Mamleshwar Temple

It was almost 5;30 pm when we finished with our omkareshwar temple (You can click on this link to read about the visit to Omkareshwar) darshan we moved towards the banks of river Narmada to take a boat and ferry across the other side of the river to reach Mahamaleshwar Temple, As i had mentioned that the Yatra of Omkareshwar is not complete unless you pay your respects to both the temples.

Two minutes ferry ride

The ferry ride is hardly of two minutes and for which you have to shell out Rs 10 per head.(Travel Tip: The boat guy will tell you 20 Rs. per head or any amount like full boat so drive hard bargain. India surely can make you hard bargain master).

One can easily reach the Mahamaleshwar temple by walking on the bridge, so taking boat is not mandatory. But when I am travelling I want to absorb the fun of each method of transportation. Setting sun and the golden sheet of the river enriched the ambiance of the place. 

Ambiance drenched in gold

As I said, the boat ride was very very short and we soon touched the banks of Narmada on Mamleshwar side. Standing on this side one can absorb the richness of the religious India, ancient India, towering on other side is the prominent Omkareshwar temple and behind it the Omkareshwar Palace.(which I missed visiting this time around)

Omkareshwar Temple with Omkareshwar Palace behind it

We offered the prayer to Narmada river, and started our walk towards the market at the end of which is the Mamleshwar  temple situated.

Market place through which one gets to the Mamleshwar temple

The sun was sinking fast and I was worried that I wont be able to capture the pictures of the temple. We looked less like a tourist and more like runners especially with my daughter,my wife and myself dashing around to reach the temple.

Family of Road runners

Under the dimming sunlight we entered the Mamleshwar Temple. Believe me I found this temple more rich in architecture and intricate carvings and sculptures. 

Mamleshwar Temple Complex

The temple as you can see is housed in a huge complex with a main temple at the beginning and surrounded around it small clusters of temples.

Small temples around the main Sanctum 

We entered the main sanctum and paid our respect to jyotinlinga of Mamleshwar.

Shivling of Mamleshwar Temple

 Next I went to another temple next to the main temple the punjari told me it is called Vridhkaleshwar temple. 

Vridhkaleshwar Jyotiling with ancient relics around it

It also had a shivling. this temple was not as bright as the main temple. I had to use torch to click the picture.The temple had many ancient relics around the jyotiling and the entrance of the temple had very interesting sculptures. 

Interesting Sculptures

Once I finished with the temple and worshiping I moved on to the something that I love, of course capturing the beauty of ancient carvings and sculptures. Come and have an eyeful along with me.

It was now dark and the knew I will have to hurry to reach the Bus stand If I had to catch the last bus from Omkareshwar bus stand which the auto guy told me leaves at 7.30 pm. If I missed that bus then i would have to again take bus or auto to Sanawad and from there to Indore.Luckily for me I was in time to catch one bus earlier to that, it a different matter that as the bus was full so we got to sit in the driver's cabin.....well someone once told me the best view is always from the front. Musafir hoon yaaro so anything goes.

Thank you

OMKARESHWAR TEMPLE- INDORE

There was this long weekend coming so my wife and me decided to take advantage of that. She being a religious person suggested that we visit the Jyotingling of Indore and Ujjain. I been on a lesser side of religious beliefs was initially little reluctant to go but then decided to make a win win situation for both and added visit to Mandu the historical town near Indore,

We took Avantika Express which reached Indore at 9.30 am. After checking into the hotel and grabbing a quick bite dashed to Sarvate Bus stand where one can easily find buses going to Omkareshwar Temple. I noticed that these private buses take ages to move out of the town, trying their best to gather as much passengers as they can.Thankfully we were able to conquer a window seat. The journey was uneventful, the bus kept moving through villages , field and infact the route goes through mountainous region.It's a 77 kms journey from Indore. it took us 2.5 hours to reach Sanawad bus station. (Travel tip: check if the bus will go to Omkareshwer or only till Sanawad. Bus guys fool you. Sanawad is 12 kms before Omkareshwar). Though we were told that the bus will go till Omkareshwar but at Sanawad  we were informed it is the last stop.For a traveler, especially in India struggle never gets over. I inquired about the bus going to omkareshwar from there, finally saw a mini bus all set to go and boarded the same. This journey was about 15-20 minutes which ended at Omkareshwar Bus stand. There are sharing Rickshaw or you can hire individual to go near the temple complex, which is about 1-1.5 kms from here.Some people walk and go from here, as I was short on time and as it was already 4 pm so I took auto to the temple complex which begins from the bridge across river Narmada.

