Harishchandra gad

this narrative has been well written by Mr. Alekh Jamsandekar. posted it here as it was one of most memorable trek of my intitial treking days

Harishchandra Ghad (18th Feb –21st Feb, 1998)

Hi folks!

Just thought I’d follow Bipin’s example and write an account of our trek to Harishchandra Gadh. This is going to be a bit different, though – less of a travelogue, more like a diary of our experience in this wonderful trek.

Let me start by introducing you to our group of intrepid adventurers! The central character here- the organizer, leader, the common link between all of us, and the only person who had been to Harishchandra Ghad (henceforth referred to as h.gadh) before was of course Prashant. With him was his colleague from TEC and also an NCST student- Chinmay. Then there was Alhad, another ex-NCST student who was one of the colourful characters in the group. He’s had some of the weirdest and craziest experiences that you can think of! Then there was this brother-sister duo – Santosh and Smita. Santosh, an MBA Finance working in Siemens and Smita an MA Psychology. And then there was Rama, a pretty, young student doing her BA in …… you guessed it – psychology! Finally, most of you all know the remaining 3 visiting scientists from NCST - Mandar and Parag from KBCS and me from Graphics. So a motley crew it was - 3 engineers, 2 psychologists, 1 MBA and 3 scientists!

DAY 1- Here we go!
Well, it didn’t start off too well, what with me getting stuck in a traffic jam and reaching Dadar about 45 minutes late. But it didn’t matter, cos’ we got a good train and reached Kalyan on schedule – about 8:30 pm on Wednesday 18th Feb. The six of us had dinner at a Kalyan restaurant and were joined later by the 3 Thaneites – Santosh, Smita and Alhad. We were at the St stand well in time to catch the Nagar bus (via Ale fata), but still had to struggle to barge our way into the bus – as usual. But we were lucky to get nine comfortable seats. The bus climbed the Malshej Ghat in good time and dropped us off near Khubi fata at about 1:00 am. The place was desolate, with a couple of shacks on the left hand side of the road, one on the right and a hand pump nearby as well. It was dark and cold, and we couldn’t even tell if any of the shacks were occupied. One of the shacks had a shed in front, which afforded us some amount of shelter. A couple of us wanted to get started right away, but since Prashant wasn’t absolutely sure of the way, we decided to stay there till about 3:30 – 4:00 am. Meanwhile Parag got his binoculars out and we did some stargazing for a while. The sky was magnificent! And the half moon looked absolutely fantastic thro’ the binocs. The gang pulled out their sleeping gear and most of them went to sleep. We were a bit worried that we might not be able to wake everyone up in time, but we need not have been. Cos’ around 3:00 am it suddenly started to get very chilly. So everyone was forced to wake up and our trek finally started at about 3:30.

DAY 2 – Kokan kada
The mountain that we had to climb was quite a distance from Khubi fata, about 6-7 km to our North. But finding it wasn’t any problem cos’ there was a wide dirt road made by the dam constructors upto more than half the distance. In fact the construction work went on right thro’ the night. We strayed off the dirt track once onto the rough dam, and had to back track a bit. But other than that we made good time in the chilly early morning air. The starlight and the moonlight was bright enough to eliminate the need for torches. We took a break close to the well at the village of Khireshwar. According to Prashant there’s also a very nice temple somewhere nearby which we happened to miss because of our detour. All this is destined to be submerged underwater once the dam construction is complete. We stopped here for quite a while, had some food and our fill of water and moved on again. We started climbing again at around 6:30 am. We had to climb up to a pass between two mountains and climb the mountain to our left to reach h.gadh. This pass is called Tolar khind. We reached Tolar khind around 8:00. took another break and then started the final stretch (or what we thought was the final stretch!J)

The climb up the small rock patch was fairly simple and uneventful. We quickly reached the ramparts of the fort. Now, this fort is really very ancient and very little remains. Upto this point I was among the lead team while Prashant had taken up the responsibility to bring up the rear. Once we reached here, Prashant promised us that we were almost there, and he zoomed off ahead of us. Almost there!! Hah!! We still had almost 2 more hrs of walking up and down an endless series of small hillocks. Our tired team was really bored covering this last part of the trek. To complicate matters, Alhad started having cramps in his right leg, which just refused to go away. I had to coax and cajole the team to cover the final distance without stopping too often and we reached our destination – the temple at about 10:30. Prashant and Chinmay on the other hand had reached there almost a full hour before the rest of us!

