Day Trip to Warangal - Warangal Fort

The Kakatiyas ruled from Warangal or Orugallu as it was called then from 1083 to 1323 CE. They were Telugu rulers and ruled over a large tract of land which included the Golconda area.

The outer granite wall

The Warangal fort was their bastion and they moved here from the neighbouring Hanumakonda which was their capital earlier. The Warangal fort is rather odd as it is built on flat land and not on a hill top or water body as most other forts are.

One of the four famous Kakatiya thoranams

Ruins of the trikutalaya temple site with the four thoranams on each side

But it has three walls apparently - the first one of mud and then of granite, walls of 9 kms and 4 kms circumference, a large swayambhu trikutalaya (temples of Shiva, Surya and Vishnu existed) temple with the impressive architecture in granite and basalt with its famous thoranams, the solid Khush Mahal or Sitab Khan Mahal, an old Shiva temple which are all still there.

Anjali getting some shade under an exquisite 13 the century  sculpture

Check out the detail on granite

No trace exists of the palaces of the Kakatiya rulers.

Shobhs and Anjali are framed

The detail on the chains on the elephant is astounding

Credit is given to the Kakatiyas for bringing the Telugu speaking region together. From Rudra Deva (1158-1195) who transformed a small principality into a large kingdom and constructed the 1000 pillar temple, to Ganapati Deva his nephew who was captured and imprisoned and later became the king of the Kakatiya empire and constructed both Golconda fort and the Ramappa temple, to Rudrama Devi (1262-1289) who was an able administrator and warrior, to Pratap Rudra who extended the kingdom till Raichur until his capture and apparent suicide while being taken to Delhi by the Tughluq army.

Anjali with one of the thoranams behind her

The ruins which have been restored partly by the Archaeological Society of India

For a 13th century fort the architecture is amazing. The work on the granite and basalt is stunning. The four thoranams that stand at the site of the trikutalaya and the other pieces that are left behind show ample proof of the Kakatiya architecture and expertise. The Nandi is another great piece of work as are the elephants.

Exquisite

One of the fort's outer walls, solid as ever

Shiva temple

Nandi and an old 13th century building behind it, seemingly occupied

Another Nandi at the temple

The Ekasila (monolith) rock with old 13th century structures on it from the Khush Mahal

In fact, even the well preserved Khush Mahal shows how solid the royal architecture was so long ago.

The well preserved Khush Mahal

Entrance to the Khush Mahal a.ka. Sitab Khan Mahal

Inside the Khush Mahal

Called also the Sitab Khan Mahal after a Hindu governor of the Bahmani kings, Sitapaty, the Khush Mahal is also believed to have been constructed over the original Kakatiya palace. A visit to the Warangal fort takes up a  good two hours. Better if you have your own conveyance so you can explore a bit. Carry water, caps and shades. Well worth the trouble.

Day Trip To Warangal - The Thousand Pillar Temple

It's been on my mind for a while now. I wanted to visit Warangal and see, really see, the Thousand Pillar Temple, the Ramappa temple  (which I visited when I was very young) and the Warangal fort (which I never visited). We stayed in Hanamkonda, which is a town contiguous to Warangal, for four years in my childhood but I never made it to the fort for some reason.

Bhongir fort

Memories of the Thousand Pillar Temple were vague and old and I remember a rather uneven floor, many pillars (which we tried to count being the sceptics that we were) and a temple that needed some restoration and repair. After all it was a 1163 AD temple built during the reign of Rudradev. The Kakatiya dynasty ruled this area, including the Golconda, before the Bahmani kings took over the Golconda.

Close up of Bhongir fort

So, when we got an opportunity to go to Warangal with my sister Nalini who had some work there, we started off early in the car. We left Hyderabad at 7 and reached Warangal by 1030 or so, stopping for breakfast on the way. The roads in decent condition, toll road from Uppal to Bhongir (toll of Rs. 105 for two way), and a rather narrow single road the rest of the journey. Travelling a road that I passed by many times in my childhood I suddenly realised how much I had missed earlier. The Bhongir fort is one, sitting atop a huge hillock, one that must certainly be scaled one day. Lovely piece of work.

