ACCOMPLISH YOUR DESIRES!!

Urge for happiness is not restricted to human being, even animals have this unsatiable desire. Human had dug their heels to find solutions for satisfying the need of happiness. Many scholars spend their wisdom to achieve it, even after millions years of life on earth humans are unable to achieve it.

Leave all ‘Moha and Maya’ will give happiness had being thought by many religions i.e. sacrifice all your desires will lead to happiness, and yes its ‘True’. My question arise what is the use of living then, leaving all your desires means surrendering before fighting. Instead trying to achieve your desires and give your best if you can’t will defiantly improve your living, rather loosing will make you sad but happiness will definably be their, if you win.

When someone wins definably someone has to loose. Best or stronger always win, but winning with evil deed can never give you happiness.

Being true to your self and trying to achieve your desires irrelevant of what individuals or society thinks, will defiantly lead’s a path towards happiness.

VASCO DA GAMA TREK (Kalaad Ghad via SadleGhat)

Kalaad Ghad when I heard the name I was expecting something different, Kalaad ghad is an isolated fort which is near from Harishchandra ghad comes in Malshej Region, to reach kalaad we have to reach Pachnai or Paythachi vadi, there are different wayout to reach, but we opted sadhleghat as it was new trek for us.

We were eight trekker Rohan Rao, Vijay Rao, Anil Gaikwad, Sujay Gawand, Shirish Thorat,Deepa ,Hemant & Rajendra Bandal. Six of us started from Kalyan at 12.30PM and reach Savarne Village by 2.30PM, Hemant and Deepa join us at savarne village. We all had a quaking sleep at the village School, we waked up early in the morning, climate was very chilled at Savarne, so we had tea in near by house and started trekking towards Belpada which took around 90min, Belpada was not new to us, coz just month back we had trek of Nalichi vat to Harishchadra ghad. We had bananas & cucumber as our breakfast and moved towards Sadhleghat. We missed out kelevadi in between and climbed the adjacent ridge which was the first indication that we took wrong route. After an hour of traversing through the bushes, scree, thorns & monkey climbs we reach the Paaiwat of sadhleghat.

Sadhle ghat has a pretty decent paaiwat, but once missed it will be hard to find it again, anyway this trek was “Vasco da gama Trek” as per Sujay. Sadhle ghat has good view of Napta at its left, it has a water resource on the way which is after ¾ of the trek. On the way we found a villager who headed us to paithachiwadi, we had teplas as our lunch but it was around 4.30PM we reach the road which connect paithachiwadi and pachnai. when we reach at the top of sadhle ghat left will take’s us to Kalaad ghad and right will take us to Harishchandra ghad which is an hour trek from their, while our journey towards paithachiwadi Rohan had deadly crams and shirish was wincing on every step as he had pain in his knees, we reached near paythachiwadi Anil, Rohan, shirish and myself decided to stay back and let other visit kalaad ghad. Anil and Myself rushed to the village and started preparation for our dinner.

We had our dinner at around 8.30PM and slept outside the village cottage, by mid night we all started shivering even when we all were coved with sweaters, windshitter and blankets, it was freezing cold that night. We were supposed to catch early morning bus, but we missed it. So instead of trekking to bhairavghad we decided to climb down sadleghat. We ask the villager to head us till starting point of the ghat. Sadhleghat decend is quite steep with the huge rocks, this route was different from where we climbed. The villager told us that this route later join Sadhleghat he asked us to take left on the bifurcation, which was never seen by any of us and again we landed on the no mans land i.e. we were again lost in the hills, so we decided that we will climb down and see if there any way out which lead us to sadhleghat but we came at a point which was a dead end for me. But we had climbing expert in our group (Rohan Rao), who decided to descend the steep rock patch. Luckly we had a rope, which was anchored (clove-hitch) to the rock by Rohan. We all were supposed to climb down by holding the rope in our hands without a harness or glows. Hence the total dependence was on our skills to handle the rope as it gets heated due to friction. Rohan had not taken any risk so he tide us with ‘bo-line’ and we descended with static ‘bilay’.

First was Anil who climb down without any hesitation next was Hemant who did not trust the rope and after some whirl he climbed down safely and asked Deepa to follow, later I did an brave move and decided to climb down, later Sujay joined me and next was Shirish its was a special snap series for him as he was not ready to remove his goggles and he was jumping on the rocks as if he was fully equipped for rappelling, luckily anil was near to him for rescue and he saved him from losing his balance. Later vijay and rohan came down with elegance.

After a great search, we ultimate found the route. We decided to have some snacks near the water resource, we had bread jam and moved fast towards belpada, as sun was descending in the horizon we moved our feet’s fast and reach savarne and a wonderful trek came to an end.

