Ride to Raigad!! Salute to the greatest Maratha Warrior!

RIDE-TREK to FORT RAIGAD

Hi friends,
Well this write-up of mine is a long one, so if your scared to read it, just browse through my pictures , I got some fabulous shots

The link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/ (album titled, raigad ride)

Well friends, my bike cylinders were silent for the whole month of April after my last fabulous trip to the KONKAN coast of India. So it was time to fill it, shut and go dhoom and vroom!!! Boy I love the sound of my Yamaha engine on a lonely road!! After my biking trip to Murud-janjira-harihareshwar in march I quickly had a look for our next public working holiday in the tatamotors. Well it was 1st may!! And fortunately for me 1st of may is a holiday for all in India, so a month in advance I set up this biking cum hiking trip to fort RAIGAD with another colleague of mine from Tatas named Mr. A Basu , he agreed instantly & lapped up my offer.
We decided to leave at 4.30 am and reach raigad which to our knowledge was 150kms from pune, it turned out to be 170kms from my place of accommodation, so I can correct that on the internet I believe. Eventually we left at 5am, I was leading, it as dark and cold. Believe me even if its summer where it goes to 41 degrees in pune , at nights it gets cold especially if you are biking. “As all wise people do” to whomever we told about our trip plans gave us lotsa unwanted suggestions like carry water , glucose, I just heard them out patiently. Cmon I am not a kid , besides this is my 3rd biking trip all in summer months and I have done lotsa high quality treks say like just a few months prior to this one in the sahayadris. Anyway I appreciated their advice as a concerned friend and ,we did carry lotsa water and customary nuts and wafers and chikki!! As I said I am an experienced rider now I knew it would be cold early morning and I carried a light jacket, Mr. basu however was lacking in this department and felt the heat or the “cold” I must say in this case!! Haha!! Next time am sure he will carry his jacket too.
We dint take any major halts, just a one odd leak halt and one halt for clicking about 2-3 pics. I must say the weather was fantastic till about 9am, we felt as though it would rain, cloudy and misty in the moutians and we were riding the road in the valley below!! This is what I live for. However it dint rain, but the ride in the early morning mist from 6-7 am was breathtaking.
Oh I almost forgot the bike odometer reading was 29890 when we started from my room. The ride was fantastic in the ghats and on the Mumbai-goa highway too!! I did sped upto 120kmph and broke my earlier high on 110kmph on my bike. So that’s a new achievement for me. Now we turned left on the Mumbai – goa highway near a village called Mahad to go to raigad, you wont miss it as there is a big poster of king shivaji and two lions which have been mounted on pillars to greet visitors!! Once you are here one is about 22kms away from raigad fort, again we were going smoothy, the road was bad in patches and ok and good in other patches, but I am now thoroughly confident that my bike can weather all sorts of “good, bad and no road conditions”. Here an interesting incident occurred, as with almost all villages in konkan the road is just narrow for one big to go at a time, a state transport bus was in front of me and I was looking for an opportunity to overtake it ,else I would have been saddled to the slow pace of the bus and we wanted to reach early and start trekking. Hence I was looking for an opportunity to overtake the bus which I did find and suddenly a big mahindra jeep out of nowhere appeared in front of me, my god it was like a film stunt sequence straight out of Mission Impossible, imagine a narrow road with a bus going along like an elephant and occupying the entire road, you try to over take like a tiger and find a rhino in front of you ,with no space to move , what do you do? Luckily I managed to maneuver with a surgeon’s precision just a few centimeters which were available at 60-70kmph and the jeep guy maneuvered skillfully too and all of us were safe and sound.the entire thing happened in a fraction of a second. The jeep contained a family of villagers, they stopped to see if I am fine, I was fine, however I stopped too, we cursed in unison the narrow road and advised each other to go slow!! This was once again “death kissing me and leaving” perhaps aware that I have come with a clean heart as of the local villagers who live in the village to trek fort raigad!!
