It’s a Sunday – Let’s ride! Its the monsoon – Lets trek!
Lets do both- Bike and hike! I tried to get She-who-must-be-obeyed to come for a trek, but she was still traumatised by the huge crowds at Tikona last Sunday and refused to come. ‘It’s a Sunday, and I am going to sleep!’ she announced. ‘I have to get up everyday at 6 to send your kid to school, and I need a break once a week!’ ‘My kid?’ I said ‘I thought it was your kid...’ I broke off as a dangerous light came into her eyes. ‘If your stupid alarm goes off at 5.30 in the morning and wakes me up...I will find you...and I will kill you...after I finish cutting you!’ So I decided to go for a ride instead, and went through Ashutosh Bijoor’s blog for places to go to. I saw this post about his ride to Uran fort, and I was fascinated. I knew nothing about Uran except that it houses the new (well, not so new now) dockyard of Mumbai – the Jawaharlal Nehru Port trust – and is the place where millions and millions of trucks go to. The idea of it being a historical place, with an ancient fort, fascinated me. I had to see this. On Sunday I woke up bright and early (with a silent vibrating alarm, to save my life) and set out for Uran – about 45 KM away, via Vashi and Palm beach road. I had attempted to go to Vashi earlier once, but I had been really scared by the very fast heavy traffic. It had been early in the year, so it was quite dark in the morning so visibility was an issue. But now I learnt that the trick is to avoid using the flyover, so that you can stick safely to the side of the road and out of harm’s way. I crossed Vashi bridge for the first time on cycle, and was very amused to see the many people fishing from the bridge. They were very poor people and it was really basic fishing – they didn’t have a fancy pole or anything – just a plastic string and a hook. And there were so many of them! I wondered if they actually caught anything or this was just a way to get out of the house and away from the wife. I turned on to Palm beach road, and really enjoyed that part of the ride. Nice wide roads, green and scenic, not much traffic – it was fun to ride on. I passed the huge Seawoods lake, and was amused to see a replica of Rodin’s ‘Thinker’ out there. I had passed by this place a million times, but had never noticed it before. She-who-must-be-obeyed stood up and struck a dramatic pose, waggling her finger at me.
‘Today we shall go for a trek!’ I raised my eyebrows, and she immediately took that as an insult and scowled at me, and I rapidly lowered them. ‘I WANT COFF COFF...’ I waited for her to complete the sentence, but she only made a sound like a truck grinding its gears. After a second she continued. ‘I W ANT COFF COFF’ and again stopped. ‘Coffee?’ You want coffee?’ She just glared at me. ‘I WANT to go on a trek...coff coff. Cough cough’ Oh, she was coughing, and that frightening sound was her clearing her clogged throat. ‘Dude...you are not well...you are sounding like Ajit instead of Mona darling, and coughing away like a machine gun.’ ‘So?’ ‘Er...I mean...do you think that its a good idea to go for trek in the rain when you are down with a cold?’ ‘tchah.’ She said. ‘Watch this.’ And she took a big breath, and growled ‘OK, all you germs...GET OUT!!!!’ And I swear, I could almost see all the germs, viruses and microbes rushing out of her body in sheer terror. ‘OK, let’s go.’ ‘!@$#%@%%#(@ You STUPID SON OF A BLIND BAT! STAY IN YOUR LANE!!! @$$%&& GET OUT OF MY LANE YOU SLOWCOACH!!! #%$%*@#@ BLOODY ROAD HOG...WHO GAVE YOU A LICENSE??? #&*#!#^@@ TURN OFF YOUR BLINKERS YOU FOOL....’ This was me cursing at the traffic on the Expressway, because all the other drivers seemed to have taken an advanced degree in moronry with an additional elective of idiocy. ‘Dude...dont get so upset.’ SHE said to me. ‘You should be calm like me.’ ‘Eh? Calm like who?’ ‘Like me. Unflappable. Ice cold. In control of your self.’ ‘Eh? Yesterday when the birds came and chirped at the window you cursed and threw things at them. One bird had a heart attack and died of fear when you glared at it. The dhobi still quivers and pees in his pants because you shouted at him for bringing the clothes late...and...’ ‘Oh shut up. Be calm like me. See, once we get on the trek how calm and energised I will be. Everyone should trek in the Sahyadris in the rains. Everyone.’ ‘@##@*@$T#@# THESE STUPID MORONS. #@$#@&~ HOW DID THEY DARE TO COME ON THE SAME MOUNTAINSIDE AS ME?’ Unfortunately for She-who-must-be-obeyed, it seemed that the whole of Mumbai and Pune had listened to her and decided to go trekking. SHE had chosen Tikona fort as our first trek destination this year because it was easy to reach and an easy climb, but it seemed that so had everyone else. There were vehicles lined up all over that narrow road, and huge crowds of first time trekkers caused traffic jams up the fort, and were making noise and generally disturbing the peace. It was like being at Dadar station in the rain. I was astounded, I had not seen crowds like this here ever. ‘@$^7#@ STUPID MANNERLESS BUMPKINS...MORONS...JAYWALKERS...HAYSEEDS....’ she was mumbling away. ‘Hey ...what about being unflappable and ice cold?’ I reminded her, but she only glared at me. The weather was nice, it rained and soaked us, the mountain was green and the Pawna lake below looked wonderful. Tikona is a lovely little fort, with a lot of nice little sites – the entry gateway, the maruti bas relief, the water tanks, the Vitandeshwar temple on top, etc. It is part of the chain of fort in the Maval area – Tung, Lohgad, Visapur, etc. Its a very ancient fort – with traces before 07 AD – which makes it more than 2000 years old. It has changed hands many times over the centuries – the Nizamshah, Shivaji, mughals, Marathas, and then British. But by the end, warfare itself had changed, and Pax Brittanica made warfare obsolete and so all the forts became relegated to relic level. During the rains, it is a lovely place. It’s another Sunday, and it’s time for another Sunday morning ride!
Today I was off to Jogeshwari, as I had been extremely intrigued by Ashutosh Bijoors blog about his visit to Jogeshwari caves. Just imagine! A 2000 year old rock cut cave in the middle of Mumbai’s suburban area, and no one seems to have heard about it! I had to check this out. It was just under 50 KM round trip, and would be a nice ride in the rains. I hit the road by 6 AM, and cycled across the Eastern express highway and then hit the Jogeshwari Vikhroli link road, and then asked my way to the caves. And when I found the caves, my jaw really dropped! What an awesome cave temple complex! It was huge – one large central hall, where there is a temple of Jogeshwari devi, one large outside chamber where there are some excellent friezes of Shiva Parvati, and several interconnected passages where there are temples of Ganesha, Maruti etc. The ASI has done an excellent job of cleaning up the place and removing encroachments – as can be testified by the broken remains of the illegal buildings around it. Its a nice clean and safe place to go to, and since it is a live temple, there are always people around. Continuing my Mumbai exploration and Sunday morning ride, I was on my way to my longest ride yet – Ghodbunder fort – on the outskirts of Mumbai. It was about 85 Km return trip and would be the longest ride so far. Ghodbunder fort was fascinating to me, because it is such an important fort – controlling the Vasai creek, and overlooking one of the oldest harbours in the Mumbai area – and is reasonably close to the city...but no one seems to know about it. People who have lived in Thane or Borivili their whole lives, spitting distance away from the fort, have no idea that such a thing exists. I myself had no idea either – and I am a history and travel buff – until I read about it on Ashutosh Bijoor’s blog when I was searching for forts and historical places around Mumbai. I had the runs all day on Friday and Saturday, probably Mohammed Ali’s revenge from eating the iftaar street food, and was thinking sadly that this puts paid to my Sunday morning ride. I actually settled down to watch the Euro cup match on Saturday night, when I suddenly realised that I had not been to the pot pilgrimage for some time now! Maybe I would be Ok for the ride. So I put the alarm on for 5 AM and went to sleep. The wife cursed at me when the alarm went off in the darkness, and would probably have strangled me there and then if I had not smartly jumped out of bed and muted the alarm. Shaking at my near escape, I fumbled for my clothes in the dark, as I did not dare to put on the light. All geared up, I hit the road at first light and started on the journey. I normally like to listen to podcasts when I ride, but in the pouring rain it was obviously not possible, so I did the ride in silence with only the voices in my head for company. The Eastern express freeway is a pretty good place to ride your cycle – the roads are broad, and mostly in good condition, there is a service road where the slow vehicles can go, and on the actual highway there is enough room for the fast vehicles to give you a wide berth. You can maintain a good cadence and speed without having to jam on the brakes all the time. Good speed is a relative concept of course – I was swiftly overtaken by multiple cyclists - but I did not try to race or catch up. It was a long journey and it was important to pace myself. I passed the Airoli bridge turnoff, where I had gone to see the wetlands around the pumping station, and then was very happy to reach my first waypoint – the Thane toll naka! It was the first time I would be going out of Mumbai, and it was a sort of halfway point for the ride. Now that I had finished the forts project, it was time to find new worlds to conquer!
