On Thursday, in the midst of the Bharat Bandh, I boarded the bus from Dhule to Aurangabad. I was excited about going to Aurangabad. Research indicated that this was the base town from which the Ajanta and Ellora caves could be visited and I was most definitely going to visit those. I had also been told that there was a ghat section near this town called Kannad of all things, where the bus often slowed down. What I was not prepared for was the sheet awesomeness of this ghat section.
The bus journey till Chalisgaon was normal enough. The road was decent and littered on the side with plastic bags, chips packets and bottles. I really don't know what it is with the littering - almost the entire route was continuously littered with something or the other. Anyways, we pulled into Chalisgaon, a typical dusty small town and after picking up a few passengers, proceeded down the road to some forbidding looking mountains ahead.
I had saved my dying iPod battery for this ghat section - I intended to play a set of songs that would go perfectly with the landscape; which I pictured as rolling, gently sloping hills.
I am writing this almost a year later and yet, I can remember this journey almost perfectly. We started the climb in the ghat region, the bus proceeding with the caution of Calvin setting off on one of his manic sled rides. We must have been traveling at least 60kmph and taken the turnings at 40kmph which is borderline insanity on the sharp turns of mountain roads. Sitting right it front, it seemed to me many times that we were simply driving off the edge; and suddenly, the bus driver would heave the steering wheel and the bus would turn at the last moment, listing so precariously that you thought it was traveling on two wheels.
As we climbed higher and higher, the landscape got quite bleak and forbidding. The only vegetation was a species of giant cacti loomed out of cracks in the rock. The rocks themselves were humungous and almost improbably balanced on sheer cliff faces. Just to give you an idea, I am going to cheat and show you a photo from a later trek to Harishchandragarh. I have unfortunately lost all my photos from this epic bus journey.
As the rainy season hadn't started yet, the landscape was even more arid than what you see in this photo. Soon, the climb ceased and we began to drive through a plateau. All around us, fantastic rock shapes emerged - sharply conical and pointy ones, gigantic dome shaped ones, jagged and weather worn ones. It was incredible. And in a burst of inspiration, I decided to play the surreal 'Echoes' by Pink Floyd on my iPod. The creepy sound of the middle section with the dolphin cries seem to echo from within the depths of the rock formations and the arid emptiness of the landscape.
Soon, we pulled into Kannad, a Bhiwandi like blah town. I bought a bottle of water there and one of those amazing packets of local potato chips - those ridiculously oily and delicious concoctions. The landscape smoothed itself out now into a patch of arid fields. We weren't climbing anymore, not were we descending. Slowly, the road started getting lined by trees. We passed through a shaded boulevard of banyan trees with little shops and cafes. Quite suddenly, we turned a corner and I saw the board 'Ellora' and dotting the sheer rock face on my left were the famed caves! Can you imagine that! On a random public bus ride, you suddenly see one of the greatest monuments and examples of human sculpture in the world! I was as delighted as a little kid who'd suddenly seen Mickey Mouse from a Bombay train on her daily commute. Something like that.
We descended a bit from here and in the distance, a rather improbable looking mountain rose up. As we drew closer, a fort wall and minarets appeared. It turned out that this was the famous Daulaltabad fort, where Muhammad bin Tughlak decided to shift his capital during one of his crazy phases (which were like all the time). I had no idea it was this far south and I was thrilled to bits again!
The road curved gracefully and green fields rose up among us and below us, there loomed a stately gate, one of the 52 gates built by Aurangzeb which used to line this amazing city, of which 13 of them are still standing. As I settled back into the not so comfortable bus seat after sitting on the edge for so long, I was overwhelmed by what I had seen and felt during this perfectly normal commute for so many people. As I write this nearly a year later, sitting in a different country, I can still feel some of that wonder.
I am writing this almost a year later and yet, I can remember this journey almost perfectly. We started the climb in the ghat region, the bus proceeding with the caution of Calvin setting off on one of his manic sled rides. We must have been traveling at least 60kmph and taken the turnings at 40kmph which is borderline insanity on the sharp turns of mountain roads. Sitting right it front, it seemed to me many times that we were simply driving off the edge; and suddenly, the bus driver would heave the steering wheel and the bus would turn at the last moment, listing so precariously that you thought it was traveling on two wheels.
As we climbed higher and higher, the landscape got quite bleak and forbidding. The only vegetation was a species of giant cacti loomed out of cracks in the rock. The rocks themselves were humungous and almost improbably balanced on sheer cliff faces. Just to give you an idea, I am going to cheat and show you a photo from a later trek to Harishchandragarh. I have unfortunately lost all my photos from this epic bus journey.
Soon, we pulled into Kannad, a Bhiwandi like blah town. I bought a bottle of water there and one of those amazing packets of local potato chips - those ridiculously oily and delicious concoctions. The landscape smoothed itself out now into a patch of arid fields. We weren't climbing anymore, not were we descending. Slowly, the road started getting lined by trees. We passed through a shaded boulevard of banyan trees with little shops and cafes. Quite suddenly, we turned a corner and I saw the board 'Ellora' and dotting the sheer rock face on my left were the famed caves! Can you imagine that! On a random public bus ride, you suddenly see one of the greatest monuments and examples of human sculpture in the world! I was as delighted as a little kid who'd suddenly seen Mickey Mouse from a Bombay train on her daily commute. Something like that.
We descended a bit from here and in the distance, a rather improbable looking mountain rose up. As we drew closer, a fort wall and minarets appeared. It turned out that this was the famous Daulaltabad fort, where Muhammad bin Tughlak decided to shift his capital during one of his crazy phases (which were like all the time). I had no idea it was this far south and I was thrilled to bits again!
