This incident happened on my trip to Aurangabad, over 2 years ago.
A visit to Ellora caves and the nearby places was the itinerary for the day, I'd hired an auto rickshaw for this trip. On the way back from Ellora, I went to the Daulatabad fort as planned, Daulatabad was also called as Devagiri which once was the Capital of the Mughal Empire during the reign of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq.
There's a watch tower at the base of the fort, a replica of Qutub Minar, a hike up the hill for an hour will take you to the highest watch point of the fort/town. This point offers a breathtaking view of the surroundings for miles!. Most of the construction is in ruins and what's left of the walls are etched with names of a lot of modern day salim-anarkalis n romeo-juliets' :(. The stunning feature here were two huge canons on top of this hill with a bird's eye view, to deter off the enemy attacks, which i was told could fire to the range of 5-6 miles.
There was a young kid, selling drinking water on the hill top, from a pot which he carries up every morning! phew..,he'd quit school as his family had no money and selling water is his bit to contribute to his family's earnings. First tell the story, then force you to buy water n ask you to decide the price you pay for the water you drank, isn't it a catch 22 situation? :(, that's what i was in, and to worsen my situation, a 10 rs bill was all I had in my pocket, half a dozen credit cards i had were of no use at this place.
The disgust at not being able to help this kid anyway is beyond words, I gave him that 10 Rs note I had and also a pen of mine, that made me feel a li'l better, hope it made the kid happy too. As the ad for master card rightly said, there are things, money can't buy.
(Completed a draft that I'd left unfinished since Nov'07 :P)
A visit to Ellora caves and the nearby places was the itinerary for the day, I'd hired an auto rickshaw for this trip. On the way back from Ellora, I went to the Daulatabad fort as planned, Daulatabad was also called as Devagiri which once was the Capital of the Mughal Empire during the reign of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq.
There's a watch tower at the base of the fort, a replica of Qutub Minar, a hike up the hill for an hour will take you to the highest watch point of the fort/town. This point offers a breathtaking view of the surroundings for miles!. Most of the construction is in ruins and what's left of the walls are etched with names of a lot of modern day salim-anarkalis n romeo-juliets' :(. The stunning feature here were two huge canons on top of this hill with a bird's eye view, to deter off the enemy attacks, which i was told could fire to the range of 5-6 miles.
There was a young kid, selling drinking water on the hill top, from a pot which he carries up every morning! phew..,he'd quit school as his family had no money and selling water is his bit to contribute to his family's earnings. First tell the story, then force you to buy water n ask you to decide the price you pay for the water you drank, isn't it a catch 22 situation? :(, that's what i was in, and to worsen my situation, a 10 rs bill was all I had in my pocket, half a dozen credit cards i had were of no use at this place.
The disgust at not being able to help this kid anyway is beyond words, I gave him that 10 Rs note I had and also a pen of mine, that made me feel a li'l better, hope it made the kid happy too. As the ad for master card rightly said, there are things, money can't buy.
(Completed a draft that I'd left unfinished since Nov'07 :P)
1 comment:
Nov 07! Well, loved reading it in Apr 09! Hmmm..there are things that never go outdated!
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