#konkankada

I don’t put myself in the category of “Adventurer” or if I have to use even more cheesy word “Wanderlust”, but yeah, I do enjoy trekking, travelling, whenever I get a chance to do so.

Travelling really does transport you to different zone altogether, and sometimes, if you are lucky enough, it leaves you with experiences to cherish. So I am always keen to pick up my backpack whenever I get the opportunity.

On my very first trek itself, I had heard one of my fellow trekker going all gaga about Harishchandra Gad and Konkan Kada. And since that day, Konkan Kada was on my wish list, and last weekend was the day when I put a check mark on it.

Konkan Kada! It is actually really difficult or rather impossible to describe the magnitude of it’s exquisiteness. A photograph can secure the moment, but I doubt if it can actually convey the contentment which we felt when we were sitting there literally on the edge. It is an experience which can only be experienced.

Although, the state of contentment is the end result of adversity.

It involves sweat, hell lot of water, soreness, a lot of fucks, a lot of “Why on earth did i even bother to come out of my cosy fucking bed?” And on some special occasions a drop of 9 committed co-trekkers out of 12

Yeah!

And when you realize 9 out of 12 of your fellow trekkers have bailed on you, your morale on the day before the trek is skyrocketing. *Sarcasm*

But as they say, “Trek plan simply cannot be cancelled.”

And then, there were three. We managed to defeat the object which has massive gravity in the morning i.e bed and caught a 4:24 AM Khopoli Train from CSMT (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus)

One thing I love about trekking is, it’s direct correspondence with public transport. Of course you can hire a private car and have a chilling conveyance with your buddies, it has it’s own kick. But public transport has it’s own rawness. Rawness of people living in raw world with raw experiences, raw perspectives, a contrast to our safeguarded world.

If you are lucky enough a 5 min conversation with a stranger in a local train or a local bus can actually bless you with a whole new perspective to look at things in life.

So….. After catching a local train at an ungodly hour, it’s an hour trip to Kalyan and then a trip of 2–2 1/2 hours from Kalyan to Khubi Phata via ST. A roller coaster ride towards Malshej Ghat with lots of lots of turns which were only felt by us as we were mastering the art of napping.

One of the best nap I ever had.

And we reached Khubi Phata by 9:00 AM

And still we had 4–5 Km to cover before we reach the base village- Khireshwar. You can test your luck with local villagers’ cars as an alternative to reach base village otherwise be ready for long walk.

And finally we reached the base village, had our breakfast and geared ourselves up for Tolar Khind which is the route towards Harishchandra Gad, with “Eye Of The Tiger” in the background. Well…. it sounded much better in my head.

Harishchandra Gad! A little about this marvel.

Harishchandra Gad is a fort in the Ahmednagar district of India. It’s a very ancient fort. Various Indian Ancient Scriptures Matsya Purana, Agni Puranaand Skanda Purana have references of the fort. It is said that The Great Sage Changdev who created Tatvasaar used to meditate on fort in 14th Century. Harishchandragad was captured by the Marathas in 1747 from the Moguls. The fort is blessed with incredible sculpted caves and temples and of course the main attraction Konkan Kada.

After our breakfast it was all about 3–3 1/2 hours of hearing your breathing, feeling your elevated pulse, letting your sweat merge with red soil of rugged nature, falling on the rocks, bearing the scars, letting your muscles go stiff and sore, and enjoying lime water on occasions.

As they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And I must say, when you come across a stall with guy selling lime water on it in the middle of the trek, its not lime water that he is selling it’s actually nectar.

The trek sure is physically demanding, but thankfully with constant arrow marks made on rocks saves a lot of time and energy. And sometimes if you are lucky enough you can be accompanied by a guide like Moti. Which is even better.

When we reached the top, the first thing which we noticed was Harichandreshwar Temple. A beautiful piece of architecture right in the heart of the fort.

We stretched ourselves up a little inside the temple. The contentment which we experienced inside the temple is indescribable. We absorbed that art as much as we could and we left the beautiful architecture for another one. Kedar Ling.

This is exactly how it is there in the photograph. The water around the Shivling is stone cold and 3 out of 4 pillars around the Shivling are shattered and only one pillar is still intact. As per the myth, the 4 pillars represent 4 Yugas (Era) Satyayuga, Tretayuga, Dwaparyuga and Kaliyuga. Every time when an era comes to an end the pillar representing that particular era gets shattered. The last pillar representing the current era i.e Kaliyuga will get shattered when this era, Kaliyuga, will come to an end. Spooky right?

After seeing various caves around the fort we finally set ourselves up for the main reason for which we bared all that physical exhaustion, Konkan Kada!

After a 25–30 min of walk from Harichandreshwar Temple, we reached the marvel. And as it was expected we were stunned!

A stunning vertical cliff facing west and looking down upon the Konkan. The cliff is not just vertical it’s an overhang. Hence it literally looks like a Cobra’s Hood if one sees it from its front.

After all the photo sessions for social media, we just sat there in silence and watched the sun dissolving in that orange blue sky, while wind constantly singing it’s own song in our ears.

That larger than life miracle of nature made me realise, how our existence is equivalent to a particle in this beautiful and humongous mess of nature. I just wanted the time to stop there and there itself. It was all about soaking up that moment. It was exactly like what Rumi said,

“The Moment Is All There Is.”

One of the things about trekking which I find fascinating is, how we can actually relate it with life.

For me, travelling is an art. I tie up the laces of my shoes and a dramatic journey begins. I feel the current run through me, with accelerated heartbeats​ supplementing the art. My mind reaches an unreachable world. It happened again that day. Post meeting fellow explorers at Kasara, trek guides Amit and Mahesh guided our itinerary to the base village of Samrad. A 40 km journey by Jeep took us…