Onion storage and pomegranate farming

During our trip to Nighoj, while we were going through the villages, we saw the unique way of onion storage. Okay one thing, here in Maharashtra villages are organized in a different way from North, where the villagers live in one place and they have their farming fields outside the villages. Even 4-5 KM. far from the village also. Here in Maharashtra, you would see people make their home in or nearby their farming land. 

Now for the onion storage, villagers have made the beautiful storage rooms out of thatch, bamboo logs and iron wire. This hut kind of structure is covered from all the sides and since there would be pores all around due to the mesh created with iron wire, so we can see even from outside how the onions were stored. They would make a bunch of onions and will tie them in the mesh. 

These huts were all of rectangular shape, around 5 feet of height but of varying length. The richer the farmer, the bigger the length of the hut. Means more onion in store, means more money which ultimately means bigger house and which was evident from the most nearby house from the hut.

We stopped at one of them and clicked some pictures. The length of that storage unit was pretty much long and also the nearby house can give a run to any bungalow in metro cities.  

But one thing was sure to be bothered about. Doesn’t matter how much safe was those huts, suppose if rain comes what would happen. Those huts can bear drizzling, but heavy rain…no way. Even if we assume that owner will do some provisions like covering it with plastic, still in case of heavy rains when water gets logged, it would be very very difficult. And given the material which was stored, Onion, which starts perishing if anyone in the pile is rotten. One storage units of average length had around 50-100 quintal of onions. Loss will surely be large in case weather worsens. 

Same villages had the pomegranate farming also. Fruit was very small then. Even there were flowers in the tree. If you happen to travel in Maharashtra around September October, you can see those trees, all laden with pomegranate. Each tree will at least have 80-100 fruits. I saw this when I was visiting Shirdi during that time period. And you would find people selling fresh fruits on the roadside.

Happy Ghumakkadi  :)

In and around Pune: Parvati hills

Pune has several monumental temples/structures which dated back to the Peshwa Empire. Parvati hills is one of them, located in the middle of the city’s population at the 2100 feet above sea level and 260 feet from the city level. We decided to pay a bike ride here instead of lazing around in the house. This time of the year is too hot to go anywhere else, so better catch up this one.

So from our place, Parvati hills area is around 24 KM. You have to go through the busiest areas of the Pune to reach here, areas where I can’t see a house with a proper parking place. Road side is the official parking here I guess. 

So after bargaining through these lanes we were riding uphill till we stopped at a point where road was further splitting. Navigator was telling to go to left, however boys standing at the corner advised for right. Now, in usual case we should have followed the navigator but given that the locality was a densely populated one with narrow lanes and small houses with teen shade on roof top, women sitting and chit-chatting at the entrance of the house while their kids were playing considering the street as backyard of the house, we suspected the navigator and better thought of going with the locals. 

After 5 mins of this, I swear to never underestimate the power of navigator. That road was leading us to downhill. We turned back to that splitting point and took the left road and we keep on driving till we see another couple asking an Auto rickshaw driver for the entrance gate of the temple. Instead of it, driver told the back door entry in the temple- “Is pahadi par chadh jaiye, kamar barabar ki deewar hai..faand k bindaas jaiye mandir me” (climb in that hillock and there is this wall of height up to your waist, cross it and go in the temple).

We parked the bike there only under a tree and climbed the hillock. The wall we found there was way more than the up to waist height. But we got a beautiful view of the city from the hillock.

Ultimately we have to make a round around the hillock and reach up to the front of the temple, where there was a gate of up to waist height. We entered the temple soberly instead of sneaking from the back.

Inside there are 3-4 temples for Nana Saheb Peshwa, for lord Vishnu and Lord Hanuman. Along with that there is one museum of the things from the Maratha era.

This museum is of particular attraction as they house everything from that era. Right from the swords, spear and knives to women’s Jewelry, palanquin, kettle drums, pots to store the water made of brass and copper, kitchen cutlery, coins and what not. 

