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Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building

Part 1 of 4Solapur in a Day
Aashish ChawlaWritten byAashish Chawla⏱ 5 min read👁 2,094 views
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Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building



We slog through out the week at workplace and then comes the magical friday night. People with sane mind think of chilling out with friends over a glass of wine or beer, enjoy a good Sunday sleep Aur idhar hum Awara Ghumakad friday night yeh sapna dekhte hai ki yeh weekend kon sa saher ya konsa killa fathe karenge. Honestly speaking my whole week passes away like a breeze when I know I am going to explore a new place on the weekend.

This weekend I had planned to visit Siddeshwar temple, Bhuikot Fort aka Solapur Fort and Naldurg Fort.

This time I was lucky that I don't have to go solo because I had a wonderful company of my usual suspect kind of friends 😜 Nikhil and Pooja.

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Train ke intezar ka apna hi maja hai

 

We took Siddeshwar express train from Dadar at 10.57 pm. As soon as we  boarded the train a very interesting thing happened, We saw this young boy sitting at the window seat. I think I might have looked at him sternly because he very defensively asked me kya yeh aap ki seat hai. I said nahi meri middle berth hai. He was relieved. After some time he looks at me and asked Mai mera saman seat ke neeche rakhunga toh chori to nahi hoga na, I was simply flabbergasted and my reflex action response was Arre mere ko kya maloom, rakh ke dekh le...subha tak maloom pad jayega. ( Honestly I wanted to say Oye kya hum chor nazar aate hai 😉 Anyways we had a good laugh over this. The young boy was actually very sweet chap, he had come to give interview for Railway job for engineer post. These kind of experience adds spice to your life  because travelling in train always allows you to meet different people and you enjoy your journey all the more.
Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Liked the pole at a traffic circle

 

It was 7 am when we reached Solapur station. We came out of the station and had our breakfast of Poha from the local Thela Guy and started to walk to our first destination that is Siddeshwar Temple. Normally one can take auto from the railway station and reach the temple but I prefer to walk if the destination is well within 2 kms. My idea of early morning walk is that one can actually have the local feel of the city. As I said that walking allows you to explore something which is not on your destination, well something same happened with us. As we were on our way to Siddeshwar temple we saw this fantastic building whose architecture fascinated me so I took a detour and started to explore the same. The Building was actually Solapur Municipal Office.

 

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Beautiful Solapur Municipal Building

Ab samaj me aaya , mai kyo chal kar explore karne me believe karta hu. Had we been travelling in any auto we could have easily missed out on this pretty building.

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building


The architecture of the building is very artistic. The colourful windows and arches makes it a photographers delight.

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building

 

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building

 

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Beautifully designed windows

 There was  a statue of a person in front of the main entrance hence out of curiosity I went ahead and read the name of the person. Well the name embbed on the statue was Rao Bahadur Mallappa Alias Appasaheb Warad. For me it was unknown name so I spoke to one of the person working there and the information that he gave me was amazing.The information so collected from the local and my research put together showed the various aspect of this person.

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Rao Bahadur Mallappa Alias Appasaheb Warad

Life of  Rao Bahadur Mallappa:

 Rao Bahadur Mallappa Alias Appasaheb Warad can be regarded as one of the makers of the Sholapur City. He was born on 18th June,1851 in a Lingayat family at Sholapur. He had no formal education and no knowledge of English,yet his thinking, his vision, his mature understanding of the ways of the world placed him among the then prominent leaders of the city. He was a reformist in agricultural techniques.A special quality of groundnut cultivated by him was popularly known as "Warad Shengdana"

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Sculptures on the building

He was thick with eminent personalities of his time like Justice M.G.Telang, Justice M.G.Ranade, Lokmanya Tilak. His discussions with Lokmanya Tilak resulted in a kind of co-operative scheme for the weavers community of Sholapur. But the government did not approve it. He was more an institution than an individual.

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Sculptures on the building

 

He was elected as a delegate in 1893, to present the city in Indian National Congress. He donated generously and without any discrimination to each and every good cause. The estimated amount of donations is not less than six lakh rupees. He donated generously for "Tilak Defence Fund"
 
Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Some interesting arches and statues
Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
 

 

When Warad died on 19th January 1911,Lokmanya Tilak made a special mention of him in his letter from jail on hearing this sad news.
 
Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Ornate Viewing area on terrace
I don't know how far this is truth but the local person told me that Appasaheb Warad had lots of outstanding taxes to be paid, due to which he has to handover this building in lieu of  those outstanding taxes. He also said that in earlier days this was the largest and tallest building in Solapur and one could see most of Solapur from the terrace of the building.
 
Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
Breathtaking view 
Kahani Saachi hai ya Jhooti woh ek alag baat hai As far as I am concerned I often feel transported to olden times when someone narrates such kind of tales.
 
Dil toh bacha hai ji ....Ek kahani sunne ka mara hai ji

After spending some time here we moved on to the Siddeshwar temple which was just 2 minutes away from here.

Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building

 

Series

Solapur in a Day

  1. 1Solapur in a day | Part 1 | Solapur Municipal Building
  2. 2Solapur in a day| Part 2 | Siddeshwar temple
  3. 3Solapur in a day | Part 3 | Bhuikot aka Solapur Fort
  4. 4Solapur in a day | Part 4 | Naldurg Fort
Next part →Solapur in a day| Part 2 | Siddeshwar temple
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Solapur in a Day
Aashish Chawla

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Aashish Chawla

Hi, I am Aashish Chawla — The Weekend Wanderer. Weekend wandering is my passion: I love connecting with new places and meeting new people. Through my blogs I will introduce you to lesser-explored places that may be very near you, yet undiscovered. Come, let's wander into the wilderness of nature!

Other than travelling, I love writing poems.

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