We had earlier planned to stay in the temple. Now, this temple is a really ancient one. It is even said that it was the Pandavas who built it. Well, that may not be true, but it is very much evident that the temple is very old. In fact it’s the only intact structure left on the fort of h. gadh apart from a few caves. Opposite the temple is a water tank. At one end of the tank is a series of structures inset into the stone where there used to be idols. But they are all gone now – stolen. The temple is similar – heavily ravaged by time and the elements and human plunderers through its long history. But, it still stands, and also happens to have the only source of potable water near by (there is plenty of water around but it is not in good condition). It’s in this temple that we had originally intended to stay. But as soon as we got there, we realized that there was no chance of that. The temple was full of villagers from a village nearby who had come to celebrate a weeklong festival upto Maha Shivratri. So our 2 leaders had chosen a prehistoric cave nearby for us to live. (Well… not exactly prehistoric, but very old nevertheless J) It was not a natural cave; it was a man-made cave right along side 2-3 such caves – painstakingly carved out into proper living quarters. There was even a water supply, which though it wasn’t clean enough for drinking could be used for washing etc. and it was insulated well enough to protect us from the strong winds. So as far as we were concerned, it was a 5- star accommodation! (from a trekker’s point of view that is J) . Prashant and Chinmay fortunately had enough sense to get a ‘chul’ (wood fire) burning and start preparation for tea by the time we got there (the stove was in my bag). We got to work immediately and had an excellent breakfast of tomato soup, toast filled with mashed potato and onions and bread, butter and jam. Yes! Toast!! Prashant had made up his mind that this would be a ‘khaun, peeun maja maraycha trek’ and we had come all prepared for it.
Later, while the others relaxed in our new found ‘home’, Prashant, Mandar and I decided to check out our return route, we didn’t plan to return by the way we came. While returning, the bus had brought us up half way up to Khubi fata, and we had climbed the remaining way.

While returning we were going to climb down the other side and descend all the way down to a village called Pachnai and from there head straight for a pass between 2 other mountains upto a route called Sadhle ghat. We started sometime after 1:00 pm. We had descended more than halfway to the village of Pachnai, when we realized that it would be too much of a climb back. So we turned back satisfied that at least that part of our return route was now confirmed. We reached back at our base at around 3:00. Since we had skipped lunch, we were extremely hungry. So we had tea and upma for snacks. The upma was fantastic! (chief cook this time – Smita).

At about 5:00 pm, we all set out for the chief attraction of the day (indeed of the whole trek) – Kokan Kada. We planned to catch the sunset from Kokan Kada. Words cannot describe it, neither can photographs do it justice. You just have to BE there! It is a circular cliff-face which stretches out for about 2 kilometres in a semi-circle flanked by very symmetrical mountains on either side as its wings. The symmetry, geometry and the sheer scale of it is enough to impress you. But to get the real effect, you have to lie down on your stomach, and peep out over the edge (not for the faint – hearted or the vertigo prone). The cliff drops straight down for about 800m! The structure is somewhat concave. So while the cliff drops straight down at an angle of 90o degree at the sides, at the centre, it’s actually more like 100 – 110 deg. Simply breathtaking!! The Kokan Kada is definitely the most spectacular part of the boundary between the coastal region of Kokan and the Deccan Plateau. You lose your sense of proportion here. On the top of that are the incredibly strong winds that threaten to blow you off your feet at times. If you try to throw a moderately heavy object off the cliff it will come straight back and shoot up 10 – 15 feet in the air before settling back. We spent a couple of hours there admiring the awesome view and the beautiful sunset. Then as it started getting chilly and windy, we started back, gathering firewood on our way back.

One thing I forgot to tell you about was that for food each of us was supposed to get a certain amount of food - some of it common for everyone (like dal, rice etc) and each one carrying different vegetables etc. By some misunderstanding we ended up with an overdose of wangi (bringals)! And we found ourselves sharply divided into pro – wangi (Alhad and Mandar) and anti – wangi (me, Parag and Rama) with the others wavering in between! In any event, our menu for dinner was dal, rice, wangyache bharit, kobichi pachadi (for us anti – wangans!) and papads. In any case, since I’m liberal minded J, and the fact that Chinmay and I had spent so much effort roasting those dammed wangis over the smoking ‘chul’, I made up my mind to eat those wangis and like them too!!! J. In fact, in the meantime Mandar and Alhad had one wange purely roasted and smoked. I had some, and it really did taste good! (except for an itching tongue). So I was half converted already!