There is a small shop in the temple premises which serve the snacks, tea coffee and cold drinks. We had the cold drink and left the place. While returning back to the parking place, we saw the main entry of the temple. A fleet of stairs from down the hillock lead up to the temple.

While coming back we stopped at the café Goodluck, another attraction in Pune for quick tea and bun maska. Café is full all the time and you have to wait some time to get the table. Otherwise if you want only tea, you will be served by a side window. They also serve the very famous Irani tea. We thought of having it but decided otherwise when was told it is black tea. Had tea and bun butter jam and left for the day.

Happy Ghumakkadi :)

Growing India, Shining India

Traveling leaves with you a lot of stories to tell. You just have to keep your all five senses open.

So this story is about when you really feel - no, something is changing. I have this feeling when we were traveling from Aurangabad to Shirdi. As we have learned a life long lesson of booking hotels beforehand (if possible) during our Ratnagiri trip, the men's section of our group was worried. We were again without hotel. I was a bit relaxed, as it was Shirdi. You can get hell lot of hotels there.

In Shirdi, you don't have to search for things. Things search you. Seriously, You just reach Shirdi somehow.  Then people will be after you for rooms. Once room is settled, they will be after you to a shortest route to temple, then Prasad shop, then Shanisignapur and everything. If you have vehicle, they will be after you for parking. If you are just walking at night, they will be after you for dinner. I think this place is somewhat similar like Mumbai. It never sleeps. You reach anytime of the day or night, crowd simply never fades away there.

So I was telling you, we were on the way to Shirdi from Aurangabad and there was this highway and it was almost dark. We were at some road side dhaba for tea. And the men's section was searching on phone to get some hotel in Shirdi. And yes, it was done in next 15 minutes.

So you are one some dhaba on some poorly light highway with hardly any vehicle in sight. The place is surrounded by hills from all side. And there you are booking hotels at this deserted looking place on your phone. Don't you get the feeling of something is changing ?

Happy Ghumakkadi :)

The Honeymoon period !!!

No no no....don't start guessing by the title...like they say never judge a book by it's cover. I am not gonna give you account of my honeymoon period or for that matter of anyone else's.

In fact if you know India well, at the end you will be surprised by the talent we Indians possesses. We can link two stories, poll apart from each other, if we set our mind for it.

So it all happened when we were exploring the Ajanta caves in Aurangabad. Now these Ajanta-Ellora caves, apart from being the marvelous example of Indian craftsmanship from thousand of year ago, I must say they have their fare share of eroticism as well. And here we are in 21st century and you know what fuss it generates in India if someone dares to talk of his/her hidden feelings.

So there we were inside the caves tired of walking, sitting and eating snacks, when I heard something.

Young guide: As they were on their honeymoon and you can see she was not letting him touch, though sitting very near.

Foreign woman: Ohh...hahaha

Young guide: yeah.. as you can see he was even trying to kiss..but she was very shy..

Foreign woman: (laughed even more)

And there I was dying to know whose honeymoon period was being discussed there openly in India. As the place guide was referring to was on the other side of the wall, I jumped off as soon as they vacate the place and there were the honeymooners: our very revered God Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi sitting very next to each other and as simple as we can imagine.

We burst out laughing. These guides, they can cook up any story just to tell you something. This time as the client was a foreigner, he cooked even more deliciously.

After some time we again saw that guide, this time he was talking to some other foreigner (most probably a Korean or Chinese) in respective language. And intermittently he was talking to some local people in Marathi and Hindi. So the young guide was having a good command over at least 5 languages. Well as impressive as the story itself...

Happy Ghumakkadi :)

Pune to Aurangabad Day1: Bibi ka Maqbara

Back-to-back is a phrase, considered best suited to people in their early twenties. They may still be in college or fresh out of college, full of energy and zeal, on the verge of doing everything which pops up in one’s mind and most importantly every friend of the group will still be bachelor hence no excuses of ‘Let me ask’ or ‘Bhai batata hoon’. But I guess as with everything else from average human lifespan to average marrying age, this back-to-back-phrase-using-age is also growing and has bitten to people in their early thirties also.