I wanted to keep up the concept of discovering places in Mumbai which I had not visited yet, and decided to continue with the ancient monuments theme. So where to go? Suddenly the name ‘Mahakali caves’ popped into my head. I had heard the name of the road ‘Mahakali caves road’ but had no idea about the caves itself. I googled it and saw that it was about 15KM away, which would make it a comfortable 30 -35 KM round trip – I would go from Ghatkoper and return via Powai and see Powai lake as well. I set out early morning and it was pretty pleasant cycling in the cool weather – it was still dark and the street lights were on. Mumbai never sleeps – so the early morning people were on the road – the newspaper and milk vendors, the vegetables and perishables delivery vans, the trucks wanting to get out of Mumbai before their timing ends, etc. I usually put on a podcast and enjoy listening to an excellent audio program while pedalling – it is more interesting than some pointless music, and safer as well – you can hear the traffic noises. I took a right at Saki Naka and another left at the JVLR road and it was a long uphill pull to the caves, I was puffing a bit when I got there. Good training for the planned long rides in the future. But when I got to Mahakali, there were no signs, no indicators that there was anything of historical interest there. Just a long fence on one side, and the normal small time shops on the other. Mystified, I asked the locals where was Mahakali. ‘Right here’ he said. ‘But where are the caves?’ ‘Right there’ he pointed at the fence. I looked at the fence – No signage, no information, no welcome board - there was just a forbidding looking gate, which looked like a gate to some sarkari top secret office instead of a tourist location. All that was missing was an armed guard looking as if he would shoot you if you even looked in that direction. And yeah – the gate was locked. ‘It will open at 8.30 AM. Come back then.’ The local grunted. Hmm. That’s an hour away. Let’s see what can be done. I went and locked my bike to the fence and started looking around. A guy washing a car caught my eye and nodded at a gap in the fence. I looked at it puzzled, and saw a guy walking through it with a bottle of water in his hand. It was obviously the shitting zone. But the guy nodded again and so I went through that tiny gap. Wow – I must have really lost some serious weight to be able to go through that gap. Yahoo! I would never have suspected that there would be an ancient fort in Dharavi.
Dharavi is the largest slum in Asia - and a perennial choke point for traffic going from East to West Mumbai. Not really a place you would associate with ancient monuments. I became aware of the fort by reading about it in Ashutosh Bijoor’s blog, where he went hunting for a lost fort – I imagined him like an Indiana Jones on cycle – and after that I read up on it on Wikipedia. It was a part of the ring of forts put up around the British possessions of the seven islands of Mumbai, back in the 1700s to protect them from the Portuguese and later from the Marathas. The main fort was Bombay castle and the other forts were Sion, Worli, Sewree, Dongri , Mazgaon, Mahim and Riwa fort in Dharavi. As you can see in the map, these protected the 7 islands from the mainland of Salcette – which was Portuguese owned, and later Maratha owned. Continuing on my Bombay forts trail, I decided to cover 2 forts in one trip this time – Mahim and Bandra forts. They looked out on the same mahim bay, from opposite shores. (above image credit - Ashutosh Bijoor of www.bijoor.me - an absolutely inspiring cycling blog - do check it out) I cycled from Sion (past Sion fort - which was the first fort I visited - you can see the blog here), crossed Dharavi (past Dharavi fort – which I have yet to visit), crossed Bandra swamp and took a left for Mahim. I must have crossed this road a million times, and I never knew that there was a fort there. And nor did any of the locals, it seemed. One or two looked nonplussed when I asked them, and then a couple confidently guided me to a police station. ‘But wheres the fort?’ ‘Oh, theres no actual fort’ he replied ‘all the offices and buildings here are called the fort’ ‘Balls.’ I replied ‘There is a fort here – I have seen photos and read Wikipedia and Bijoor’s blog.’ ‘I tell you there is no fort’ he argued. ‘I have lived here for years and years’ ‘Oh never mind’ I soothed him ‘where is the beach?’ He directed me to the beach, and I went off there, through the bamboo wala stalls and various storage buildings. It was a sea fort . It has to be on the beach. And it was. I woke up at 4.30 AM on Sunday morning.
