Hill tops and rain
19th July, Saturday morning, 6 o'clock. Cargo's and over-sized tee shirts. Bags packed. Wind cheaters in hand. There was a comfortable silence in the rickshaw as my best friend and I travelled to the Mulund railway station.
Excitement in the air, we got on a Thane-bound train. No rush. "Thank God," we thought. "It's here and we're going and nothing can stop us," she said aloud. I nodded and grinned and clapped.
There are some trips that you plan for weeks or months and they just don't happen. Then, there are trips that you plan in a day, which happen very smoothly, without any trouble. This weekend Rajmachi trek comes under the second category.
This was the third monsoon trek in my memory, Matheran and Sagargad being the first and the second, and it was wonderful.
Rajmachi is 18 kilometers from Lonavla railway station, at a height of 2710 feet above sea level. We were to walk/climb that distance and reach a small village settlement where we'd stay for the night and next day. It took us nearly five hours, and it was quite a tiring walk. With backpacks and wet, heavy windcheaters, meh.
It was around 3.30 pm when we reached the house. A house like any other in the villages in Maharashtra. Made out of mud, with the floor layered with cow dung. Long, broad hallways, big rooms, a spread-out veranda. Without electricity, though; solar energy being the only source of power, so darkness in the monsoon.
Delightful malwani chicken curry and bhakri (a roti made out of rice/bajra/jowar/ragi). By default, the next thing happening with me was going to be sleep, and I did go to sleep. Bro, an 18 km walk-cum-climb does things to your feet, and a 2 kg backpack, to your shoulders and back, okay?
Out of us six girls in the group of 17, only one wanted to go fort-climbing. Leaving the five of us to look after the bags and everything, the adults started off.
By 8, everyone was back, and longing for tea, including me. When it came, we heaved a sigh of pure happiness.
There are two forts - a small one, Manaranjan, and a bigger one, Shrivardhan.
Sunday morning came with protests about waking up at 6. Tea gave us all the much needed motivation, and after a visit to a beautiful lake nearby, we set off for Shrivardhan.
The Shrivardhan fort, I thought, would be like any other fort in the Sahyadri range.
I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.
The gushing rain and howling winds bowled us over, completely. Drenched in five seconds flat, I was trying to soak in every moment and I can't tell you how many times I thanked God for I did not need feel the need to fix wipers on my spectacles, 'cause I don't have any. Geddit geddit? Okay, forget it.
I saw a blanket of green bushes do a wave, uphill. I saw the fog clear below me. It was alluring.
The wind could take me away with it, and I would willingly fly and not come back at all.
This article may be a little bizarre and not well planned, for that was how the trek was.
I only hope you feel what I felt.
It was happiness and nothing else.
Excitement in the air, we got on a Thane-bound train. No rush. "Thank God," we thought. "It's here and we're going and nothing can stop us," she said aloud. I nodded and grinned and clapped.
There are some trips that you plan for weeks or months and they just don't happen. Then, there are trips that you plan in a day, which happen very smoothly, without any trouble. This weekend Rajmachi trek comes under the second category.
This was the third monsoon trek in my memory, Matheran and Sagargad being the first and the second, and it was wonderful.
Rajmachi is 18 kilometers from Lonavla railway station, at a height of 2710 feet above sea level. We were to walk/climb that distance and reach a small village settlement where we'd stay for the night and next day. It took us nearly five hours, and it was quite a tiring walk. With backpacks and wet, heavy windcheaters, meh.
It was around 3.30 pm when we reached the house. A house like any other in the villages in Maharashtra. Made out of mud, with the floor layered with cow dung. Long, broad hallways, big rooms, a spread-out veranda. Without electricity, though; solar energy being the only source of power, so darkness in the monsoon.
Delightful malwani chicken curry and bhakri (a roti made out of rice/bajra/jowar/ragi). By default, the next thing happening with me was going to be sleep, and I did go to sleep. Bro, an 18 km walk-cum-climb does things to your feet, and a 2 kg backpack, to your shoulders and back, okay?
Out of us six girls in the group of 17, only one wanted to go fort-climbing. Leaving the five of us to look after the bags and everything, the adults started off.
By 8, everyone was back, and longing for tea, including me. When it came, we heaved a sigh of pure happiness.
There are two forts - a small one, Manaranjan, and a bigger one, Shrivardhan.
Sunday morning came with protests about waking up at 6. Tea gave us all the much needed motivation, and after a visit to a beautiful lake nearby, we set off for Shrivardhan.
The Shrivardhan fort, I thought, would be like any other fort in the Sahyadri range.
I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.
The gushing rain and howling winds bowled us over, completely. Drenched in five seconds flat, I was trying to soak in every moment and I can't tell you how many times I thanked God for I did not need feel the need to fix wipers on my spectacles, 'cause I don't have any. Geddit geddit? Okay, forget it.
I saw a blanket of green bushes do a wave, uphill. I saw the fog clear below me. It was alluring.
The wind could take me away with it, and I would willingly fly and not come back at all.
This article may be a little bizarre and not well planned, for that was how the trek was.
I only hope you feel what I felt.
It was happiness and nothing else.
Any writing that makes you think of yourself is good writing! So I went back a few years and relived my trek to Mahuli. We had reached Asangaon at night and spent the night on Asangaon station. Some of the trekkers slept. I however kept awake the entire night and after the last train departed, some of the locals lit up a bonfire. It was a cold night and I asked the villagers if I could sit close to the fire. Well, they never refuse and made space for me. They let me in on the gossip of the local politics. One of them had a transistor and was playing songs on Vividh Bharati. It was there that I heard the song JAANE KYA BAAT HAI from the film Sunny for the first time. Since then I have always associated the song with Asangaon!
ReplyDeleteLovely! Trek memories just randomly crop up and it feels so good.
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