Few days back we saw 6 movies back to back in a weekend.  All day we were eating and seeing movie while other one was on download. So when it comes to travelling back to back, the only thing, I have sensed till now, I don’t get bored easily of, you know I was feeling like being in early twenties again (though when I actually was, I never did anything which can remotely be termed as crazy). 2^nd thing, it was new year and what a better way to start a new year other than travelling. 3^rd thing, 1^st Jan (Friday) being leave, it was a long weekend also.

So even before the dust from last trip was off our cloths and even before the photos were exchanged, by Wednesday the coming weekend was booked with the same group of friends.

If last time it was sand, beaches, fort, sunset and all, this time it was going to be a visit to the world heritage site (Ajanta Ellora caves in Aurangabad ) which will end with a religious note (Shirdi and Shanisignapur).

Lesson learnt from last trip to Ratnagiri was, book your hotel beforehand else be ready to waste your time, energy, money and end up sharing the room. My husband seemed to be taken it very seriously and booked room in Aurangabad for day 1 even without telling me (and I cannot be more thank full to him as the deal we got gave me another reason to travel without taking worry of hotel bills). Also this time we were determined to leave as early as possible to avoid the day time city chaos and also to make most of our day 1.

Our day 1 itinerary looked like: reach Aurangabad by 10:00 AM, check in hotel, lunch, Bibi ka Maqbara and Ellora caves. Ellora caves being the major attraction, half of the day was set aside for it. Bibi ka maqbara was 2^nd option depending upon the time.

We left home by 5:10 AM, already 40 mins late. Pune to Aurangabad goes from the same area where our friends reside, so picked them up from there only. However at 5:45 AM in the morning, the major landmark of that area, Amanora mall, was all extinguished and it took us a while to search for it before we figured out we were standing right in front of it . Finally we started from there at around 6:15 AM. From there, Aurangabad was around 225 KM.

Other benefit of leaving early is you get to see how sky turned from light blue to orange and then the beautiful sun rise from behind a tree or a hill.

Beautiful

I just love roads :)

Breakfast break was taken at around 8:00 AM with tea and homemade poha. 

Breakfast Hotel :)

In next 20 mins we were done and started again and stopped only after reaching Aurangabad at sharp 10:00 AM. Since we were on time and check-in time of hotel was 12:00 PM, we directly went for Bibi ka Maqbara. 

View from outside

Bibi ka maqbara is a clear-cut replica of Taj-mahal in Agra and is built by Ajamshah, son of Aurangzeb, in the memory of his mother Dilras Banu Begum. It is supposed to be built between 1651 and 1661 C.E (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/).

It too resembles the same structure as any other tomb like monuments in India with 4 pillars sort of structure in every direction, beautiful exquisite work in every wall and roof, a jali like structure in 3 directions other than entrance, a prayer hall apart from main building and garden surrounding the main architecture from every direction. Like Taj-mahal, it too has a pathway, with space for water and fountains in between, though it was nowhere to be seen, from main entrance up to the main building.

Work at the entrance

Another example of beautiful karigari

View of main building from entrance

Doesn't one get confused it with the Taj in this pic :)

More closer look

Another example

Stairs to the upper part

Prayer Hall

Aurangabad caves. Visible from Bibi ka maqbara

Surrounding garden

From main building to entrance

Dargah of Dilras Banu Begum

Interior

Jali work from inside

After spending good 1.5 hours there, we returned and started for the hotel. Though this time hotel was booked, but it took us some 20-30 mins to search it. Enquired with 2-3 people and at one point we were only be maximum 200 meters from hotel, when we did the mistake of asking one auto rickshaw driver and he misguide us to other direction. After taking a big round and asking with other people, we reached hotel and from there we can see that intersection and that auto still standing there. :)

Happy Ghumakkadi :)