Grassroutes
and the Fireflies festival was something I had been hearing of even before I
had shifted to Mumbai in August 2013. So when my best buddy from the capital
was in town, it was not even a matter of discussion that we would be heading
there.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning with the fashionably late rains giving us company and us girls having spent the night before more talking than sleeping were a good one hour late ourselves. With the excitement that only an impending travel can create, we left the maximum city for greener pastures (quite literally!)
It was a beautiful Saturday morning with the fashionably late rains giving us company and us girls having spent the night before more talking than sleeping were a good one hour late ourselves. With the excitement that only an impending travel can create, we left the maximum city for greener pastures (quite literally!)
Now, having stayed in Delhi for the most part of my life and
travelled to Himalayas for every summer vacation, the Sahyadris often fail at
inspiring awe in me. But the drive to the Vanjulshet (one of the three hamlets
where Grassroutes has set up camp) kept a sleep-deprived me from closing my
eyes for even a fraction of a second. It took me considerable effort to believe
that there could be so many shades of green just a few hundred kilometers from
Mumbai. I could feel the cool breeze in my lungs and in my heart.
The welcome to the village was an event in itself. The
villagers who happened to be Grassroutes volunteers made us wear “netaji” caps,
put tilak on our foreheads, and gave us pretty wild flowers. And as almost
always happens with us, we burst out in fits of laughter and made an instant
bond with them.
To our immense surprise, the
dorm style stay we had opted for turned out to be quite comfortable. The bed
sheets and blankets looked as good as new and everything was spick and span.
There were 2 washrooms with no lights, and the water had to filled in a bucket
before we did our business. But this was just about the only slight discomfort.
The locals had prepared the
most delicious Maharashtrian food I had ever had – some simple but very yum
potatoes, black grams, and rice with curry. Eating the authentic food in the villagers’ houses did indeed give
us a feeling of experiencing the “true” village feel. But more than that, the realization
that we will not be given spoons to eat the rice with was the penultimate
rustic experience.
By this time it had been a
few hours since we had been without any network, so we took a small hill-top
trek (called Vodafone trek) from where we could see the whole village and at the
same time get connected to the species who gave birth to us.
The hill top was at another level itself. The vast expanse
of nature outside slowly filled in the even vast expanse of nothingness inside.
The romantic weather and the picturesque locale took less than a couple minutes
to get my inner Bollywood self out. Conversation flowed as easy as the breeze.
Time became just a four letter word.
Feeling rejuvenated with our small trek, we set off with the
rest of the group for a river trek. On the way, we plucked and ate some wild
berries (karaunda) and the yummiest and sweetest mangoes I have had till date,
straight off the trees! Truth be told we got a little over excited and used our
umbrellas too to reach the not-so-low-hanging fruits.
Though the river was called Udham, it was anything but that.
The water was stagnant but clear nonetheless. We dipped our feet in the water
and enjoyed the sweet mangoes, while waiting for fish to come and nibble at our
feet. Never happned, as Inir (Grassroutes founder and dream enabler) pointed
out that we were way too unstable to attract any fish. Inir was kind enough to
let me know that I sucked at sucking mangoes and was sporting enough to teach
us how to skip stones in water. My friend and I competed for the maximum number
of skips and set the world record for the maximum number of dhaps anyone ever
has made. The uphill trek was a not-very-gentle reminder of the shameful state
of our fitness. Stopping every now and then to catch our breath, we finally
managed to get back to the village.
All through our interactions with the guides, volunteers,
ladies who made food for us, and random kids the warmth they exuded was
unbelievable. What was super fascinating was that one of the guides (Dutta) was
extremely confident and well-versed with the scientific names of different
plants. This same guy when asked for “aam” by a Canadian, gave a blank look.
Only when the Canadian said he wanted mangoes, did Dutta realize what was being
asked for. I was happy for this bunch of guys to be around as the Canadian gave
me company for sucking at eating mangoes with hands, and a friend of his kept
me company in thinking that the low-height door will stretch itself out when we
walk through it and thus banging my head.
A super heavy dinner of puran poli later, we set foot for what was to be the most awesomest part of the trip. Having never ever seen a firefly in my life, my excitement levels were approaching infinity. We stood on the road with darkness around us and waited for the fireflies to begin their mating game. A spark here and a glow there were soon followed by their synchronized blink-blink all around. Amongst us was a chap who seemed to attract fireflies to his body, but it did not end there, these fireflies once settled on his palm, arms, etc. went on to mate with each other RIGHT THERE. Talk about bam wham thank you ma’am.
A super heavy dinner of puran poli later, we set foot for what was to be the most awesomest part of the trip. Having never ever seen a firefly in my life, my excitement levels were approaching infinity. We stood on the road with darkness around us and waited for the fireflies to begin their mating game. A spark here and a glow there were soon followed by their synchronized blink-blink all around. Amongst us was a chap who seemed to attract fireflies to his body, but it did not end there, these fireflies once settled on his palm, arms, etc. went on to mate with each other RIGHT THERE. Talk about bam wham thank you ma’am.
We soon broke off into smaller groups in search of the light
within to be illuminated by the lights emanating from these luminous beings. On
our way, with Inir’s help we spotted a couple of constellations and something
that resembled a UFO. Deep in the valley was a tree which seemed ablaze with
light even from afar. With quickened steps and lowered voices, we hastened
towards that tree to see the magic up and close. And magic indeed it was! In
the tree, there were twinkling little stars all over. The scene had rendered us
all speechless. A group of 15 odd youngsters simply staring at those lights
without speaking so much as a word is testimony that we were all in a trance.
Some sat, others stood – all in silence – trying to absorb as much beauty as we
could before returning to our mundane city life and lights.
The following day, we were given a slice-of-village-life experience
by participating in wood chopping, cereal grinding, running after goats. An old
bad-ass lady, completely trolled me by neatly slicing a thick wood branch in 2 with
two big strokes of the axe, with which I had been struggling for over five
minutes. We also took a look at the local elementary school and were pleased to
see the infrastructure available. Some mandatory selfies later, we decided to
head back to the city with a resolve to come back to this place next year.
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Bolo bolo....jee khol ke bolo :D