Chhattisgarh

This article was initially published on Ghumr.com . To read article with photographs please click on the following link
http://www.ghumr.com/chhattisgarh-bastar-sirpur/

Dakshin Kaushal – Full of Surprises - Chhattisgarh

There are many reasons for us – Indians to feel proud upon our country. Some of them are her natural beauty, her culture and heritage. Due to her varied landscapes and climatic zones variety of cultures nurtured and flourished here. All were (some are still) sustainable and designed according to the surrounding landscapes and biodiversity.  Talking about cultures and sustainable lifestyle some of our tribal friends are really doing a great job.

The State of Chhattisgarh, India is an excellent combination of tribal, rural and modern lifestyles. We (our venture OikoEssence along with our participants) have been planning to visit this state from past several years but, it kept on postponing due to several reasons. Ultimately got to visit this state in last year. It was a nature camp to Achanakmar Tiger Reserve. Since it was far a very short duration we couldn’t spend much time in exploring other destinations so there was a need to explore it little more.

I will slowly take you to the wonderful journey that I had in Chhattisgarh.

We reached Raipur station at 5pm in the evening which was supposed to reach at 4pm J (all that I can say is the reputation of Indian railways remained undisturbed). Our first stop was at Gariaband. It is at about hours’ drive from Raipur. We had dinner on the way at Aman dhaba as per the suggestion of Mr. Javed Memon – owner of The City Regency Hotel, Gariaband. He and his team were very helpful and offered us absolutely comfortable and hassle free stay at the hotel. The rooms here are clean, big and comfortable. Next day we started at around 7am. Our plan was to reach Jagdalpur via sitanadi & udanti wildlife sanctuary. This sanctuary plays a crucial role in saving Wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) which is listed in IUCN red data of species as an endangered. (more readings : http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/3129/0).  This species has fall prey to the habitat fragmentation and seen in few places in India and less than 4000 individuals are considered to be surviving throughout the world. Which is a real worry when it comes down to the population of an herbivore (that are supposed to present in large number in food chain). Well, we could not see the water buffalo anywhere during our ride through their forest but, we enjoyed it very much and continued our journey to the destination – Bastar. We reached here in the evening.

Bastar is a very important social , commercial and cultural place in Chhattisgarh. It is considered as an original place of Tribal culture in India. One must visit to its anthropological museum to get an idea of how rich their culture is. The way they use/used surrounding flora and fauna for food, shelter, and clothing as well as their fishing nets, agricultural equipment, kitchen utensils and musical instruments is simply amazing. Yet, not disturbing forest on large scale. Their lifestyle is so simple and so close to nature! Another important destination to visit is Kutumsar caves. These are excellent examples of stalactite, stalagmite and column formations of lime stone. Although the column formation of limestone can be seen in various places but it takes hundreds of thousand years to attend a considerable diameter. The columns of Kutumsar caves are very broad. This indicates the ancientness of this cave and forest in which it is situated. We saw a crested serpent eagle sitting leisuly on the tree branch and we spent good amount of time in photographing it. While doing that we saw a giant squirrel as well. The guides there were watching us with the curiosity as we were the only group actually looking and admiring these forest components. The guides although trained by forest department don’t come across tourists that are interested in forest. They are used to “general touristy” crowd. All the national parks and sanctuaries are less visited by the ‘wildlifers” as these are almost devoid of their favourite characters – ‘Tigers’. One has to hire an open gypsy for forest department as the road goes through Kangerghati National park. We saw few birds while going to the cave but, couldn’t spend much time in birding as the driver had to take his jeep back to the main gate to collect more visitors. On our way, he mentioned that this was under ‘naxal’ influence few years back but, now completely out of danger due lots of efforts taken by the Government. There is a waterfall nearby which is a famous tourist destination – Tirathgarh waterfall. Another famous fall is Chitrakote.