Town hall Hanamkonda

Then I saw a very interesting structure, the Princeton Junior College which looks like a pre-Independence structure built by the British with its dome at Jangaon.

Princeton College Jangaon

The many rocks reminding one of the rocks of Hyderabad as one reaches Kazipet, the huge round hillock at Kazipet, my old school St. Gabriel's in all its splendour, the old buildings of Hanamkonda.

St. Gabriel's ground, Kazipet

Much of Kazipet looked familiar despite the decades gone by (I stayed there during 1974-77) and I could find my way about it easily. Hanamkonda seems to have grown.

1000 pillar temple, Hanamkonda

I also detoured a moment to take a peek at the bungalow where we stayed for four years then, one that offered many childhood memories filled with Enid Blytons, cricket, mangoes, trees, swimming, friends, rocks and wide open lands.

Gate 

One face

Anyway we passed by the quaint town hall which looked like a Pre-Independence structure itself and found the thousand pillar temple. It appeared to have shrunk because I remember there being more pillars, corridors etc.

Nandi

The temple itself is a trikutalaya, with Shiva, Vishnu and Surya as the presiding deities inside. Intricate carvings on the pillars, the typical Kakatiya style of construction with heavy granite slabs, a huge basalt Nandi facing the temple, make the thousand pillar temple an awesome sight.

Anjali near an elephant sculpture

Between the three idols, only one of which is now functional, the Shiva temple, is a rangamandapa. An old pond on the outside, an old entrance mark the area of the star shaped temple. The temple itself is supposedly built on a platform which is raised 1 meter above the ground.

Ganesha

Roof

It boggles the mind to think of the weight of the structure. Apparently, the temple was so designed by the famed architects of the Kakatiya reign that one could see the deity from any point in the temple and the building near it without any pillar obstructing the vision.

Walking around the temple

Outside of the temple

The sculpture, the architecture, the sheer perfection of the work makes one wonder. What happened to such thought, such art, such dedication to work to creation? This was not just a flight of fancy, it involved detailed plans, perfect calculations and perfect execution. They do make you feel pretty small.

The way to the entrance

View from the front

Some of the 1000 pillars

Another view

Despite the heat there were quite a few visitors to the temple. We brought some prasad and headed out after spending a while in the temple and around it. From there we decided to head to the Warangal fort and see the famed toranas of the swayambhhu temple there.

Some T20 Bowling Recipes

For bowlers who are hoping to make it big in T20 formats here are some areas to work on. Bowling in T20 games is the biggest challenge and it's something that all good, skilful and big hearted bowlers would love to do. One over, can change the game, and that's how critical bowling can get in this format.

1) Learn to hold your delivery until the last moment. This comes naturally to those who fall into a good rhythm quickly and who understand the biomechanics and process of bowling, But there are far too many bowlers who merely run up and bowl and have no clue where the ball is going to land. Such bowlers need to first figure this out. Running in with more control, working on the action, release and follow through can give this control and you can soon graduate to 'pitching it in the right areas'. Once you have it, it gives you that much more control over the delivery and where it is pitching. By this you can hold yourself one second longer and improvise your length in small ways. Not the way the spinners are doing it but more like how Steyn does.

2) Swing, Cut. Swing, cut, seam are traditional weapons to bamboozle batsmen and make them uncomfortable. Whatever happens do not be predictable. Never allow them the luxury of being able to hit through the line i.e. develop some lateral movement, cut etc. Rajat Bhatia uses the leg cutter well and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar makes the ball talk at lesser pace with his unpredictable swing.

3) Change of pace. One slower one could get too predictable so its better that one has two or more variations of slower balls. Balaji is an expert at bowling those slow balls, slow bouncers and just watching him can be a revelation. England used the slow bouncers to great effect. Balaji is brilliant and so is Malinga with his slower ones.

4) Yorkers. These are key deliveries and one must be able to bowl them at will. The yorker needs more focus, more practice but its one of those weapons that may not fail you. When you have 10-15 runs to defend, yorkers, bowled well, can keep it down to singles or doubles. Pity that one does not see good yorkers any more. If I was a bowler I'd set myself to bowl 24 yorkers if I could. You cannot beat Malinga when it comes to yorkers and if there is one weapon all T20 bowlers need to develop, it is this.

