Not Summiting Bongir Fort

“I don’t think I can go on much longer”, my friend told me when we were halfway up the final ascent to the citadel of Bongir Fort. “You go on up. I will wait for you near the temple.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If you aren’t going up, I am not either.” I shot back.

Predictably, it started off the familiar game of, “in that case, I’ll come with you”, and “absolutely not. Let’s turn back.” 

It is always that way. When you are with family or friends, you are constantly trying to out-guess the other person and doing what you think they would want you do to, instead of what you really want to do. While we stood on the rock surface and argued, the sun was getting hotter, and we were getting more and more drained.

“Listen, we have absolutely no idea how much further we have to go”, I said, trying to sound reasonable. “It may be just a few meters more, or it may be much longer. Let’s just turn back.”

“I tell you what, let’s go till that turn in the rock and decide”, she told me.

“No, let’s turn back”, I insisted. I knew my friend well. She wouldn’t have even suggested turning back, unless she just couldn’t go any further.

“I have come here when I was in school. You haven’t. You go up. I will wait.”

I tried reasoning with her. Told her that I had three reasons for suggesting we make the trip- I wanted to see the famous batholith of the Deccan, I wanted to hang out with my friend, and I wanted to see the view from the top. Achieving two was more than sufficient for me. But she was not convinced. We would have stood there arguing for the next hour, if we hadn’t sighted a family of three making a descent.

“How much further to the fort?”, she asked in Telugu.

“Chala duram”, the lady replied. The two of them launched into a long discussion on how much “duram” the “chala duram” actually meant, but I was having none of it. I grabbed my friend by the arm and started walking down. “If she says ‘chala’, she means chala. We are not even attempting it.”

“But why don’t you go up. I will wait”, she began again, but this time she was speaking to a retreating back. I didn’t let up my pace, till we had climbed down 100 meters and reached a lily pond nestling in a small depression in the rock face. In admiring the stratifications in the rock face, and wondering if the lily plants had been introduced there, or if they had found their way there naturally, we forgot all about the citadel that we didn’t reach.

After talking about a hundred photographs, and giggling non stop for what seemed like forever, we made our way to the temple, and plonked ourselves in its shade. The granite rock rose in front of us. Shaped like a whale and much more massive, it towered over us. It did not require much imagination to picture the molten magma pushing its way up from the centre of the earth and solidifying into that gigantic egg shaped rock.

We pictured the awe our ancestors must have felt when they first stumbled on the batholith. We marveled the audacity of the builders who decided to perch a fort on top of the rock. We saluted the engineers who chose to construct over the rock, instead of blasting it as we now do.

As we marveled at the rock, we heard of group of women talking among themselves as they made the climb. They were beautiful in their multicoloured sarees, but when you pictured them against the backdrop of the rock face, you realized with a start exactly how massive the rock was.

At that moment, I truly appreciated the grandeur of the site. Had we climbed all the way to the top, we may not have stopped to rest where we did, and we may have missed out on what turned out to be the most memorable part of the experience.

That also encapsulated what 2020 has meant to me. This was the year before my 50th birthday, and there was a lot I intended to do this year. There were places I wanted to go, and things I wanted to experience. But the pandemic scuttled all those plans.

However, the year has also given me  a lot. It has given me time with my family. It has made me reevaluate the things that are important to me. It has taught me patience and gratitude. To accept and appreciate what I have today instead of seeking something I feel I must have. It taught me to let do, and let life take its course.

I may be back to Bongir to attempt another ascent. Or I may not. Either way, the awe I felt when I sat under the shade of the temple and stared at the rock face will not diminish. That will forever remain one of the moments when I witnessed eternity.