St. Augustine once (no idea when) said, “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
Okay sir!
So far… I surely have read more than one page!
And on a Sunday in this September, I traveled to Bekal Fort and thought “let me read the Bekal Fort!!” (who on earth would do that?! don’t believe it!!)
One beautiful place that is…!
This is what happened….
After the Sunday mass I did something I could not do previous night – ‘think of a place to visit’
Usually it is a challenge to think of a place for which everyone gives a nod. in the past, me and my friends have spent too many sleepless saturday nights discussing about the next days plans (most of these discussions have been extremely unfruitful and the decisions taken on the following mornings have worked miraculously!!)
Since we successfully accomplished the process of deciding a place, we got into our cars and reached Bekal after 2 hours of not-so-memorable journey from Mangalore.
And alas!! I found the fort to be very good..!! (And alas!! it was built way before any one of us was born!!)
The age of the fort, the lawn, the breeze, the sea, the seashore, the water splash (a result of collision of water which is liquid in state which is pushed towards the shore by air which is in gaseous state with rocks which are in solid state……! A bit of my science knowledge on display there!!), the watch towers… everything looked amazingly good!!
I took some pictures too…!
The points that work in favor of the Bekal Fort are :
1. The fact that not many forts are built on a seashore.
2. The previous point has attracted movie makers like Mani Rathnam (Bombay) and Upendra (A) (these are the only two instances I can remember as of now… But I am sure that ‘gods own superstars’ like Mammooty and Mohan Lal have a song or two in Bekal Fort!).
But if you have chosen to visit this place around noon (like we ended up doing!!) it can be a very gruelling experience…. The sun looks to have taken a vow to suck all your energy and leave you panting. But if you happen to reach the fort after 5 in the evening…. You might find it nice….. I don’t know… (I’d rather not comment on something on which I have no first hand experience!!).
But I liked this short trip….. mainly because of two reasons…
1. I visited a place I always wanted to, ever since i saw Upendra singing that song.
2. I can see the pictures I have taken and say to myself….
“dude! If others are crap at taking pictures, you are crap at it too! but hey…. the place was good enough to cover your inability to take good pictures even with a Nikon D90!!”
The camera in the picture above is Nikon D90… and the pictures below are the ones taken using it.
However, I noticed that if the subject is good…. you need not be a great photographer!
And there’s one more thing I noticed in the fort… there’s a Mukhyaprana temple in the fort on which they have embossed “ಮುಖ್ಯಪ್ರಾಣ ದೇವಸ್ಥಾನ, ಬೇಕಲ ಕೋಟೆ” (Mukhyapraana Devasthaana Bekala Kote) in Kannada which made me think “hey! this place should have been a part of Karnataka!!”
(Shame I did not take a picture myself…… and I have taken it from someone else’s blog!!!)
But then on the way back to Mangalore, I saw Kasargod town.
“Except for Bekal Fort and the temple, nothing is exciting in Kasargod!” I said to myself “We don’t need it if we have to fight with god’s own citizen….for just this!!”
sʇɐuʎzouǝ 