Entry of the bridge from the market to the temple

We started our walk from this bridge and crossed the river. the view from bridge is simply amazing and the setting sun made it more exotic.

Festival of Colourful Canopies

Narmada river flowing so serene adds the mystic to the place, series of temples dotting the banks of the river and the colourful canopies give the festivities kind of tinge to the place.

Exotic view on the left side of the bridge

Walking on the bridge and looking out on the right side one can see Narmada Dam and the second thing that you see is suspension bridge,and ahead the Omkareshwar Temple.

Narmada Dam and the Suspension Bridge

Glimpse of the Omkareshwar temple from the bridge

Hardly a walk of 5 minutes and taking a right turn you enter the usual site of souvenir shops markets which we so often see outside the temples.

Before going for the Darshan of this Temple lets brush up little history and some really interesting folklore connected with it.

Folklore:

There are 12 Maha Jyotiling spread all over India, Omkareshwar is one of that prestigious Jyotiling.The temple is situated on the mountain Mandhata, next to shores of Narmada river in Malva, MP
and on the next shore of river Narmada is Mamleshwar Temple.

Mamleshwar temple on opposite side

In a way it is a twin Jyotinglinga and there is a folklore behind this according to which it is believed that Omkareshwar and Mamleshwar are two halves of the same ancient Shivling that lord Shiva himself created and the divided into 2 halves. Local shopkeeper told me that the pilgrim to this temple is not complete if one doesn't visit both the Shivlings.

Now time for the next story. This is the story of Vindhya Parvat, Once Narada who was often travelling across the universe and more famous for carrying tales once sang praises of Mount Meru, describing its beauty and magnificence to Mount Vindhya. Now hearing such lavish praises made Mount Vindhya jealous and consequent to this he prayed to Lord Shiva for magnificence and splendors greater than Mount Meru. Lord Shiva granted the wish of perpetual growth in height but with a condition that this growth will in no way hinder his devotees. But after receiving the boon, Mount Vindhya forgot everything and to be more magnificent grew it's height so much  that it covered the Sun and the moon. The harassed devotees then approached Sage Agaste , who tricked the Mount Vindhya to not to grow more till he and his wife is there and then he didn't leave at all.

we entered the Omkareshwar Temple climbing few steps, In fact I got my first peek of the temple between the narrow buildings.

First glimpse of the temple

Omkareshwar Temple is basically a 5 storied building housing different God at different level.A local informed me that Mahakaleshwar,sidhnath,Dhwajeshwar and Gupteshwar temples were located on the higher floors.

Exterior of Omkareshwar Temple

I was not able to visit the same due to paucity of time so I clicked the photo of the exterior of the temple. 

Exterior of the Temple

As there was not much crowd so we were able to have darshan of the Shivling;

but not before passing through some of the amazing ancient carved pillars.

Paying our respect to the Omkareshwar Shivling we moved down the stairs till we reached Adi Shankara Cave and from there we moved towards the river bank to board the boat to Mamleshwar Temple( Click on this link to read the blog) which I shall cover in my next blog. Stay tuned. 

Mamleshwar Temple Blog

Moving towards the river bank 

Thank You

Arnala Fort

My niece had come from Delhi to visit me and she wanted me to take her for a trek.Knowing that she had never trekked before and with mercury hitting at 40 C plus I was wary of going to trek with her, So I suggested the middle path and decided to visit Arnala Fort.