Nature has the ability to teach us and show its beauty it its own way. Trekking had always taught me new lessons of life. “Confidence with positive attitude will always cross hurdles of life”

To reach Kalaad Ghad:
Kalyan > Savarne Village > Belpada> Kelevadi > Sadhle Ghat > KalaadGhad / Harishchadra Ghad

Destination Tringalwadi.

New dawn of the year had arrived twelve days back, and I was thinking to place myself in the arms of mother nature, Nisarga Bhraman’s tringalwadi trek came as a ray of hope and my senses impelled me to join them.

About Group:
Nisarga Bhraman is pretty well organized group, with technically talented and enthusiastic group leaders; their jolly and friendly attitude had always impressed me I had enjoyed several treks with them before, so I had no hesitation to join them.

About Tringalwadi Fort:
Tringalwadi is relatively small fort with height of 3238ft (987Mtr) on Kalsubai Range in Nashik region. As per the information available this fort exists from 10th century, This fort was among the seven forts which where given to moghals along with the royal property by Maratha Chief Sahaji when he was forced to capitulate at Mahuli fort in October 1636. Information about the period of Maratha rule on this fort is not available.

How to Reach:
Tringalwadi is near to Igatpuri so we have to reach Igatpuri station which has good railway connectivity between Mumbai and Nashik. After getting down at Igatpuri we have to walk towards the ST Stand, there is a junction called Ambedkar chowk, from there we have to walk towards vagholi col and from their towards Tringalwadi village. From Igatpuri Station Tringalwadi is approximately an hour walking distance. We can also take local transport (Jeep) from Igatpuri to Tringalwadi but Frequency of these jeeps is unknown. As we reach the Tringalwadi village we can go through the dam and Tringalwadi fort will be just in front of us.

Overview of Fort Sights:
Tringalwadi fort is small to climb the whole fort can be seen in a days span

Entrances of the fort:
There are two entrances of the fort one is from the front side and another is from backside, when we are facing the fort the right side path leads us to the front entrance and the left leads us to the back entrance, which is also called as ‘Chor darwaja ‘.

The front side entrance of the fort with some of the broken steps leads us to the top of the fort. A beautiful view of the dam can be seen while entering the fort and sunrise view will be making this site more fascinating.

For the back entrance we have to traverse through the right side of the fort and at the end we can see the back entrance, which is really wonderful and well preserved, as it was buried under for several years, which was uncovered by some trekking group few years back. The carved steps are still intact except few in the beginning of the door, which gives us the feel of entering the ancient warriors’ world. The steps are broad and huge; we can sense the strategic location of those steps totally covered and rolling upwards towards the fort making it more awesome, as soon you climb the steps we can see the idol of lord Hanuman in front of the door this idol is a big and carved in the rock. The door is in good condition and we can see some carving on the door. Entering the door and moving further we will be on the top of the fort.



Remnants of the Fort:
As usual this fort is also not in good condition as far as the monuments are concern, as we land on the fort we can take a overview of the place we will find the remnants of the fort. The view of the remnants can be taken from the top most point of the fort. We can see four to five water tanks on the fort. One is consist of drinking water other are drained out just waking further we can see a small temple along with worshiped idols. It is small sole temple on the fort. Before the temple there is a small cave which has a capacity to accommodate 15 to 20 people but the flooring of the cave is not good enough to have night stay.

Water availability on the Fort:
There are few dried water tanks on the fort and one small tank is filled with drinking water, as per the local people the water in that tanks is available for all the seasons.


Tringalwadi Cave (Pandavleni):
At the base of the fort we can see the ancient cave which is carved in the rock. This cave has wonderful carving on the roof, pillars and walls. This cave is not preserved or maintained by anyone. Such kinds of monuments are self preserved and this will be the common site in Maharashtra. I consider myself lucky that I had got the chance to view this wonderful monuments and their carving, which I don’t feel will exist for long if they are not maintained properly. As we enter the cave we can see the broken pillars. Rather those are broken but its can be easily visualized that there was four carved pillars. We can see only one pillar which is still intact with its beautiful carving as we move further and enter the next chamber we can see an big idol with broken face, its really hard to say that whether this idol is of lord Mahavir or Gautam Buddha.

While returning I was wondering how many battles would this forts must have seen, how many strategies the warriors would have made to capture them, how many rulers must have tagged their name on them, but why are they still alone? The closest companion to them must be the time which once passed can never be retrieved and it had laid them shrilled.

After this small and refreshing trek ultimately with lot of fun we started our journey way back home.

Picture Sources: Album of Sujay, Hemant Naik & Sameer Patel