Bastar was one of 36 princely state of the state. The name Chhattisgarh itself is derived from 36 garh (kingdoms). Bastar too has an interesting origin. It is believed that when first king was planning establish his kingdom, he worshiped a goddess. The goddess was delighted by his prayers and offered him a piece of cloth which was tied at very high level from the ground. She mentioned that that entire land will be yours from where you will see this ‘Cloth’ – ‘Vastra or Bastra’. Hence name ‘Bastra’ which later became Bastar. Well, this is all what I understood from the guide who accompanied us in barsur- a heritage place which we covered while travelling to Kanker from ‘Bastar’. Basrur is located at 75kms from Jagdalpur. It is a smaal sleepy village and happened to be throwm of power during the tenure of Gangavanshi rulers in as early as 840AD. Barsur is situated on the banks of Indravati River and known as city of temples & ponds. It is believed that it had 147 temples and equal number of ponds in those glorious days. Although Barsur has lost all its glory but, still it four temples – one that has two interesting, huge Ganesh Idols carved in single stone. There are three more temples here Mama-bhanja, Chandraditya & Battisa. Both are less decorative but interesting. Battisa has thirty pillars (battis) and two shivlings inside. These two were established by two queens of King – Banasur. All these temples are from 6^th century. All these temples are ruined and have simple carvings. Only Mama-bhanja temple looks complete from outside.

We left from barsur at about 6.15 and as per our knowledge our night halt at Kanker was about 3 hrs drive from here. But, the road is pretty narrow, under repairs and goes through the nice, dense forest patch in the beginning. All of this made our journey interesting, lengthy and exhaustive. We reached kanker at 12.00 in the night! But, we saw our first wild mammal –the Wild Dog followed by a wild cat in forest at beginning. Our Kanker hotel – Bafna lawns was really nice and we had a very comfortable stay. Next day we started late as our next destination - Sirpur was actually 3 hrs drive from here. Our stay was at Hieun Tsang resort – a nice place to stay.

Next day was dedicated to Safaris in Barnawapara sanctuary. This name is a combination of two villages Bar and Nawapara – two villages near sanctuary. The animals here are very shy. We saw spotted deer, Sambar deer, Gaur, Neelgai, sloth Bear,  Langurs and Macaques here along with good number of birds. We saw forest owlet for a very long time. It seemed it quite liked our presence and allowed us to take good number of photographs. Here in this forest I had my very first sighting of a Gaur calf. It was around 3-4 days old! Even the fawn of the spotted deer was the youngest of all that I had seen so far. We enjoyed this day the most as there were very less tourists here. The forests in Chhattisgarh unlike other forests of India attracts less “wildlife lovers”. So there was no one to run here there in search of tigers and desperately waiting to shoot them with the camera. So the forest is how it should be - less disturbed. That day we reached the resort late evening but with the beautiful memories of Barnawapara.

Our last day was spent in visiting heritage sites in Sirpur. Sirpur of Shripur as it was known in ancient times, is a small village on the bank of Mahanadi. It was the capital of Dakshin Kaushal under the Sarabhapuriyas and Panduvanshis. Sirur has archeological remains associated with Hindu, Baudhha and Jainism. What attracted me more was the construction of walls massive thickness with the help of bricks at time! The Laxman temple has carvings on bricks! I was amazed to the creativity shown on stone carvings at Buddha vihara. The stories from Jataka are carved here. A snake is shown entering in a hole from one side and comes from other side of the pillar. The bricks prepared in those times are still algae free whereas at certain places where modern bricks are used by the government to hold the structure properly has got algal attack. Barsur also has remains of bazzar of that time. The Mahanadi was used as trade route and lot of trade used to take place here. Now the Mahanadi flow has reduced and it has gone little away from this bazzar leaving only stories of that golden era that this place has witnessed once.

I really hope that the Land of Chhattisgarh soon gets its glory back and attract more enthusiasts that actually respect her natural beauty and rich heritage. Somewhere in my mind I feel that I will make a visit here again through my venture OikoEssence to quench my thirst of experiencing and learning more places, its culture and admire the heritage.

Mandapeshwar caves - Silent witness

Mumbai has lots of surprises in store for everyone. Its people, its biological diversity, the places etc keep-on making me wonder. Like any other city it has seen lots of changes - some rapid, some slow. I really wonder how this city was looking like about 60-50 years back?? In the name of "progress" we (citizens) have managed to "Kill' its natural beauty and ultimately its natural resources. The forests are converted rapidly into urban landscapes or some human-made landscapes, all our rivers and streams are now almost converted into nallahs. Yes, I do agree that things will change and they have been changing from past. But what really matter are the impacts of that change, isn't it so? In ancient time as well human tried to make use of resources for his own benefit but, it was all created with keeping the nature in mind and not by "manipulating" it. One of the examples of earlier/ancient human creations are caves and the city of Mumbai still have them in its municipal limits.

