11 Maruti – Jay Jay
Raghuveer Samarth
Dhaval Ramtirthkar & Gangadhar Soppa
9th July 2018
The Prelude
I must’ve thought in multiples of 11 times about doing the
11 Maruti circuit. However, fate had destined it for me only in the month of
June in the year 2018. I was working in Hyderabad and was supposed to visit
Pune on 2nd weekend of July i.e. 14-15 July. As fate had planned,
Sheetal’s Zurich visit got scheduled exactly on the same weekend and her coming
to Pune got cancelled. That was a Maruti-sent opportunity for me. I immediately
latched onto the chance and planned to do visit the much awaited Ramdas Swami
sthapit 11 Maruti temples. Till now I was unable to find a suitable partner for
this journey. But that day suddenly one name popped up in my mind, Soppa, my
dear, ever-enthusiastic trekking friend.
Without delay I called him and without much fuss he set aside his home
assignments and agreed to come along.
Again, fate intervened and I reached Pune in an unscheduled
manner on 25th June 2018 itself. Immediately I called Soppa and
checked if we can reschedule our 11 Maruti visits to next week i.e. 1st
July. Again, true to his spirit, Soppa readily agreed. After much discussion
and deliberation it was finally decided one day before that it was to be a 1
and a half day trip, from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night.
That Saturday
It was to be Soppa’s car as my car was in Mumbai and Baba
would need his car due to the rainy season. As he had promised, his office work
got over exactly at 3.10 pm and he called and asked me to come to Vadgaon
Bridge on Sinhagad road. I was at sea
how to reach the place as I had never gone that side. Ola would’ve been
expensive and I had no clue about public transport. But again Soppa came to the
rescue and illuminated me on the exact route to take. AS per his directions, I
took a bus from our home Chintamani Nagar to Swargate and from Swargate boarded
a six-seater that dropped me directly to Vadgaon bridge. The whole journey was
so quick and comfortable that I couldn’t believe my luck and I was standing at
the end of the bridge at 4.20 pm.
Pawan Putra Hanuman ki Jai!
Soppa picked me up by 4.35 pm and thus began our maiden
visit to the strategically built 11 Maruti temples by Ramdas Swami. Constant
traffic till Satara slowed down our pace a tad bit. On the way we had planned
to visit a 13th century step well at a place called Limb. However, Soppa
was skeptical about getting accommodation at Chafal and wanted to reach early.
Also, light had started fading by the time we passed Limb so we dropped the
plan. By 7.00, just as darkness started engulfing the daylight, we reached
Chafal and successfully parked the car and ourselves at the famous Ram Mandir
at Chafal. The roads were wet and the lush greenery on either side of the road
indicated that the rains had made their presence felt in this fertile land.
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| Ram Mandir, Chafal |
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| Ram Mandir entrance steps, Chafal |
Just as we climbed down the stairs on the backside of the Ram temple, we came face to face with Das Maruti, standing with folded hands towards the Ram statue in front. We too folded our hands and paid our respect to Maruti Raya and Ramdas Swami in the same go. The Das Maruti temple is one of the two Samarth sthapit Maruti temples at Chafal and both are located within the Ram temple complex.
As we were inspecting the temple surroundings, I noticed the
temple watchman kaka. I immediately asked him about accommodation facility and
to our relief he said that the temple has a Vishramgruh and we can stay there.
The Vishramgruh apart, there is no other accommodation facility in entire
Chafal as it’s a small, scenic village nestled in the lap of mighty Sahyadris. We
immediately booked a room, paid Rs.350
for the night and dumped our meager luggage in the room.
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| The humble, ever helpful watchman of Ram Mandir, Chafal |
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| Veer Maruti Temple (within Ram Mandir, Chaphal) |
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| Beautiful greenery around the Veer Maruti Temple |
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| Even at night, there were people coming to this Veer Maruti temple |
By now it was dark but to our luck it was full moon day, maybe the second day after Pournima. Even at that hour, people from Chafal had come for Veer Maruti darshan and even youngsters were religiously completing many pradakshinas. Since the temple was a height, we could see the outlines of the fields around it. Soppa and I decided to sit and chat in the darkness on the wall surrounding the Veer Maruti temple. After some time we again went down to the Ram temple and began our 2nd round of appreciating the beautiful temple and clean surroundings. That’s when I discovered that there was another entrance to the temple than from where we came. Actually that new entrance was the main village side entrance. Since it was dark we could only see that there were some shops after we climbed down the many steps. On the left hand side, just outside the main entrance, there was a circular bastion attached to the temple. This clearly denoted that the temple was at risk from the Mughals in those times and was fortified enough to protect it. There was a small platform from where the village below was visible. Soppa and I sat down there appreciating the silence of the village and the engulfing nature all around us. We discussed about village life, the bastion and Soppa shared his childhood experiences in his village. After some time the watchman came to inform us that dinner was ready half an hour early than informed. Good for us. We proceeded towards the Canteen, fixing in our minds to explore this new entrance in daylight the next morning.
