Way back, when I was living in
Mumbai, I used to go site seeing every weekend. I used to search on the
internet which places to visit, and go by local train and buses and visit the places
of historical importance. I still have many such memories from those visits in
my mind. Once, while I was doing MBA, a group of my classmates went to visit Lohagad
Fort. When I came to know about it and saw their pictures, I felt left-out,
since I would have loved to visit the fort. I remember from those pictures that
it was a long trek and my classmates had gone by local train and had all become
tired returning from the one-day trip. Afterwards, I always had the plan to
visit this fort at the back of my mind. After about seventeen years, finally I made
it today.
Lohagad fort, as its name indicates
is a very strong fort made of stones and it is in a very good condition. It is
about 5-6 kms from the Malavli railway station, but this whole area is hilly
and hence it takes lots of efforts to walk even a little distance. There is a
parking at the base of the fort and I went up to that point by my bike to make
it easy for me. But I found even the road leading up to the Lohagad fort parking
very narrow with really steep turns and it felt very dangerous. We need to go
on first gear most of the journey and need to honk at every turn to avoid any
accidents. To be safer, I went on a week-day instead of the weekend when the
rusk to such places is more, and seeing the dangerous terrain, I felt it was a
good decision. Even the trek leading up to the fort from the parking is steep
and strenuous since the steps have good height and can’t be compared with
normal steps we have in our buildings. The weather is wonderful in the rainy
season, but it makes the whole area wet and there is water constantly flowing
on the stone steps, making those dangerous. Luckily, govt has made stone steps
really rough and it was not slippery with the shoes I had and hence I never
faced any problem. There are chairs and sitting area at short distances, where
we can catch our breath while climbing. I would recommend the trekking for only
young people and the elderly and those who are not 100% fit should not try to
go.
Government has done good job in
getting mobile tower at this place and hence telephone and internet connectivity
is good. I saw many people making video calls to their family members from up
the fort, showing the area proudly.
At the base of the fort, there are
many monkeys by the side of the road and those are really harmless and hence no
one needs to be scared. But somehow, don’t know because of the season, I saw so
many baby monkeys all around and it felt the baby monkeys had outnumbered the
adult monkeys. I also curiously saw a dog climbing up the stairs all the way to
the top till the fort and after reaching the top, I saw that there were 3-4 more
dogs and all were resting besides the Nandi ji in front of Shiva Temple. Yes, there
is a temple of Mahadev (Shiv ji) in the fort, perhaps remade by the govt at the
original place of the ancient temple.
While trekking on my way up, I was
amazed seeing the names of the major doors of the fort:
- Ganesh Darwaja
- Narayan Darwaja
- Hanuman Darwaja
- Maha Darwaja
You can search to read about the
historical importance of this fort. It is mentioned that the fort was initially
built by a Rajput dynasty in 10th century who were descendants of Lav
(younger son of Bhagwan Shri Ram). Later, the fort was under control of many
kingdoms. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj used to keep his treasure at this fort. And Nana Phadnavis lived in this fort for some time and made several structures in
the fort.
There is also a beautiful well in the
fort and I never imagined that there could be a well filled with pure water at
the top of a mountain like this. It felt dream-like.
In the rainy season, this whole area
is beaming with natural beauty and is a place to remember. I could feel pure calmness
and peace at the fort.
Seventeen years late at it, but this
is how I shall aways remember Lohagad fort at Lonavala.
- Rahul
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