Janani Naal - Bhik Naal

"2000rs not a penny more not a penny less" Kachre mama was adamant , "The route doesn't exist now , we will have to create one , jungle will need to be cleared" he tried to convince us "this is the standard rate , few days back 3 people from mumbai came here for phadtad naal and paid me 2000rs" , now we were not sure if we are in remote place or a marketplace.

We were in a small village near torna fort , Kusur Peth , Dattu ( jeetendra bankapure ) has found out a new naal (  Ravine ) Janani Naal ( Jajani means mother in marathi ) in the region , after doing some initial research on wikimaps GPS expert Ninand bartakke confirmed that route is humanly possible , it was again cross verified by Dhamdhere kaka and has given the green signal for the trek.

Few of us started on friday night and after close to two hours drive reached kusur village for a sound sleep in the village school , few others arrived early morning , too early perhaps to disturb our sleep , good thing , Uttam kaka had bought tea with him , hot tea on the cold morning and open skies full of million stars on your head , what else you need ?

Visibility was simply amazing that morning , experienced lot was able to spot madhu makrand gad , mohangad and few others , i was happy shooting colors of the magnificent sun rise.

Then came the important part once the village woke up , find the guide.

And here we were arguing with Kachre mama that he is asking too much , his counter argument was everyone pays and we should as well . We are not against paying villagers their worth but we dont want places to get commercial and increase their greed so much that we start seeing bhel puri stalls next time we come here. But we had no other option and he knew it , few of us argued that the amount is too much and we should return , but we were 10 and if we divide the sum its not more than 200rs per head and hence within budget. Hence we reluctantly agreed to pay the sum. We did shoot few cross questions at him though , just to check if he really known the janani naal or just bluffing.


Finally we started marching , Kachre mama was accompanied by a lady , we though aunty will be with us till Janani temple for daily pooja , Janani naal is to the left of phadtaad naal , route till its opening is more or less a flat walk , after about 30 mins of walk we reached a small temple , Janani temple we can call ,Naal opening is behind this temple.

Janani Thana

We made our way through the karvy thicket and were now looking at the vast expanse of Janani naal and surrounding areas.

There is a rock patch at the naal opening itelf , Mama has warned us , we already knew that hence we were carrying the rope. The rock patch was tricky , full of loose rocks and soil and exposed , human belay was needed , we decided to let lightest of us , Ninad to go first , from the top we were only able to see the first part of the patch , its depth was completely invisible. By mistake one of u let one loose rock go and we were hearing the thuds for next few minutes , it sure is deep we thought.

We tied the rope to a nearby tree , Kaustubh and Dattu provided the belay , ninad made his way down in about 10-15 minutes , he confirmed that rock patch is about 30ft deep and asked us to wait before he makes it to a safer place before someone else starts his descend , sensibly so as there were lot of loose rocks and we were trapped in the narrow ravine , loose rocks would be coming straight at us. Uttam kaka and Nitin followed Ninad , I was next , it was not really a rock patch , there were no rocks at all , just loose soil and tiny rocks , thankfully we had the strong belay.

Now 4 of us out of 11 had crossed the patch , ravine was too narrow hence we had to make move so that others can find safe place to stand once they complete the descend. The descend was really steep , loose rocks were coming at us like missiles , we had to take cover on more than few occasions.

Finally Kachre mama made it to the bottom , followed by the lady , what is she doing here ? she was our second guide.

We tried searching for the route ahead but all we could see is few thousand feet drop ahead and jungle below , we asked our guide to move ahead. Rock patch was wasting lot of our time  2 hours had already passed and only half of the team had crossed the rock patch , Kachre mama had found the way by now , extremely exposed with straight fall to the right , concentration had to be at the highest.

Janani naal start , rock patch at top and people descending

6 of us including kachre mama finally made it to a place where ravine was broad and there was no danger of falling rocks anymore , we decided to wait for the entire team to gather , 1 more hour passed , we relayed messages to check how many have made it , the two belays were remaining.

1 more hour passed and there was no sign of  the remaining team . Relayed messages informed us that kaustubh is the only person left to descend , he was the belay , kaustubh had tied the rope in U formation so that once he descends he will be able to pull back the rope, unfortunately rope got stuck in the tree trunk hence kaustubh had to climb back and free the rope, was no easy task but he manged to do it , BRAVO.

After some time we were able to see the remaining team , clock ticked 11:30 , Janani naal rock patch had claimed more than 3 hours , fortunately we knew how much time bhik naal would take.

The task however was far from over , we still had to descend extremely risky and exposed descend , soil was loose and dangers plenty , after 1 more hour we successfully managed to reach the jungle and we felt safer in the shadow of large trees. We heard few shouts from the bottom , there were few hunters from the nearby village , they were hunting for wild boar. Hunters helped us finding the route in deep jungle , after half an hour we were near the bhik naal , it was time for lunch before we start our ascend.

Janani naal route marked in red

Raigad fort

Bhik naal  was not as tough as Janani naal but was a delight to climb , we looked back at the janani naal and we couldnt believe that we descended the same route , it looked humanly impossible.

Bhik naal has just one rock patch , belay had to be used here as well , we even used shoulder support to make it easy.

After about 2 hours we managed to reach the top of bhik naal , view from here was simply stunning.

Village was just 1 hr walk from here.  Sun was about to set on the raigad , lingana and other peaks. We were close to the village now.

Suddenly we saw kachre mama putting his hands on his head and gesturing at something , he looked really scared , on reaching closer to him , we were able to hear a loud hiss , it was the russels viper , so brilliantly camouflaged , if not for his loud noise we would have only came to know of his existence after his bite , fortunately he already had his meal hence decided to warn us with his signature hiss.

Kachre mama raised his bamboo stick to kill the snake , we tried our best to stop him but couldn't.

He kills our sheeps and bites our children , his logic was correct , for us , city dwellers , snake and that too viper is something we see once a year hence are astonished by it , these people get to see it everyday and know how dangerous a viper can be.

Kachre mama killed the snake finally , we were unsure how to react as we made the long walk back to the village.