The canteen was nice and clean and the dinner, though not extravagant, was hot and delicious. Post dinner we decided to take a walk in the Chafal village. Before we left, Soppa expressed his desire for hot coffee. The canteen owner readily agreed and said that by the time we came back from the walk he’ll keep coffee ready. “But be back before 10 pm because that’s when we close”, he cautioned us. We stepped outside the canteen and as we started approaching the village road in pitch darkness we heard the village dogs barking. Neither of us two wanted to face angry village dogs so we retraced our steps back to Veer Maruti temple and sat there in complete peace with not a soul around.
Since dogs was the reason for our change of plan, I narrated
an event to Soppa about our Vasota trek experience and our encounter with
village dogs. It goes like this. We had rode on motorcycles from Pune to
Bamnoli, base village on the other side of Koyna dam waters. By the time we
reached Bamnoli it was past midnight, 2 am. The village at that time was just a
lane with shops lined on either side. The moment we reached, a pack of 15-20
dogs got up from their sleeping position and started barking furiously, baring
their fangs at us. None of us 8-10 trekkers dared to put a step forward. Before
we realized Ritin confidently walked towards the dogs and went and stood in
between them. Unbelievably the dogs suddenly stopped barking as if they had
submitted to Ritin.
We went on talking, sharing experiences in the calm, serene
environment. Though time crawls in such conditions, we realized that it was
already 10 pm and we rushed to have our fill of hot coffee. It was getting cold
outside as we were engulfed by farms and mountains, and it was monsoon time.
10th July 2018
Sleep in the basic Vishramgruha at Chafal was peaceful but
short. There was no rush at the common bathrooms as we two were the only ones
staying in the entire Vishramgruh, owing to monsoon time. We got up at 4.30 am
to get ready for the 5.30 am arati at the Ram Temple. The arati had just three
people, the watchman and we both. The pujari was an elderly person with unclear
diction. We could hardly understand his words as he kept on reciting sholkas
one after the other. This went on till 6 am till the arati concluded. By now two
more elderly ladies from the village had joined us and they stayed back in the
temple reciting Ram Ram Ram for quite some time.
Slowly darkness parted and light made its way to make
photography possible for me. Soppa wanted to leave early by 6.30 am and had
planned to reach Masur by 7-7.30. However, the photographer didn’t want to miss
capturing memories.
As I was clicking photos we noticed the Samarth Gufa which
we were not able to experience the
previous night. We were not to let go of this opportunity and entered the gufa
enclosure. Now this is not a gufa (cave) like any other caves in the mountains.
This is a man-made cave that’s underground. Soppa had an idea to capture our
descent in the cave on video. Soppa went down first, trying different positions
to squeeze himself down the narrow passage with high steps. I was holding his
mobile, recording his wriggling. He climbed down the 3-4 steps and stood in the
first level. I handed him the mobile and followed his wriggling to descend. It
was completely dark inside, barring our mobile torch. There were mentions that
this area could seat 4 people and there
was another level down that was big enough to seat just two people. It is here
that Shivaji Maharaj and Ramdas Swami used to sit and discuss secret matters
and plan their next actions in complete seclusion.
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| Narrow entrance to Samarth Gufa |
As a natural reaction we looked around to see the opening
from where to go further down, but located none. Second round of inspection
followed and Soppa pointed to a tiny opening at the bottom of one wall. It was
so small that I wondered how a person can pass from it. Soppa took the lead
while I showed the light (mobile). He lay down flat on his back and slowly
slipped inside by descending two more steps. I soon followed the same way and
now we both were semi-sitting in the small stone enclosure two levels beneath
the ground. I wondered aloud as to how a muscular person like Ramdas swami, who
used to exercise heavily could sit in this tiny enclosure, that too along with
another person, Shivaji Maharaj. At least I didn’t see any possibility. And yet
one more time, I from the 21st century, found it simply impossible
to fathom life, people and the possibilities way back in the 17th
century.
Sitting there with barely any inch space to move, we shone
the mobile light around on the charcoal black stone enclosure. In that brief
second, I notice a few spiders crawling on wall, obviously disturbed by our
presence. I decided not to focus on them as anyways it was dark and it was not
possible to see anything around.
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Village side entrance to Ram Mandir, Chafal |
Finally we decided to move on at 7-7.30 am, not without a
selfie with the watchman who had politely and smilingly helped us all along.
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| Shinganwadi Maruti Temple on a small hillock |
While we were winding our way down to our next Maruti
darshan we saw a sophisticated looking young man walking in the fields brimming
with fertile black soil, among the green painted trees. But he was walking with
his head down and looking into the mobile, oblivious to the beauty nature had
presented in front of him. We laughed at his misfortune and proceeded towards
the the next Maruti Raya temple.
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| Majgaon Pratapi Maruti Temple |
As we got chatting, they urged, rather insisted that we visit the newly constructed Vitthal temple that stood tall just opposite the Maruti temple. Soppa readily agreed and I followed him, not much interested in visiting a modern temple. True to today’s mindlessly constructed temples, this Vitthal temple had glazing tiles and all the trappings of modern sensitivity. However, at the entrance, I noticed a big sized bell that had Ganpati idols embossed all around it. Soppa noticed me appreciating the unique bell and decided to shed my ignorance by telling me that these type of bells are dye cast and not hand made as I was thinking. Nevertheless, that was the only good part about the ‘modern’ temple.
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| Traditional Tilling-cum-Sowing machine still in use by farmers in the hinterland. |
Umbraj Maruti - (Dated 1649)
The Umbraj Maruti temple
is a small but neat temple with pastel orange coloured walls and a rusting
‘patra’ shed. The ambience inside the temple was very soothing with orange
coloured buntings crisscrossing the courtyard leading to the Marui garbagruha.
Few bhakts kept trickling in to start the day with Maruti darshan before they
embarked on their daily duties. The maruti idol here was draped in a
saree/cloth and only his head was visible. I kept wondering the strange human
reason behind this unnatural act.
After taking darshan we were on our way to
our next Maruti raya.
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| Saree-clad Maruti at Umbraj |
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Umbraj Maruti Temple
|
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| The unsuspecting and basic entrance of Umbraj Maruti Temple |
Masur Maruti - (Dated 1645)
By the time we left Umbraj it was 9.00
am and Soppa was hungry for breakfast. We tried to find any good place in vain
as there weren’t any good restaurants on the periphery of the town. We decided
to find something on our way to Masur. While driving suddenly I noticed a huge,
colourful Ganpati idol erected by the roadside, as if to bless the passing
motorists for a safe journey ahead.
As a result there was phenyl
splattered across the floor and it reeked of the strong phenyl smell. Somehow
we ate our pohe and idli and made our way out.
The Masur maruti temple is a bit
inside and you have to go through narrow roads, but it’s easily accessible. On
reaching I was disappointed to see the temple as it was made of all concrete
and almost resembled a shop from the outside.
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| Masur Maruti Temple |
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| Masur Maruti Temple |
Only the orange coloured ‘kalas’ gave it the feeling of a temple. Inside we met the pujari of the temple. He was a very old soul. On taking darshan as we were taking pradakshina, the old Pujari motioned me to come with him to a vintage house with small wooden door and wooden windows. To my amazement, there was the Samadhi of Shri Narayan Maharaj Ramdasi, a disciple of Ramdas Swami. The pujari was a disciple fo Shri Narayan Maharaj. The atmosphere inside was calm and serene as the old pujari went on doing his duties with shaking hands. We soon gently slipped out as we a lot to cover.
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| The aged Pujari showing us the samadhi of Shri Narayan Maharaj, a disciple of Swami Ramdas |
Shahapur Maruti - (Dated 1644)
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| Shahpur Maruti temple |
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| Shahapur Pratap Maruti Temple |
As we came to the right side of the temple I noticed a huge tree with mammoth trunks. Soppa immediately illuminated me and told me that it was a ‘Chinch’ tree. Thereafter he regaled me with stories of his childhood when he and his friends used to play ‘pakada pakade’ by climbing the tree and jumping down from it. And there I was, never ever climbed a tree and lacking the art to do so. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Soppa’s memories as I took in the view of the majestic tree.