I had a chance to visit Mandapeshwar caves in borivali (West), Mumbai. There are BEST buses available from Borivali station that take you to IC colony. The caves are in IC colony itself. One need to fill the stomach before reaching this place, positively near station as there are very less option available near by Mandapeshwar. We too had good breakfast near the station itself. 

when I first looked at the caves a thought came in mind - these caves to are a silent/unfortunately silent observers of degrading natural resources of the city. I had earlier seen Kanheri caves that are in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai. Kanheri are still surrounded with a patch of greenery since it is a protected area under Indian forest protection act. But, the Mandapeshwar caves are really unfortunate as far as natural greenery is concerned. I was shocked to know that earlier Dahisar river used to flow in front-of these caves. Currently, one can see a continuous patch of concreted roads and buildings! It is now managed by Archaeological Survey of India. The area of the caves is much smaller as compared to Kanheri. They were carved in the parent rock of Maharashtra-The Basalt about 1600 years ago. It has lord Shiva's temple in middle which is in worship. On both the sides of temple are empty chambers with few carvings in it. One on the left side has shiva's marriage carved on a wall. Some of the other carvings and even some pillars are not in good condition. Since we (myself and my friend) had lot of time in hand we spent  pretty good time in observing the sculptures and tried to look everything from our point of view and discussed a lot.

On top of the caves are many broken walled chambers. This part was utilized by Portuguese as Christian University. After capturing the place they removed/broke/covered some sculptures of the caves and put a Holy cross in place of one (covered) sculpture (probably Lord Shiva's). The church was funded in 1544. Maratha defeated Portuguese in 18th century and opened the temple for worshiping again. Later British took over and started church (Our Lady of Immaculate Conception - IC church) practice once again. Finally after independence it was open for lord shiva's worship and it is in practice till date. Now caves have open ground in-front and locals use it as playing ground. This cave also has rain water harvesting tanks (still in usable condition). Since we visited this place in monsoon this small was green. When we went on top I saw few trees, herbs and shrubs. It is also suggestible to visit here during the night of 'Tripurari Pornima' which is held in the month of 'Kartik' (Indian lunar calendar) as during that time this cave is lighted with 'Diyas' (ghee lamps) and is a pretty good site to see. After this we went to the church which is just next to it. 

We left the place in afternoon. I am sure these caves must have seen a 'lot' and witness the human greed and madness. Hence-forth hopefully they see some good part of humans' mind.

 

A mouse like!

Trekking – yet another thing that I am not fit for.  So when, a friend of mine invited me for a trek to Khanderi and Underi forts I was not sure about attending. But, then I was told that being Sea forts there won’t be much trekking involved. It will be an easy trek. It was easy indeed and that gave me some time to admire the biodiversity of the region. This is difficult in case of in medium and hard  level treks.

The name Underi is derived from – Mouselike (probably because of its small size and made up of black rock i.e. basalt) and Khanderi is derived from the God – Khanderaya.  Earlier they were also called as Hennery-Kennery.

Prior permission is required from maritime board to visit these forts. A better option is to join some trekking groups that take care of such permission. I went with Youth Hostel Association - India’s Mumbai Unit.

'Thal Jetty'

We started from Mumbai at 6.45am by private bus and it took us about four hours to reach the Thal jetty of Alibaug district. 'Thal' jetty was full of hustle bustle of fishermen and fisher-women. It was a huge tamarind tree that grabbed my attention. It was standing in the middle and looked very old. It has nice sitting area surrounding it which must be used by locals as common place for chitchatting. There on an electric wire above were sitting nearly 8 Drongos devouring the leftovers of fish catches. There was a huge pile gathered of varieties wasted dried fish (fish manure) and it was a ‘fishy feast’ time for Drongos. There were gulls too but they preferred to stay closer to the water (sea).

Getting in and out of boat at Underi

Underi Fort

A motor boat took us ahead from here to Underi fort first and then to Khanderi fort. Since there is no accessible jetty for this fort one has to jump on the boulders from the boat. The experts tried to maintain the minimum distance between fort and the boat. Underi is built up by making walls of huge quadrangular rocks kept on each other and gaps in between them filled up with smaller rock pieces. Almost no binding material used to hold them. It’s simply a matter of trigonometry and perfect timing while fixing/piling them together. This fort was built by Siddhis. The fort like many other forts in Maharashtra is in ruined state but, whatever is left is worth watching. Here again my attention was grabbed by a Fig tree first and then the fort. This fort has three fresh water tanks, few escape routes. Afterwards when I did some referencing it has cave with carvings and an underground prison that was used earlier. I didn't see any of these personally. There are few cannons scattered here and there.

