Bidar Part 1 – Heritage, Nature and More….
Bidar has to be one of the most unplanned, random places Shankar and I have visited. Our trips usually involve months of meticulous planning, involving Excel sheets with minute details. Bidar, however, happened on a whim. We wanted to go somewhere, couldn’t decide where, and eventually decided to go visit one of the Jungle Lodges Resorts we hadn’t visited before, provided tickets to said location were available. All the Jungle Lodges Resorts are in Karnataka, accessible by bus, but I didn’t want to take the bus. So, we either had to hire a car, or take the train. And the train is what decided our destination. Somewhat surprisingly, we discovered that tickets to Bidar were available on the Mumbai Bidar Superfast express, a train we hadn’t had any idea existed, and that too in the First AC coach. The train wouldn’t work on the return, but, rather surprisingly for us, we decided we would figure something out. And thus, it happened, that we headed off to the JLR Blackbuck Lodge, at Bidar, with no plan, and no return tickets.
For once, I had no list of places to visit, things to do, places to eat, or anything else. The idea was simple. We would go to the JLR resort, and see what we could do. The best thing about JLR, of course, is that they have a full schedule for us, so there is no question of getting bored, or having nothing to do.
The JLR property at Bidar is about 20Km from the city, located near the Vilaspur Lake, near the Honikeri Forest Reserve. It is a peaceful and isolated property, and it was the perfect place for us to unwind. Honestly, both of us would have been happy just wandering around the property, but as usual, JLR had lots of activities for us, including birdwatching and boating, other than drives to go see the Blackbucks the resort is named after.
We visited in November end, when the resort was relatively empty… there were only a couple of guests other than us. So, we had the place to ourselves most of the time, which we truly enjoyed the most.
The trip brought up a bout of nostalgia as well. This trip was in Nov 2023. Our first trip together to a JLR property had been in Sept/Oct 2002, more than a decade earlier, our first trip after our wedding. That trip had been to Dandeli, to the Kali River Lodge. There as well, we had gone boating, in a coracle, as we did here. That had been my first experience of birdwatching as well. So the memories were many….
We also found time to visit the city of Bidar, and explore its heritage.
The only knowledge I had, of Bidar, was that it was one of the five Deccan Sultanates. If your history education didn’t teach you, the 5 Deccani Sultanates were Ahmadnagar, ruled by the Nizam Shahi dynasty; Berar, ruled by the Imad Shahi dynasty; Bidar, ruled by the Barid Shahi dynasty; Bijapur, ruled by the Adil Shahi dynasty, and Golconda, ruled by the Qutb Shahi dynasty. They were formed out of the breakdown of the Bahamani Sultanate, in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. These Sultanates and their dynasties ruled independently, till sometime in the 17th century, they were all annexed by the Mughals.
However, there is a lot more to Bidar than this. The name Bidar seems to have many origins. The place was once known for clusters of bamboo forests, and the local, Kannada name for bamboo is bidiru. The city was once said to be known as Bhadrakote, and some stories refer to it as Viduranagara. Whatever be the origin of the name, the city has been known since Mauryan times. The region was ruled over by the Satavahanas, the Kadambas, the Chalukyas and for a time even by the Rashtrakutas.
The city, however, seems to have gained prominence during the period of the Bahamani Sultanate. Ahmed Shah I moved his capital from Gulbarga to Bidar, probably around 1427. Records tell us that there was a fort here earlier, even when the Bahamani Sultanate was first established in the 1300s. The fort was rebuilt, and structures added to it, once it became the capital of the Bahamani Sultanate. The fort standing today is mostly from this period, extended to, by the Barid Shahis after the decline of the Bahamani Sultanate. It is a sprawling fort, one which requires a full day to explore in peace. While there are boards all over the place, what it needs is a guide, to take one around, and show things as they are meant to be seen. This, unfortunately is missing. So, we had to settle for walking around and just seeing what we could, trying to imagine what the fort would originally have looked like, in the 1500s.
The Museum within the fort is a small one, but it had some interesting sculptures.
We also visited the Madarsa of Mahmud Gawan, the erstwhile Prime Minister of the Bahamani Sultans in the 15th century, who hailed from Persia.
The tombs of the Bahamani Sultans were surprisingly interesting, covered with paintings on the inside, though most of them are gone now…
Of course, while in Bidar, we had to see the making of Bidri work, which is unique to the city. Bidriware is a traditional metalwork of this region, where white brass is blackened and inlaid with silver. This handicraft is also usually attributed to the Bahamani Sultans, who are said to have brought this tradition over from Persia. Today, this art is GI tagged. However, few artists remain who still practice this craft. Watch the video to see the artist explain how Bidriware is made, and why it is so special, and such a unique craft.
Passing through the city, we saw the Gurudwara Nanak Jhira Saheb. This is said to be the place where, Guru Nanak, during his visit to the region in the early 16th century, saw the people suffering due to acute water shortage. He touched the hillside with his foot, and a freshwater spring burst forth, supplying water to the region. The spring has water even today, and devotees throng this gurudwara, to drink this sacred water.
We spent 3 days at the JLR resort, and after much planning, decided to return home via Solapur. We managed to book tickets on the Vande Bharat train from Solapur to Mumbai, and also managed to book a cab to take us to Solapur, and a hotel to stay there.
However, we weren’t done with our trip yet. Talking to the staff at JLR, and watching some videos that they had, about the region, I realized that we could visit an ancient temple en-route to Solapur – the Jalasangvi Shiva temple, which had some very beautiful sculptures. Plus, Naldurg, a fort built during the Bahamani and Adil Shahi periods, was on the way too. More about these places soon….. This post was meant to be only about Bidar.
For an unplanned trip, this one turned out to be pretty much a great one! More about the other places we visited soon.
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