Goggle ‘Chakwa’
The easy part of our 11 Maruti journey
ended here. The next two temples were located in Sangli district and were at
some distance. We halted at a tea stall for further morning refreshment. While
sipping on hot tea we enquired about the good route towards our next Maruti,
Bahe Borgaon. The person there enthusiastically explained us the direction and
specifically told us to avoid going through Islampur as it’ll land us in
traffic and more time will be consumed. We, especially Soppa understood the
directions or so we thought.
Till now we had switched on Google
maps and were at the app’s mercy. Even at this moment Soppa fed the destination
and the suggested route to Google map and we were on our way. We continued for
half and hour and found that the route signs that the man at the tea tall had
suggested were missing. However, google maps was showing the current route as
the right route. We decided to go by google map and soon landed right where the
man had warned us not to venture, right in the centre of Islampur.
We blamed our luck and again referred
google map. It was still showing our route as the right route and now pointed
left. By now I had lost my confidence in google maps. Even on quite a few
occasion earlier, I had found google maps a tad bit untrustworthy. So I changed
track and relied on asking people as that was often the best and most reliable
option.
Now google maps showed left and the
man at the corner said go right. Accordingly we went right and referred to
google maps for further turns as we were heading towards the busy marketplace
area. To our dismay Gmaps kept showing us the wrong way that took us further
inside Islampur rather than lead us out. Finally after much asking around we
somehow found our bearing and for once I decided to dump google maps app as it
had served us no good, instead had weaved a web of wrong directions to suck a
good 30 minutes out of our tight schedule.
Finally after couple of more bazaar
driving we exited Islampur and started cruising towards the river bridge that
marked the arrival of Bahe Borgaon. Soon we were engulfed in tall, green
sugarcane crop lining both sides of the road. The sheer magnitude of sugarcane
crop made us wonder about the prosperity of Sangli district, thanks to Krishna
river.
Bahe Borgaon Maruti - (Dated 1651)
It was afternoon around 12 noon by the
time we reached Bahe Borgaon bridge. We could see a temple across the bridge.
We parked the car by the side as the rest of the journey was to be done by
foot. No vehicle entrance on the narrow bridge. As we descended down to the
bridge we found two-three hawker vans parked there. Soppa immediately mooted
the idea of
having ice-cream and we both enjoyed malai
kulfi with the beautiful view of the multi-arched stone bridge on one side and
the wide river flowing beneath it. After a brief photo session and lot of
selfies on the big cement pod (dock) we headed to the temple.
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| Majestic arched bridge on Krishna river |
The bridge is narrow enough to accommodate three people and it has no railings. Since the water level was not high it was not scary. The entire walk must be a km or so, but you don’t feel it as it goes by the river water, under the massive bridge and lastly through lush green tree cover. Soon we were on Ramling island.
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| The walk over mighty but pleasant Krishna river |
After a 10 minute walk, we came to a temple on a small hillock/island.
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| Beautiful walk lined with lush green nature |
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| Entrance to Bahe Borgaon Ram Mandir (Maruti Mandir is located behind it) |
Bahe Borgaon is near walwa, when Prabhu Shri Ramchandra was seating for Meditation, there was a big flood occured on River Krishna due to this the Meditation of Shri Prabhu Ramchandra would have been disturbed. At the same time to avoid the disturbance in the Meditation Shri Hanuman spread his both hands and obstructed the flow of river and diverted the path of river water on both side of his hands. This is an ancient heard story. Because of this one island was formed, where Idol of Shri Hanuman spreading both his hands and obstructing the river water is here and is a sacred and faith places for the devotees. Samarth Ramdas installed the Maruti idol here in 1651 behind the Ram temple. The temple is in an extremely pleasant and salubrious location. It is said that Ram and Laxman rested briefly in the village Bahe on their way back from slaying Ravan. It is also said that Samarth Ramdas was inspired to write the BhimRoopi Stotra filled with devotion while he was contemplating on this Maruti. Among all the eleven Maruti installed by Samarth, this Maruti is located at the most beautiful location. Along with the Maruti temple, there are many small islands and Samadhi located here. The Macchindra fort is located close by. The tome Krishan-Mahatma refers to this place as BahuKshetra (place of strength). Bahe’s Maruti is one of eleven established by Samarth Ramdas Swami.
