Archive for the ‘Know India’ Category

Ooty is presently one of the most popular hill stations in South India. For all those who want to beat the heat, this Queen of Hill Stations stands with extended arms to gift all with a very memorable vacation. A trip to Ooty is coveted not just by mountain lovers but all those who seek few moments of solitude away from the hustle and bustle of city life in the lap of mesmerizing nature.
How To reach Ooty
Coimbatore, 105 km from Ooty, is the nearest airport. Indian Airlines has flight to Coimbatore from Bangalore, Cochin and Chennai. The Blue Mountain Express to Ooty is from Mettupalayam (47 km). All the important towns of Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka are connected to Ooty by road. We would provide you all India tourist permit vehicles for the local transportations and also for the intercity drives too.
Places In Ooty
Government Botanical Garden
Located almost within the city limit of Ooty is a must visit place of Ooty. Try to spend more time here. Click here to visit Details of Government Botanical Garden at Ooty .
Kotagiri
East of Ooty, is a little village of kotagiri, which is about 28km from the popular hill station. Kotagiri is the oldest one of the three hill stations in the Nilgiris. It is not as popular as the other two, Ooty and Coonoor, yet it is said that it probably has the most pleasant weather among the three of them. It is a beautiful hill resort that has wonderful tea estates and is definitely worth a visit.
Kalhatty Waterfalls
The beautiful Kolhatty waterfalls are about 100 feet in height and are located on the kalhatty slopes. The falls are about 13kms from the city, so anyone on a tour of Ooty can easily check out the falls and the beautiful area surrounding it. Besides, obviously looking at the waterfalls, you can explore the kalhatty-Masinagudi slopes, that are home to many wild species, including panthers, sambhar, bison and wild buffaloes.
Centenary Rose Garden
This is a rose garden with more than 2500 varieties of roses. Click here to visit Details of Rose garden and photo gallery.
Government Museum
There are many tribal objects and items of use and crafts of Tamil Nadu are displayed here. This museum is located at the Mysore road.
Doddabetta Peak
At a hight of 2623 meters above sea level, this is the highest peak of Nilgiris hills and it is the junction of the Western and Estern Ghats. It is located at a distance of 13 Kms from Ooty.

Mahabaleshwar is also home to some remarkable temples and you will come across Krishna and Mahabaleshwar temple here. There is also a black stone, which is a little distance from the other temples and holds a venerated place among the locals and the pilgrim tourists frequenting this place. Mahabaleshwar has a fine network of motorable roads and you can enjoy a scenic ride of the most fascinating landscape in and around the place. Besides, an excursion from Mahabaleshwar would take you to Panchgani which is a picturesque spot offering breathtaking natural beauty. Dotted by the casuarinas and silver oak groves, it is an ideal base for indulging in the trekking and hiking activities. The region is also known for many fruit processing units. Strawberry farming is one of the most widespread occupations of the local villagers here. You can step into any of the strawberry farms you pass by while on your drive or trek, and have a look at the farmers picking fresh strawberries from the gardens.

For the tourists there excellent lodging options are available in the bungalows and cottages, apart from a large number of luxury and budget hotels. The accommodations are elegantly furnished and you can relax and expect the homely services here. Fountain Hotel, Brightland Holiday Village, Hotel Anarkali, Hotel Dreamland, Hotel Panorama and Strawberry Country Resort are a few of the notable hotels here. Mahabaleshwar is accessible by the air, rail and road transport. The nearest airport and railway station is Pune and Mahabaleshwar can be reached by road transport quite conveniently from Pune.

The Jantar Mantar was built in 1710 by Raja Jai Singh II of Jaipur (1699-1743) in Delhi. This is an observatory consisting of mason-built astronomical instruments to chart the course of the heavens. Jai Singh, who was a very scholarly king with a very keen interest in astronomy and astrology, had other observatories built too – in Ujjain, Jaipur, Mathura (which no longer survives) and Varanasi.

The first among these was this one in Delhi. The yantras (instruments, which has been distorted to Jantar) are built of brick rubble and plastered with lime. The yantras have evocative names like, samrat yantra, jai prakash, ram yantra and niyati chakra; each of which are used to for various astronomical calculations.

It seems that even when he was far from being a king Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq had dreamed of raising his city, Tughlaqabad. Earlier, Ghiyas-ud-din had been a general (he rose to being the governor of an important province like Punjab, but that’s another story) in Ala-ud-din Khalji’s army. Once while on the road with Ala-ud-din, Ghiyas-ud-din, on spotting this area, mentioned to the sultan what an ideal setting it seemed to provide for a new city. Upon this the king indulgently (and, knowing Ala-ud-din, also perhaps patronizingly) replied, ‘When you become king, build it.’ Knowing full well, as every boss, that while he was around there was not a shadow of a chance of anyone else taking his place. After the death of Ala-ud-din various events conspired to put the general on the throne at last. Then he fulfilled his long-cherished dream.

Romanticism apart, Tughlaqabad also made perfect strategic sense. Those were the times the Mongols were a real menace to society and generally a pain in the neck for all the sultans of the Delhi Sultanate. Almost everything that the sultans built was aimed baffling the Mongols with sheer structural magnificence (read somewhere to duck in and hope for the best).