We had some tea at the base of the fort where I left my helmet with the shopkeeper as I forgot my helmet lock this time. We first clicked a couple of pics of fort raigad’s first view for which I have no words to describe, see it for yourself in my album titled Raigad ride for which I am sending the link. Now some trivia about raigad which I will keep mentioning time and again as and when needed. Raigad was the capital of ,I would call and all would agree with me “ the greatest maratha warrior” so it is a must see for all maharashtrians atleast. It is a special fort and was selected to be the capital by the king over several other forts which he had captured or built. We started climbing the steps one by one with each step giving us the false impression that our legs were 100kgs each, this was mainly due to the sun’s fury at its best and our bags filled with 4 litres of water. Our ascend was slow initially under the excuse of getting some, I would call fantastic shots of riagad from all angles. The shots were every bit worth the halt, but they also provided us a breather. In one shot where I am bare-chested halfway up the fort I see a lady climbing from below, this was now not a new sight for me now as refer to my line where I call myself experienced I know that the villagers(old-young men and women and children of al ages) climb effortlessly with children, water , their stuff to sell for trekkers like me on top the fort. And as fate would have it this lady named RANJANA GORE became our official tour guide across the 100acres of raigad. She was a basically a seller of buttermilk and grapes. She lived in the village below called “pachad”. She on the way kept on forcing us to drink her buttermilk which was similar to having a chilled beer after a long day at office. However I dint like it much but my friend Mr basu lapped up every drop like a puppy dog. I had read about various spots to visit like the Samadhi of shivaji maharaj, the rani mahal, the hathi tank(elephant tank for drinking water), takmaktok, bazaarpeth( the malls at that time), the simhasan(throne of the king), nagarkhana and the main palace itself. I decided to test her knowledge by asking what all she would show us? She mentioned all the above spots and many more, so she was true( normally 99% of times the villagers never cheat you is my experience). They just live with harmony with nature. Again our photosession was going on and she would also stop wherever she saw tourists and try and sell her buttermilk and grapes(karwand is the name in marathi, I guess they are grapes, if not grapes they were something similar). Oh I forgot to mention , this fort has lots of ramparts and I rate it second only to the janzira fort which is fully fortified even now though it was built 950 yrs ago. Raigad was built about 450 yrs ago, it would have been fully fortified now also had it not been for the british and the mughals who usually destroyed everything wherever they went. As I climbed up a big stone wall to get a view of the valley below , the jagged stones made a nice accurate “L” shaped cut in my pant, I will have to go to the tailor also soon! but yet this mark will be indelible evidence of what a great day I had at raigad. I was most interested in visiting the HIRKANI buruj ( or secret way) to the fort as I love secret ways, all guides skip this as the fort is 100 acres and this secret way lies in one extreme corner of the cliff on atop which the fort was built. Now some interesting trivia again shivaji maharaj selected raigad as his capital because the fort is surrounded by steep, absolutely suicidal cliffs on three sides so that it would be almost impossible for any enemy to ascend via these sides besides the Maha darwaja or the main entrance to the fort which would be off course guarded by his troops. The architect of the fort after his completion which took 14yrs also made a bold statement to the king himself that “only water can trickle down and air can rise up on raigad without the kings permission” but boy a daring daredevil lady called HIRKANI proved him wrong and shook the kings impression of the fort being impossible to climb from any other route. Here is how is goes….in those days all the entrances to the fort used to get shut at 5 pm no matter what. These were orders strictly to be followed and it was a rule engraved in stone. Those who were in the fort had to stay there and those were outside had to stay outside when the gates closed at 5pm.Hirkani was a milkmaid who came on the fort to deliver milk from the village below. One day it so happened that she was late to leave the fort and the gates as usual shut at 5pm. No amount of pleading to the guards helped her cause. It was told to her that she could leave only next morning when the gates opened. But she was worried about her baby back in the village below, so this lady , this brave lady