The sheer excitement of hitting the roads with your friends is enough to give you Goosebumps. And this trip was not just the three amigos but also two long lost friends (I am calling them long lost merely for dramatic effect, we keep meeting once a month at least but we have not been on a trek since college) who jumped the wagon the moment they heard the name Shriharihareshwar (we had planned this trip while at IMDR but couldn’t make it). So to cut the introduction short Sunil and Ud joined us from Mumbai while Soumya had flown himself in from Bangalore, we flicked my roommate’s car (I had to pin him down against the wall and threaten to use some force on the other side of the world to finally seize the key from him) and eventually rendezvoused at Lala’s place at 1 AM on Saturday Morning.
With the car ready and roaring to go (I was the driver dudes!) we began what could only be described a journey of frenetic and anxious breathing. We had with us our able and competent (sarcasm intended) tour guide, Avinash AKA Lala and an excuse of a map which somehow was able to take us through the strenuous journey. With the trip meter set on 0 km we began our rapid progression to the infamous Mulshi Lake (they say many lives have been lost in the lake, but then that’s true for most of secluded water bodies and especially if they meet idiots like us :-)). I must say here that the road we had traversed last year on the first day of New Year has improved drastically. We were not worried about skidding off the roads nor were we thinking of all the dead people (yeah right!) when Soumya suggested stopping the car for a leak. In the middle of the jungle with no sign of human encroachment and a single lane road going through the narrow traverses of the trees I felt a sudden jolt of excitement.
We went on with our business till we all saw the sky. Nothing but endless sky with countless stars!! The numbers were never ending and the brightness defied all artificiality of the city just left behind. Just to give you an insight till now the lights of the car were kept on to avoid the darkness monster, but with the beauty right above us we decided, rather boldly, to switch off the headlight and bathe in the pure glory of nature. I can’t describe the feeling of being completely silent and touching the boundaries of nature with all your senses. It’s profound in all its pieces. We moved towards a village called Dungarwadi, which had decided at 3 in the night to celebrate a deferred version of Baba Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Birthday, seven days after it actually was. Upon asking one of the villagers, he responded “apne liye yehi toh entertainment hai”.
So after a round of tea at the place and some disco beats we moved on towards our destination. For your information I was the designated driver for the trip and Ud acted as the backup driver. So after a while of driving through the foliage and darkness (mind you there is a bad patch of road for about 50 Kms from Dungarwadi ahead) my eyes grew weary and I decided to handover the wheels to Ud. Hereon I wouldn’t know much as I was fast asleep in the backseat, but I do remember an anxious moment when in the middle of the sleep I felt the car rolling backwards and opened my eyes to find the car rolling off a climb on the road because accidentally Ud drove over a patch of pebbles. I had to step in and drive us out of the trouble and then again go back to dreaming of racing next to Bipasha on the beach.
Next thing I know its 5:30 AM and the dawn is fast approaching with the chilly winds of Shriharihareshwar hitting my face. I draw out my camera and start clicking away to glory. The sunrise, the beautiful sea cutting land in two and the clouds adding to the hilly climb take our breaths away. Only thing undeterred from all the excitement: Soumya’s snoring. Anyways, we went straight to the MTDC resort just to try our luck finding someplace to freshen up and venture forth in our adventure. Taking up a room at the resort was just too expensive merely to clear the stomachs and clean the teeth, so we decided to relax at their restaurant next to the white sandy beach with nothing else in sight but a half sunken boat in the sea. And voila! We find that the resort also had a public toilet for general consumption, so we geared up and the facility just to remain sane during the day.
We just sat for about an hour staring at the beauty of the beach and the rising sun. Nothing said could fully describe this feeling so I am going to leave this part to your imaginations.
We then moved to the famous Shriharihareshwar temple, a twin shrine of Kaal Bahirav and The Trinity along side Parvati (or Shakti). The system at the temple is that you first visit the Kaal Bhairav Mandir and then pay your regards at the other temple. The architecture of the temple is also curiously very old but not extremely rich in colour or construct. Looking at the temple you get a sense of the simplicity of the erstwhile village (which still hasn’t changed much) and hence the simple design. I was somehow reminded of the pagodas that some of the eastern states boast, only smaller in size and construct.
While the village is primarily famous for its twin temples and the clean white sandy shores, the underrated backyard of the temples which turns into a grand beach with honeycomb rocks and crabs is a treat for the eyes and pensive souls. What we encountered now were rocks of various colours and crabs popping from here and there to grab onto our toes. Little did they realise that we wanted instead to grab on to their toes after having barbecued them. There is a healthy growth of Locusts, clams and various crustaceans to make your mouths water and your eyes wider in appreciation. Well we settle for the Pohe just as yet and move on to the Peshwa town of Shrivardhan.
Not know for any beaches or a spectacular temple the town does offer its beauty in small packets. It has three nondescript temples which have some unique offering to make to the inquisitive tourist or a zealot devotee. To begin with, it has the Peshwa’s home, a simple yet artistic mix of architecture with a lone statue of one of the Peshwas (I forget the name) standing in splendour in the open courtyard. We also chanced upon plucking some raw mangoes just for fun. The statue is cleaned everyday by local kids and it came to us as a big surprise because we are not used to finding clean statues in the city.
