The trek

Saturday, Jan 7, 2006. I woke up at 04:30 in the morning. Not because of my alarm clock, but it was a call from one of my friend asking, if I could go for a trekking with them. At 05:30 we were on the station. We were 7 with 2 girls. (I don't know why but this ratio seems to be a magic number!)

The whole plan was a matter of 5 minutes involving 4 calls altogether and we headed for a one day trek in less than an hour. This is quite opposite to what I generally face in my institute, where even a Sunday dinner takes hours of planning, that too ending in a quarrel(s). But, mine is a different group overall and I love spending time in it.

Any ways, we had a nice one day trek to Peb fort near neral and just beside matheran, the famous hill station nearest to mumbai. It was a wonderful day. Firstly, we didn't know the train timings: had to wait for an hour for the train, which didn't confirm its arrival before I had my third tea. Secondly, the train (or at least the boggy) we embarked in didn't have the route sticker. We had to hold our breath before each station passed. Next came the side: I don't know, why the destination has to be always on the opposite side I go to. Fortunately, the fort is so famous, that even the people from the village at the base don't seem to have any knowledge of its existence. Ultimately, when we started at the base, it was 07:30 and we couldn't confirm anything apart from the apex, which appeared conspicuously far away all the time, till 10:30(circled in the image). We lost our way and had a really tough time managing the rocky climbs, which helped us with fantastic land slides almost all the way. After sacrificing away tones of calories with buckets of perspiration, we reached such a height, that we couldn't hear the farmer at the base, when he asked' "Kuthe chalale, pavhan?"(where are you going?). Any ways, less than half along the way, we spend all of our water. There was just one hope rest of the way, there was a water-tank at the top according to one of our friend, which was soon to be proved a rumor. It was 2:30 when we were just below the top and top was an epitome of barren.

The Peb fort, as almost every other fort in Maharashtra exists in pieces, which one really has to dig hard for. There is nothing on the fort, which can strongly confirm its one time existence. So our effort ended in a big ZERO. Are these forts worth visiting? Big question!! and answer is positively "No" in most of the cases. But, ask this to me or anyone from Kshitiz.

The real fun is not visiting a fort which is untouched, like those many in Jaipur. The non-existence of these forts confirms the thrilling history of maharashtra, full of wars and fights fought against Mughals, Nijams and even British governance. This gives an immense feeling of pride. The other fact not to be overlooked upon is the way they were built. We find it tough to walk through bare hands. Think of the times, when Maratha sardars used to climb it up with their horses and kilos of weight of the swords in the hands. Cool, isn't it?