found a way down playing hide and seek with treacherous cliffs. Next morning when the guards went to tell her that the gates have been opened , she was not to be found on the fort!! Where is hirkani?in order to found an answer to this question a massive hunt was launched for her and she was found in her village below with her baby. Everyone was shocked….how did she decend? Its impossible!! Soon this news reached the king’s (shivaji maharaj’s) ears himself and he too was dumbfounded, his notions about only air rising and water trickling down without his permission had been shattered. Hirkani was summoned to the palace, she thought she would be punished and thrown of a spot called “takmaktok” on the fort from where the prisoners and criminals were thrown off into the valley. She told the shivaji maharaj that if she was going to be thrown off the cliff it should be with her child. But shivaji maharaj is not called the greatest maratha warrior for nothing, this lady was not to be killed but honoured with gifts,gold coins and dresses for opening the kings eyes about his false notions about the fort. Hirkani showed shivaji maharaj the way she got down the steep cliff. Immediately the architect was hauled up and ordered to construct a steep stone wall which would make it impossible to scale down from the top and vice versa for enemies. We went to this spot, carefully , each step was a measured one depite havinf my woodland trekking shoes and hands free. Hirkani was barefoot and had her milk utensils. We saw the wall which was constructed later and given her name and called “hirkani buruj” and the cliff , I salute the brave lady called HIRKANI, it is just not steep, it is infinitely steep. But this is shows how much a mother loves her young one for which she risks her own life. See the pics in the link titled view from hirkani buruj, my eyes started to feel giddy, it gives a feeling of death flirting and you. There is a small stone carving of lord hanuman( who is renowed for his valour under all circumstances in hindu mythology ) on this wall which was constructed. We paid our respects to the lord and hirkani herself. Meanwhile our guide who showed us the way to this secret passage but did not accompany us was getting worried, as we began to return she was seen searching for us. When she saw us she heaved a sigh of relief , she thought we have slipped and fallen!! Her description was accurate, she did say that you feel giddy while looking down from this particular stop down below, she was right, I looked down from other parts of the fort across the cliff and on other mountain treks too, and it was always a pleasant feeling, but from hirkani buruj it was as I said as it death staring in your eyes waiting for you to fall.
After hirkani buruj which I was so satisfied enjoying in completion, we headed to the other “spots or points” as is guide parlance in the fort to visit. We saw the elephant tanks, the lady told me that the elephants were taken on top of the fort as babies and raised there, this cleared my doubt as it was impossible for elephants to climb the mountain. The queens palaces were also seen. Shivaji had 8 queens, 6 of them lived on raigad and the remaining two on other forts which he had captured or built. The lady said the multiple wives were mostly the daughters of his generals or (sardars) as they were called in those times. The marriage of the general’s(sardars) daughter to the king ensured their loyalty to the king and healthy relations as well which dint lead to a coup against the king. I don’t know if they fought as their palaces were side by side, 6 of them!! Haha!!
There are mtdc (maharashtra tourism development corporations) shaks on the fort which was surprising to us, it’s a good initiative taken by the government of maharashtra. Many people spend the night at these small rooms on the forts. Raigad if it has to be explored throughtly takes 2 days and I believe this statement totally. We were shown the Dharamshala , which was a place where the visitors( I guess mostly royal and important ones ) lived. Then we saw the dungeon where the prisoners were kept, it is similar to a small well (except being dry off course) damp and dark, then afterwards these people were thrown off the Takmaktok as I mentioned earlier. We then saw the kings court and the place where his throne was kept . I happened to sit on that place and have my picture taken which dint go well with other tourists!! They conveyed their displeasure from 200metres away and I heard every word of it, how? Here is how… opposite the thrown 200metres away is the nagarkhana or the place where the sirens and bugles I guess( basically I mean all musical instruments which used to be played). The area which resembles a football field is so desgined acoustically that even a lighting of a match can be heard clearly 200m away in the kings court.
