This is
one of those trips that I will remember for a very long time.
It was a
kind of reunion of our group, since many of my friends were visiting NCR. We
had invited our Matke friends (gay kumar,jat artist ,lays king and chutiya
coder) from Roorkee. Ambani, the other
Ambani (Another friend of mine who has excellent business acumen),bakar,Bopal
and Tappa also came to gurgaon .The overall head count that day at our humble abode was 12 including
me,chutiya chaudhary and Mikesh bhaiya. We had
5 cars and one bike at our place that day. It was a good day :)
It was
decided that we are going to bhangarh fort in the middle of the night to see
what's all the fuss about. It was as
usual an idea created and manifested by
chutiya chaudhary . Just to give you all some perspective, Bhagarh fort
Is declared haunted by the Indian archaeological department and it is illegal
to enter Bhangarh fort after 6 pm. For more information refer to the link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangarh_Fort
Since we had 5
cars at our home that particular day we had to choose which ones to take. Tappa had brought his eco sports ,ambani
had brought his Vento so naturally these two cars were the obvious choices for
the trip. The third car that we decided to take was Mikesh Bhaiya's Accent. The
accent was old, not serviced and didn't have any Stepney. It was decided that
we won't risk going to a strange place without a spare stepney. So we measured
the diameter of the tyre using our hands and matched it to the spare stepney of the other two cars. We somehow settled for a match and took that stepney (so much for being
pseudo mechanical engineers). After gambling with our lives over a stepney we headed for bhangarh.
Now the
finalized sitting arrangement in the cars was such that Chutiya chaudhary, Bopal, Mikesh
Bhiya and me were travelling in the accent. The worst possible combination of
chutiyas in the car that was in the worst condition. The highway to the check post that leads to bhangarh was in very good condition
and it took us just 4-5 hours to reach the spot . The cut that leads to bhangarh on the gurgaon Jaipur had a police check
post . None of the cars we were travelling in had a valid pollution
certificate. The police after fining (bribed them) us tried to startle and
scare us that it is not advisable to go this way during the night and refused
to let us pass that post. Rest of my friends were slightly perplexed and were of the view that
we should go straight to Jaipur and skip this mad idea of bhangarh fort. Since
we also didn’t have any other alternative, we also budged and started heading
in Jaipur's direction.
But we
four in the accent were dejected that we missed a lifetime opportunity. One of
us still had bhangarh fort marked as the destination in our google map app and
bless the maps we found an alternative way. Quoting Mr. Robert Frost it was like "The Road not taken" kind of a road literally. We
called everyone and Tappa and Ambani were ready like always and reluctantly everyone else followed.
Now the
fun begins, its middle of the night, we are reading an article about all the
creepy history of bhangarh fort, the
road is just wide enough for one car,there is no way to turnaround and our
car lamps were the only light on the road. Our car was the leading the cavalry and we couldn't help but wonder that this can be
perfect place for looters .We still
persisted on and after some time out of nowhere
in the middle of the road I saw an excited porcupine. I had never seen a
porcupine and at the center of the road from nowhere came an excited one with
all its fangs like pointy things excited. Mikesh bhaiya was driving and then
there was a literal hard stop. All of us had increased pulse rate and sweaty hands.
We stopped to catch our breaths and with increased adrenalin and excitement moved ahead. It was not long before the mobile signal also left us, it was just the GPS now. After moving some more we
suddenly came across a big city door like structure( it looked like a small
abandoned India gate). The weird part was that there was this city gate but with no city behind it (real
spooky na). We had some more increase in pulse and some more sweating and some general expression of astonishment and fear and panic but rest was good.
