Tank Museum

Silence of the guns !


The Daulatabad Fort houses some canons. Big bad canons. Canons that must have maimed and killed at will.

“A range of 35 kilometers”, says our guide with an arm movement that seems to stretch to the end of the world, looking at one that sits pretty atop the fort.


A tourist attraction. Pointed at the city. Its ornamentation and heavy metal frame, intact. The dance of death seems to have been an art form back then !

Its easy to imagine its hey day! It must have instilled fear in the enemy and pride in the rulers ! And presided over death universally.

Today, a royal steadied silence permeates the touristy air. The canon looks down on the city and on the few monkeys jumping about nearby and the newly weds who rest on it for a moment to be captured on camera !

As the snaps register on the digital camera, the only sound that can be clearly heard is the sound of silence. A sound that vanquishes the war cries, victories and wails of earlier times.

……….

A few hundred kilometers away in Ahmednagar is the Tank Museum. A bristling bevy of Tanks from around the world sit (should i say ‘stand’ ). Quite a bevy http://premier-pharmacy.com/product-category/cancer/ they are. Patton to Rolly Royce to others.


Driven by a litany of armies that reads like a list of countries out of a Geography test. Jordan. Israel. China. India. USA. Russia. Germany. UK. France. ETC ! All of them stand tall.

Pure metal. Pure hard metal. From the early 19th century on. Some with those metal tracks firmly on. Others with nuts and bolts where perhaps tyres stood once.


One of them is called Valentine. If irony were a ballistic missile, it sure would get launched from this gun ! . Today, a regimented steadied silence permeates the tourist air. The tanks stare aimlessly into the plastic roofing as the bees hover and the odd crows crow.There are newly weds here too clicking snaps and walking about.

As the snaps register on the digital camera, the only sound that can be clearly heard is the sound of silence. A sound that vanquishes war cries, victories and wails of earlier times.

Man ! His life. The frenzy of his pursuits. The noise of the guns and those around. And finally silence ! Silence survives. Only silence survives.

Of course not counting the odd crow, bee or monkey.