Memories (3)…

Chouhikade Chandrabhaaga, Kaisa yeu Panduranga…

The second day morning…

Kids up and excited to go to Chandrabhaaga river for a holy dip… We prepare and reach the shore…

The apathy of the place is just to be impossible for me to describe… Was shocked to see the small flow of the holy river… Rather there was no flow at all… Eutrophication and shallow waters was it’s state… 

That was me, but the kids were excited… They could see small fishes in the water… And after a small bit of hesitance, all 4 jumped in… Water was knee deep… They played…

For me I was a lot aghast at the sight… I could not make up my mind… Should I take a dip or should I just stay away… At the same time I saw a family of 12 cross over to the other through the knee deep waters… It was a pleasant sight in all this to see them help older members and kids to cross over… This also reminded me of the Lord with the hands on His waist (talked about it in my last post)…

Lastly after half an hour or so had to shout the kids out… Then my brother in law and myself just put our feet in water… Took a handful of water in our hands and passed it over our heads in reverence… And we left the river, myself with a heavy heart and also a decision to come back to see Her flow in full…

Then after bath and breakfast, myself and kids rushed back to the temple for a glimpse of the Lord… It was again fulfilling even though it was from a distance…

Left Pandharpur with memories of the divine feet of the Lord Vitthal…

Now the journey was to Ajinkyatara Fort in Satara some 4 hours drive away… The drive throughout the highway was smooth… Sugarcane fields everywhere… Also at some place we saw farmers tilling their soil… At some places the drip irrigation facility being used… One thing which caught everyone’s attention were the gulmohar trees in full bloom, all along the road… A beautiful sight which kept on repeating after a distance…

After a long travel, we reached Ajinkyatara Fort on the outskirts of Satara city…

A fort having a history of more than 1000 years built around 1190 AD… A brief history, in shambles though, has been put up at the main entrance of the fort…

The fort itself is just ramparts now… No such Rajmahal or any Rajwada to see… Just an old Shiva temple, a small temple dedicated to the goddess of the fortand one dargah of Peer Baba to see…

We went around the ramparts… An experience for all of us to walk along the ramparts where some day Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Rajaram Maharaj, Taara Ranisaheb and the Maratha kings and sardars have put their foot upon and even stayed there…

The beauty of these forts is that the one who conquers and rules the forts rules the area surrounding it… The hilly Sahyadris had given Shivaji Maharaj a very big oppurtunity to establish his kingdom and build it up in a small time… Though a tough life, nowhere do we hear any such talk in his life… No historian has made a not of any such instance in Maharaj’s life… A dedicated King to his people… People’s King…

We just moved around the ramparts, though 40% fort is inaccessible as the state government has set up an electricity hub in that part which has barred entry for citizens into their compound… Yet the whole experience of moving around in the fort was just rejuvenating… We all learned about the hardships our King has gone through to build up his kingdom… There is a lot of history too with this particular fort related to Peshwa Balaji Bhatt and his son Peshwa Baji Balaji Bhatt… The initial Peshwas of the Maratha Kingdom… Though the history I am talking about is before they became Peshwas…
But overall a great experience and in that temperature of around 38 degrees, we didn’t feel it cause there was wind every moment we were inside the fort…

By now everyone was hungry and wanted to go for lunch… So we descended the fort and the search for a good eatery began…

After lunch, we embark on our journey to Sajjangad, a place revered all over Maharashtra, as it is a place of Samadhi of Swami Ramdas (Shivaji Maharaj’s Guru)…

Those experiences in the next blog…