Gingee an impregnable fortress said by the great maratha leader Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is how much perfect one knows only after being there. Still it fell in many hands is really a subject of study. The heart of the fort is the wooden pool which closses all ways to capture fort was a excellent thing which i never saw anywhere in maharashtra forts. Gingee fort was under control of Shivaji maharaj in year 1677. I saw sfter going there that it has the touch of forts which came under Shivaji maharaj. There are very large rooms inside the fort even on the top which makes me feel that it was basically made for storage.
We were a group of 21 friends from IIT madras. We traveled by bus. We started early in the morning at 5.15. We took Bus from velacherry To CMBT and reached CMBT at 6.00 then from CMBT to gingee at 6.20 and reached gingee at 9.40 this goes by NH45 this was a very good road. I felt to go there once by bike. After reaching gingee we took auto to go to base of gingee fort that was a very good experience for me as we were 11 in one auto and i was half outside of the auto. It took some 5 mins to reach the base of the fort from where we can start to climb it. We had our breakfast there at a temple. And entered fort with a ticket of Rs.5. As i entered i felt it will be very different experience. Girish was saying that be with the team dont go here and there but i was thinking i m not here to go by the simple way which everybady follows i wanted to have a real experience of this treak . So from start i went everywhere my heart said. I went on the top of the room of rocks which was not having proper steps to go up still me and ramesh made it and as i saw the view from there i started thinking if i am feeling so good here at the base only then what will be the feeling at the top. Then i climbed the steps with lot of speed having breaks. After reaching some hight i used to look down and used to feel if this is so good site how it will be 30-40 feet above so again i used to start with a double speed than before. I sat on each site to store the beauty of nature from top i think these things are created only to tell you look life is how beautiful. While climbing i saw a couple of birds i was not able to know their names but afterwords i found that thoes were bird they were yellow in colour and picking small fruits from a tree. When i reached the wooden bridge about which i red before going to treak that this bridge was used to be dismenteled when somebady attacks the fort which was a very excellent idea and all other ways were to climb a 80-100 feet smooth rock vertically. I saw a tree which was growing on these rocks and its root made a very good design on the rock which i captured in camera i think that was tha picture of the trip for me. Then we went on the top. There is a temple and a light house which was half broken and two storage rooms one of which was without ceiling and another was well maintained. i first went on the top of the broken one which was the top most site in the area of about 100 km i feel. From there i went to the top of the other maintained room which was a very good site for resting and wind was flowing like it was relieving our all pain after climbing. While i was sitting there some of my friends went to light house and to go on the top of the light house i rushed down. I went there and I found that they have blocked the way to go on the top as there was a cage on the one side of the lamp house i was thinking that if that cage can be opened i will climb up to that cage and then go on the top but if was well plastered. Still my inner voice was saying you are here to go on the top of that light house after forcing of ramesh i left the idea of climbing up and went to the temple saying “hare ram hare ram ... “ then i called girish to come with the rope which he got with him but he said its a nylon rope so we left the idea of rope and i got the idea of symmetry strucked. That all things in this fort were symmetric in terms of stairs for going on the top and then i went to the opposite side of the lamp house and saw that there was no cage there and if i can make it up to there i can go by stair case on the top of the lamp house so i went holding the rock with one hand and climbing it by keeping leg in the gaps and i made it up to that open window and i was eally amazed after going up still we were not on the top of the lamp house i again went around there to see whether is there any way to go up then i found that we have to climb up this 8 feet rock wall by any means and i pushed myself up and i made it on the top of the lamp house i felt honoured to get chance to get on such a beautiful site. Then girish also made it to come on the top of the light house and i felt for a while that Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj really saw us marathas making it on the top. I told girish we should have got his camera here on the top he said store these images in your heart i really cant forget that site. Then i went down to get ramesh on the top he made it one step but he was not able to climb the 8 feet wall so i again went up with camera and took some snaps from there. Since we knew about Shivaji maharaj's gingee swari and once maharaj took this fort. We decided to give garjana for the great maratha king and girish started “Praudh pratap purandara, skshtriya kulavataunsh, rajmanya rajashree, sinvhasanadhishwara, shri shri shri chatrapati shivaji mahraj ki jai ......” i shouted jai from the bottom of my stomach(we call it benbichya dethapasun in marathi ) and then “Jai shivaji jai bhavani” i felt so proud to be born in the area of such a great king. Then we took a snap of two us there on the top. Then we came down and went to the place where all others were taking rest. Everybady had some breads and biscuits and looking at all we decided not to make other fort and just to get down and go for the food at the gingee bus stand. Before getting down we took a goup photo of all our 21 members sitting there on the top and started to get down. It took 30-35 mins to come down. Then we all sat on the grass at the base and had an idea to play kabaddi and captains were chosen by highest weights. sanjiv and sasmal made two teams one was me,girish sanjiv,nijwal, sushbhan and other team was sasmal,ramulu,shri,mandal, ramesh. We marked our ground with shoes and sandles and naresh and sharad worked as umpires 1st match started we won 2 nd 3 rd 4 th all matches were in our side finally we were the winners of the game. We left fort at 2.30 and reached gingee bus stand. Priya's uncle who lives there arranged biryani and kurma for us in a hotel. I was so hungry that i ate it like anything it was very spicy but i really liked that biryani very much not becoz i was hungry. Then we went to priya's uncle's house and got fresh for further journey then we came to bus stand and took a bus directly to guindy and from guindy to main gate of IIT . As we entered gate IIT bus came we thaught of going by bus but there was lot of rush at the same time one auto [chota hatti] was going empty he told us to get in then i felt that the end of the treak was also in a very different manner. It is the most remembered treak of my life. Thanks to god as he arranged a perfect whether for treak not raining and not even sunny.
some of the best photos of the trip are following.