We
reached Bahngarh fort after some time and as expected the gate was closed, we
tried to wake the guard, bribe him but they didn’t budge (strange na, we
offered them 1000 bucks to let us in). Dejected we tried some other way to get
in. The fort has 12 feets high boundary walls
but luckily or unluckily there was a small step between the two walls (6
feets each), not more than 3 inches wide to place the foot. We some how climbed
by pushing and pulling each other, I have to admit we might have scratched our
hands from a couple of places. Lays king was adamant that we were walking into something stupid and after repeated incitement on how phattu he was and why he was not climbing after getting so far. His response was simple and clear "haan manin hoon phuddu and hoon chutiya jo raat ko 2 baje random fort ki deewar chadh raha hoon jahaan jaana illegal hai". I think he had a point there but nevertheless it didn't stop us.
Tappa,
the other ambani, gay kumar, lays king and the jat artist were not interested
to climb up the wall and decided to leave for Jaipur . The rest of us some how
climbed up the fort wall. To our amazement the boundary wall was at least 5
feet wide. We decided to take a tour around the wall and saw many posts like
structure around the boundary wall that seemed to be intended as battle station
post for archers and guards. They all had a small temple in them and it seemed
that there we no shrines in those temples, there were traces of pooja done
there ,some agarbatti's were lying there but no shrines in those temples. We
later read that there were no shrines in the Bhangarh, when ever they tried to
put one, it never stayed and miraculously always fell down or was stolen.
Walking
on top of the boundary wall we flashed our phone light in the area surrounding
the wall, it was all jungle and for one second I saw some reflection back, then
again and then again. It was again the sweaty hands and increased heartbeat but
I think they were some wild animals. Then we started to listen howling voices
from no where and after some panic and some weird feeling in the stomach we realized that it was just the guards trying
to scare us off(very silly of them). Once we realized that it was all OK ,we
decided to walk beyond the other side of
the wall (Game of thrones style). We found some stairs and walked down, Me
mikesh bhaiya, chutiya chaudhary,chutiya coder,ambani and bopal were again in the toli and I
think we might have walked around 200 meters from the wall when I think I heard
something moving AND after some time something again. The expression was GAAAAAANNDDDD
Phat gayi and BHAGOO. It was some more sweating and more increased heart beat definite panic.
We
decided to head back to jaipur immediately and this time Chutiya chaudhary and
I were in a different car than Mikesh bhaiya and bopal to balance the
chutiyapa. There was limited signal connectivity at bhangarh fort and the route
to jaipur planned on my phone. After traveling for 10 minutes we lost the
telephone signal and it was all up to the GPS.
Now I
don’t know the exact algorithm how this google maps work(only google and
bhagwaan knows) but it took us from a boulevard kind of a road to byroad kind
of a road and then to something that no longer be called a road. We were stuck
on the road and the road ahead was too narrow for the car. Ambani and Mikesh
bhaiya had to drive the car in the back gear for about 2km to reach the point where we could go to a
broader road to get on the highway.Damn Ambani is a good driver
Rest of
the journey to jaipur was slow due to heavy fog. We reached Jaipur in the
morning slept there for some time and visited some random fort at jaipur which
was quite boring. We decided to head back to gurgaon at 2 PM with a
clear sky. Around 6 PM in the evening we were 50 odd kilometers from gurgaon. It was sometime then we started encountering fog.
Within
15-20 minutes the fog was so dense that the visibility was not more than 10
meter. With zero visibility the traffic was stand still at the 6 lane NH-8 .We
were at the forefront of the traffic
with an empty road ahead but no way to drive.The fog
was so dense that a guy was walking
ahead on the road and the rest of the traffic was following him since nobody
wanted to take the risk to lead. After covering the distance at a snails speed
for 30 minutes a rajasthan roadways bus came out of no where. Damn that driver
knew the roads well, we covered the next 10 km quickly but lost the bus after
some time and came again back at snail's pace. It took us another 3 hours to
cover the remaining 20-25 km which was quite frustrating since all of us were
very tired. I remember that the visibility was so bad that we had to use google
maps to find the cut off the highway.
We
somehow reached home around midnight, it took us roughly 4 hours to travel to
last 40 km. Every one was exhausted and all 12 of us somehow managed to sleep
in our modest 3 BHK apartment.
It was a
fun trip that I will remember for a long time thanks to chutiya chaudhary