5) Using the crease. Pollard is using the depth of the crease well by bowling from two yards behind. I find few bowlers changing the sides, using the width of the crease, or even bowling the odd ball from a short run up. Sammy does it once in a while.

6) Cut the angles for the batsmen. It is all about being fully aware to the batsmen and his intent. You know how most batsmen play and you must learn to cut out the angles he is looking for. Giving someone like Dhoni length balls or short balls is suicidal especially in the latter overs when he is going for it but we see so many bowlers still doing it. You may not succeed all the time but you must try to make each ball count.

7) Vary the length. If you can get enough control over your delivery and where you can pich the ball, you will know that just before the ball is delivered there is a spot you can hustle the ball into which cuts many free stroking options out for batsmen. Any batsmen. It is not really the good length, but its a restricting length that one finds based on how the batsmen is winding up. Watch Steyn and Rampaul from behind the bowling arm and mentally figure out the best length for them to bowl to restrict - 90% of the time they are in that area. This comes from knowing the correct length to bowl, lengthening or shortening it at the last moment. Again far too many bowlers bowl without really exercising enough control or thought on the area to pitch the ball and we are talking not just domestic players, we talk internationals too.

8) Create angles, wide of stumps. The lines are marked so you can go as wide of the sumps as you possibly can, which could cut out angles for some more batsmen. Create new angles from between both creases. Surely you can surprise the batsmen for that one crucial delivery if you work enough on that.

9) Experiment with new deliveries. Years ago when I read Dennis Lillee's 'Art of Fast Bowling' I was astounded at the number of variations he mentioned in that book. He had a slew of slower ones - knuckle ball, one finder ball, ball held deep in the palm, back of the hand leg spinner - and so much more. Obviously even in those days, for someone who was known to be a tearaway fast bowler, Lillee worked on ways to deceive the batsmen. Bowlers need to work on the same.

10) Keep your head. At all points don't go in with fixed ideas. The basics will normally work. What you can do well and what you have practiced will certainly work. But don't always think you can bowl six yorkers, six slower ones, six bouncers or six length balls. Flow with the tide and keep your best options open till the last moment. Don't lose your head if one ball or more gets hit out. Even after getting hit for three sixes, you can come back with three dot balls if you keep your head. Again this is something that gets better with practice and experience. Breathe, clear your head and decide to come back stronger.

The Foreigner - Arun Joshi

Arun Joshi was born in 1939, has a Masters degree in Management from the M.I.T., wrote five novels and short stories and was selected for the Sahitya Academy Award. He is considered an author of rare sensitivity and talent. If friend Vinod had not discovered him, I would never have known of him. Which would have been a pity because 'The Foreigner' is an exceptional tale that stands good even today and will stand the test of time for a long time to come. It is a tale of love. And as with all tales of love, it is also about betrayal, hate, jealousy and retribution.

The protagonist Surender Oberoi (a.k.a. the foreigner) is slippery and rationalises himself out of all situations and commitments. He cannot get involved, believes in detachment. Having no family of his own and no real beliefs or joy or sorrow, he is a loose end and has no moorings and perhaps no purpose, but for his academics. Sindi as he is called, is an Indian who was brought up by his uncle in Kenya after his parents' death, and then moves to London where he has a series of intense relationships that leave him drained. Just when he does not have any more stomach for relationships he finds June, a pretty young American girl, and there begins another intense relationship that he tries to stifle with his detachment. After he rejects her or manipulates himself out of the relationship June gets into a relationship with Babu Khemka, a naive young Indian who comes from a rich family in Delhi and is controlled by his domineering father from Delhi. But Babu wants to be free and experiment and he dives headlong into love not knowing that it can cause pain too. The story begins with the shocking news of Babu's death and the derailment of Sindi's life after that event - and ends in Delhi where Sindi opts to live. All the reasons why people fall in love - escape for Babu, a sense of purpose and meaning for her life for June and Sindi's own fear of the most sublime of emotions - comes across.