DAY 3 – Bath in a refrigerator
Mandar and I had tentatively planned to catch the sunrise. But considering how tired we were, and how cold it was out there, it was hopeless. So we finally woke up around 7:00 am the next day. We had an excellent break fast of tea and pohe. Later Alhad and Mandar decided to have a bath at the tank opposite the temple. Me and Chinmay joined in thinking we would just have a wash. The water in the tank however wasn’t all that clean. So we asked a small village kid who was hanging around, if there was a better place to have a bath. Wow, are we glad we did! He led us to another of the highpoints of this trek.

The place he led us to was a short distance from the temple. It was a square room carved out into the rock. It was about 30 ft. wide and 15 ft tall. At the center was a huge
Shiva Ling about 10 ft tall. It was surrounded by 4 pillars of which only one was left intact. And the most amazing thing about it was that it was filled with clear, clean water about 3 ft. deep and water was absolutely FREEZING! We made up minds to dive into it. I went back to get some clean clothes and tell the others about it. Prashant challenged me to spend even a minute in that freezing water! When I got back there, Mandar and Chinmay had already ventured into the water. Emboldened by that, I steeled myself to get in. with a couple of acclimatization halts I finally got in! I was shivering like crazy initially, but got more comfortable after a couple of minutes. We had a great time in there and made 3 complete pradakshinas around the huge
Shiva ling – 2 swimming and one walking. Meanwhile Parag, who had followed me just to see the place couldn’t resist himself, watching us have so much fun, and took the plunge as well. We spent a full 15 minutes in there and it was a fantastic experience. We even made Santosh get in partially, and later watched Allhad demonstrate his swimming skills (he’s been a pro swimmer as well).

When we got back to base, I was a bit disappointed to see that no one seemed to be interested in getting outdoors and exploring the place. We had just had a good breakfast and all that everyone was concerned with was lunch! Mandar and I decided to get out and climb up one of the three peaks at h. gadh. But Prashant vetoed the idea and made us stay behind and help prepare lunch. As some of you know how much I ‘love cooking’ I was a bit cross with him! But we stayed back anyway and weren’t sorry. Cos’ it turned out to be the best meal of the trek. It was a really royal lunch! We had Chapatis, Flower and Potato curry, Jeera rice (with Basamti rice! thanks to Rama), papad and to top it all - Gulab Jamuns!!! Just fantastic! Everything was delicious, especially the gulab jamuns and we had quite a feast.

About 2:30 in the afternoon we set off to climb the nearby twin peaks of Taramati and Rohidas. The ‘pay- waat’ soon led us through a moderately dense forest. It was cool among the trees, and it was quite a pleasant climb. We had gone up about 3/4ths of the way, when we suddenly came upon a clearing. It was close to the southeastern edge and we were awestruck by the view! We had a magnificent view of the Malshej ghat. We could see the entire way we had traversed in the middle of the night – right from Khubi Fata, to the partially constructed dam. And it all looked so tiny! Far off in the distance we could even spot the MTDC resort at top of Malshej ghat. The best thing about the view was that we had a bird’s eye view of the boundary between Konkan – to our right, and the Deccan plateau stretching out to our left. The difference in altitudes between the plains of Kokan and the Deccan plateau was visibly evident from our vantage point. We spent some time there admiring the great panorama and trying to trace the route we had come from using Parag’s binoculars.

The taramati point was right above this point, and the view was pretty much the same, except that we could see much more to our right. So we moved on to Rohidas. Here again the view was incredible. More so ‘cos looking down on the right we could see the mindboogling semi circular edge of the Kokan kada. We spent quite a while up there. The sun was still high enough. But no one was feeling the heat. We were too busy bracing ourselves against the cold and powerful winds! We thought we could get down from the other side – down to Kokan kada and then get back home. But what we thought was the way, actually led us to a small but steep rock face. Mandar and I thought this patch was manageable, but the others were against it. So we had to backtrack and go back the way we had come. We reached back at about 6:30 and it was too late for a revisit to Kokan kada.