There are very few places which are near Mumbai and yet offer you the peaceful bliss of country side's natural delight and Arnala Fort is one of them. Arnala Village is hardly 10kms away from Virar station and the best part is, as it is a sea fort, so one need not worry about the trekking hardship. In my opinion any new comer who wants to get acquainted with the History, Forts and trek and in this particular order should start from here.

picture taken from internet

Our Journey:
Once it was decided that it's Arnala Fort this Sunday, I called up few others also in case if they want to join me, However in the end it was me,my niece Sunisha and my friend Pooja who ended up for this trek.We took an early train to Virar Station and on reaching Virar station we got out of the station from the west side and walking for hardly 2-3 minutes we arrived at the Virar ST stand. We were given to understand that the frequency of the buses going to Arnala Village are good (Almost every 15 mins) and luckily for us the Local green coloured bus going to Arnala was waiting. we quickly got hold of the window seat, the bus journey lasted around 30 minutes and we reached the Arnala Market stop.

Crowded Arnala Market

After getting down from the bus the first thing that hit you big time is the smell of fish and the din of the crowded market place.My niece was quite amused and confused, She had this big question mark on her face " But chachu you said its a silent and serene place, yeah toh pura meena bazaar hai" I chuckled and said "Jaise Toofan se pehle shanti hoti hai , waise hi shor ke baad Shukun (peace) ... Bacha thodi Thand Rakho"

Fisher-women selling fishes at the fish market

 The Arnala Market or Naka has this big fish market and just opposite to that moving slightly toward the right side is a narrow road , a simple walk of 5 minutes  from here will take us to Ferry wharf or jetty. Yes friends one has to take a boat to reach this fort because this fort is located on an island !

A little walk through these narrow lanes and you reach Ferry Wharf

History:
Arnala fort is also called Jaldurg (Seafort) or Jangire Arnala , at one time the Portuguese who owned this fort had it rebuilt and named it ilha das vacas. In the year 1516 a local chieftain from Gujarat Sultan Mahmud Begde constructed this fort on the Arnala island ,but in 1530 Portuguese  gained the control of this island consequent to that the Portuguese nobleman tore down the old fort and did a new construction of 700 by 700 feet (210m x 210m) fort, since then for 2 centuries the control of the fort remained with the Portuguese who used it to control shipping and navigation along the northern Konkan coast. 

During the late 17th century, the then Peshwa Baji Rao I , sent his brother Chimaji Appa to take over the Bassein Fort from Portuguese, later after winning the battle of Vasai, on the insistence of Shankerji Pant, Chimaji Appa lauched an attack on Arnala Fort but it was a disaster, as the Maratha forces under the naval command of Manaji Angre was routed by the superior Portuguese naval forces, but however during the second attack on 28 March 1737 the Marathas caught Portuguese by surprise and forced them to abandon the fort. The Marathas rebuilt the fort and constructed 3 bastions Bahirav, Bhavani and Bava later this fort was lost by Marathas to the Britishers in 181. The Arnala and the Bassien Fort were returned to Marathas in the treaty of Salabai but yet again the fort went back to Britishers under the treaty of Pune.

Journey Continues :
I hope now that you have brushed up little history let's move back to our journey, After getting down the bus we walked and passed through the narrow lanes which housed fishermen houses to reach the Ferry Wharf. The earlier boat had just left and the next boat would be coming in 15 minutes so we spent our time clicking pictures 

Photo session at the Ferry wharf

One could see lots of hanging fishes being dried up in sun. It was like fishes all around you. The smell of the fish was now becoming a constant companion and we were getting pretty used to it.

Drying fishes

Soon our boat arrived and here there was another shock awaiting Pooja and Sunisha when they realised that they will have to wade through the water to get into the boat.Quickly we removed our shoes,our mobile,cameras etc and put them in our bag. and before we could realise we were almost deep in water till waist level. I was all prepared for the shrieks of my lady companions but to my surprise and relief both of them very sportingly and bravely climbed into the boat and heaved sigh of relief.The boat was rocking as if it would drown anytime,

The rocking boat

Just imagine rush hour crowded local train, same was the plight on this small overloaded boat. Luckily for us our fears were unfounded and we survived this sweet and small journey of hardly 5 minutes and reached the other shore. Getting down was another another task, jumping into the waist high water was now order of the day so we were well prepared for it, In fact we had started to enjoy this adventurous experience. 

Uninviting hot sand

Getting down in cool water was a delightful experience in this hot weather but once we started walking on the beach to our despair we realised how hot the dry sand was, As we were bare footed so the burning sand had an impact of what a person must have felt walking on hot coal, running in despair we broke into unintentional tap dance to save our feets and dived into the shelter of the nearby fishermen's house.Catching our breath we started our walk to the fort.

Walk through the village to the fort

The walk from the beach to the fort entrance is hardly a 5 minutes walk through narrow lane with the fishermen folks houses on both sides of lane and as we reached closer to the fort entrance we saw few abandoned boats and Fishermen folks unloading the mud bags for the reconstruction of the fort.

Fishermen folks unloading the mud bags

Few abandoned boats

The Fort entrance has this beautiful carving of a tiger and an elephant. I had read about this carving of Elephant and tiger so was very keen to capture it on my camera 

Carvings of Tiger and the Elephant on the main entrance

but I was shocked and saddened by the state of the gate, Some voyeuristic people who I never understood, as to what pleasure they get in proclaiming their love on the walls of heritage site,had defaced it.

Shameful destruction of heritage site

 Hey man you have a Living room in your house Please go and put that graffiti on the living room wall,Jab baap do Jhappad lagayega sab hosh thikhane aa jayega spare the historical sites.

Another thing on entering the gate I noticed was the stack of sand bags, which meant that the restoration work is going. 

 Stack of sand bags meant for the restoration work

As soon as we entered the fort from this gate , I noticed that one can see almost the entire wall of the fort.as the fort is kind of rectangular in shape.We saw few broken walls of old quarters, 

Broken walls of old quarters

Lovely sea view from the fort

The moment we reach the top wall, we get the lovely view of the sea ahead,with small boats all around and bird's eye view of the entire fort.

Bird's eye view of Fort Complex

we started walking on the fort wall with the intent of circumventing and this is possible because the entire Rampart wall is interconnected.

Walking on the interconnected  Rampart of the fort  

walking along the way we noticed secret doors,Passages going down at some places,small windows along the wall of bastions, which in earlier they must be using to look out for the enemy. But today this small windows provided excellent location to click beautiful pictures.

Some pretty sights from Fort windows

 The portion which consists of bastion had passages going down which could take you out of the fort.However thanks to the onslaught of modern civilization which gives two hoots for maintaining the historical places these passage were blocked due to the mud,dust and the plastic waste thrown by the visitors to the fort. How I wish someone takes the initiative to clean up these passages. If this kind of initiative will be undertaken I would love to be the part of same.

Passages at the bastions

 Blocked passage due to the mud,dust and the plastic waste thrown by the visitors to the fort

Once we completed our exploration of the entire fort wall we moved down from the same stairs from which we had come up and moved toward the center of the Fort. Arnala Fort has a fantastic combination of 2 different cultures with a Shrine and a Temple in the Fort complex. we first decided to explore the Shrine of Hazratshah Alishah Baba,

Shrine of Hazratshah Alishah Baba,

 Its  a cool green coloured stucture and next to that there is a grave. Next to shrine there is a nice resting place below the tree which offers cool pleasure ,after spending some peaceful moments here we started to walk towards the Shiva Temple nearby.

On the way as we were walking we noticed this Banyan tree where we couldn't help taking some swings as they say Dil toh bacha hai ji !! 

Swinging times ..Dil tho bacha hai ji

One very hilarious incident happened here , my niece got a call from her mother and she asked my niece how is the fort and she very innocently replied " Mom yeah Khandar jaisa hai " I was aghast to hear the word Khandar I said ' Beta tune toh Dil hi thod diya,I find solace in these kind of places and tune toh ishe Khanhar bol diya." 