It is a book that says much and one could perhaps gain more by reading it again as Arun Joshi packs it with thought, human sensibility and a lot of honesty. His style is direct and he gets right to the point. But where he really scores is in getting to the innermost emotions of people which is why his slippery character Sindi can be easily identified by all of us. Just as Sindi thinks he is a foreigner to every place, one who belongs to no one and no where, somewhere deep down we all feel that I suppose. It is resolved well too. Again, just as I felt with another writer whose writing was a bit similar, one of this generation, Musharraf Ali Farooqi, I found Arun Joshi's book taking me on a visual journey and by the end of it, I felt as if I had seen the entire movie, scene by scene. The books of Arun Joshi, Vinod says, are difficult to acquire, as they are out of print and he acquired this one in his used books market at Abids, but if you can get your hands on it, do read it. It is as good as any English fiction writing you can get from Indian writers and shows far more depth, style and sensitivity than so many who are so much better known and hyped in India. Reminds me of Murakami slightly though I don't know why.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Movie Review

This one is an adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel of the same name. Reading the synopsis of the movie after watching the movie I realised that the movie left me with a totally different understanding of the story.

The 1988 movie (as I understood it) revolves around a surgeon in Prague in the 60s. The surgeon is an intellectual, an artist and a womaniser too. Women are drawn to him and he sleeps with them. He believes that sex and love are different. Anyway he marries a rather staid woman that he meets in some rural hospital but continues his philanderings. The wife is unhappy - she has not such liberal views on sex - rather has opposite views on the same. Enter an artist girlfriend of the surgeon who has her own philiosophies and lives life in the manner that the surgeon does. She finds a staid man too (opposites attract) and snares him out of his marriage and when he leaves his wife, leaves him. After the Russian invasion of Prague the surgeon and wife go to Geneva where she finds some artistic inclinations and the artistic girlfriend of the surgeon. Unhappy again, surgeon's wife returns to Prague and the husband follows. Now they have a dog too. The get menial jobs in Russian occupied Prague. The wife also tries her hand at being 'light' and ends up having an affair which she probably does not enjoy that much. Then they all move to the country because she cannot stand being in Prague and eventually die in a car accident.

The book apparently looked at 'Lightness of Being' is about living the one life we have to the fullest without any regrets and guilt and heavy thought of after life and repentance and hell. So the surgeon is light and the girlfriend too and the others are trying in many ways to be. Anyway it was not a light viewing for me and I somehow thought that the story was not told well through the movie. Obviously there was far more to those characters than merely sleeping around - and it was that element to them that did not come through. For some reason it is critically acclaimed. Apparently the writer was not too happy with the way the movie came out. I guess with some good reason.

What Are The Coaches Doing?

What are so many coaches doing in the IPL with such large support staff? If that were not enough we have mentors and other experts as well. I have an issue with so many people advising the team because then nobody has a clear responsibility.

In fact I think that a coach at best, with his support staff, should be more than enough if one does not have a captain who can handle the strategy part. Shane Warne did a wonderful job as captain, coach and mentor for Rajasthan Royals. It makes sense because one individual takes the call, follows his procedures and establishes communication lines with the players. The line of authority, communication is clear and avoids all confusion and duplication.

My issue is this - the man out there is the captain of the side and he has to take the calls. But you undermine his authority by having a coach who, in my opinion should play the mentor and advisor role, and not get too involved in day to day strategy. At best he ought to have an advisory / support role and allow the captain and vice captain to take the decisions. What I see are too many captains who have almost no say in the proceedings and too many advisors who may give conflicting advise.

One of the biggest jobs of the Coach would be to develop and empower captains. Let the captain take the decisions and the ownership on the field. All strategy on field must be done before hand and at best some new inputs may be given during breaks etc.

As for the large coaching contingents I would like to see the coaching staff do a lot more of stuff that I do not see them doing. For example getting bowlers to bowl yorkers! After yesterday's game against the Sunrisers Hyderabad MSD mentioned how his bowlers seem to have forgotten the art of bowling yorkers. In fact it is not a malaise that only CSK suffers from - almost all other team suffer from the same problem. Save Lasith Malinga I cannot think of many other bowlers who can bowl yorkers at death. In fact I would ant two bowlers who can bowl 8 yorkers on the spot in 12 balls each in the last 4 overs. Yorkers are a practiced skill and the more you bowl the better you get. The fact that even Steyn forgot to bowl yorkers to Dhoni is indicative of something falling short in that department.

