Hooked a Thread

Rajmachi. A name heard over years. When I hear the word Rajmachi, a memory comes to my mind. An old conversation by an old friend about his visit there which includes lots of Forest officers, jungle and rain. So when I planned about this trek I was very excited.

This time the team was Sudhindra, Akash and me. With eggs, and fruits, and clothes and blankets, and water we caught Pune bound Indrayani express. This train always takes me back to my CDAC training days in Pune. The journey didn't take long and by 8.15AM we were at Lonavala station.

What a pleasant morning. The thrill of walking in this morning set a धधम धधम rhythm in my heart. Having सटर फटर breakfast we started our hike. On some enquiry we found our trail. Which was a dirt motor-able road along the beautiful mountain range of Lonavala. To our west was a deep valley which raised a mountain far away running parallel to our path. To our east was a huge mass of stone wall. Wow! Magnificent. The mountain on the west had a railway track running on its stomach. Like an ant line the train passed blowing its horn. There was no sound except the thud of the railway diesel engine.

We walked with a fair speed. There wasn't any ascend or descend. Plus the morning air with low humidity. वाह!!. We reached a clearance and we found four huge buses parked on the way. लफडा. Four buses, we thought our silence and peace was gonna ruin. On enquiring with the drivers, we found out that they were gonna return the same day itself. A relief!. So again धधाम धधाम we continued. Many bikes, cars passed us on the way.

Shrivardhan and Manaranjan which were to our north west magnified with our each step. We reached a fork in the road, left way was Rajmachi. We took it and the way entered a thick forest which curved the mountain range to left. Here there was a very mild ascend. We heard a very distant चपड चपड. Kids! We thought and there they came a whole bunch of 5-6 year old with their barbie and doremon zolas towards us. So they were the ones who came in those buses!. Akash waved the stick in his hand in front of a kid and did हहेहे. That kid angrily snapped back at Akash with a louder हॅहॅहॅ and an insulting ,” चल जा बे”. Further one cute little girl in the group said, “ hello, go and see the Rajmachi fort”. We thanked her and said, “ sweet kids”. “But not that other one”, said Akash. We successfully stopped him from complaining their teacher about that knucklehead.

Now the fort shrivardhan was to our right. We had turned over the curved mountain and the route we came from was to our left. It felt like we were heading towards the pointed end of a hook. A short walk took us to Rajmachi village. The village has a tourist air to it. The development was new and decent. The primary source of income seemed to be from the tourists visiting the forts. An hour long rough drive through forest has made tourism possible. We found our contact - Janire family's house and made dinner and stay arrangements at their place. We reduced the weight of clothes and blankets there and with food and water we went towards the forts.

The trail to the forts start from a col between the two hills. There is an ancient temple in this col. Or should I say was. Because the pictures I had seen of this temple were completely different. What I had seen was an image of a ancient stone built monument with silence of nature. What I was seeing was a shop, laid at entrance of a house, oil painted with yellow and pink. There was drunk मंडळी in its yard cooking food in a huge vessel. Their clothes and undergarments laid out on its roof and stones. Keeping that monument to see for some other time( without the undergarments but still with the oil paint ) I headed towards shrivardhan fort.

This hill is stone walled beautifully, the walls dissolving in the mountain do not make its existence known. Let's just hope buffoons don't paint this wall with yellow and pink, their underwear color. This fort has beautiful caves and potable water cisterns carved in it. Water in one such cisterns was so clear and tempting we just filled our bottles with the sweet stone juice. It cooled our bodies and soothed our muscles. The view from the top of this fort was tremendous. Mountains and mountains around. I was sure that all these mountains and hills had their names with numerous trails in their midst. But I knew none of them. I could just see but not know where I could go. But yes they were all welcoming. And yes some day from one of those cliffs and trails I would recognize the place from where I was seeing them.

We descended shrivardhan. None of us were hungry and in hurry for lunch as we had been munching on fruits and snacks on regular intervals. It was about 3 PM. We started to hike Manaranjan. It was a pleasant and a short hike. On Manaranjan there are water cisterns and some damaged house like structures. The reflection in these cisterns was another sky in the water. We hiked Manaranjan on along its edges witnessing a different view with each step. Rajmachi village looked beautiful with slanting roofs on its head, fields on its shoulders and a lake in its ears. We had our lunch in a stone walled house with no roof.

It was about 4.45PM when we came to the edge where trail towards the col starts. Seeing that we had time on our hands we laid down on a flat rock bed. I was seeing a tremendous vast sky with streaks of clouds, high in it. When I saw the sky and the mountains I knew that they will be there. The question is will we be there? Sun was slowly going down the sky to light new mountains and trees somewhere in the world. We descended Manaranjan quickly.

Reached the col and saw that बेवडा buffoons were now painting the wooden columns of the temple with pink. There was a different trail going somewhere. A man told us that there is a potable water cistern there. We went there and came back to head towards the village.

We relieved ourselves of our bags and shoes and rested for a while. Our dinner was being prepared in the house. We decided to take a stroll till then. Mountains around looked orange in the twilight. When it was dark we looked at the stars. Played with them actually. Mind was wandering towards everyday worries but stars brought it back to the now. There was singing and noise in the village. Silence was stolen by अंताक्षरीs and किलकीलात. It's OK I said to myself. It's still beautiful out there.

A group was sitting around a campfire singing. We went to our place for dinner. There was a group of middle aged बेवडाs swearing and cursing their fate. Apparently our hosts had not let them drink because they were swearing and disrupting others. They were furious. I was glad and felt good that commercialization had some ethics after all.

We went in for dinner. Such food!. अंडा कडी, तांदळाची भाकरी, भात, कांदा, लिंबू, ठेचा, आणि ते पण unlimited. Had a good conversation with Janire family and headed out. Akash and I decided to take a stroll in the night while Sudhindra decided he would go and sleep.

So we went out. People around the campfire were gone leaving sparks in the fire behind. We sat there and took some warmth off the hot extinguishing wood and went to sleep. It was after years, many years that I slept at 9.30PM. We woke up in the morning at 6. Again it was after years that I had slept for such a long time. We freshened up packed our bags and had our morning breakfast. कांदा पोहा cooked by Janire काकी.

We asked for directions to descend towards Kondhivade village near Karjat and bid our farewell to the Janire family. The view from the edge from where we were gonna descend was mesmerizing.

We kept our pace slow and had fruits on our way down. Our next stop was kondhane caves which I knew were somewhere on the right hand side while facing the valley. We went there and found that the entry was restricted on account of a film shooting. They said that shooting would go on the whole day. We decided to leave because the sound of their generator and restricted access was frustrating.

I don't know, if holding a public place, for a movie shoot or any such thing, where people come from distant places is right or not. But it's not good to make others adjust for your benefit either. I believe in, "your poop, your mess, your job to take care of it". We continued down. Many people were on their way to see the caves. They were either gonna be excited that they were going to see a film shoot or they were going to be pissed off. “Beauty lies in the eyes of the observer”, they say.

We descended down. Looked at the mountain we had descended. We could see the beautiful Manaranjan from here. About an hour walk from base took us past Kondhivade village to Khandape. From where we got a shared टम टम to Karjat station.

So we took a hook like trail from Lonavala to Rajmachi and tied a thread to it towards Karjat. GPS device clocked 30 kms of hike. This hike has again hooked something in me.