Purandar,vajragad,malhargad 24-25 June

An account of the trek

Date: 24^th and 25^th June 2005

Destination: Malhargad, Purandar and Vajragad (Taluka Purandar, Dist Pune.)

An account by Sanket Sangwikar

The fuzzy plans as usual

The trek plans were fuzzy till Friday. People in the list were dropping for offices on Saturday. So we had some final calls to each other and took a poll but decided to go ahead. Manoj was quite determined this time. Though we were just 3 from here, 4 new guys from Pune joined for Purandar trek on Sunday.

Mandar had gone to Pune on Friday night. So I called him at 6.25am and you can imagine what I would have heard from the other side. Journey by Indrayani Express was quite enjoyable as we got two seats and luckily the two unknown guys reserving those seats didn’t appear at all.

At Shivaji-nagar, Monoj made me go mad, when he called his friend from iFlex, Pune for a visit in a hotel. We were supposed to be there for the trek!! But she took only half an hour and we were soon at swargate to get a bus for Saswad. Mandar had brought a raincoat cap and it was looking quite comedy. We took that opportunity to the fullest to make fun of him.

The easiest Malhargad, but we made it difficult!

Date: 24^th June 2005

Destination: Malhargad near Saswad (taluka Purandar, Dist Pune).

Participants: Sanket Sangwikar, Manoj Pawar, Mandar Date

After we reached Saswad we decided to put our bags in a hotel room. We enquired and got 3 names. But the name Mohini was tempting Mandar. “It looks it would be a good hotel” The mohini of Hotel Mohini made us stay there. It was ok for one or two day stay but you cannot eat anywhere in Saswad without keeping a glass of water ready beside.

We took an auto for village Sonori to visit Malhargad. The road was horrible. We understood why the rickshaw-wala took Rs. 120 for just 6km. Only a real brave could drive along the way. To our surprise Sonori village was looking rich enough and historic also. It had many huge old temples made up of in black-stone. The palace of Sardar Panse is a miniature of Shaniwar-wada. It has 6 bastions and a huge temple inside. The remains are quite enormous to tell the real glory of the palace. Sardar Panse was admiral of the army of Madhavro Peshwe. He built a fort near sonori to keep watch on Dive-ghat which leads to Pune. This is Malhargad. The fort is not a real mountain fort like those of Shivaji. But it looked like a check post. It has been built in red and black-stone with bastions and fortification clearly in place. The fort is recent (built in 1757 to 1760) and has two large temples and huge entrance doors.

From the bottom it looked so simple to climb that hill but the entrance was on other side. So we took a turn for it and soon got lost. For such a simple trek it was really annoying for us to get lost. We could see the doors at the top but the way was making rounds around the fort at the bottom. So we decided to climb up the hill and it was really tough as we went up. Finally after 15-20 minutes, we jumped into the fort from the fort walls. “Tanaji nantar aamhich”!!

On reaching the top we did investigation and found that we had climbed by the only toughest part of the fort. All other sides were so simple!! We spent 2-3 hours there in photo sessions and exploring the secret entrances and other things. We were trying and finally managed to take photos of Mandar with that comedy cap. He was trying to delete them but we took the cam from his hands. At about 4.00pm we started going down. We took last 5.00pm bus to Saswad and reached hotel room. The fort and the photos J both were worth a look.

Stroll in Saswad

I was feeling very uneasy due to acidity since I had had very little since morning and was waiting eagerly to vomit so that I will feel better. After I did we went to see Saswad. It looked like a large town with its village like appearance intact. Saswad was long time Peshwa residence before Bajirao Peshwe moved to Pune at about 1719 or so. After that it was given to Sardar Purandare for control. The centre of the city has 3-4 huge palatial “wada”, (buildings with wide protecting walls) built by Purandare. The largest of them is Purandare Wada - really monstrous with 3 story walls for protection and thousands of holes in it for firing through guns. The entrance door is larger than even Shaniwar-wada.

The backside of this wada has equally large Bhairavnath temple with ample amount of open space inside. We could witness a great show of ropes there. 10-12 people were holding each end of the set of ropes tied 12 feet high. They were having a patterned dance to weave the ropes and then reverse pattern to unweave it. The unweaving was really tough and even if a single guy misses his step the ropes would have started weaving again. The dance was going on with an inviting music being played on Puneri Dhol, but it was unlike we play in Ganpati.

By the time we reached back my acidity had gone so bad, that I slept in the room while the other two went to see the Sopandev temple. It was also quite good, I heard later. Finally I took Eno and ate in the hotel. Felt really better.

Night in there

This was first time in my 2-day treks’ history, when I was not staying on the fort but in a hotel. The night was quite eventful with

• Mandar trying to delete those snaps of comedy cap. But he didn’t know how to delete them.
• I changed the camera menu to Japanese so that he couldn’t do anything.
• Manoj had set the alarm in his mobile and royally revealed the fact he had never hears it.
• For half an hour, Manoj and I had conversation on different mobile models and Mandar was really frustrated since he wanted to sleep (or wanted us asleep to get his hand over the camera.)

Kille Purandar and Vajragad

Date: 25^th June 2005

Destination: Purandar and Vajragad near narayanpur (Dist Pune).

Participants: Sanket, Manoj Mandar, Amal, Vivek, Shital (he is a guy), Amit

For very long I had wished to see this one - One of the favorite forts of Shivaji. Every stone of Purandar speaks some history. 1000-1200 years old temples, Shivaji’s first war after he started creating a new kingdom, Murarbaji’s war with Diler Khan, Sambhaji’s (Shivaji’s son) birth place, Private fort of Peshwe, Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao’s birth place, British and Indian Army training Camps, NCC Camps… Purandar has been a centre of army movements for centuries till 1985.

We reached the base by 9.00 and started by the trek route. There is also vehicle route, which takes 2 hours on foot. The trek route was easy enough and soon we were at Bini Darwaja, which is the first one at Purandar Mountains. This leads to two forts – Vajragad at left hand and Real Purandar fort in front. Weather was very cool and rain had blessed us and did not turn up any time. First time we were without any food stock and a single water bottle but it was working fine for us. We headed ahead to balekilla, but I soon discovered I had again forgot the printouts of the information in the bags put at base of the fort. I had to recollect what I had read. The route to kedareshwar temple in balekilla was a bit tiring but gave view of the whole valley at both sides. We were agape to see the vast area, which can be controlled by this vast fort. Purandar is really vast and there is so much to see here. Since bikes can come up to Bini Darwaja, you get to see some youth from Pune and Saswad too.

After chanting some hymns in the temple’s cool stony echoing insides, the seven of us headed for Vajragad. Amal was singing Marathi song “vedhat marathe veer daudale saat” which was fitting to the incident. As usual I misguided the lot and took a longer route but we were on the fort in 20-25 minutes. Vajragad was also interesting with large rocks here and there. We had a short photo session here. Mandar’s attempts to delete snaps were still going on unsuccessfully.

Riding down

After some rest we headed down and the route was now very easy unlike while climbing. Mandar and I were almost running down as if we were riding a horse and soon it started showing the result. Our legs were badly aching, while “slow and steady” Monoj reached the bottom quite comfortably. During the whole trek, Mandar was after taking his solo photos. May be, he wanted a perfect photo to show it while arranging the marriage J. After we reached Pune station, we felt the emptiness in the stomach and filled it with some snacks.

The trek was really great. We would have really missed a great fun had we cancelled it.