Tughlaqabad fort, situated as it was on high rocky ground, was ideally located to withstand sieges. Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq helped matters along by putting up formidable walls which, though short on aesthetic value, are excellent examples of solid unimaginative masonry and not the type that any invading army could hope to scale in a hurry. Tughlaq put ramparts towering at heights of anywhere between 9m (30ft) to 15.2m (50ft), and rising up to 29.8m (98ft) around the citadel, between himself and the Mongols.

The fort is half-hexagonal in shape and Ghiyas-ud-din seems to have built defenses around and in it till he was blue in the face. The outer walls are built around the silhouette of the surrounding land and, what with their height and width, add formidably to the natural barriers. They were also well defended. On the north, east and west sides it is protected by trenches that go far down, and in the south a lake acts sentinel.

¤ Humayun- The Mughal Emperor Costructed The Fort

When the second Mughal emperor Humayun decided to make a city of his own he decided on the site of the ancient city of Indraprastha. Humayun was quite a scholar with a fine grasp on such matters and so it is certain that the site was chosen deliberately. When his Sher Shah Suri overthrew him, he destroyed most of Dinpanah (refuge of the faithful) as the city of Humayun was called to make way for his own Dilli Sher Shahi or Shergarh. Incidentally, Humayun was probably the only emperor in history who built a city in Delhi and did not give it his own name – this was typical of Humayun’s rather sophisticated and dreamy character. The Layout of The Massive Colossal.

In plan the Old fort, now simply called Purana Qila by Delhites, is irregularly orbital. The walls of the immense Qila tower down on the road that takes one to Pragati Maidan from the height of 18m, and run on for about 2km. It has three main gates – the Humayun darwaza, Talaqi darwaza and Bara darwaza (which one uses to enter the fort today). The double-storeyed gates are quite huge and are built with red sandstone. of all the gates entry was forbidden from Talaqi (forbidden) darwaza, the northern gate. It is not clear why this was so. Other Attractions of The Fort.
 
Sher Shah Suri and his successor could not complete the city, and when Humayun defeated Sher Shah’s son to take back his city, he did not deal with Dilli Sher shahi as the latter had done with Dinpanah. In fact the Mughal emperor very handsomely completed the city and even used several of the buildings like the Sher Mandal, a rather pretty two-storeyed octagonal building. Humayun used this as his library and, then tripped to his death from its steps.

Built during the reign of Shah Jahan, the Lal Qila (or Red Fort) has been a mute witness to innumerable conspiracies, scandals, battles….. Completed in a span of nine years, it cost about ten million rupees , with about half the sum going towards the building of palaces.

The fort is octagonal in shape, like most Islamic buildings in India. The north of the fort is connected to the smaller Salimgarh fort. The Red Fort is an intimidating structure. It measures 900m by 550m, with its rampart walls covering a perimeter of 2.41km. It towers at a height of 33.5m. On the outside, you can still see the moat that was originally connected with the Yamuna River.

Besides the Lahori Gate, the entry point is the Hathipol (elephant gate), where the king and his visitors would dismount from their elephants. The other major attractions of the Red Fort are the Mumtaz Mahal, the Rang Mahal, the Khas Mahal, the Diwan-i-Am, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Hamam and the Shah Burj.

Every year, on the 15th of August, the National Flag of India is hoisted at the Red Fort by the Prime Minister , celebrating India’s independence.

The Khirkee mosque was built by Khan-i-jahan Junan Shah the prime minister of Feroze Shah Tughlaq in 1380. The mosque gets its name from its exquisite windows or khirkees.

Gordon Risley Hearn in his The Seven Cities of Delhi (1906) after describing the mosque as ‘a very fine one’ says:
In plan it is square and within the encircling wall there is a colonnade; but the interior, instead of being left open, as other mosques of the time were, has arcades in the shape of a cross; four courts are thus left open… the windows in the outer walls are closed by heavy sand stone grilles… (the) mosque is well worthy of inspection…

The Great Interior Work

The inner courtyards, which attracted the attention of Hearn, are indeed very fascinating for an architecture and history student. Two covered passages go across it and intersect each other, bang in the middle, at right angles and so the courtyard is divided into four squares. The roof is supported by massive monolithic columns, which were typical of this period. The gateways and prayer niche are flanked by sloping towers.

Near the Red Fort about 500m away is the Jama masjid, the biggest mosque in India. It was begun by Shah Jahan in 1650 and completed six years later and the whole cost about a million rupees. It is hard to imagine a building more suited to evoking the awe of the majesty of Allah in man. The mosque stands on a rocky elevation. Its huge gateway looks down at you like fastidious connoisseur from an immense platform which has steps that lead up to it.

Constructed in Sandstone and white marble, Jama Masjid can be entered from both the directions – North and the South Gates. The eastern gateway is supposed to remain open in Friday and was used by the emperor himself. Jama Masjid is cluttered by devotees who offer namaz, especially during Muslim Festival. For those who don’t belong to non – Muslim community, a specified time is mentioned to enter the mosque.

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