Ain’t that amazing? When you are enthusiastic about doing something, you get up early voluntarily and happily at 4 O clock on Sunday...this new mix of cycling and Bombay discovery is real fun. Today was the day I was tackling my third fort of Mumbai – Worli fort. I have lived here all my life and I didn’t even know that there were so many forts in Mumbai until I started this project. It has been a real eye opener for me, and I am loving it. The fort in Worli was built by the British in 1675 – just about the time that Shivaji had crowned himself King of the Maratha empire, and the British knew that they needed a strong fortified base for themselves. Shivaji was concentrating on the konkan coast and was looking at the Siddis of Janjira and the Portuguese of Goa and Diu as the main enemy. He had built sea forts such as Sindhudurg and Suvarnadurg, and was just getting started on raising a strong navy. The Bombay islands were an irrelevant pointless spit of land at the time and no one thought it worth their while to contest them; and the British East India company took full advantage of this. As you can see in the map below, they ringed the Mahim bay with forts at Worli, Mahim, Dharavi and Sion - the Bandra fort was Portuguese at the time – and made it a really tough nut to crack. Still continuing my new years resolution to cover all Bombay forts - on bicycle.
The first fort I did was Sion fort, because it had been on my mind for so many years - it was really therapeutic to finish it off, it felt like I had finally scratched an itch that had been there for a long time. You can read my blog on that here. The next fort on my list was Sewri fort. It was on my daily ride route, right next to the Sewri jetty where it has been guarding the sea coast for more than 300 hundred years. This fort is also British built, like the Sion fort, and was built in 1680. It was and still is, a sea fort and protected the nascent settlement of Bombay from the naval depredations of the opposing sea forces - competing European powers like the Portuguese who were dominant here, and also to discourage interest by other Europeans like the French, Spanish and Dutch who were all sniffing around Asia at the time. The local sea powers who were also dangerous were the African origin Siddis - based in Murud janjira, the new Maratha navy led by Kanhoji Angre and the feared pirates from the Malabar coast of Kerala. These pirates were so feared that there was a permanent watch tower in South Bombay to look out for them - it was called Malabar hill, and is now one of the poshest addresses in Mumbai. The British were newly planted in Bombay - they had received a few islands which were Charles II's dowry when he married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, and the local Portuguese were not at all happy about parting with the islands they had conquered almost 200 years ago. They also knew that the Europeans had been unmolested for so long and allowed to create coastal fortified cities because the preeminent powers in Hindustan - the mughals, the deccan sultanates and even the marathas - were primarily land based empires and did not know anything about sea power. But Shivaji was a local king who had woken up to the threat of the European warships, advanced weapon technology and army science, so the British were under time pressure to develop a strong base before they got chucked out as undesirable aliens. And obviously the current sea power - the Siddis - were seething with rage at seeing the British rising as a dominant sea competition and wanted to wipe them out. In fact, shortly after the fort was made in 1680, Siddi Jakat attacked the fort in 1689 with a huge force of 20000 men and captured it, and Mazgaon fort and burnt the city of Mahim. However, as we all know, the Brits won in the end and became so powerful that the little fort of Sewri became unimportant and forgotten. With no regional enemies to fear, it was not required as a fighting fort, and was used as a prison, and then transferred to the Bombay Port Trust and they used it as a godown. I had cycled by it several times and never even noticed that there was a fort there. But this time I went looking for it and saw a little path leading up a steep slope. Just as I was downshifting gears and getting ready to battle the slope a little girl came running up to me. 'Please give us a kick!' she pleaded. Huh? What was this strange masochistic request? It turned out that she wanted me to kickstart her mom's scooter as mom couldn't get it to start and they were getting late for school. I did so, much to their relief, and off they went to a day of pedagogy. I went up to the fort and was impressed by how well maintained it was! Sure it had been restored with a little too much cement and concrete for a purist's taste, and there was a bit of graffiti and litter, but it was much nicer than what I had expected. It felt nice and tranquil, and gave the solid and unchanging vibe that you get in forts. It was a lovely place. I climbed up to the roof and gasped as saw the beautiful sight of the coastline, the rising sun and the hundred and hundreds of flamingos which had reached there for their morning feeding. I climbed to the edge of the roof and sat there for a long time, just soaking in the view. Glorious. Awesome. Heavenly. I had to really tear myself away from there after half an hour as it was getting time to go home. Also, I now discovered that I had been sitting in a puddle of