Saturday, November 26, 2016

Daulatabad Fort-This 12th Century fort was perhaps one of the most fortified forts in India

Daulatabad Fort
Daulatabad Fort is located around 16km from Aurangabad in Maharashtra, India. Daulatabad, known as Devgiri then, was built in the 12th Century AD by Yadava King of Bhillama V.

Devgiri  was taken over by Allauddin Khilji in 1226 AD followed by Sultan. Mohammed Bin-Tughlak who moved his capital from Delhi to Devgiri in In 1327 AD and named Devgiri, Daulatabad, the City of Fortune.

This fort was very well fortified. It had triple rows of walls surrounding it. One could reach the top only through a narrow bridge.

Surrounding the fort was a moat filled with water and crocodiles. On the way to the top, there is a very aptly named cave called Andheri, One can’t see a thing because it is pitch dark; once inside the cave it is rather difficult to make out anything. Thus must have been extremely confusing for the enemy. Even if someone were to stumble out of the cave, they would be easy target, and would get killed or fall from the many openings on the walls into the moat.

Some of these strong defence systems made it very difficult to capture this fort.

Some of the key landmark structures inside the Fort are, the 70 m high Chand Minar, Chini Mahal (it is now merely a dilapidated structure but must have been beautiful then), and  Mendha Tope which is one of the largest pieces of artillery inside the Daulatabad Fort.

Entry to Daulatabad


Canons at Daulatabad


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Fort walls


On the way to the top
A carving on the wall


Interesting way to store and keep water cool
View of Chand Minar


More stairs
An old temple inside the fort


Chand Minar


View from the temple


Inside of a temple
Chini Mahal


View from the top
Mendha Tope


Outside walls



Moat around the fort


Entrance to Andheri
Andheri cave




Bats inside the cave
Ah! some light finally


Steps leading to the top of the fort
Chand Minar


A portion of the minar is getting renovated



An old step well near the entrance of the Fort (it was getting renovated)


Must have been a nice carving
Daulatabad Fort


Sunday, November 6, 2016

Popular South Kolkata Durga puja pictures

This post has some of the popular and unique Durga pujas from South Kolkata. I am sharing just a few representative snapshots from each of these puja pandals.

These pictures do not do justice, each and every one of these pandals have so much more detail, it would take many more posts to cover all these in detail…and by then the next year’s Durga puja would have arrived....

These Durga idols are from Kasba, Deshapriya park, Rashbehari avenue, and Kalighat areas of South Kolkata.




















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