Re-visiting the Kanheri Caves.  (Krishnagiri: the black mountain)

06/07/2013

As the saying goes,” You cannot decide where to go; its destiny that does the business, and we, the mortal shave to follow it whole heartedly.” This weekend also something like this happened. Until Friday night, me and Sweta, as per our plan, were under this implication that we would wake up at six the following day and go to Bhivpuri, as it’s quite far and might take more than 3 hrs for us to reach. But, morning didn’t welcome us from our dreamland before 9:30 am, as we slept late the previous night. So what? Plan cancelled!!! Hmm.

Then I started searching for some nearby sights, and my eyes fell on ‘Tulsi Lake’ and ‘Vihara Lake’ on the Map, which were the fresh water lakes, that supply part of Mumbai’s portable water; both located within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, where we went last year. The eagerness to see the two large lakes and the mugger and crocodile said to exist there, we decided to have our brunch and go for the adventure.

Deepali also agreed to join us. And three of us went with so much of excitement in our tummy. But then, destiny had something else in store for us. The park authorities told us that the entry to the lakes is banned, and we cannot go up there. A little disappointment rose in our throat, but we made it up soon by visiting the Kanheri Caves, which last year welcomed us with full warmth. Moreover as Deepali hadn’t been to the caves before, we promised her that it would be an awesome visit.

Visiting the Kanheri Caves is like visiting my own homeland, as the Caves had been carved by Buddhist Monks in and around 1^st to 8^th century, and had been used as teaching, learning and meditation centre in the past, and during Mauryan and Kushan empires. The rock carvings of Avalokiteshwar and Buddha bring in me a sense of Belongingness to the place. I can easily associate myself to the place as being a Buddhist myself; I have heard tales and visited caves quite often with my family. Kanheri had more than 100 small and big caves, but we limited our visit to some of the caves only, as except for few caves, most were same in structure and carvings.

And instead, this time we went to the nearby waterfall, which looked quite appealing and thrilling along with the falling rain. And without any hesitation, we also ran into the water and let the pressurized water fall on our lean bodies, and it was quite a fun.

 After fully satisfied with our drenched bodies, we decided to trek to the topmost part of the caves. And it wasn’t a hard one, because beautiful and easy stairs from different directions had been carved on the rocks. The view from the top was quite amazing, and we were face to face

with the dense forest of SGNP, which is known as the ‘lungs of Mumbai’ and which absorbs a big part of Mumbai’s pollutants, thus making us breathe fresh. In a sense it’s’ a ‘life-giver’ to the Mumbaikars.

Going up and up, when we finally reached the topmost part, from where there was a valley, and on the other side of the vale were two ‘beautiful waterfalls, which were quite eye-catching and refreshing. We loved the view up there, which appealed to our senses. As we were already drenched with water, so we put off the umbrellas, to let the rains directly hit and play with us. And it was fun-filled and hilarious!!! ‘Wow’…!!Hmm.

Sweta was already tired and wanted to go back home early. As usual, an outing with her, always ends with her mood swings coming to the fore  after some times, due to her fear of Water, Jungle, Dark and late hours. LOL

After spending a good amount of satisfying time up on the top, we descended down for our return journey. As the queue for the van was quite long, we decided to walk, instead of standing there for hours, waiting for the vans, which were quite few in no. The walk was all the more refreshing, as we enjoyed the ‘walk along with the greens’ and came across many running and attractive streams. We enjoyed the sight of different flaying birds, as well as a bunch of deer’. It took us one and half an hour to reach at the gate of the park. The distance from the caves to gate was 6 kms. And we were so excited to have walked that much. Wow! But as usual Sweta made a ‘not so good face & mouth’. But it’s ‘O.K.’ we are used to it now. LOL

Overall it was again an A-Awesome’ outing.

Smiles J J J

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