Rajgad again

I was back in Pune for vacation last year (2009) end. When in Pune few rituals are mandatory. Like visiting friends, relatives and shopping at Agraj to take food items back to Tokyo. We know Agraj's founder and an owner since I was in my late teens. That might be 20 strong years. Thatte kaka (uncle), Vaishali Taai (his wife), their two sons Pradyumna, Abhishek and Mr. Karandikar (Thatte kaka's father in law). So I was at Agraj and was hearing Pradyumna, who is high schooler, speaking over his cell with someone. What I overheard, their conversation was about doing a trek with some group. For an instance, thought of joining him on their trek flashed my mind. It was my 3rd last day in Pune before heading back to Tokyo. But it was damn tempting too to join him for trek. If I could do it would be trekking on those mountains nearly after 20 years. Pradyumna, when he heard I want to join him, got really excited. To his consternation, unfortunately that group cancelled the trek. I was more surprised with the reason of cancellation. The group had got okay only from two participants as a response to their advertisement in local news paper. These two participants were Pradyumna and his elder brother Abhishek. I told Abhishek and Pradyumna "Next time when I plan to be in Pune, we will do some trek."

And I did just that when we decided to visit family-friends in summer of 2010. Abhishek took charge of finalizing details. Pradyumna, avid trekker that he is, made his parents to give him permission to take off from school and rather join this trek. Atul Aslekar, my long time buddy, was part of the plan from beginning. Akash, my jr. colleger cousin brother couldn't make it as he was down with cold. Finally, four of us left Pune early morning around 5:30am by Atul's car.

Rajgad is a bit difficult mountain fort to climb. If you are Indian and that too from Marathi background, it is also an emotional journey. The wonderful history associated with it has power to take you back in that period when King Shivaji was ruling western part of India from this fort. As we started our climb, synopsis of Rajgad's history was written at the foot of the mountain. Height around 4500 meters from sea level, 24 years King Shivaji ruled from Rajgad, one can keep watch on 16 other mountain forts in the vicinity. With pride of belonging to this country, four of us headed to the top to taste our own history in a rain soaked morning. Trekking in rain has added advantage. You can enjoy the fauna of nature which is not possible in other seasons. Have a look at this picture.





Upon reaching top, as it happens on any other Shivaji's fort, we get transported to Shivaji's time. What I was doing as a trek, a pass time hobby, this person, this King of people and their mind, was doing it everyday in his time. His people were doing it everyday. It was not 9-18 job. They were fighting hostile enemy from this very place all their life. On top of Rajgad you can sense that, and get zapped with the scale of their legacy. Climbing Rajgad and its Balay Killa is not just a journey into my memory lane, it is a journey back into my history, my own people's proud history.