ANTIQUITY EVERYWHERE. While it's cold and snowy in Indianapolis today, it was 85 degrees and sunny where we were in Hyderabad, India this day last year. Bob Yardy and I toured the Nehru Zoological Park and Golconda Fort. I'd wanted to see something of real antiquity (as if I hadn't seen enough of it on NH 7), so we were taken to this massive fort. Goloconda was a centuries-long project built on a towering peak above Hyderabad by Indian labor for the outlandish desires of the Maharajahs.A TIME TO BUILD. The fort was impressive in every way. But the realization of the corrupt power it represented and its cost in lives, servitude, and abuse saddened me. I climbed up the rock-carved stairs to the very top of the fort and then descended quickly. I walked back to our truck in silence. That day, I think I let go of my fascination with forts--in India, in America or anywhere else. Indians have been building exquisite shrines to foreign conquerors and high-minded oppressors for thousands of years. Perhaps they can now build a society of freedom and creativity that is all their own. -- John Hay, Jr.
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