A word of thanks to the Moderator and Guppies of the Tech Forum, especially Gizzy and 5Abi, who patiently helped me to understand how to modify the pics in IrfanView to reconcile with Gupshup’s memory restrictions. Like clockwork, every now and then i ask stupid questions in the Tech forum and, unlike in some of the other forums, no one seems to publicly mind when one does that; instead, some Guppies go out of their way to explain technical concepts to computer-illiterates like me. So thank you to the Tech Moderator, Gizzy and 5Abi, without whose patient help i could not have dreamt of starting this thread in the first place.
These are a collection of personal pictures, mostly from around the Grand Trunk road area and Taxila. Just as a warning so that noone wastes their time, quality is not that good at all.
i don’t know why i took this picture; guess i just wanted a shot of the mountains. This was the main highway from Islamabad. A bit farther along was the famed “Nelson’s Needle” (at least I hope that’s what it’s called, don’t really remember right now:-p) and places like Taxila and Sirkap. Much farther along this well-worn historical route lies Afgh.
http://www.gupistan.com/gallery/1/F1010008.jpg
This is a (bad) picture of a watering-hole area; it was constructed as a resting spot for weary travellers and their horses.
A British fella, Sir John Marshall, has some historical connection with this area because, in the next picture, the concrete slab on top of the structure had his name engraved (hehe errm, sorry, you can’t see it in the image but i’m not lying, it’s really engraved).
Sher Shah Suri (1486-1545), the founder of the Afghan Suri dynasty, ordered the construction of these watering wells and inns as well as the construction of the famed ancient highway, Grand Trunk Road (popularly known as GT Road). The road links Calcutta to Kabul via Pakistan. Suri ordered that “all poor travelers” be “lodged and entertained at his own expense”.
http://www.gupistan.com/gallery/1/F1010007.jpg
http://www.gupistan.com/gallery/1/F1010006.jpg
i took this while we were coming down, these are the steps leading upto the “Nelson’s Needle” monument. i feel guilty because i didn’t ask the guy’s permission regarding whether or not i could take the pic; that was kind of mean, but i didn’t want to scream from the top of the seeriyaan, “Maaf kijeeyay Sahibjee, main aapki tasweer lai sakti hoon?” i feel bad about it though
The horizontal road you see running left to right is the famed 2400km-long GT. i searched this description of it from Dawn: “[It] is the largest and most famous highway in South Asia running from Peshawar to Calcutta in Eastern India. The origin of the fabled highway is stretched back to the Maurya times in the third century BC when it served as the “royal road” connecting the Northwest with the Maurya capital at Patna in India.”
http://www.gupistan.com/gallery/1/F1010024.jpg
At the turn of the last century, Rudyard Kipling made famous the GT road long after peoples from the sub-continent were already aware of its significance: a “wonderful spectacle… without crowding… green-arched, shade-flecked … a river of life … the backbone of all Hind… the road of Hindustan” along which “all India spread out to left and right”.
Interesting quote of it from the Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99nov/9911india.htm):
After you climb to the top of those stairs, there is a medium-sized, circular, grassy-mound area with the Needle monument at the smack middle. When we were there, there were about 20 cows grazing there. i’ve a really good picture of this but there is a family member in the pic so i had to crop the pic into two pieces, doesn’t look that good.
:k: