After an exhausting yesterday came today, full of anxiety. Woke up from a bad dream and remembered today was the D-day. The wee hours of the morning were spent doing daily rituals, physically feeling sick and mentally going over the worst possibilities that would hamper the trip. Mind is strong - cripples the body. After much ado we started at 7.30 am. An hour on the road was all it was needed to melt away the anxieties. After about 3 times of tying and retying the luggage on the bike along the way we reached Boisar at 11 am. I am carrying 'Mahatma and the Poet' along - waiting for some miraculous revelation? Hoping this journey to be meditative if nothing else. The trip is already deviating from the set itinerary - we are spending the night at Boisar. M has started recording temperature and humidity everywhere by this new temperature gauge he has bought.
32.1 degrees with 90% Rh and no breeze is hot.
30.7 degrees with 78% Rh and fan on 2 is comfortable.
OK: 6 Oct 10 Boisar - Ganjad (Dahanu)
The day started off well with a feeling that the journey was finally underway. The road to Ganjad - a Warli village near Dahanu was beautiful - green with hidden houses and fields. Highways are boring. We arrived at Ganjad after an hour. There was no cell network. Used PCO after ages and contacted the Warli artist Rajesh Mor. He is a resident of Navnath - a village of 200 houses few km from Ganjad. He took us to his house. His house like the rest in the village was part wattle-daub, part brick, part asbestos and part mangalore tile. In essence it was one big room with a separate kitchen and an equally big verandah which was his studio. All the houses in the village faced north, had kitchens on the south with a dead south wall, chullahs on SE and verandahs in the North so the studio was well placed with soft light pouring in. The edge where the rough ground gave way to well plastered cow dung floor was indicative of where the home started and where we all removed our shoes. Cow dung floor is always a delight to see with uniform circular marks of the hand forming a pattern. The roof reached low to 5 feet to which we bowed and entered.
The village was tribal - the hierarchies were very specific and unlike we have seen before. Their life revolved around rice plantation - two crops a year. The warli paintings were completely interwoven with the tribal life and culture. First time there was a real connect between the art and the intention - the paintings are extremely high level of abstractions of their daily life and rituals and superb examples of symbolism. There is no forced formalism in their structure and composition but a lucidity of a grand mom's story that unravels at its own pace. For the first time I realised that farming for any agrarian community is not mere economics and management and similarly the woes are not just dwindling profits but an overall deterioration of their fundamental life values. For an artist like Mor farming is still a priority even though his skill and profits lie elsewhere.
Even in painting as in their life cycles Diwali marks an end of farming activities after reaping of rice in a spiral dance marking an end of a cycle. Th spiral dance also marks a beginning of the mating season where the youth court each other. This lasts till June after which rice plantation begins once more. All other painting themes revolve around their rituals, festivals, flora, fauna and other mythological tales.
We were hoping to spend the night at his house but it seemed that he was more conscious of our comforts than us. Even after a lot of cajoling he insisted in us staying at a nearby hotel. We ended up in an air conditioned room.
26.8 degrees is not comfortable.
OK : 7 Oct 10 Ganjad - Mandvi - Rajpipla
It was a hectic driving day. We could not wake up early and did not start early. The sun caught on us by 9 am. From Chikhli we took a dusty road to Bhinar heading towards Mandvi in Gujarat. By 12:30 we were no where close to Bhinar. Took a chai break and started again. By 2:30 we were at Talsada – a few km from Mandvi. It had a nice old Gujarat village feel to it. People welcomed us seeing our entourage and language immediately connected us. I realized the importance of language – it immediately gives you the intimacy and a right to demand the same from the others. Never knew my sense of belonging was tied so intricately with language. We refused tea and snacks at the villager’s homes and they seemed offended by that.
By 3 we were at Mandvi. We were looking for the Pattu weavers. The craft was not in demand much and the weavers had switched to weaving zari borders for Surat sari merchants. There were a lot of houses making the Navratri Garbas.
We decided to keep heading North towards Rajpipla. The entire 4 hours of journey to Rajpipla was beautiful. Gujarat was never so green with farms and rolling hills. We had entered Narmada district. By the time we reached Rajpipla the sun had almost set. At 6:30 we were desperately looking for the eco campsite at Vishalkhadi just to realize that we had passed it 20 km back. Having been advised not to venture into the surrounding jungles at night and more so being completely exhausted we decided to spend the night at a Dharmashala. Harsiddhi mata’s mandir in the town was decorated for Navratri. After converting Marzban to Mahesh (and this happened at a lot of places in Gujarat) we took up a room in the Mandir. Though the mandir was sparkling with lights, the room had no electricity and the bathroom looked like it wasn’t washed in years. All for good – without bothering we took a bath and crashed on the bed just to find ourselves amidst a field of insects the next day.
OK : 8 Oct 10 Rajpipla - Sardar Sarovar dam - Zarwani forest
Managed to start by 8 am today thanks to the discomforts. I would any day prefer a small village stay over or a night spent in the open field rather than the urban filth. Noted for the next time. We tried to retrace our steps to the eco campsite but it kept evading us. On the way we came across Karjan dam but that too needed permissions. We hoped the Sardar Sarovar dam wouldn’t have such bureaucracy. For the next 2 hours we were still around Rajpipla. Sun was already up and it was hot. After a hot chai break we headed 15 km east towards Sardar Sarovar Dam. On the way we saw signs for another eco campsite and took a mental note of it.
We finally reached the dam. The project is humungous and only now can I start grasping the extent of displacement this sort of project would have caused. The surroundings are beautiful, green virgin forests and almost all the displaced were tribal villages living off the forest. To a person unaware of the controversies the project is impressive. The vision of the canal system that claim to provide water all the way into kutch, MP and parts of Maharashtra is grand but till now the only functioning canal supplies all the water to Ahmedabad!
We finally reached the dam. The project is humungous and only now can I start grasping the extent of displacement this sort of project would have caused. The surroundings are beautiful, green virgin forests and almost all the displaced were tribal villages living off the forest. To a person unaware of the controversies the project is impressive. The vision of the canal system that claim to provide water all the way into kutch, MP and parts of Maharashtra is grand but till now the only functioning canal supplies all the water to Ahmedabad!
After spending almost half a day going around the catchment area, seeing the network of canals and looking at a promotional video we headed into the forest towards Zarwani eco camp. In the midst of the Shoolpaneshwar forest via 7 km of no road in the hills brought us to this beautiful deserted settlement of cottages and tents. No electricity but who needs that in such beautiful surroundings. We had tea, khakhra and lazed away.
In the evening we started exploring the forest. It was full of small hamlets called ‘faliyu’ in gujarati made up of 10 houses hidden along the hill slopes. Each house would have a small farm of less than half an acre in which they grow grains, fruits and vegetables purely for personal consumption. The houses were wattle and daub with few mangalore tiled roofs and rest thatched. The people were very hospitable with a very different dialect of Gujarati, they reared animals and some were meat eaters. I had this strange notion in my head that all Gujaratis are vegetarians. We climbed down into the valley and followed the beautiful river to a water fall. It was getting dark and few people that we had met on our way had warned us of wild animals so we headed back. But this was by far one of the most beautiful place I had ever seen !!
OK : 9 Oct 10 Sankheda - Chota Udepur
The night was peaceful with cold breeze putting us to sleep. Managed to be back on the bike by 7:30 am but the women who took care of the place were nowhere to be seen so we headed to their village. Met them working in their fields, bid them goodbye and left towards Sankheda. The entire town was involved in making of the ‘Sankheda furniture’. The town was one big workshop or an assembly line with furniture in various stages seen in successive shop/houses. The housing typology was unique too. The shop which is essentially one big room with a high otla right on the street, behind the shop was a small courtyard and it was finally followed by a house.
We were informed that traditional method of furniture building was no longer used. Traditionally teak wood lathed members would be painted by a mixture of tin foil pounded in natural glue and then lacquered and polished by kevda flowers which would give a bright orange color to the painted patterns and brown color to the wood. Melamine and oil paint had replaced the traditional craft and patterns in all colors and styles are now available.
After a couple of hours we left for Chota Udepur. The landscape had changed to a flat, arid plain till the horizon. Dusty roads finally led to a non descript congested town of Chota Udepur. Navratri fair was on in the town and villagers from all around had gathered. The original town could be clearly distinguished around the central lotus lake which was now a small pond. A tribal haat (market) was held near the lake every Saturday i.e. today and we got a glimpse of it. We were shocked to see cheap plastic stuff from China being sold in the tribal haat!
The region was full of small tribal villages, so we soon left to explore the villages. We reached a village called ‘Surkheda’. One shepherd guided us to a house where we could see the Pithoro paintings. Pithoro paintings like Warli paintings are done by a certain tribe on the kitchen wall of the house that has some mannat. The painting is done usually on the fulfillment of the ‘mannat’. Pithoro is a form of a god on chariot with his ‘angels’ around. We were pleasantly surprised to see the modern day Pithoro paintings addressing contemporary issues of looters with guns, trains (which was a favourite symbol), war, animal poaching, etc. The houses here were all ‘pucca’ houses made up of bricks, thatched roof and 24 hour electricity!! Few houses even had comforts of TV, refrigerator etc.
After roaming around few villages we headed back into town for the night. Found a cheap hotel on the highway. After chatting with the owner of the hotel for a while he asked us to go and meet the King of Chota Udepur who had converted his palace into a fancy hotel for foreign tourists. We headed to the palace. In the palace grounds we were stopped by the guards and the ‘prince’ (of course in jeans and tshirt) was on his way out. We stopped him and introduced ourselves and asked to see the palace. He was cordial and personally took us to the King. The conversation that followed was pretty comical. We were trying hard to talk in Gujarati and the king kept talking to us in English, finally we gave up and conversed in English. Sadly he was more impressed by the fact that we were educated in USA than the fact that we were on a motorcycle trip to know the remote parts of the country. He was apologetic of the tribals in his region too!
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