says it was cursed by a tantrik (wizard who practices black magic) called Singhia.
Story A: Tantrik Singhia despartely fall in love with the beauty of Rantnawati, the princess of Bhangarh. To have her, he mixed love potion in the scent oil meant for princess. If anyhow princess comes into contact with the oil, she will be become hyponotise and run to him. But, by somehow, princess came to know about it, and she trashed it into a stone. The stone got accursed and roll to the tantrik and killed him.
While dying Singhia cursed the city that everybody will die in an incident and there soul will stay there for centuries without rebirth. In the very next year, there was a battle between Ajabgarh and Bhangarh and nobody survived. The city never inhabited again.

Story B: Tantrik Singhia, used to practice his witching outside Bhangarh city. While the city was building, he warned the King not interfere with his settlement. The king was respectful to his privacy, but later one arrogant king dishonour the warning and the whole city paid for it. Once the shadows of the building fell on Singhia's estate, the whole city collapsed and all the citizens are forced to flew. Nobody dared to settled in the city again.

Archeological Facts: Bhangarh was built in17th century, by Raja Madho Singh, younger brother of Man Singh, a general of Emperor Akbar’s army. At that time, Bhangarh had a population of over 10,000. Today its all ruins but temples.

Only 250kms away from Delhi, 80kms away from Alwar, Rajathan; ruins of Bhangarh stands tall as a weekend destination provided traveller is not too scared of Ghost.
Our Story:
"Jodi buti (thts me!!!!), yaha Bhangarh karke ek haunted palace hai. Chalega kya??"
"Accha..Chal sakte hai. Kaun kaun jaayega?"
"Tu, main aur Soumen. Aur koi mile to dekh. 4 ho jaayenge to accha rahega."
But, we couldn't able to find the fourth one. So, the final Daredevils are Amlan da, Soumen and me.
25th Jan, 2009, in a beautiful morning, we started our ghost hunt at 6.45am from Gurgaon.

According to map, From NH8 one needs to take NH11A from Manoharpur. So after crossing Manoharpur we were expecting NH11A. 1kms passes, 2 kms passed…10kms passed!!!! No sign of a left turn. What the heck!!!

Kuch garbar hai, lag raha hai humne road miss kiya hai!” 

“Bhaiya, yaha se Bhangarh ke liye kaun sa rasta hai?”

“Who raste to picche reh gaya!!!Aap log yeh raste se jaa sakte hai..”

And the local guy suggested a state road which leads to Bhangarh via Pratapgarh. That was a horrible experience: first, the road was narrow, running through villages; second, broken at places resulting in bumpy ride. 

Abbe Hriday, rasta to bohot hi kharab hai!!! Thik raste se hi jaa rahe hai na???”

It seemed liked we were cursed by Bhangarh already and we started getting afraid of not making to Bhangarh!!! After a few kilometers ride, we found ourselves in between beautiful landscape.

Maa Kasam… kya nazara hai.. koi shikayat nahi!!! Camera Nikal..” 
Amlan can't stopped exclaiming!!!
The landscape was much more beautiful than photos. Typical arid landscape.
We were planning to reach Bhangarh before noon. But beauty of Aravalli make us stopped again and again and we stop thinking about the road conditions.
and landscapes kept on changing. Much pleasure to my camera!!
An unknown small palace we passed by.

We had another stop near this temple which seems haunted!!! We had a few modeling session here. Gee.

Heros!!! Me and Amlan with his Cutie Estilo. Amlan-da just love red color!!!

Oh, we are at Rajasthan. Ooops I was late by a second and cut the Camel head!! Hey, this time I know that fort, thats Pratapgarh fort.

Upon arrival at Pratapgarh we got our confidence back that we would be making to Bhangarh, no more road confusion.

The fort of Ajabgarh. 
This village was made by Ajab Singh Rajawat, who was the grandson of Madhu Singh, rular of Bhangarh. This Village is almost ruined except for a few population.
I went inside this house and had a feeling that the last residents in this house might be some cattles!!!

