On 2nd Jun, my colleague Dinesh and I visted Haldighati and Nath Dwara.
Haldighati is about 50 Km from Udaipur and this is where the famous battle took place in 1572 between Rana Pratap, Ruler of Mewar and Emperor Akbar's troops led by Man Singh.
The road from Udaipur to Haldighati is ringed by hills on both sides and every hill has a battlement built of small stones.It's very obvious that all these hills have been inhabited for the last 500 years.The area is redolent with history and every hill seems to tell a story.
We reached Haldighati at around 9 AM and first went to the museum.The photos you see above are from the museum.We saw a sound and light show. The horse you see in the picture is Chetak.During the battle, Rana Pratap was wounded. Another warrior donned his armour to lure the Mughal forces away from Rana Pratap.Meanwhile, Rana Pratap rode away from the battlefield on Chetak, fiercely pursued by the Mughals.Chetak was injured on the rear leg, but gamely carried on and took a flying leap over a nullah and thus escaped from the Mughals. We saw the nullah but there was no water there now.
About 3 km from the battlefield, Chetak breathed its last and a grateful Rana Pratap erected a memorial for his horse at the very place.
Haldighati gets its name from the turmeric coloured soil of the ghats of the Aravalli Hills.
We drove past Rakta Talai, the actual battlefield which was supposed to have run red with the blood (Rakt) spilled on the ground.
From Haldighati we drove down to Nath Dwara where there is a Krishna temple of great antiquity. Kokilaben Ambani is the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of this temple and comes here at least twice a month from Mumbai.Huge crowd at the temple and all the priests looked suspiciously well fed.The prasad made at this temple is from pure ghee and no wonder.We also went to a goshala and fed some of the cows there.
We then came straight to Udaipur Airport and took a flight to Mumbai on our way to Chennai.
I'm supposed to go back to Udaipur around Jul 15th and will hopefully get to see more of Udaipur then.
Bye for now.
Kesari
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