May 30th, 2011
The story of Golconda and of Bhagyanagar/Hyderabad is a tale of Love and and of War. The city of Hyderabad was founded out of Love ; the love of a Prince for a village girl while Golconda [ gol=Gwaala or shepherd = konda = stone] started as a pastoral feature and became a formidable fort awesome in the majesty of being built on rock and covered with cyclopean blocks of sized granite because of War and success in many battles.
What makes the city, Hyderabad, and the fort Golconda unique is the land on which they stand. This landmass is quite the oldest in the world. It is far far older than the high and mighty Himalayan range of mountains which dominate India and the world.
Hyderabad and Golconda stand on the Deccan Plateau which is the cause of the Himalayas and the Indo-Gangetic Plain coming into existence.
In geological time there was a period when the planet Earth was young hot and restless. Its continents and oceans were still to assume the contours and forms which are familiar today. Lava and gases from the core caused volcanoes to erupt endlessly and the ensuing earthquakes made the earth turn twist heave and shake. The land masses formed on the surface were stressed and strained into fracturing and reforming again and again. Changes in topography was the only constant.
Some two hundred million years ago there existed a huge landmass called ‘Gondwanaland’ by geologists. It encompassed what are today Australia, the heart-shaped Deccan Plateau of India, Madagascar and the Continents called Africa and South America. The frenzied and violent shaking of the Earth from its core to its surface caused this huge entity to fracture into the various components we recognise. The fragments started drifting away from each other.
Over the next one hundred and twenty million years Australia shifted East while Africa Madagascar and South America moved West. The triangular and heart shaped Deccan Plateau drifted/travelled due North. The Deccan Plateau is the earliest ‘India’ known to geology. It had already taken the triangular, heart shaped form known today long before there was any sign of either the Himalayas or the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
“India” in its fragment of the Gondwana Plate incarnation continued its Northwards Odyssey until its path was obstructed by the Eurasian landmass. The two land masses collided deep under the waters of the ocean. The collision was of cataclysmic proportions and its effects were felt as far away as the Philippines and Japan.
The greatest pressures were at the point of impact. The Gondwana fragment was forced under Eurasia. The impacted edge of the undermined land buckled and crumpled under the stress and a new mountain range was born. This is the youngest mountain range in the world and is still moving North and rising at the rate of a few millimeters each year.
As the mountain range grew its peaks crossed the altitude for the eternal snowline. The crests became enveloped in snow. This earned them the name ‘Himalaya’ [ Hima=Snow; Aalaya=Abode].
The two land masses Gondwana or Deccan Plateau with its ancient rocks and the new mountain range the Himalayas were united only under the waters On the surface they were separated by the sea. The filling up of the abyss over many millions of years is a wonder of creation.
The eternal snows of the Himalayas