Walls of the fort

Cannon @ Underi

Arch. No packing material can be seen

Fig tree

Khanderi fort was built by Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. It is now re named as Kanhoji Angre Island. Kanhoji was a Naval Chief in Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's time. Khanderi has a light house that was built by East india Company in 1867. (Ref.:  https://books.google.co.in/books?id=k59aVCIlFB8C&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=Khanderi+underi+name+derived+from&source=bl&ots=VOLmVOmDgw&sig=KMfckmKnbfjLcyA3n9d7ScmC4ww&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fzwAVfalLMTHmAWT7IDYCQ&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=khanderi%20light%20house&f=false)

Before visiting the lighthouse we saw a huge rock (probably basalt) giving out a metallic sound when hit by another small piece of rock. It could be because of metal content or it may be having some pores. But, I really don’t know if basalt shows such characters. I will be glad if someone could explain it to me. This fort campus also has few temples with ‘Vetal’ being the most famous and still in worship by fishermen of nearby areas. This fort also has a Christian Cross ad Buddha temple. There are many cannons scattered like that in Underi fort. Three of them are with the carriage. There is a grain storage area too. There was a pair of kestrel flying in the sky, few trees of Indian Jojobe and grass species. One should not expect a great variety from such places but, one must visit these places at least once.

Lighthouse

Cannon @ Khanderi fort

Few more scattered

There are two things that one would notice strongly immediately after entering these forts. First is huge amount of garbage scattered all over including thermocol, plastic plates and to make it worse the beer bottles. The second thing is - useless names marked on rocks. These “souvenirs” must have originated from the visitors who come here to “admire” the beauty of the area. These hopeless habits are ruining the discipline of the forts. A visit to such places should help in making the visitor a better disciplined human being and not to show how bad a human can be. There are lots of things going around in having ‘Chhatrapati Shinaji’s' statue in the sea but what’s the point in having/supporting Chhatrapati’s statue anywhere in the sea when we cannot maintain the dignity of his history? Cleaning and maintaining his forts will be a better tribute to this great hero. Think about it…

Contribution of 'Civilized' people

Some more contribution

Thank you for reading

Drizzles in the city

"A happy mind brings a pleasant smile on your face and even more when your walking speed suddenly slows down to enjoy the drizzling rain."
It happened with me yesterday morning when Mumbai received soft drizzles. It actually brought new energy and I felt thankful. Thankful to everything I have, everything that I had. It was just a happy feeling.

Clean-up drives

It has been more than five years that I am participating in beach clean-up drives on  the Mumbai coast. Majority  of the time I have coordinated it. Clean-up drives are used as strong tool for sensitizing citizens specially students regarding the huge quantity of waste that is generated in cities like Mumbai. We need to understand that If we are generating waste then it is our duty to discard it properly. When it comes to our home, we simply put it in a dustbin and hand it over to municipal authorities..... the waste is out of our house... the problem at the house level is solved. but.... when it comes to the earth,,,, there is nothing called as "outside" ... basically all the garbage that it created at residence, offices, schools, factories etc. remains on earth only. In my city there are two major festivals in which Idols of Plaster of Paris (POP) are created worshiped for certain days and then immersed in our very own sea 'The Arabian sea'. Traditionally these idols are supposed to be made from soil. So that, when one immerses the idol it disintegrates on its own and almost no harm is caused the water ecosystem. But, this age is a age of rapidness and competition ,,, and this competition and rapidness has entered in celebrations of festivals as well. Hundreds/thousands of idols are made every year. Since 'soil' one's are difficult to make and one can not prepare huge idol from it hence the option of POP is always selected. It takes very less time to prepare as compare the soil. Hardly any one bothers about hazards of POP. It affects the water ,, it affects the life in it. It stays in water for long time ,, a very very long time... Not only idols but in general all the waste is ultimately dumped in the sea. We have also came across the medical waste (syringe, bloodbags etc.) while conducting such cleanups. Since schools and college students volunteer for such cleanup drives , I am very much hope full for better future of our sea life and ultimately our lives as well.