The villagers who were there for the week – long festival in the temple had been insisting that we shouldn’t cook, and have our meals with them. So we had decided earlier that day, that we would have dinner with them that night, since it was any way a pain cooking in the dark. In any case, we made ourselves some tomato soup, and at about 7:30 pm, we went down to the temple. They invited us in for their programs of bhajans and kirtans. Parag, Alhad and Santosh stayed outside, warming themselves in front of the fire, while the rest of us went in. it was a different experience for all of us. The novelty of the situation kept us engrossed for a while, but I got bored after a while. It went on for almost a couple of hours. Rama and Smita, and Mandar and Chinmay, however enjoyed themselves playing fugdi towards the end! Then we all went out and had dinner consisting of rice and kadhi served on a set of leaves.

Their program was to go on right thro’ the night, just as it had the previous night. But we left around 9:30. We got back, and just sat together and talked (A sort of camp fire! J) we started off trying to learn about psychology from our 2 psychologists and then of course the conversation drifted as it always does to all sorts of things – from psychology to planchettes to NCST to jokes and puzzles. We finally went to sleep at around 11:00.

DAY 4 – Sadle ghat or is it?
We planned to be up at 5:00 am., but it was about 6 by the time everyone was up and about. It was the start of the most eventful day of this trek. Prashant had been insisting that we start the trek back right at 5:00 am – without even stopping for breakfast. But no one else paid heed to that. We were to regret that later. Anyway, we had a great breakfast of tea and sabudanychi khichadi, and it was 8:30 by the time we were finally off. As I’ve said the initial part of the trek had already been recced, and we got down to Pachnai in good time – at about 9:30. We skipped the main village of Pachnai and headed straight for Sadhle ghat. The road was wide – wide enough for a bullock cart. We knew that somewhere along the way a pay – waat would fork off to the left and we had to look out for that. On the way, we met a farmer who warned us that the way to Sadle ghat was difficult to find. But we trudged along confidently. After a couple of false alarms we found the right way and we came upon a very crude temple with painted atones for idols at about 10:30. We knew this was supposed to be on our way. So we were on the right track. From here there was another fork. A small pay – waat going off to our left and a larger path going straight. Prashant originally felt that the smaller path was the way, but then changed his mind and we headed straight. Well, this path just went on and on. It was pleasant enough initially, walking through the trees, but it was getting hotter. Somewhere along the way Rama’s right knee started troubling her. She used some balm that Alhad had brought and we carried on. We had walked quite a distance, when we realized that way was not quite going in the direction and that it might be leading to another village rather than the Sadhle ghat. But from the looks of it, we seemed to have a good idea about which direction it was.

So we broke off from the main path and cut across some fields towards what looked like our destination. We came upon a path headed in the right direction, but the trouble was, there were a lot of paths criss-crossing all over the place and we couldn’t be sure. Still Chinmay and I kept going in the direction, and we thought we had found the right path. But the rest of the group had suddenly stopped. This was at about noon. They had stopped a house in the distance. So, the consensus was that instead of roaming all over the place, someone should go ask for directions. So Mandar and I left our sacks at that point and headed for the house while others relaxed. The house turned out to be belonging to the Thakar wadi of Pachnai village. This village was certainly spread out! Anyway we asked about Sadle ghat, and the direction they pointed to was the very direction we were headed any way. So we went back and continued. Confident that we were going the right way, we found the right path and reached our destination at about 12:30. Or did we? We had come thro’ the trees and reached the junction between the mountain we were on and the mountain to our left. So, that part was o.k. But the path didn’t look right. It led to a ‘nail’ – basically a crevice between the 2 mountains where obviously, a lot of water must be cascading down in the monsoons. Also the path up to the top of the nail was slightly tricky – with a lot of slippery skree and nothing to hold on to. It certainly didn’t look like a path that was supposed to be used so often by the villagers.