- Mahesh Patil (Bahe)
It was only after taking darshan we realized that the Maruti temple stood behind the Ram Mandir. It’s a small temple, more like a side temple with its door locked. We took darshan from outside and sat by the sides, under the shade of another huge tree that had grown up to the temple height. Monkeys were loitering on the trees, on temple ground and everywhere. Little surprise that Ramdas Swami installed Maruti idol at Bahe Borgaon, on this desolate, scenically blessed spot.
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| Bahe Maruti Temple (behind Ram Mandir) |
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| Bahe Maruti |
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| Where there is Hanuman temple, there sits his avatar |
Soon we made our way back, again an entertaining walk over
the bridge. As we were drinking water at the car, we met one motorcycle-borne
local. We soon engaged in a happy banter. He said that rains have deserted this
season otherwise the big bridge (from where we drove) would’ve been underwater.
On asking, he showed us the way to reach our next Maruti raya temple.
32 Shirale Maruti
- (Dated
1654)
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| With this dilapidated wall standing, it would've been an imposing temple |
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| 32 Shirale Maruti Temple |
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| If the temple is locked, call this number and someone from the Pujari family will come in 10 min. and unlock it. |
I wanted to go inside the temple and had read on a blog that there is an entrance by the side of the temple. I explored the sides only to find the side entrance locked too. Frustrated to find everything locked we again came to the entrance door. On inspection I found a board above the door that mentioned the Pujari’s name (Deshpande) and mobile number. There were some houses just behind the temple. From experience I knew that the Pujari must be staying nearby in the houses behind the temple. So I immediately called the number mentioned. The Pujari was reluctant to come as it was around 2 pm, siesta time for village folk. However, on learning that we had come from Pune, he readily agreed. We waited for 10-15 minutes and true to his word a lady came with the key and opened the temple and left. Another handsome, middle-aged man joined us inside the temple. He must be the next generation Pujari and was wearing a blue coloured full shirt and trousers.
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| L- Deshpande Pujari Centre- Dhaval R - Soppa, my friend and companion |
Finally we were inside the temple and immediately realized
that it was a good decision to call the Pujari as the temple was worth seeing. The
inside side walls and the semi-circular roof was all jet-black stone and not
mindlessly dabbed with oil paint or plastered with cement. A beautiful Maruti
idol stood in the ‘gabhara’. It was decorated with white, delicate prajakta
flowers forming the boarder of the idol. Overall it was a beautiful temple and
the young priest too was polite and ready to share information.
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| Unique inside structure of 32 Shirale Maruti Temple |
After spending some time inside the temple, chatting with
the Pujari we left for our next Maruti raya temple. The young Pujari readily
guided us and told us about a short way to reach our next destination.
June Pargaon
Maruti - (Dated 1651)
As we were heading towards Pargaon, Soppa was feeling very
hungry. We were already running a bit late and the clock showed an alarming
3.30 pm. Two more Maruti temples still remained of the legendary Ramdas Swami
sthapit 11 maruti temples circuit. Post that we had planned to visit the museum
of Hambirrao Mohit, the erstwhile General of Shivaji Maharaj at Talbid. The
point is, there was no time to halt for lunch. Though Soppa was hungry I urged
him to control his hunger and even chided him that he’s with a person who
readily skips his lunches for the sake of travel. Soppa reluctantly dropped the
plan of a hearty meal and instead settled for some chips and biscuits which we
bought on the way.
Since now we relied on asking people, we reached Pargaon
Maruti without any eventuality.Wait. How can that happen?
June Pargaon is a small village with dusty roads. The
outside roof of the temple sported idols of Ramdas Swami flanked by two monkeys
in each top corner of the temple. As we entered the temple we saw few people
sleeping inside. They immediately got up on seeing us visitors in the temple.
The Pargaon Maruti idol is the smallest amongst all 11 temple idols and there
is no fanfare around the idol. The temple too was nothing worth noting, except
the huge posters featuring Ramdas Swami and his teaching put up on the inner
walls of the temple.
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| June Pargaon Maruti Temple |
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| June Pargaon Maruti |
One of the elderly person inside the temple got chatting with us, asking us our name and discussing the weather and all. Since we were short on time we excused ourselves and headed straight for the last i.e. 11th Ramdas Swami sthapit Maruti raya temple.
