rohtas lament

Mid march 1982, end of winter and start of summer, i went to rohtas fort from tilla ranges where we were camped for our annual firing, i expected to see more than there was on offer, it was in no good condition, and there was a small village in the cul-de-sac to the right of the main entry gate, incidentally the road through the main bazaar of dina, left of the gt road coming from lahore led to the river bank where we crossed the water and went up the steep hill to enter.

22 march 2008, drove to rohtas from Islamabad, turned back on the gt and entered the bazaar, stopped to ask a quinchi driver if this led to rohtas, he informed me to go back towards Lahore and take the marked road to go there, so getting to the fort was easy, but the road was partly broken.

The main gate was distastefully white washed to cover the equally distasteful election wall chalking. a donkey was munching the blades of grass off to one side, the horn having no effect on him to move aside, and I had to get out and shoo it, eventually throw a stone at it to make it budge; was it an indication of things to come?

Entering the fort, the first thing saw was that the village had moved out of the cul-de-sac and was now almost spread all over the fort!

The next thing was taking a round route round and through the village to the other side to be flagged by a guy, who demanded in a non-polite way tees roopay (thirty rupees) the board said cars rs 10/=. I asked him why, he said ten for the car ten each for the passengers. He gave three slips of paper! Nice welcome, sher shah suris spirit must have been thrilled!

About the condition of the conservation effort, the less said the better; I wonder if the people paying for it have even visited the site to see what is happening to their money?

There were “use me” bins with garbage scattered around them, dust, broken walls, graffiti, leaning over sign posts, and no “official,” or guard, in sight!

I could only find one baoli, people I asked also did not know what had happened to the other two, one of the self-professed local-guide also was surprised when I asked about the other two, but did not know of them! So much for it.

Anyway, on the whole it was a sad way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Wonder when we will learn to care for our heritage?