03-Jan-08

04:30hrs  - After a quick jog,  as I stand at the APSRTC bus stand in Tarnaka, I’m reminded of the two years I effectively wasted preparing for the IITs. This was the place where my brother and I used to board the bus to reach Vidyanagar for the morning classes. Every day spent trying to learn concepts with no real implication on my life. Losing sleep over Irodov, Resnick and Halliday, Sarin and Sarin just to win that extra mark in an examination given by the so called ‘Cream academia’ of India. I was running a race, a marathon in fact and suddenly somewhere at the fag end, I realise I was blindfolded and was only following the bandwagon. A honk of the 3k gets me back to my senses and I hop into the bus. Waking up early and getting things on the string is no more an issue. That’s the only thing I guess I’ve learned from two years of IIT preparation. And I’ve no regrets!

I hop down at Vidyanagar and lurch to the other side of the road. I pay the idly vendor ten bucks for a plate of steaming Idlies. In the frosty wind as I gobble the hot idlies  and wait for Abhishek, I  try to do some stats to see the average amount the vendor could be earning each day. Looking at the crowd that his roadside shop was pulling  that early in the morning there’s no second guess to the profits he was making!

Abhi joins me in a couple of minutes and we ride down to JNTU where the remaining folks had been waiting. By 06:30hrs almost every one arrives. 10 bikes [ Animesh and Sujanya on a Discover, Dhana and Jiddu on an Apache, Sunil and Majid on a Thunderbird, Vishnu and Jeevitha on a Pulsar, Deepthi and Loknath on an Avenger, Riyaz and Swathi on another Thunderbird, Jemshed and Sadique on an Avenger, Phani and Prasanna on a 200cc Pulsar, Amol and Ranjit on another Pulsar, Abhi and I on the Unicorn ] finally rev up from BHEL and head towards Bidar. We have a brief stop over at a filling station about 40 minutes into the ride and then head directly to the destination. Roads for the most part of it are tarred and you have a comfortable ride almost all through the complete stretch.

We reach the Bidar city outskirts by around 10:00 hrs. We first head to the Choubara [ Watch tower ] and from there proceed to the Mehmood Gawan Madarsa. Just as many of the monuments in Bidar, the madarsa is now ASI protected. Not much remains of the building, but what is left by itself outrageously talks of the historical prominence. Classes are still conducted in a section of the Madarsa that faces the road. We then head to the Bidar fort. Purported to date back to the 8th century this massive fort, now in ruins still has an aura of power emanating from its barren grounds. With not many visitors in this area , You feel totally lost and at the same time surprisingly comfortable walking along the Burjs. A museum in the fort contours maintained exceptionally well by the government boasts of the history and the life of the Bahamanian people and their ancestors. Gardens are maintain beautifully well in complete persian style and they don’t charge you a dime for entrance! Hats off to the ASI!

After exploring a few more areas of the fort we head to the Guru Nanak Jhira Gurudwara. We spend some quality time here by the Amrit Khund after a decent lunch at the langar [free kitchen] and then head to the Narasimha Zarna temple. This is believed to be the only Narsimha temple in south India and one is supposed to wade through 350mts of chest deep water in a cave infested with harmless bats and cockroaches  to reach the sanctum sanctorum :-) . Though quite a few arrangements like lighting and air duct ventilation has been provided, there’s still scope for a lot of development here. The entrance to the temple is badly maintained and very little care has been taken to keep it clean. With no regulation really in place and the huge crowd coming, it’s a pity a place of worship such as this is in such a bad state of affairs.

We leave from Bidar at about 16:20 hrs targetting to reach the Hyderabad city outskirts at least by 6:30pm. An awesome ride with the speedometer notching 100kmph at times on the highway and the thrill of riding in a group gets us to the city skirts  BHEL by around 19:00hrs. It’s close to 21:00hrs by the time I reach home. Close to 320 kms on the bike, heavy traffic once in the city limits finally takes its toll and I crash on the bed, the moment I reach home and have dinner.

Photos courtesy: Animesh Kumar Hazra - [http://picasaweb.google.com/trulyani/Bidar#]

Interesting links on Bidar

  • The Tribune
  • Kaladarshana