If Malinga can bowl yorkers at will it's because he practiced them to perfection. Cannot these bowling coaches teach their internationals to bowl yorkers, slower ones and other variations as the game demands? How come half the bowlers do not even bowl line and length and are all over the place? What's the coaching staff doing?

To think that the only innovation I have seen in this IPL has been the Pollard ball, which he delivers from two steps behind the bowling crease, is a shame. And that is an old trick that bowlers used in the fifties too. So what is new? Rarely have I seen bowlers change the angle by using both width and depth of the crease. Rarely have there been exhilarating spells of bowling save those from Sunil Narine, Steyn or Mishra. 

To me it's pretty simple. You cannot have so many Coaches unless they are adding clear value. If you have expertise then use it. It must show on the performances. if it's not then get rid of the Coaches and let  the players figure it out by themselves.

Between Clay and Dust - Musharraf Ali Farooqi

This is a classic too. Rarely does one come across a story that is told with such brevity, such clarity and such purpose. Musharraf Ali Farooqi impresses right away with his sparse and direct tone, the short chapters that do not go beyond 4-5 pages and no unnecessary flourishes in the language. A story must be told and nothing compromises that in 'Between Clay and Dust' and it is this feature that I loved about his work the most. It is very visual too and makes you see and smell the story as it moves along at a rapid pace. Another thing that I really liked was the way his characters rise above the ordinary, despite their ordinariness, and show glimpses of how our lives could be too if we gave in to that part of us. In these times when we celebrate mediocrity, such high paths and thought are rare, welcome and must be celebrated.

Aleph Books, 213 p, Rs. 450

It is the story of champion wrestlers. Ustad Ramzi is the title holder of Ustad-e-Zaman. He is proud and devoted to the art, and keeps it going in the traditions he was taught and beliefs he was brought up on. But he is now old and needs a successor to defend the title and also take over the akhara's management. His brother Tamami is a strong wrestler but of the newer generation, not so much driven by the passion to the art as much as the vanity of being the title holder. But his older brother does not relinquish the title in his favour, sensing the immaturity and irresponsibility of his younger brother. Tamami craves for his older brother's, his hero's, approval but gets none. In his life devoted to wrestling Ustad Ramzi never marries and in his older and lonelier years finds solace in the music of Gohar Jan and her kotha. She, in return finds a sense of purpose that wears off from the older, brooding and purposeful Ramzi. As the frenzy increases from challenges to the brothers, fixed fights, Tamami's rise to fame and infamy, his sinking into drugs and the old Ustad's uncompromising values the story takes us through human strength and fallibility, love and hate in their weird shades, but mostly of lives lived and lost with passion.

There were a couple of moments in the book when I thought Farooqi could have turned its course and made it something much bigger. A fight between Tamami (who is built up so well as a prize fighter) and their natural enemies, that could have killed all the demons between him and his older brother, perhaps a moment of truth between the lonely Gohar Jan and Ustad Ramzi that could have given them both some peace, would have raised it all towards the climax into something of epic proportions. Even Malka goes away without any resolution - too many similarities between Ustad Ramzi and Tamami's relationship with Gohar Jan and Malka's to let go so easily. Perhaps that's just the filmy type in me that craves such endings but I suddenly felt cheated at the way Tamami recedes when there was so much potential. But then, all stories need not resolve themselves happily and there are mistakes to be made and lessons to be learned.

It's a brilliant book. It's a story well told. After so long have I read a book that leaves you with the same feelings as perhaps a great movie does, it's that good in its story telling and clarity. There is never any confusion about what happened and to whom and why and where unlike most books where you don't remember the who, why, what, where and how and all you are left with is beautifully written prose. I suspect that the story will remain in its pristine clarity in my mind for eternity. I loved it for more than one reason. It's in a way sports fiction too, which makes it even more fascinating. Farooqi's descriptions of the wrestling bouts are picture perfect and take you right into the akhara, into the clay and dust, the sweat and fear, so good is he. And it's such a quick and pleasurable read that you can do it all in four or five hours. Do read it.