We also visited the bazaarpeth or the shoping malls of those time on the fort ( there were 44 of them is I remember right) … the pics are there in my album for your reference.here our guide Ranjana Gore decided it was time for her to go home, we paid her Rs 200 for her services and interesting bits of information, she gladly accepted the money without any fuss and happiness in her eyes . From there we went to the Samadhi of shivaji maharaj, also we found a dog’s Samadhi, a closer look tells you that this is the Samadhi of king shivaji’s loyal dog whose name was “waghya” which means tiger in marathi. Legend has it that he jumped into the pyre of shivaji when he saw that nobody was doing anything and his masters body was burning, waghya jumped in order to save him and died himself. Such is a dog’s love they only know how to give love and never expect anything in return. We rested a little near the Samadhi as we found there was a stone covering over
stone bench. Meanwhile the guides came in with other tourists and I was listening with eyes closed to what they had to say, all of them who came said the same things, I will repeat one, a poet who had come from uttar Pradesh had written a few lines about the king which said that “if shivaji maharaj would not have been born in maharashtra, everybody would have been a muslim in India” this seems true to me as I am fiercely a hindu patriot and I am not for forced conversions which the muslim rulers carried out wherever they went. He told lots of other stories also which seem true. We then went to takmaktok, my god the view was fabulous, it’s not necessary that criminals need to be thrown off takmaktok, if the purpose is wanting to kill them. This can be achieved by throwing them off any point from the fort, however I guess the approach to takmaktok makes you jittery, it’s a narrow piece of cliff land projecting in one direction, just narrow enough for a one bus to pass at a time!! Haha! Interesting trivia again, the wind here is fierce, I am not joking , a slightly thin individual could be blown off the the piece of jutting land right into the valley below, if you don’t believe me have a look at my takmaktok pics, I removed my vest and its absolutely horizontal ,parallel and at shoulers height to the ground due to the wind force( I am not magician and that is not any special effect pic. We thoroughly enjoyed the cool breeze even though it was about 3.30 pm in the afternoon and fiercely hot. Now the govt has fitted the passage to takmaktok with steel bars so that people can hold them and progress towards the end and are not blown of by the ferocity of the wind. The view of fort raigad is absolutely stunning from takmaktok, we got some great shots believe!! I dint want to leave takmaktok as I was enjoying the breeze fully, but we had to leave. While leaving we saw tourists like us eating at the houses of locals who now live on top, again not new for me, I have seen that on earlier treks also. There were lotsa men, women and kids selling nimbu pani( lemonade) due to the heat and everyone used to ask us to have a drink at his/her kiosk!! We then visited the temple jagdireshwar temple while leaving, another interesting piece of trivia, this temple was deliberately built to look like a mosque from the outside in case the mughals attack as their tendency was to destroy all temples I believe. However in the inside there is nice shiv pindi. We paid our respects and left. Me sitting at the place of shivaji maharaj’s throne occurred while leaving. So I left raigad by sitting at the place where the king’s throne was placed. Am sure the king would not mind even though the fat ladies who told me to get up did mind. It takes guts to sit and get your picture clicked sitting on the very spot where the king’s throne was placed, irreverence was not at all in my mind, just capturing happy moments was my aim.
We came to the base by the RAIGAD ROPEWAY. This is a ropeway which takes people who are lazy to trek up and down, we trekked up and wanted to have an experience as to how it feels in the ropeway, hence took that to come down. It takes 4 mins to reach the top by ropeway and one hour to climb!!
The ropeway base was about 2kms from the place where we had parked our bikes, hence we walked those 2 kms and we got some great shots of the the cliff hanger fort again. We saw the HIRKANI BURUJ again from below, see the snaps in the album, I salute this brave woman again and again. Like they say “its not in the body , but its in the heart which separates the strong like shivaji maharaj and hirkani from the faint hearted” . We had lunch at about 4.15 at the base from where we began ascending the fort. Again I could not keep my eyes off this magnificent fort called RAIGAD , as shivaji had hoped this fort was not to be captured in his presence , it was never captured while he was king, it was sadly captured after his death. I will truly remember this fort as long as I live for the king’s vision, his valor, his vision and offcourse hirkani!!! Ya my death kiss (remember the bus incident is also etched in my mind) !! 
We had a fast and furious night drive back to pune with the odometer reading 30230kms. 340kms of pure fun filled with history, every inch of it. I will go again to pay my respects to the king again and explore the remaining parts of this huge 100acre cliffhanger fort, however in the winter or monsoon now! My special thanks to Ms Supriya for lending her Sony camera for our wonderful photo session during the entire ride and I thank my Yamaha RXZ bike too for not faltering the entire 340kms as usual.
Regards,
Parikshit Vaidya, ph no:9822474756, Pune