So, Prashant, Mandar and I asked the others to wait there, while we checked out this route. We got down to the top of the nail, left our sacks there and started to descend. It wasn’t really a difficult descent. It was like a climbing down steps – highly irregularly sized steps, of course – only steps that were shattered into a thousand pieces! So every other step that we took tended to dislodge a small rock and send it tumbling down. It was especially tricky for the person in the front – me! Every now and then I would hear a rock or 2 tumbling down towards me and there was little I could do but flatten myself against the rock face and hope for the best (there was little place to dodge in that narrow nail). Now, it wasn’t so bad really. We were convinced that we could get the others down there safely the thing that we had to watch out for was whether the nail suddenly gave way to a steep waterfall that was impossible to climb down. Fortunately it didn’t and we soon reached a small but proper pay-waat. (It’s a different story that I had continued further down the same nail just cos’ I’d got into the rhythm of it J).

Anyway, we stopped there for a while and debated about the decision we had to make. The main issue wasn’t the difficulty of the route up to this point – we were sure we could get the other down safely. The main problem was the unknown route ahead of us and the nagging thought that this couldn’t be Sadle ghat - the often used route by the villagers. Sure, we had found this pay- waat but there was no way of being absolutely certain that it wouldn’t eventually lead to a dead- end (a very unlikely but nevertheless possible event). The trouble was, if we abandoned this way, the other alternatives were much worse. The alternatives were: 1. If this wasn’t Sadle ghat, then the actual Sadle ghat must be nearby. So get up there and look for it. (Unlikely) 2.Backtrack
Up to Pachnai where there allegedly was an ST - at what time and where to - nobody knew.
3. Climb H.ghad again and go back the way we came from (Ridiculous!). And none of these alternatives were likely to take us back to Mumbai before the end of the day, as it was already past 1:00 pm. It wasn’t all that urgent for the rest of us, cos’ we had the buffer of Sunday. But Mandar had a lecture to give for the OODP module on Sunday afternoon! If we took this path we would surely reach the village of Kelewadi where there was supposed to be a bus at 5:00pm. Failing that we could walk further to Savarne where there are plenty of buses. So taking all these factors into consideration we decided that it was worth taking the risk of continuing this way.

It turned out that we needn’t have taken all that effort after all. Because up there the decision had already been made for us. Alhad and Parag had decided for themselves that this couldn’t be the way. We tried hard to convince them, especially since from up there the path looked even more feasible. The steepest part of the descent we had already traversed. From there on the slope was more gentle. But they just refused to even listen to us. We thought they were speaking for the rest of the group and had no choice but to get our sacks and head back towards the village of Pachnai. I was bitterly disappointed. Not only for the above reasons. It was a huge waste of a lot of efforts – not just the physical effort of climbing down and up again – but we had spent a lot of time thinking and coming to this decision - all for nothing. Also it took half the fun out of a trek if we started turning back at the smallest of obstacles. Add to it the fact that Mandar would be in some trouble on account of his lecture. And on top of it, we would also now miss an event I was looking forward to – reaching the village of Belpada and looking UP at the amazing Kokan Kada.
Fortunately the disappointment did not last too long. We hadn’t walked too far when we saw some villagers. We immediately went over and queried them in more detail this time. It turned out that the actual Sadle Ghat was on the other side of the mountain. We had taken the wrong turn at the place we where we had seen the stone Gods. Prashant’s instinctive initial guess had been right! Anyway, the good news was that the path we had tried out also led to our destination. In fact, halfway down there it intersected the path from Sadhle ghat. The knowledge that this path was also used by the villagers and the fact that others were game enough to attempt it was enough for us to head back. This time we did not want to take any risks and requested one of the villagers to come with us to confirm the path. He was kind enough to come with us up to the top of the nail and confirm the way. It was past 2:00 pm.

The climb down the nali was interesting, to say the least J. It was similar to the first time except that there were nine of us this time, we had our heavy sacks on us and we couldn’t maintain the discipline of keeping distance this time. The shouts of Look! and Watch out! were heard through out as we sent a countless no. of rocks tumbling down, so much so that towards the end some of them didn’t even look upon hearing a shout of watch out. It’s a wonder that we all got down safely without starting a major avalanche! Now, the pay-wat was a strange one. It went criss-crossing across the nail, at points thro’ the nail. At one point we got into the nali and kept going down there cos’ it was simpler that way. That was a mistake. We should have watched out for the path forking out. We had gone down for quite a distance with me in the front, when we realised that the distance between us had increased. So we waited there for a while. While waiting, I suddenly remembered about Rama and her troublesome knee and had a sudden (unreasonable) attack of guilty conscience about making everyone come down this difficult path. So I made up my mind to curb this tendency to keep rushing forward and stay behind and see to it that even the last person made it safely. To compound it was the fact that at the point we had stopped there was a sharp drop that we had to scale down. The rock patch wasn’t all that difficult to climb down, as there were plenty of holds. The only problem was, the rock was very brittle and on 2 or 3 occasions it actually crumbled and fell, while one of us was clinging to it. So we had to be very careful. Chinmay was the first one down and we all followed slowly. All this however took quite some time and it was about 3:30 by the time everyone had got down.