It is my humble request to all those who conduct clean-up drives that use it as a tool for creating awareness. Our aim is not just to clean the place but to create such a future where there will be no need for such cleanup drives.

Every morning at racecourse

 In a city like Mumbai where there is a shortage of open spaces, I am so glad to have one of the largest  open space in the city so near. Although its a racecourse, it has a considerable amount of biodiversity. Every morning I get a chance to have look at some of the common city birds like black kites,sunbirds, flower peckers, egrets, mynas etc. along with not so common birds in this area like - drongos, prinias, neelkanth etc. here at the Racecourse. There are even records of purple swamphen nesting here. Huge trees surround this place. One can see about 20 kites sitting on the open cleared patch of ground right in the middle.  Tree like Gulmohor, Sonmohor, Cassia, Rain tree, Mango, Banyan, Peepal, Bakul etc. are some of the trees that are planted over here and all of them are huge in size. This place has a charm of its own in every season. A carpet of grasses with lovely green colour covers the ground in rainy season, winter season arrives with sweet calls of birds. One more sound is added with the arrival of summer i.e. call of  male Koels. One can devour variety of colours from green, brown, red.... in these seasons. The climer named 'railway creeper' a species of 'Ipomea' is currently in full bloom. If you are a fitness freak then this is a perfect place for you. It has 2.2 kms walking as well as jogging track. Lots of place available for your yoga or any other fitness exercise. Lot of training sessions are conducted here as well. Tourists that visit our city generally want to see the "Dhobi Ghat" - 'Washer mans' colony which is just opposite to the racecourse and I really wonder why? Anyways, they might be having some interests of their own. But, I would also suggest that one should visit this place as well. Preferably  in early morning. Even there are so many Mumbaikars (Mumbaites) who are totally unaware about this particular site. The place is under conspiracy in these days. No matter what they (Government) come up with a theme park of international level or 'smarak' of great people, the existing biodiversity of this place is definitely going to get affected. I just hope that whatever changes that will take place over here, they will / should help in making our city's environment clean. Difficult but, not impossible, isn't it?

A Sunday Morning in south Mumbai

A Sunday Morning in south Mumbai!

It was just another nature trail day for me. We had organised a trail to Horniman Circle, Fort in Mumbai which was supposed to be a tree walk. I went there along with my sister Rupali (who actually surprised me on Saturday evening by saying that she would be joining for Sunday’s trail). We reached there at about 7.45am. Few members of our organization (WWF-India) who were supposed to join for the trail, didn’t turn–up. Only five of us – I, my sister, Ranjit, Vishal & Dr. Nanabhai were present for the trail. As we all knew each other from past many years, the trail turned-up to be a friendly get-together.

The icing on the cake was the vintage car rally… all the vintage cars were parked just outside the circle. After spending some time on ‘clicking’ these old beauties, we began to enter the garden (the horniman circle). But, watchman stopped us at the gate saying that the garden will open at 10 O’clock. This gave us some more time for admiring those vintage cars. It was only 8.45 and we finished admiring almost all the cars. So, we decided to go to the BPT Gardens. All of us had been to BPT garden several times before except, Ranjit. So, we planned to explore the Colaba Woods (another garden in Colaba). Since none of us knew exactly where this place is, it took us about an hour to search this place. We actually reached to TIFR (one end of Mumbai) in search of this place! After going through the length and breadth of the Colaba which also includes defense area, one of my friend suddenly remembered that he has a notepad & also has internet connectivity to it. Then, finally we managed to find this garden.

The garden is very near to WTC. Each one of us had been to WTC before for some or the other work but, nobody knew that this place is very near to it. Anyway, finally we were in ‘Colaba Woods’. We reached there at almost quarter to ten and read a sign board - this garden is open to visitors from 5.30am to 10.30am! We decided not to waste time and started looking for plants and lesser fauna of that garden. Actually everyone was a bit disappointed by looking at the size of this garden.  It is a small garden maintained by the ‘Tatas’, with a regular jogging track. But, it holds pretty old trees and variety of plants that includes yellow silk cotton tree, Wild almond, some ficus spp., pink tabebua, cannon ball tree and many more. We also saw a flowerpecker. In-short, we came out satisfied with the garden. After this entire extensive search, it was quite obvious that we all were hungry. Here came another search! This time, it was for food. Everyone (except me) had their favorite food joints and one by one, visited them all! Thanks to all of them, my Sunday morning ended in a wonderful way!!