Peth – a hilarious account…
Karjat Station.
It was 2am and we were on a desolate railway platform with a
solitary tube light which glowed on its own will and even dimmed on
its own , a closed tea stall as last passenger has passed an hour
ago and some suspicious employees of railways for company.
Stretching away on both sides as far as the eye could see, which
wasn't far in the darkness, were dense ink-black thickets.
With clouds pulling a veil over the moon, light was at a premium.
"Why are we here at this godforsaken place at this time?" Kiran
screamed with more than a touch of accusatory inflection in his
tone.
I and Amit smiled enigmatically, and Kiran got the answer
All three of us were feeling dizzy but were, trying hard to talk to
each other and maintain as cryptic a tone as possible.
I sighed.
Plopping our bags down, we propped ourselves and waited.
Soon enough, like flies zeroing in on a box of goodies, the nosey
cops came.
And they were full of questions.
Who were we? Why were we here? Why were we alone? Did we know the
place? Were we aware of a recent murder in the thicket to our right?
Where were we headed? When would we be back? ... The never-ending
questions tumbled out.
All of us drifting quietly into sleep; none of us answered the
questions from the cop properly. Looking at us pitifully and giving
huge amount of strain to the wrinkles on his forehead he finally
decided to leave us alone.
Three of us sighed in chorus
"I am hungry," Amit's voice unnecessarily interrupted my forty
winks. Bleary-eyed, Kiran and I popped out stuff from our sacks and
started eating without considering Amit as if we were just set free
from a month long hunger strike. Worried Amit snatched a packet from
my hand and asked me to share some biscuits with Kiran. After that
it was time for tea and we crossed the rails as the tea stall one
the opposite platform was getting ready with his tea-gear.
We went to him and asked for tea and he started imagining something.
Desperately in need of tea I reminded the absent minded about the
tea which we ordered. May be he was also in same state as we were.
After taking all the time available in this world he gave us our
tea, but only two cups instead of three. With lot of pain in our
eyes we looked at him but finally, in unison decided to share the
two cups.
Tea was wonderful and after some time we headed towards bus depot,
for a bus to Ambewadi.
Though unconsciously, the spine jarring journey and all of us still
feeling sleepy helped us to have some warm up before the actual trek
could be commenced.
I sighed for the umpteenth time, and slept again.
We reached the Ambewadi and were delighted to see the country side
beauty.
A pink glow began to creep in, slowly obliterating patches of
darkness as the sun rose leisurely.
We walked along the kuccha road stretching away towards Peth
village. We reached the village with all the village dogs barking at
us as if they were here to greet us but as we moved closer we
realized that they had some indecent plans and frightened by their
behavior as well as their long teeth we moved ahead silently.
"They won't bite," I murmured, seeing Amit count as many as he could
without breaking into a sweat.
He swore at me under his breath and kept walking, with snarling dogs
keeping me close company.
Reaching the outskirts of the village, we paused, looked around, and
then nodded towards a small gully that seemed to be ensconced
towards a small hotel in the village.
Soon it was around 9 am, and we had been walking for almost two
hours without a break.
Cow dung was used to floor the ground, a frail old woman in a dark
green sari doing it patiently.
Ahead, a still narrower path was a way which an old villager
prescribed us.
We stared at each other blankly. I don't know what happened but we
started walking again.
By now, the sun was well and truly awake. Looking up casually, I saw
a small pinnacle that resembled a finger, trying to reach tufts of
soft white clouds.
Peth; An incident in our history when the Killedar of the fort
mistook the Mughals as his own people and permitted them to come in
and then all the Maratha soldiers on the fort were slaughtered. This
sad incident made us feel very sorrow of the mistake made by the
Killedar.
"Peth is a small fort," said Kiran, reining in my galloping
thoughts, as we negotiated our way through the thick, green brush.
As we climbed, slowly, steadily, the landscape slowly turned into
the familiar look of the Deccan; Long stretches of flat ground,
dotted by summits, slopes and sudden bits of uneven terrain.
I thought of the Mother Hirkani who climbed the shoulder of a
difficult mountain at night time and we all are tired of walking on
this path which is without any risk
In the distance, hills rose, some over 2500 feet, all black basalt
and sparse vegetation. Each of them a stronghold that laughed at the
need for artificial defenses.
We followed the barely noticeable trail that narrowed steadily as we
climbed. We stopped, and rested, while I and Amit started shouting
at Kiran for allowing us to eat some thing.
Instead of feeling pity of us He asked us to shut up. I did, but
Amit went ahead with his sentences. Ignoring Amit's mach-mach Kiran
continued to walk ahead, Sweating profusely, I started off again,
getting to the base of a flight of steps in which were the rock cut
caves.
Taking a deep breath, we climbed them and reached the caves. Near
the Bhairoba's cave there was a tiny temple and a small water tank,
both in a state of ruin, turned bald by centuries of wind, rain and
sun.
We rested for a while inside the caves and after noting down all the
possible details of the cave we decided to climb up to the summit.
Poignancy, the windows of the cave were used to throw all the
garbage by the trekkers, which was accumulated outside the cave
disturbing the dignity of sanctum.
The climb towards the summit was a celestial experience and seemed
as if we were ascending up on a tower.
At a height of around 1500 feet we came on very small plateau, sheer
drop on all sides and the gravity defying gorges made us feel
exhilarated.
With capturing the seraphic views of Bhimashankar, Kalwantini's
Mahal, Nakhinda in our eyes and cameras we decided to have small
nap.
After an hour of rest, punctuated only by Kiran's snorting, we began
our descent.
On the one hand, the crumbling remains stood testimony to one man's
power; on the other, it spoke volumes of his helplessness and
desperate need for protection. The price one had to pay for another
man's freedom.
Harshal Ravindra Mahajan.
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