Of Ruins, Illusions, The Jungle and Tipu Sultan

The weekend spent in Masinagudi brought back my passion for all things “Tipu.” I was all ready to snuggle up for a nap thanks to the fresh air, walking and sumptuous food when my cousin mentioned an abandoned post/armoury that belonged to the Tipu Sultan era. I muttered and mumbled but knew I had no choice but to walk out into the jungle again as not seeing it would be something I’d regret for the rest of my life.  This time, the three of us cousins trudged through the undergrowth with our 10 year old nephew for company. He was the guide by the way.

Here’s what we found. 

You can still see the moat surrounding it and no, I could not capture it on camera in its au natural state (The stones were stolen so there is no marker!). Also, I wasn’t too surprised to find that somebody had made a temple of the little room that’s sort of closed in by pillars. It was also the place we were planning to run into when we heard bison wild buffalo call out to each other in the vicinity.

All the talk about Tipu that followed brought back an old memory. A memory that’s haunted me for a while now as I no longer knew if it was just a figment of my imagination or not.  Here’s an example of that imagination of mine and it happened over this weekend. I walked into a house with three bedrooms but was convinced I’d visited four of them in the evening.  I was so sure of my evening vision that I investigated the scene in the morning, and voila, it was three bedrooms again. Magic? Non, non, just my imagination that’s capable of illusions such as this at times. Those times are rare, so try not to worry okay. ;-)

Back to the haunting: I remember visiting Tipu’s summer palace, the Gumbaz and the Mysore palace when I was about 8 or 9. I remember the magic of the Mysore palace as I was able to travel back in time without a problem and see the past with clarity like it was today. This happened again when I was in college so all seemed well except for this strange memory of visiting a dungeon, seeing a canon and shivering in the heat as I could feel/(hear?) the screams of the prisoners reach out to me through the ages. I also knew it was Tipu’s prisoners of war. It was a powerful memory and I’d finally written it off as me putting two and two together as the tour guide had been speaking and coming up with five.  You see, I’ve visited Mysore and Srirangapatnam since but have never seen dungeons again and for some reason I kept linking it to Tipu Sultan and Palaces which would explain why I’d finally written this memory off as a figment of my overactive imagination.

That was until the weekend in Masinagudi brought back old memories and had me searching the net for dungeons linked to Tipu Sultan. Folks, I’m happy to report that my faith in my memory has been restored as the object of my search was revealed in all its dungeon glory – Colonel Bailey’s Dungeon it is and the restless grey cell that’s been haunted by this memory has finally been laid to rest.

(For more visuals of Masinagudi, hop over to Mystique Melodies.)