We continued down the nail, this time keeping an eye out for the pay-waat. But the inevitable happened. We soon came to a steep waterfall which was impossible to climb down. Again we were fortunate to find the right path after scouting around a bit. On the way we met a villager who was coming down the same way. He showed us a source of water where we had a refill of our water bottles. He came along with us for some way, so we were assured about a way. If we had accelerated a bit we could have made it to Kelewadi in time for the supposed bus. But there was no point in pushing them, as everyone was tired by now and especially because of Rama’s troublesome knee and Prashant as well who had developed a painful ankle which he kept twisting every now and again. It was 5:30 by the time we finally got to Kelewadi. The bus it turned out wasn’t from Kelewadi, but from the next village – Valiware. We had no choice but to keep trudging on. We stopped by a stream for a while and continued. We reached Valiware at about 6:10. The good news was that the 5o’clock ST hadn’t come yet! So we could still catch it. Prashant was a bit confused as he remembered this village as Belapada from his previous visit. It turned out to be the same village – Belapada was an alias!

I forgot to tell you about the view from this village. Even as we were approaching the village we could see the amazing face of the Kokan Kada slowly come into view. The location of this village is fantastic. In fact it seems to be located right at the focus of this huge concave wall of the Kokan kada. Actually the Kokan kada is quite a distance from the village. It just seems close because of its sheer size. Parag got his binoculars out and we spotted some people moving around the top of the Kokan kada. Even thro’ the binocs’, they were just tiny barely visible, dots. You couldn’t see them at all thro’ naked eyes. That gave some idea of the scale. Simply awesome! We were extremely hungry and gobbled up 4 big packs of glucose biscuits between us. We hadn’t had a proper meal since the khichdi for breakfast. We watched a beautiful sunset as we waited for the bus along with a couple of villagers. At about 7:15 the villagers gave up. They said this bus was unreliable and often failed to turn up. Well, it was too late now to try and walk up to Savarne. The villagers had warned us that the route wasn’t too easy and it was getting dark. In any case, there was a bus which came to Velaware at 8:00 pm and left in the morning at 6:00 pm.

So we resigned ourselves to spending the night there. A person called Govind Koli had talked to us earlier and we went to his house. They were glad to accommodate us for the night. They even agreed to make dinner for us. These people were very kind and nice to us. They went to a lot of trouble for us without expecting much in return. We had a plenty of food left over with us. So we handed over all the remaining rice, potatoes, onions, papads and oil to the lady of the house. So our dinner was largely cooked from our own ingredients except of course the tandlachya bhakarya. The girls went in to help a bit and at about 10:00 we had a wonderful dinner. The bhakaris were great. The batatychi bahji was very hot but tasty all the same.

The room was very small. We let the girls have the cot while the others slept below. As it wasn’t as cold as on H.ghad, Prashant, Santosh and I decided to sleep outside in the courtyard. We laid out our bedding but couldn’t get right to sleep cos’ there was a bright electric bulb hanging right above my head. So we just sat around and chatted. Rama and Smita joined us and the five of us just talked about…..life, universe and everything! J. It was about midnight, when we finally went to sleep with the lights still burning bright.


DAY5 – Home at last
We woke up as planned at 5:00 am, well in time to catch the 6 o’clock bus. This day was pretty much uneventful; and our only worry was getting Mandar back in time for his lecture, and informing our parents that we were OK. The bus started in schedule, dropped us off at a place called Tokawade, which is on the highway. We had breakfast at a restaurant here (the first that we had seen in 4 days!) at about 8:00, we caught the Savarne-Kalyan bus and reached Kalyan at about 10:00. It was noon by the time we reached Dadar. It was the end of a fantastic trek. Mandar’s lecture went off well, though it did start an hour late (his back-up Vikram was away on a picnic as well!)