We walked to the Peshwe Ram Mandir through the dense thicket of Coconut and Beetle nut trees and a typical Konkani village on a platter. The temple is again no great shakes but what is curiously interesting is that the entire Idol (that of Sri Ram, Janaki Mata, Sri Lakshman and Sri Hanuman) is crafted out of single piece of rock! The other temple, Temple of Sonjai, has a very small, about two inches to three inches in diameter, stone (these stones are shiny stones that have universally been come to represent Lord Shiva and are found in the Basin of river Narmada - they are called as Narmadeshwar), which represents the Shiv Ling, on a silk Throne. Just that the tourist gets disappointed because a closer look is not accorded and hence you come out with the feeling that there wasn’t much to see.
Next we visited the Shiv Temple which has its own unique features to offer. The seating hall of the temple is a feast for eyes as you see four pillars around you carved out of single pieces of wood with each pillar having different carvings. The common theme in each is the Peacock at the top of the chain establishing the supremacy of the Peshwas but when you start at the bottom you find the differences. Each have the horses, carved in different fashions, the elephants, again different looking and various other forms like humans hunting and so on and so forth. Once you enter the Garbhgriha, you find the Shiv Ling formed out of one piece of rock, probably granite in very crude form.
The next stop for us was going to Dive Agar, the beach where we had decided to take our first dips. The road on offer is not so bad, pretty comfortable especially because we did not care much about the car. It’s a long stretch with a climb of the Ghats and the open sea inviting on the other side. We could see the beauty and smell the fragrance of the salty sea with its white beaches and Koli community fishing and beckoning us to indulge in the feast of sea food. By the time we reached Dive Agar it was already 2:30 PM and all of us had already started suffering from pangs of hunger and with the smell of sea food coming from virtually every home the hunger just multiplied every second.
Well we forayed forward to the newly constructed MTDC resort just to have the idea of the cost and whether it was worth staying in one of their cottages (the real reason was that by now we were desperately tired and just looking for a place to crash and binge on the offerings of Sea GodJ and MTDC was the only place know to us). The beauty of the even the lesser known places in Maharashtra is that they do offer the best of the comfort in terms of MTDC resorts. But just as expected the place was far beyond our reaches in terms of money (Rs. 1300 per night for a cottage), so instead we decided to head to one of the houses and seek shelter in their room.
The charge: Rs.350 per night with facility of attached toilets and bathrooms and extra beds for extra person at no extra cost. The condition: no food will be served, no noise shall be created else they hold all authority to thrown you out of the place. We accepted very well knowing that the second condition would be difficult to fulfill. The stomachs and the taste buds now needed to be massaged and we ventured to a place that the house owner suggested for delicious sea food. Forget the name of the place but the owners are Bohris and they also run a guest house next to their wonderful restaurant, which at that point was housing some lonely and very beautiful souls from Infosys, Pune. The lady, whom we started calling Bhabhi by now was very courteous and caring, that made us love the food even more.
With the pain of such beautiful girls next to us and not being able to initiate anything interesting we sat down to enjoy sumptuous meals prepared in typical Konkani style. Fish fry, fish curry, roti and rice. Even someone like Lala, an avid fish hater, jumped at the feast once he smelled the red fish fry and had a taste. What more was needed! Oh let me also take this opportunity to remind the readers that Mallu (Sunil) who lives with vegetarian room mates in Mumbai would have consumed at least 3-4 Kgs of fish and prawns and chicken and mutton on this entire two day trip. God help the toilet and his room mates who went in those toilets after he had used it!!
Just the nice and soft comfort of the beds which would have left us recharged for a dip in the cool and clean waters of the sea. By 6:30 PM we were ready to dip and roll in the comforts of the sands and the salty water. We all dropped our clothes on the shore and jumped headlong into the slowly receding water of the Arabian Sea. With only moonlight as our guiding source, everything around us had become black as there was no light on the beach, we bathed hour hours together unlit our bodies caved in to the pressures of Sea water and we decided to again head to Bhabhi’s hut for dinner.
This time for dinner we were served chicken, prawns, mutton and greatly refreshing Kokum sherbet. One advise to all, don’t even think of missing the Kokum sherbet, even if you don’t understand what it is or have not liked it in the past. It’s amazing and purely refreshing.
The night came pretty fast and by the time we could realise that we should create some ruckus just because we are together we had engineered a common snoring effort to ward off all spirits and mosquitoes. The plan was to move for Murud Janjira by six in the morning and Ud had made all promises to wake us up with the sweet songs of his voice in the morning. So at 5:30 AM the idiot was hopping about telling everyone of us to get ready so that we could easily scoot out of the place and drive fearlessly to conquer Murud – the fort invincible.
