Mirjan Fort, Mirjan

Though the mentioned opening time was 8 we were at Mirjan Fort by 7:15 and the caretaker was considerate enough to allow us the entry. We were returning from Karwar to head home. We started by 6 and were on time. The distance between Karwar and Mirjan is around 60 Kilometers. For the unknown Mirjan is located in the west coast of Uttara Kannada District. Strategically built on the banks of Aghanashini river, a tributary of Sharavati, the fort is at short distance from the Arabian sea.  

Route: Karwar-Amdalli-Ankola-Hiregutti-Mirjan

There was a particular reason to visit Mirjan during monsoon. The entire fort looked like it was dipped in green acrylic. As it happens frequently we were the only people beside the fort-sitter. The fort stood majestically, one of its kind in the country. The gate opened quietly, but we imagined the creaking sound as a special effect. Through a plight of broad steps we entered the fort. The double-walled fort has high spires on the citadel. Sprawled over an area of 10 acres, the fort is constructed with laterite stones, which were available abundantly in the vicinity. The fort is surrounded entirely by moats, though it is dried up currently. There are few wells inside that are interlinked with moats through the channels. Most part of the fort is in ruins and is being restored by the Archaeology survey of India. We went underground through secret passages and climbed the bastion to have the panoramic view of this once impregnable fort. While doing so we could see agricultural lands stretching far and wide completely capped in greenery. We wandered around marveling at the perfection of the architecture. Once upon a time it was the protector of the people who lived here.

There are many versions on the ownership and time period of this fort. The most popular one is about a queen popularly known as Pepper queen or Raina da Pimenta. Chennabhairadevi built the Mirjan fort tentatively between 1552 to 1606 and ruled from here for quite sometime. Her reining for 54 years is the longest for any Indian woman ruler. She opposed Portuguese attempts to take control over the trading business and defeated them twice in 1559 and 1507. After the mighty Vijayanagara fall, queen shifted from Mirjan to some safe location. 

Bijapur sultans have captured the fort and Sharief-ul-mulk, then governor of Goa, is credited of refurbishing the fort subsequent to the Talikote War. The fort witnessed the shift of power from Keladi Nayaks to Marathas to British.   

Archaeological excavation of 2000-2001 unearthed dumb-bells, iron bullets, coins and designed pots belonging to Sarpamallika dynasty; Chinese porcelain, clay tablets with Islamic scripture, gold coins attributed to Portuguese Viceroy and many others.

The time is like quicksand, within no time the present becomes past and important becomes irrelevant. That is what we could think about this old fort that had been a mute spectator to life, death, power, struggle, laughter and pain. If each stone could tell a story of the past? Pondering over this thought we decided to head out before the onslaught of coastal sun.

Tips

Best Season: June-February

Best Time: Early morning or evening

Visitor's Time: 8 am to 6 pm

Entry Fee: Free

Nearby Places: Gokarna, Apsarakonda, Banavasi, Murudeshwar

Warship Museum, Karwar

We kept aside the second evening in Karwar to see the Warship Museum at Rabindranath Tagore Beach. We were supposed to be there by 4 o'clock. However, we were late by one-and-a-half hours. We tweaked our itinerary a little and driven off to Goa just for the day. Goa has that strange effect on us and we just could not help it.

Certainly the museum was open, but we had to give a miss on the video that shows how the ship was converted into a museum. It is good to remember our actions always have consequences.

The INS Chapal was a Chamak Class Missile boat of the Indian Navy. It is an Indian variant of the Soviet project 205 Moskit. A fast attack craft of Osa II Class measures a total lenght of 38.6 meters and beam of 7.6 meters. With total strength of 245 tons its speed is 37+ knotts. Number of officers and sailors are 30. Armaments are 4xSS-N-2A STYX Antiship Missile, 1xSA-N-5 SAM, and 2xAK-230 30 MM guns. The technicalities apart we overheard a guy explaining to the group of tourists about the very own ship participating in Indo-Pak war of 1971. It was highly impossible because the Chapal was commissioned in November 4, 1976 five years after the war. To clarify the doubt we went ahead and did a quick research on net. To our astonishment many articles mentioned the same narrative of Chapal participating in 1971 war. That forced us to dig a little deeper. There were 8 Chamak Class Missile boats in the service of Indian Navy commissioned from a period of February 1976 to October 1977. And INS Chapal is one among them. So, our conclusion is it never participated in 1971 Indo-Pak war. 

After serving the Navy for a period of 30 years, INS Chapal was decommisoned in May 5, 2005 at Vizag by the Eastern Naval Command. After deciding to convert the ship into a museum, first it was brought from Vizag to INS Kadamba naval base in Karwar and then to Ravindranath Tagore Beach. Transporting the ship was not an easy feat, in fact, it was a strenuous job.

Now stationed securely on a concrete platform surrounded by a well-maintained park this warship museum is a major attraction in Karwar especially among children.  The concrete elevation was to avoid any corrosion by the rising sea water level. Code named K94 INS Chapal is one among three other ships converted into warship museums in the country and only one in the state of Karnataka. The other two warship museums are INS Kursura (S20) on RK Beach in Visakhapatnam and INS Prabal (K93) at EsselWorld, Mumbai.

As we go inside the ship we get to see the engine rooms, dormitory, kitchen, restroom, cockpit, diner, weapons, and wardrobe from which hangs the uniforms. There are life-size mannequins of captain and crew. They are meticulously elaborated for us to understand the life at sea. We could only spend little time as it was boiling hot and suffocating.

Completely drenched in sweat we escaped the indoors to the deck. Here the gush of sea wind blew with a gusto giving us the divine feeling. There are 4 SS-N-A Styx antiship missiles, two in the front and two in the back with operational range of 80 kilometers. There is one SA-N-5 SAM with firing range between 3700 meter to 4200 meter and two AK-230 30 mm guns. We were fortunate enough to witness another beautiful sunset from the deck.

We went down thinking taking a stroll in the park for sometime. However we found just adjacent to the warship many small informative hoardings giving statistics on Indian Navy like marine commandos, peace time activities, helicopters, air crafts, submarines, class of ships, ranks of the Indian Navy, flags and insignias, Navy and its organization, Indo-Pak war of 1965 and 1971, liberation of Goa, Royal Indian Navy to Indian Navy, Royal Indian Marines in World War I and II, early maritime and naval history. Reading them was fun, interesting, and educational.

An evening well-spent satiating our hunger for knowledge. And it was time to indulge in other aspects of hunger pang.

   
Visiting Hours:
10 am to 1 pm
4 pm to 7.30 pm

Video Timings:
10 am to 1 pm
4 pm to 5:30 pm

Entry Fee: INR 15