Songhar and Velas

11/01/2009

Songhar-

Sacred groove or devrai as it is called is a forest situated around a temple which the villages do not cut preserving it. Songhar is a sleepy hamlet, very neat with pretty red-tiled houses situated on a higher incline which our bus struggled to climb. The streets were clean and paved with cow dung, cakes which also powered the furnace producing acrid smoke burning my already raw throat. We started walking towards the devrai at around 10:30 the sun already sending forth his full wrath. The outer periphery was quite barren, dry grass dominated the scene with contrasting black rocky patches. As we neared the forest the scene changed dramatically, green became the dominant colour, climbers of hoya covered everything like a curtain. Transporting us into an almost prehistoric era when the first plants evolved was Gnetum ula, a gymnosperm climber; said to be the connecting link between gymnosperms and angiosperms, its male cones looked like ice-cream cones stacked neatly one on top of other. The mountain peak in the distance was almost at eye level and gave a breath taking view of the surrounding.

A lot of birds called out around us but discreetly, due to the dense foliage we didn’t sight many except for a beautiful crimson backed sunbird who regaled us with his high energy. Most of the plants we saw were new to us, strange flora dominated the scene. Dr. Latoo pointed out a small plant, Cyathocline purpurea, with leaves exactly like a fern but showing off beautiful purple flowers, its only seen at high altitude. At one place we all stopped to admire the 15 feet high buttresses of Tetramalis nudiflora, almost everyone took cheesy tourist snaps standing in front of the tree. By this time we had reached the temple, in older days this would have been a simple shrine with just a stone statue and no other adornments, today it had a house like structure built around it, brickwork showing on the walls, though charming not original.

A short break and a long walk later we reached a particularly dense part of the forest, the trees grew tall and close to each other, their braches twined forever, making me wish I was as close to my loved ones. The landscape was very undulating, now we had to climb up and then again descend into small valleys, we reached the ancient water storage tank encompassing a perennial stream which oozed water even at the height of summer. At another similar tank but made especially for cattle were a few cows drinking water while skittering fogs muddied its bottom. We admired the ingenuity of the tank and moved away scaring a well camouflaged owl from its perch though caught by Anand’s expert green eyes.

Another long winding walk and we reached the middle of the forest; this was a small valley with Tetramalis nudiflora dotting the place. These trees grow very tall and majestic and along with their huge buttresses give a very mature old look though they look a little bald as a nice thick crown of leaves is missing. Looking at the branches we saw a nest so huge it might have held a roc’s egg, though it turned out more wonderfully to be of White Rumped Vultures. These beautiful birds are highly endangered due to the indiscriminate use of diclofenec as medicine for cattle which these birds end up ingesting when they perform their natural duties as scavengers. The vultures sat pretty in their lofty abodes taking no notice of us as we stood under the trees and admired them, we were also very lucky to see a juvenile vulture inside one of the nests.

We returned to our bus, hearts and stomachs full. On the way out me, anand, gaurav and aparna saw a Paradise flycatcher, its snow white ribbons trailing in the wind, a Black Naped Monarch and pompadour pigeons who whistled hauntingly. A white eyed buzzard was also seen perched on a tree, which we id’d through pictures clicked by Pranad. We had to reach velas by 6-6:30 and so we bid goodbye to songhar.

Velas

Velas was our pit-stop and accordingly we had hired a house for our overnight stay. The girl’s room was warm and had a big welcoming bed with heaps of bed sheets and blankets. The house was managed by 3-4 women, very charming, sweet and eager to help. They prepared a hot and wholesome meal for all of us. With stomachs full we headed to the beach for a date with the turtles. Unluckily even though the setting was so romantic with a huge moon in the sky and the music of the waves, we were stood up. Anand had brought tents and except for the faculty and me recovering from flu decided to stay on the beach and wake up by 3:30-4 to look for the turtles when the tide was low. I went back and had a couple hours of sleep while the others were disappointed again by the turtle no show. We moved out by 6:30 a.m. and headed to Harnai for breakfast with the dolphins.

In the bus I sat near a window and peered out through the tinted glass, and saw a scene which took my breath away. The moon hung in the sky like a white orb glowing faintly, one wouldn’t expect it to light a room leave alone the whole ocean and yet the water shimmered bright, almost like molten silver. I’ve seen water glow fiercely when flying in a plane, the sun hits the smallest of water bodies and turns it into gold. But this was somehow very magical, the moonlight even though subtle hits at your heart stirring hidden emotions to the surface. I have always had a fascination for the ocean which through the years was replaced by love for the wilderness, but when I saw the ocean through the moon glasses it felt like a revival of a first love.

Harnai

We reached by 9-9:30 our stomachs growling with not only hunger but also a mixture of anticipation and a bad bus ride. A quick breakfast of poha and we headed for the beach, hiring a boat for our next sojourn. The boat owner cautioned against high expectations and waves as we were late for our date and we all feared a repeat of the turtle episode. The boat had a powerful outboard motor and it almost skipped over the waves bringing a knot to my stomach. Big white gulls dotted the water floating effortlessly over the now smooth surface. Suddenly an arc of smooth grey body broke the surface and disappeared a split second later, we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins. Two to three of them surfaced in perfect synchronization making it seem like one dolphin with two fins. This was my second encounter with these beautiful mammals of the sea and all of us were enchanted with their playfulness and graceful countenance. But watching their acrobatics was akin to putting my head on a merry go round, I craned my neck in every direction no sooner anyone said dolphins on this side so close to the boat, coupled with lack of sleep, the incessant drone of the motor and the sun pouring its heat plus the waves turned my stomach into a quivering mass of jelly which threatened to come out, so I closed my eyes and almost drifted off to sleep, the dolphins were long gone by then but I missed the gulls which circled over our boat and were id’d by gaurav, aparna, pp and vari in loud voices making me feel very left out of the action.

A little distance away was the murud harnai fort our next stop, in normal circumstances this would have been a joy ride, but in my current state I was yearning to set foot on solid ground and at the same time dreading the boat ride back to the mainland. At one point I was desperate enough to jump in the water and start swimming.

We landed on the tiniest beach littered with plastic; the entrance to the fort was just a few feet away. The whole island is a fort and was constructed by Shivaji in year. It must have been a gigantic effort to construct and maintain this beautiful monument, in ruins today; I could almost picture Shivaji with his mavlas on the ramparts keeping a lookout on the sea. Today the whole place has been taken over by ber trees and weeds and plagued by people blind to its heritage.

We hurriedly left from there and spent the next couple of hours on the main beach scrounging for shells etc. We found many interesting and new organisms, including rock whelk (murex) its beautiful shell covered with spines, many empty crab shells, a few sea-weeds all of which we are yet to id. Dr. Latoo demonstrated how to make an alga herbarium right on the beach. By now we were very tired, hungry and thirsty and headed to a local eatery.

On our way back to Mumbai we stopped at Mr. Savarkars factory for tea and spent almost and hour at a nearby river ending our day spectacularly with a glimpse of Malabar pied hornbills and pied kingfishers. We returned to Mumbai tired, tanned and with our heads filled with memories of surf, sea and sand.