A deserted temple, we dont have a chance to go to this tample. But this temple is said to built in 1700AD. The front portion of the temple is made of marbles from Jhiri and Makrana. The palace of Ajabgarh
At around 1.30pm, arrived at Bhangarh. Browsing net we could only found myths about Bhangarh, and very less photographs. So, we were expecting it to be a small ruined city. But, to our pleasent surprise, it turned out to be much bigger one!!!
The fort of Bhangarh City
Collapsed houses, the broken pieces are moved away!!! It gives an impression like someboday chop it off from the top.
No doubt it was an planned city. But, I think the road is built recently, 'coz I saw a picture with a broken road in the net
Each house has three rooms, but the layout of the rooms is not the same. Though I didn't witness a single rooftop, from broken stairs in most of the houses, I infer most of them had a access to rooftop. There were little drains between rooms to rundown water.
One of the most representative sample. 
We are at the premises of Bhangarh 
This city was full of temples and still it is cursed!!! We expected little spooky atmosphere, unlike other forts/temples. To our surprise, few couples made it dating paradise!!! Here they don't have the fear of getting caught by Cops except for GHOSTS!!!. Accha hai na!!!
We were trying our best to get horror feel in our photography..

Daredevils...From Left Me, Soumen and Amlan. 
This photo took a lots of Jugaad. I have to bring a broken rock, then stabilize it and finally putting the camera on autotimer mood..oh yes, I also have to hurry to my position to get the perfect pose!!!
Not sure whether Ghosts exist in Bhangarh or not. But, I can assure about the scenic beauty of it!!!  This fort is little different than other forts of Rajasthan. The existance of Chakki put us in confusion "Was it a Prison??
Before going to Bhangarh I had a good search over net. Some visitors wrote about feeling something unusual, somebody wrote about getting spots in photograph, etc. and someone felt nothing. We also experienced nothing as such!! I clicked this photograph to see whether am I lucky to get some strange spots on my pics!!!and Mission Unsuccessful...
Love this snap. Specially the Aravalli Range. If you zoom in, you can see the extent of ancient Bhangarh city. 
Ruins of Bhangarh.
Posing again
Pond attached with temple
We left Bhangarh at around 4pm. We wanted hit the NH8 before dark and also didn't have anything for the whole day except for juices, chocolates and cakes. This time we got the NH11A and this was our last picture. we had our dinner in a restaurant and got back to Gurgaon at 10.30pm
Personally, I feel like I don't believe in Ghosts and have a dream to spend a night in Bhangarh with so called ghosts.
Cheers,
Hriday

The Golden City: Jaisalmer

December month, year ending, not that much workload, everybody in a holiday mood. Lots gossiping going in and around the office.

"Hi Prem...Hi Harsh..What's up??"

"Nothing special. So you are back from your sister's marriage!! How was it?"

"Oh, it was good, but very much hectic! Hi, Shiju!!!"

"Hey Hriday, Do you want to join us? We are going to Jaiselmer tomorrow. We are having an extra train ticket booked for Sumit. He won't be going, so you can chip in in his place"

"Tomorrow!!!! I just joined today. I have to ask my line manager. Will let you know"

And thats how it started. I got the leave and all set to leave for Jaiselmer very next day i.e. 11th Dec' 2008.
The ticket was booked in the sleeper class of Delhi-Jaiselmer Express. Mixed reactions about going in sleeper class. All of us haven't travel in sleeper class for a while, Shiju after 3 long years!!!!, so all are very much excited.
We booked our train from delhi, though gonna board from Gurgaon only. We had our sleeper ticket booked in S3 compartment. When train arrived we saw the whole sleeper class compartments were packed like anything!!! There is not even space to stand!! Applying all our pushing strenght we just managed to enter the compartment, then the other passengers let us know...Its a general compartment!!! What the heck!!!So we thought we entered a wrong cmpartment & quickly we got down only to find pushing ourself hard to get inside S4 before train leaves. After a little pushing game we got some horizon to keep our feet and come to know this train is considered as a local train till Rewari station, which will be arrived after 2hrs. The above picture was taken after Rewari we got a chance to have a seat!!!
Got our seats, bad times are over. That what we thought and start playing 29 (a playing card game).
"I wanna have something to eat!!! Lets try some puri-bhaji"
Shiju bought two plates of puri-bhaji and thats served as our dinner. Soon we went sleep. Prem choosed the lower birth and poor him, he din't brought any blanket!!! He shievered in cold for the whole night.
And, finally we are at Jaisalmer!!!
Welcome to Jaisalmer Fort...









Hehehe... Posing for pic :D





Jaisalmer fort
Next Day Morning......
three heroes posing...
Mirchi seth ki Havelli (Sarforsh fame)