Ruins or Past National Glory

As they say the beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, same goes here,because honestly speaking it actually is ruins but we Fort lovers see it differently because we connect and try to live the history that has happened here.On her part she had a valid point because being from north she has seen Red Fort, Hawa Mahal and few other forts So I must have smashed her fortwala dream. She kept apologizing profusely to me and I kept pulling her leg for this faux pas.

After finishing our swinging session at the Banyan tree we moved to the Shiva Temple.

Shiva Temple with the octagonal well opposite it. 

The Shiva Temple on the fort is just next to the unique octagonal well. The temple offers such peace and serenity that one would simply like to sit there and meditate,

Perfect place to meditate 

 Despite the harsh sun-rays the breeze was quite cool within the temple. the sight of fort wall looked quite interesting from the temple so I took few pictures.

View from the Temple

Just outside this Shiva temple there is this unique Octagonal water well which has steps leading down the well and on the periphery of the well wall there was this Ganapati Idol. after offering our prayers to Ganpatiji and Shivji we started to move out of the Fort 

Unique Octagonal Water well

Steps leading to the well

Ganpati Idol on the periphery wall of octagonal well 

This time we decided to use the rear exit to go out of the Fort, Its a  a small door through which one or two person can go out at a time. The reason we exited out of the rear door was that when we were on the top wall of the fort I saw this stand alone Stone bastion behind the fort at some distance which I wanted to explore.

Small rear exit door of the Fort

Moving out of this door we started walking through the fields and the local fishermen house.Keeping the Bastion in our sight we moved towards it,our little walk along the coast brought us near the Stone Tower,

Walk along the coast brought us near this Stone watch Tower

We could see the Stone watch tower almost at the corner of the island with few abandoned boats scattered near it.

Stone watch tower with scattered abandoned boat around it

 While exploring this Stone Bastions /watch tower I couldn't find any entrance to it so I encircled the whole watchtower and ultimately my persistence paid off when I noticed a small passage which allows the entry into this watch tower,

Small entry passage to the Stone Tower

 The problem was that it was blocked due to growth of vegetation and the passing local fishermen who saw me peeking through the narrow passage, warned me not to try any stunt of entering through this narrow passage as there could be snakes so I dropped my frivolous idea and moved on for the return journey back to the ferry wharf or jetty.Walking along the island coast we reached the point where in the morning the boat had dropped us, Now standing in the middle of nowhere its little difficult to know whether you are at the right place.

Is it a deserted Island

 Not a soul was in sight and only the small boats lying around. we were worried as to when the boat will come, just then I noticed a woman sitting under a shadow of an old boat. I asked her when the boat will come she said as the boat guy is gone for lunch so the next boat will be at 3 pm. The time on our watch was 2.30 and sitting on the hot burning sand under equally hot sun was not on our agenda so we decided to go and check out the temple which was just at a distance from where we were standing.

Mata Kalika and  Shitla Mata  Temple

The freshly orange painted temple looked too tempting to be missed so we walked through houses and reached the temple complex within 5 minutes. This was as we came to know Mata Kalka and Shitla mata mandir,We had our darshan and in the court yard of the temple we had our packed lunch of, Parathas,Theplas Puran polis and biscuits

Kalika and Shitla Mata Mandir with it's large courtyard where we had our lunch

 and just before 3 pm we were again standing at the Jetty when we saw the arriving boat, It was the same adventure all over again of getting we,,climbing the rocking boat for our return journey. After crossing the sea and reaching the Arnala side we walked back to the fish market we saw a ST bus going to Kolhapur, On enquiring as to whether the bus will go to Virar Bus stand, we got positive response so we all quickly hopped into the bus and in 25 minutes reached the Virar ST stand and from there back to Virar station and finally home.

Points to Remember:
1. Carry your own water and food as the fort is on island so you may not get the stuff.
2. Once you reach the island please do enquire when the last boat will leave.
3.While alighting the boat ensure all your belongings  like camera,mobile etc are in your bag because the possibility of their getting wet is very high.
4.Bus/autos are easily available to go till Arnala Naka.
5.If coming by car , remember that the Arnala Naka is a very crowed place so parking could be a big headache in that case you may have to park your car near Arnala Beach.
      

Our Team