bird shit and needed to get home and wash. On the way out I saw that the martial connection of the fort was still alive, as it was next to the residential quarters of the Central Armed Police Force. Apparently they are there for our 'Proction'. And Security. Good to know. I also noticed a small and faded sign of the Archaeological Survey of India. As is usual with ASI, they give no useful info about history and significance of the place, but only vague threats of arrest and torture if you disfigure anything. Apparently the ASI was going to beautify and restore the place and put in a garden and promenade and amphitheater and a food court. They got a multi crore budget for it in 2008...its 2016 now, and no progress yet. Maybe that's a good thing. Let this old fort sit alone and brood and think of long ago battles and bloodshed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS : I would strongly recommend Ashutosh Bijoor's blog where he has cycled to all sorts of awesome places in and around Mumbai. This is his blog about his visit to Sewri fort This is is the year of doing new things ! One of these was to complete the long pending visit to the forts of Bombay. I had been wanting to do this for several years, and never got around to doing it. But now was the time – I was looking for a new destination for the Sunday ride anyway –I would start by going to Sion fort. Sion is called ‘Shiv’ in Marathi – and that means ‘Boundary’. So this was the far boundary of the British East India colony of Bombay and they had built this fort way back in 1677 – 350 years back! Shivaji was on the throne of the nascent Maratha empire, and Aurangzab was badshah of the powerful Mughal empire. Gerald Aungier was the Governor General of Bombay then, and he was the British official who sent emissaries to Shivaji’s coronation in Raigad. In fact Aungier was at Surat when Shivaji attacked it, and that was what made Aungiers decide to move the seat of British government from Surat to Bombay – where he could build his own forts and carve out his own territory. For this they developed forts in Colaba, Bandra, Dongri,Dharavi, Madh, Mahim, Mazagaon, Sewri and Worli. This was just after the original 7 islands had been transferred to British rule in 1661 as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, and the Brits would have wanted to protect their property with forts. When it was built, it was a sea fort! There was a large Sion creek which marked the boundary of the British-owned Parel island and the Portuguese-owned Salsette island that lay to the north across the creek. Salsette was basically the area North from Sion - from Bandra - Kurla till Thane Bhayendar. There was a huge creek at the time, and this was the boundary between the 7 British islands and the Portugese territories. It was originally known as ‘Sasasthi’ – Marathi for ‘66’ which referred to the 66 villages in that area, who apparently trace their conversion to Christianity way back in 55 AD (read that again – 55 AD.... when there wasn’t a single Christian in Europe!) by the arrival of Christ’s disciple St. Bartholomew in North Konkan. Interestingly, the Christians here are called ‘East Indians’ though they live on the West coast. That’s actually to differentiate them from people in the Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago etc – i.e the West Indies. You see, Columbus had been looking for India when he blundered into America – he was sure that he had found India, and so he referred to the locals as ‘Indians’. After the actual India was discovered, they made the differentiation by calling them ‘Red Indians’ or ‘West Indians’. Anyway – after the British became the main power in India, they kicked the Portugese out of Salsette and took it over, then defeated the Marathas in the Anglo- Maratha wars and became the only power in the area. To develop trade they built a road across the creek in 1803 and called it the Sion causeway. They used to charge a toll to use it – so we have a really long tradition of toll roads in Mumbai. In due course of time all the creeks were filled in, and the swampland was reclaimed and the city of Greater Bombay came into being and the Sion fort became irrelevant. I went to seek out this fort, and was very happy to see that they have developed a nice garden around it. It was full of walkers and joggers, and they were not even aware that there is a fort in the middle of the garden area. The fort was in surprisingly good condition, and was clean and rubbish free. I climbed to the top of the little watch tower and got a great view of the surrounding area, and the Sion Trombay road. I sat there for some time and watched the sun come up, and thought about the march of history, and the ebb and flow of empires and the amount of blood and money that must have flowed, leaving behind this empty stone ruin. Nobody cares about it – I thought - no army will fight for it now... and suddenly I heard the sound of running feet. I looked up to see a squad of NCC cadets come running up. The squad sergeant gave me a surprised look – not many people must be coming to this place so early in the morning – and then got back to drilling his troop through their morning exercises. I smiled as I came down – there was still a little military connection left in this old fort. |
Categories
All
Hi thereI blog about my travels - and the thoughts they set off! Sometimes the simplest destinations can be the most thought-provoking! Archives
May 2022
|