Rohtas Trip

Mid march 1982, end of winter and start of summer, i went to rohtas fort from tilla ranges where we were camped for our annual firing, i expected to see more than there was on offer, it was in no good condition, and there was a small village in the cul-de-sac to the right of the main entry gate, incidentally the road through the main bazaar of dina, left of the gt road coming from lahore led to the river bank where we crossed the water and went up the steep hill to enter.

22 march 2008, drove to rohtas from Islamabad, turned back on the gt and entered the bazaar, stopped to ask a quinchi driver if this led to rohtas, he informed me to go back towards Lahore and take the marked road to go there, so getting to the fort was easy, but the road was partly broken.

The main gate was distastefully white washed to cover the equally distasteful election wall chalking. a donkey was munching the blades of grass off to one side, the horn having no effect on him to move aside, and I had to get out and shoo it, eventually throw a stone at it to make it budge; was it an indication of things to come?

Entering the fort, the first thing saw was that the village had moved out of the cul-de-sac and was now almost spread all over the fort!

The next thing was taking a round route round and through the village to the other side to be flagged by a guy, who demanded in a non-polite way tees roopay (thirty rupees)