A visit to Srivardhan / Diveagar beach in Raigarh, Maharashtra

It was nice time. 10th was election holiday, 12th was Saturday, 13th was Sunday. 14th was again holiday. I took leave on 11th and headed to my hometown to relax with folks.
I reached Nagpur on 10th morning.

I was sitting with my cousin in a garden bar and enjoying officers choice on 'a dry day' in the late evening. He announced that he would be going to Mumbai the day after. He casually offered me to join him. I too agreed casually. Whiskey makes move things smoothly.

In 1 hour time, I was high and sitting in the cousin's drawing room with his tab. We booked a railway ticket for me. We were so desperate we booked the wait listed ticket in another train. He had booked by duronto and I booked by vidharbha.
Then I slept then and there. Cousin is a nice chap and arranged bed for me.
On 11th morning, I was bit sober, cancelled my ticket and booked another in duronto.

I got mutton and 'khur' in my Tiffen prepared by my sweet masi. Dada (cousin) got chicken, and rajesh got egg curry.

We went to a bar again. Reached there by 730pm. We had royal stag and fish pakodas. Rajesh told me about his double decker bicycle. I liked it a lot since he had designed and manufactured the cycle himself.

We left the bar at 820 pm, reached railway station by 830pm and train-duronto departed at 840pm. It was exciting to reach in time. I guess dada enjoyed such thrills a lot.

I bought a general ticket.  Since I remained wait listed only. We found a nice family who offered their berth since they had small kids. I slept and reached Mumbai. How lucky I was to travel in half the fare.

We three and dada's brother-in-law(bro) went to bro's house and left for Shrivardhan at 5pm. We went by maruti 800. We crossed vashi bridge.   We took a road bypass to Panvel.

Four of us took a road unknown to us and known to gps. Our next destination was Pen. There were lot of containers by the roads. Bro was driving. Before we reached Pen, we had hot 'palak pakodas' with red powder chutney. The chutney was superb. I almost ate my dinner. Coffee was served with a smile by the lady. When I appreciated her red chutney and pakodas, she was more than happy to serve us more. That too without extra charge. I was so touched by her non-commercial smile and happiness. Don't we miss such innocence in our urban land?

We crossed Pen and reached Mangaon by 1030pm. We took a straight road to Lonere. It was around 20 kms. Then we took a right turn for Mhasala. Ya. Of course we bought four beers and one royal challenge near Mangaon. Except for the driver, we had nice chilled beers. As usual I couldn't finish it and dada came to my help.

Then I started singing old melodies loudly. I could never understand whether my travel mates enjoyed it or not. The sky above had full moon and constellations were still making there presence felt. Especially 'man with a bow and an arrow'. I loved watching the beautiful night. The breeze was pleasant. Hills were dark. We could see 3-4 shimmering lights once in a while. The traffic was almost nil.

It was around 1230 am now and night started turning from meditative mood to a little bit scary one for us, especially for me. GPS stopped working. Phones showed no signals. Songs became silent. No one was on the road to tell us where were we. We were supposed to go Mhasala and then to Shrivardhan.

Dark night, sleeping houses brought us to a place. I and dada spoke with one lady peeking from her window. Then her man came and guided us on how to reach Shrivardhan. He was scared of us and kept a distance from us. We went ahead.  I had lost almost all the hopes. However dada came into action and guided us with 100% confidence. Then we saw a police hut. The guy came out and told us to take a route towards Harihareshwar. He explained us that the road is good. I jotted down all the village names on the route so that we don't miss the destination again. (I realized that I was wrong and scared. Thanks to dada)

·         Adi

·         Dharwali

·         Wadiswave.

·         Sakhari.

·         Galasur

·         Ranwali.

·         Jadwali.

·         Srivardhan

Then all the hopes were back. It was already 2am and we started smiling and laughing again. I was happy to see a policeman for the first time in life.

Finally we reached Shrivardhan. We called the resort again 'savali'. He guided us and finally told us to look for a BIG tree. We could never see it that night, but later on became a BIG  joke for everyone.

We got up by 8am. I slept like a log. Everybody was cool except for dada. He was facing terrible acidity. He was facing it since the previous day. Bechara dada !!