Manpadale Maruti -
(Dated
1651)
The back side of the temple bore oil stains and overall it
was not a well maintained temple. We soon guessed the reason why. We found a
B&W photo of a couple hung just above the maruti idol. We guessed that
these were the private care-takers of the temple and since their demise the
temple is in ruins.
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| Manpadale Maruti Temple |
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| The temple is in a run down state and looked like no one was taking care of it. |
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| T for Toffees, T for Timeless memories |
Talbid, Karad – Hambirrao
Mohite Samadhi
Soppa was excited and eager to visit the Samadhi at Talbid
as he had heard that there was a 6 feet long sword of the legendary general
preserved at the Samadhi. We road to the Talbid Samadhi was beautiful and lined
with greenery. We parked the car beneath a mammoth banyan tree. The Samadhi was
neither big nor spectacular and didn’t inspire or create an atmosphere that
would inspire visitors and make them aware of the exploits of the legendary
warrior.
Soppa enquired about the sword with the locals outside the Samadhi and got no satisfactory repy. All kept denying that there is a sword here at Talbid. We had seen another Samadhi place just behind this new Samadhi. We circled the place and went behind only to discover another beautiful marble temple. We took darshan and went to the old Samadhi place which we found locked. However, we saw a pedestal inside that clearly suggested that it held a sword once upon a time.
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| Soppa at Hambirrao Mohite Samadhi at Talbid |
Soppa enquired about the sword with the locals outside the Samadhi and got no satisfactory repy. All kept denying that there is a sword here at Talbid. We had seen another Samadhi place just behind this new Samadhi. We circled the place and went behind only to discover another beautiful marble temple. We took darshan and went to the old Samadhi place which we found locked. However, we saw a pedestal inside that clearly suggested that it held a sword once upon a time.
Unable to find the sword, we decided to grab a bite and
downed two Wada-Pavs to compensate for our missed lunch. Soppa enquired at the
Wada-pav stall about the sword and the guy told him that the sword was in Talbid but the ancestors have moved it to Satara
lately. Finally we had the info we wanted, however Soppa couldn’t see the sword
for which we had travelled to Talbid.
Back at the car, we spent some time appreciating the huge
banyon tree and found out that the big tree had given birth to two more banyan
trees and the entire expanse of branches were actually three trees joined
together. Nature always amazes me and it was no different this time around.
However, the time in our watches indicated that it was time to move and we
finally headed for Pune around 6.30 pm in the fading light of the day.
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| Mammoth Banyan tree outside the Samadhi @ Talbid |
Kandi Pedhe
Our departure was not without its fair share of excitement.
We both wanted Kandi Pedhe, a specialty from Satara. Soppa called his friend in
Pune and got informed that there are Ashok Modi Kandi Pedhewale outlets on the
highway and we have to go beneath the flyover at Satara. Accordingly we kept
driving and before Satara approached I noticed an Ashok Modi outlet on the road
beneath the flyover on which we were travelling. This place was a good 5-7 km
before the city of Satara and we rued the missed opportunity. However, Soppa
noticed a hoarding that said there’s another Modi outlet at the Toll naka
ahead. Not taking chances, we still shopped some kandi pedhes from dhabas on
the way, in case the Ashok Modi outlet didn’t exist at the toll naka.
To our relief, there indeed as a Modi outlet at the toll
naka and I happily went and purchased a good quantity of special kandi pedhes
for myself and for Soppa.
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| Beautiful truck art infuses energy in your travel on a highway |
In short, the ending was sweet. On our way back Soppa suddenly expressed his dissatisfaction with the trip. His ruse was that since we were constantly traveling and he was driving he didn’t get enough time to chat and enjoy, especially after our meet after donkey years. But there was nothing that we could do now and I reasoned that we both knew beforehand that this tour required extensive and hectic travel. Even then he seemed unhappy. By 8.30-9 pm Soppa dropped me at Vadgaon flyover. Fate favouring me, I immediately got a bus to Swargate and from there another connecting bus back home.
Looking back, this much awaited Samarth Sthapit 11 Maruti
tour was made possible only due to Soppa. He had readily agreed without any ado
and had completed the tour even skipping his lunch at my behest. During the
journey and at various places he had enriched me with niche village insights, farming
tools and his knowledge about trees.
Above all, a big thanks to Ramdas Swami and Maruti bappa for
removing all obstacles from our path and gifting us his darshan and an
experience of a lifetime.
Jai Jai Raghuveer Samarth
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