Krishnagiri
Weaving through our clothes, the gentle wind caresses our exhausted bodies like a loved one would after a day of hard work. But our brief romance is interrupted by the bellows of the chaperone ordering us to set up camp. A solitary street light stands guard like an old, helpless watchman at the entrance of the hill area. A dulled, ochre gate beneath it, with ancient wounds of rust and metal, is kissed by dewdrops all over. It does not yield to our efforts to open it. The streetlight highlights my companions' faces as we heave our cycles over the gate. Their weary faces drip like leaky faucets. Sweat twists and curls down their shirts, forming continents and islands. Our accompanying car’s boot swings open with a small click and some cyclists groan their way over to empty it. A two-layer tarpaulin, patched like an unplanned Lego structure, is unrolled. Some of the lazier cyclists sit there, animated in their conversation before the chaperone ambushes them and they separate like a flock of pigeons.
The sounds of passing cars roll into my ears and recede like drum beats while chirping crickets accompany them with their high-pitched symphony. Chiming in, the wind whispers a soothing melody into my ear. And then, all sounds give way for a moment of deafening silence, a beautiful counterweight to the mellifluous sounds that preceded and will follow it. The sounds bait and lure my mind away from my body before it is dragged back by the icy, knifing air that I breathe, spreading its chill fingers gently down my chest to my abdomen, which results in my body shuddering to fight off the cold. It leaves behind a trail of goosebumps, rising like summoned soldiers, raising their hair-like spears upright.
Our guide points his weathered hands towards the stars. He focuses on the group of the brightest ones, as they sit like members of a council, their intensities signifying their wisdom. He forms a perpendicular with his hand like a veteran sailor and shows us the secrets that the stars hide within themselves. The moon watches the council from afar. Even with half her face obscured, she is the lighthouse of the dark, all-consuming sky. No star dares to stay close to her, afraid of her powerful beauty. They reside in the periphery of her shine, blinking like shy, distant admirers or jilted stalkers. The dark void is the silent background to this celestial activity. The sky is a canvas of a higher power; the stars, his ink. At times, misty, white-grey-tinged clouds slowly sail their way across.
Stretched out in front of us, was the path leading to the fort. Its rough, ragged form, with sharp edges of rock jutting out, warned us of the hidden dangers of the journey ahead. It laid before us the possibilities of twisted ankles and devious stumbles, before blending into obscurity. Beside it, stiff green blades resist and refuse to surrender to the wind, standing upright and hostile. On both sides, blocks of stones, around a metre high, sides like jagged, steep cliffs, snuggled fit together like guards around a campfire. They cover themselves with the cloak of darkness, only their obsidian-grey faces peeking through giving them away. Beyond the two walls were acres of darkness gently blending with the sky. A few dying trees were sprinkled around, their branches like emaciated fingers, begging the skies for a drop of water, while the stars twinkle and shine in their conversation.
The path meshes seamlessly with the dark figure of the hill. He looms over all like a shadow. He gazes over his kingdom, his acres of darkness. Far away, he glances at both his brothers Rajagiri and Chandrayandurg, each with their feudal territory, each crowned with their own fort. Krishnagiri’s invisible eyes command me to pay my respects. A palely lit staircase snakes its way up to the top. The hill is a humongous pile of boulders as if some celestial power sprinkled some dust from his divine hand and formed the impregnable trio of hills. History is slabbered all over the fort. The scarred bricks sing ballads of attacks repelled, its towers narrate the lives of the common folk of the past, and its cracked roofs grieve over a glorious past. Their anger vibrates with the wind, once a coveted jewel of the south, now a mere tourist spot. Like an old soldier battered and forgotten after his campaign of glory, Krishnagiri rests unsatisfied and sullen, his black-brown boulders reflecting his mood. Now, his boulders barely stay on him as they acquire calcium-white shades of age. “8 years!”, he screams, “For 8 years I defended a siege against the Mughals.” But his appeal falls short on youngsters engraving their initials on his base. Defeated, Krishnagiri sleeps.