The 'Whispering Gallery' in Bijapur

March 2007

Having escaped the worst of the Holi festivities in Badami, our next stop was Bijapur.  Stepping off the bus, our first and most lasting impression of Bijapur was that it was the filthiest place we'd been to yet.  There was garbage everywhere, but especially in the roadside gutters, which were basically open sewers, filled with the accumulated detritus of decades, perhaps centuries of daily living – food waste, human waste, and garbage of every description.  And clamouring in and out of these gutters, dripping and disgusting, and demonstrating remarkable agility and speed for their size, were fearless, albeit apparently harmless, pigs. They trotted across the road in packs, dozed in the shade under parked cars and trucks for a while, then head out to cruise the gutters and garbage piles again.  While we’d seen some pigs in many Indian cities, Bijapur was FULL of pigs.  We decided to rename it ‘Pig City’, or “Bijapig’.   

 

However.... we didn’t go to Bijapur for the pigs.  We went to see – and hear – the Gol Gumbaz ‘whispering gallery.  Gol Gumbaz is a 17^th century Moslem mausoleum with a huge dome – just  slightly smaller than the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  But unlike at St. Peter’s, at Gol Gumbaz you can actually climb up to the dome and walk around not just the outside of the dome but also the inside.  And that’s where you find the famous “whispering gallery.”  We had read that two people standing on opposite sides of the inside of the dome, if they spoke in a whisper, could hear one another clearly.  

 

We purposely went late in the day, in an attempt to avoid the largest crowds.  Still, there were a fair number of tourists there, almost all of whom were Indian.  There were several families – both Moslem and Hindu – who stopped to chat with us, and asked me to take their pictures.  The kids were so cute I was more than happy to oblige.  We even got addresses so we could send the photos to them once we got them printed.  Which we did.

Photos done, we climbed up to the dome.  Even from the outside we could hear them shouting, whooping, whistling and clapping as loudly as they could to hear their sounds echoed and amplified in the confines of the dome.  This was despite the “please be silent” sign.  Rules and regulations are seldom taken seriously in India.  The din was so deafening that we had to abort our first attempt to enter the dome – the noise was ear splitting.  

 

A few minutes before closing time, when almost everyone had left, we went inside.  There were a few men still there, clapping and talking in loud voices which echoed, or more accurately ricocheted off the curved walls of the dome.  Thankfully they too left.  And then the guards blew a whistle (OUCH!) and motioned for us to leave.  I purposely dawdled, hoping for just a moment’s silence to try the whisper test.  

 

The guards at first seemed annoyed and impatient with us, wanting us to leave so they could go home.  But once Doug did his loon call for them – wonderfully mimicking that lovely lonely sound – the guards, like us, fell silent and listened to the haunting sound.  Then we were able to try whispering, and to actually experience the magical acoustics of the dome. 

 

Patience, perseverance and playfulness paid off.

Having seen more than enough of Bijapur and experienced the ‘Whispering Gallery’ of Gol Gumbaz, we were more than ready to catch a bus to Aurangabad.  These stalwart postal inspectors station masters were the last Bijapuris we saw - except for a few more pigs.

 

For more information on Bijapur go to:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijapur

 

For more information on Golgumbaz go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Gumbaz