Mind you the roads here are patchy and slight problem for the vehicle, in fact some stretches were really problematic primarily for the lack of the basic thing called road. the good sign however was that the roads are getting constructed and once you get off the climb from Dive to Murud (there is a shortcut which allows you to cut the journey by 10 KMs) you have the beautiful sea and fort playing tango with each other. The sight is breathtaking. Here, though, our purpose had changed. Instead of behaving like normal tourists we wanted to enjoy the fort for a long time (the fort has a very rich history and still most part of it is intact – that shows the invincible strength of the fort). So we took the ferry ride to the fort and had about an hour at the fort before the ferry returned. The fort is almost like a small town with capacity to serve about 100 – 200 villagers, who used to stay at the fort all through the year except during rainy season.
The fort was built at the Island by a trader from Middle East who wanted to provide safe passage to his good and control the labour around the village for the same. The guides do not talk about any atrocities committed upon the townsmen and in fact the fort provides enough evidence to believe that the inhabitants were well protected and comfortable. There are lot unique things about the fort. It has two ponds which catered to the water needs of the inhabitants. One about 60 Ft deep and the other 90 Ft deep with the bigger one having mirror work around which lends colours to the pond when the sunlight hits the water. This was where the queen took her bath! (Just a gentle piece of information).
The fort was built on an island which was already inhabited by the Mazaar of a Muslim saint. The builder did not touch the Mazaar and built the fort around it. Looking at the fort, there are signs of the fort being invincible everywhere. The door is still intact, only the hinges on which it rests have corroded. The wood for the door was imported from Burma. In fact the door still stands tall because apart from the iron hinges the architect was smart enough to build concrete hinges. The canons on top of the fort have been marked for each shot they have fired and they have been named according to the most destructive act they have performed or according to the shapes they have been given. One of it has been shaped like a bull and hence is called by the same name. The seven storeyed courtyard, where the king used to listen to the problems of his subjects, still stands tall. Only force that has been able to destroy the top four storeys is nature. But the splendour can be assumed by merely looking at the mix of the architecture (Moghal, Burmese, some things borrowed from Europe and so on so forth). What!? Do you guys expect me to give the most accurate account ever produced? Huh.
So once we finished a survey of the fort ensuring everything was perfect and could endure centuries of abuse we moved towards our destination. We were to drop Ud and Mallu at Panvel and then ensure that Soumya could catch his 6 PM bus from Pune. I know, I know, throughout the article you have been wondering where the anxious breathing is, what has been so thoroughly exhausting about the trip. Well the breathing, Soumya’s i.e. had become anxious by now because by the time we left Murud it was already 1’o clock and we had merely 4 1/2 hours to cover the track back to Pune. The straight road would probably have taken us back to Pune in much shorter time but since dropping Ud and Mallu was in the plan we proceeded to Panvel with angry reproaches from Soumya.
Confusion mounted as we hit a point on the highway were the roads were choc – a – block as two trucks had met with an accident. So that led to some half an hour of delay and then we cut through the metal jungle of vehicles to finally move to our first stop. Then we encountered this jerk of a guy in an Alto who kept overtaking us and then slowing down, so neither we were, at any point in time, ahead of him for more than five minutes nor behind him for more than five minutes. And this was the point when everyone in the car started calling upon my racing abilities. I must tell you that this was about the time when I tested the car’s engine and took the Zen up to the proud speed of 120 KMs. And not just touch the speed for a minute or two but maintain it for more than 20-25 minutes (In case any American is reading this and saying what is the big deal in that, mind you I was driving on an Indian road!). But eventually sanity prevailed and I allowed the other car to get ahead of me.
All this huff and puff for what? In between a genius called Lala called up my room mate in Pune and asked him to cancel Soumya’s tickets because he thought that we would not be able to make it to Pune in time. All said and done we decided to finally buy an Air ticket for Soumya from Bombay and then drop him there along with Ud and Mallu to drive down to Pune. We reached Bombay by 6 in the evening (which would have been about the same time we would have reached Pune had we stuck to our earlier plan) and got the tickets. Then had our lunch at 8 in the evening (we had generously skipped lunch so that poor Soumya could catch his Bus) and then finally proceeded to Pune at 10 in the night.
Just a gentle reminder to readers I had been doing the driving for the last two days and was now fitfully ready for things like hallucinations and sleeping on the wheel and meeting with an accident or simply losing my mind! With close to 450 KMs on the trip meter Lala and I started back for Pune. In between, near the toll plaza on the expressway, I felt the car is suffering from a case of puncture. So we stopped at the nearest food mall where we got the car checked by a mechanic and decided to sleep for half an hour before proceeding for our final destination. Well the mosquitoes wouldn’t allow me to sleep and looking at Lala, who was sleeping fitfully; I grew jealous and woke him up to move ahead. Final words to sign off!! We reached Pune at 1:30 AM on Monday, Lala was dropped off on FC road and I went off in the direction of Kharadi, final count on the trip meter – 600 KMs !! I bathed and went off to sleep. Musical journey came to a beautiful dreamless end. And we all lived happily ever after – until the next trek. Phew!