Coconut trees, palm trees and that distinct smell of sea made me nostalgic. May be y'day's booze was making me feel more freely. Tea and then coffee brought me to better senses.
 Then rajesh found sudden interest in trees and fruits peculiar to tho region only. He plucked one 'jaam'. We all tested it. It was almost tasteless with 5% of sourness.

 

Pic 01 Map of Diveagar and Shrivardhan Beaches

Then rajesh came back along with dada and bro, we went to another tree in front of the resort. It was a small tree of 15 feet with weak branches. There were 10s of reddish fruits. They were not sure how to climb to get those fruits. I said no issue and started climbing the tree. I made three steps and tree started swaying. I saw the fruit just 1-2 feet above. I gave a upward jerk to myself and put all my weight on my right leg. As I was about to grab the fruits with my left hand, full tree started bending and I came down. I fell down with a thud sound. While coming down on my back, I got a support from another branch. Two figs, fruits and I, all came down with a crash. I was lying on my back, and everybody was asking whether I was all right. I got up with a grin on my face. Whole world was revolving for few seconds.

'Hey hey ! Kuch nahin huhan, kuch nahin', I said.

So the beautiful day started with a bang.

So everybody got ready after having nice bath and breakfast. Then we went to Shrivardhan beach. I tried for my rail reservation thru an agent and cancelled my other tickets before going to the beach. We wasted our precious 2 hours.

The beach was almost deserted. One family with two young ladies was enjoying the sea water. They wearing complete normal cloths and sitting in water.

There were 1-2 water rides. I wanted to take a dip. So I removed all the cloths and went in my underpants. I swam for some time. We planned to go to another beach called Diveagar. It was around 20 kms and had more rides and paragliding too.

We left at 1 pm. We reached Diveagar by 230pm. We were hungry. I ordered pomfret and so delicious. Wow. Of course we took few RC pegs too. :).

Then we reached Diveagar beach. We couldn't find the way in from the road for 10 minutes. When we found one, we took our maruti 800 in and it got stuck in the sand. Front wheel went in and the car stopped moving. We saw parasailing using jeep on the beach. There were lot of people around. But we were stuck. We tried all the ways and finally three young guys came to our rescue. We all pushed the car and it moved back. We were out with a relief.

Finally we went in the water. All played for 30 minutes are so. I played with water waves for next 1 hour while others came out of the water. It was great fun and totally mind blowing.

Then the time came for paragliding. Dada and bro had already negotiated for Rs. 250/- for each person. I said I would go ASAP. All went to the jeep and car. They had tied a rope of 200 feet to the jeep. Another end was tied to the parachute. I asked the guy whether he had a proper license. He casually replied,'No'. We all smiled and I said ok.

I took my mobile, turned video recording on and stood for the glide.
They tied me around and I stood next to the parachute. 

pic 02 View from the Parachute in the air above 200 fee

The jeep started rolling, the rope got tightened, in no time I was lifted in the air along with the parachute. It was so easy that I didn't have to hold the ropes. It was so exciting.

In just 2 seconds I had reached the hight of 200 feet. I turned back and saw below. Everybody looked so small. I looked up in the clear blue sky. There were green trees on the right. The below sand below had clear brownish color. The view from the top was awesome and air breeze was nice. Oh. It was so much fun. The feeling of flying in the sky is so different. This was the first time, I was not at all scared and was shouting all the time due to excitement.

The jeep travelled for one kilometre or so.  Then it stopped. The parachute started descending slowly. It was going too slow since the wind was quite heavy. One friend was recording the video from below sitting on the jeep. And my dada was recording from below on the ground.

Finally the parachute came down. I touched the ground and two lads came to hold me and the parachute. It was shear pleasure. All the team members did parasailing and were happy.

Then someone told us about fort 'Janjira' around 20 kms from Diveagar at Dighi. There was a ferry route from Dighi. Last ferry was at around 6 pm and we left for Dighi at 5.45 from Diveagar. :).

The route was picturesque. After 10 minutes, road was side by side the sea shore for a km. I got down and jogged the beach. There was a bird and I tried to catch it. It always flew away as soon as reached near him. It was a seagull I guess.

Pic 03 : Beach after Shrivardhan on the way to Dighi, where I jogged and watched a seagull

 

In between we stopped at a Kirana shop to buy water and cigarettes. I went to the shop. There was nice sweet married lady attending the shop. I liked her immediately. Bought water, cigarettes and spoke with her. She told about a 'yatra'. It was by 830 pm. One would be hanged with metal hooks on his back.  It was a ritual at the village.  She was very nice. I bought extra items since she didn't have the change.

We reached Dighi. Last ferry had gone 20 minutes back. Fort closes by 6 pm. We saw the fort from a distant only. It was around 1.5 kms from there. We ate 'kalakhatta' and enjoyed the cool evening breeze.

 Pic 04 : Dighi port, the way for Janjira on island, behind two far away cranes

 

There was one ferry already going towards Janjira. We checked for a private ferry. It was getting late and dark too. BY the time ferry was ready for Rs. 1500/-, it was 645 pm. We could go and see the fort in the dark from the waters only. We cancelled it and missed it.

We came back. We again stopped at the ‘same’ kirana shop. I again bought  5 nos ‘chikki’ costing Rs1/- each.  She was nice to me this time too. :) 

Then we went to Diveagar market to see ‘yatra’. We reached at 730 and it was supposed to start at 8.30 pm. So we waited, and smoked cigarettes.

There was a vertical wooden column. On the top there was a horizontal pole. It could rotate on the vertical pillar. There was a long rope on one end of the horizontal pole and short 2-3 ropes on another end. There was sinister band that created continuous beats.  All the people were wearing a light brown colored Gandhi caps. It was looking like more of a groom’s cap in Maharashtra. They made 5 rounds of  the big house-temple. 10-15 people with these caps marched with a speed and one guy with hands tied too walked in between them. They were beating the small drums and cymbals. There were around 500 people watching the show. All were families.

Finally drums beating stopped. One man in his 40s or 50s was taken to the top near to the one end of the horizontal pole. Priest along with other capwallahs also climbed. They helped the person to fix to two hooks on his back. Two hooks were fixed on his back under his skin. The holes at the back were like the one we find in ears of women in India for hanging the ear rings.  They were already there and two hooks were  fixed on those same holes. So we didn’t see any bleeding when the hooks were fixed.

And then that person was left hanging with rope and hooks to the horizontal pole at one end. A young person was holding the other end. He started rotating the horizontal pole. The hanging person was rotating horizontally holding his complete weight on those two hooks fixed on his back. He was shouting something about god too and we could not catch it. At least I didn’t understand a single word what he said. Oh my god. I guess he was feeling the pain and it was not seen on his face. He took 5-7 rounds and all were ecstatic and sometimes clapped too. I didn’t know how to behave. I also didn’t realize whether I should admire his work and feel bad about it. Anyways we saw unique ‘jatra’ of Diveagar with a man hanging on the hooks…legally.

 

 

Pic 05: The Man Hanging on two hooks 

  

We left Diveagar and went to our resort at Shrivardhan.  There was a nice feast with dry chicken and chicken gravy. We hogged and had nice whisky/ beer. After dinner, we slept peacefully.

On 14^th Morning, we planned to go to Mahad - The place where the revolution for water started for downtrodden people.  We visited  ‘Chaudar’ lake. It was 14^th April and was very appropriate to pay homage the one of the greatest man seen by India.  

We started back on out Maruti 800 and reached Nerul in New Mumbai by 4 pm. I reached Mumbai CST  exactly at 5.30 pm. August Kranti Rajdhani for Delhi was supposed to leave the station at 5.40 pm. I ran and met a TTE. Unfortunately he refused to offer any seat. I offered him extra money, he still refused. Then I allowed the train to leave very reluctantly without me.

Then called a friend and he came to station and we chatted for 2-3 hours at station. Then I left Mumbai CST by another train at 11.15 am. Nobody could believe that I was waitlisted at 95 at 7 pm and got confirmed reservation by 8.30 pm for this train. It was a normal ticket. 

Pic 06 : The hooks

Pic06 hook

 

The End..