In the school days …specially during summer vac, everyone all my frnds used to go to their native places…a concept of going to ur “gaon” Same was true for me…even I enjoyed going to my “gaon”…but fortunately or unfortunately for me…this “gaon” was nagpur or bandra or virar it wasn’t a typical Indian gaon ever….a complete misnomer in my case! Never in my life had experienced a typical Indian village. Had only heard about it from friends and foes.
Until the 17th jan 2009.
We stayed at a place called Revsa a beautiful village in Amravati district in Vidharba region of Maharashtra.
Before going to this place Revsa we first visited Aarvi.
Day1
Aarvi is a place where apparently many maharaj’s or saints supposedly “prakat huae hain”
Vidharba region being much of a plateau….through out our journey my eyes were constantly searching for a site of a tall mountain blocking the horizon, a site common back here. Btw the Horizon was just perfect…adorned with orange or tur dal fields abundantly found there. Instead of green ….most of the vegetation there was golden….and this shade also looked amazing!!
Also there was this road which completely resembled that extra milage ad wala road which fits between your thumb and index finger!
Frankly speaking the road was quite lonely…no petrol pumps no food malls but a single 15rs toll which was previously 2rs!!!
There at Aarvi particular incidence happened worth a mention:
Our car had taken a wrong side on a two way well divided road…and quite spontaneously I brought that to the drivers notice….only to make a fool of my self…as he explained that the other side of the road is meant for hawkers per se and it is right to drive from wrong side of the road!!!
Also got a chance to pull a bucket of water outside the well, near the temple…managed to spill half of the water till the bucket reached the top…funniest part was…my cousin managed to take a pic of this act and it looked like someone trying to pull me inside the well…tug of war kinda situation.
Way back from Aarvi…read a board “char dhokadayak valne…savdhan!” I was wondering what on this planet made them construct such a road on a plain surface!
For what???
So that drivers don’t speed up???? Our driver I don’t think so crossed 60 on a scarcely populated road…with hardly any disturbances.
May be due to the fields alongside the road, may be, though doubtful about this one!
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Anyways, from Aarvi we headed to Revsa…place of our stay for coming 3 days…
We headed towards the Samadhi place…which was just soothing …a pretty isolated place from even the Revsa village, it was in fact just outside the village. While returning home…we wandered through the heaps of crops kept for processing…got onto a still cart and posed for weird pics! Enjoyed the act to the core…!
Just enjoyed the bullock cart ride back home…it was like hiring a rick back here…minus the attitude minus the debate for the right fare minus the sound of the honking horns…it was rocking! (Literally)
The setting sun made the ride just perfect!
Now back there in Revsa for the 4 days of Utsav, food is served for free to the ppl…and they don’t have appointed ppl to serve the food, so…whosoever is interested and wants to serve…goes right there..!
Let me tell you the job isn’t easy at all….I mean at the end of it. I was sweating like hell…my hands suffered a few heat shocks…and also something: Weird took place…
There I was serving the steam cooked rice and by mistake I served it at a wrong place….and spontaneously on realizing my mistake said sorry and the child there replied...”sorry mhanaje?” He actually did not even know the meaning of sorry!!! I stood confused? Embarrassed? Don’t know what that feeling was!
Quite recently I had actually started doubting the fact that the stars in the night sky are uncountable, coz had hardly seen any stars back here in the sky…!
But the night out there in revsa, with millions of stars in the sky… was just amazing!
Just kept like starring at the sky till the dawn…!
Day2
The morning sunrise was another beautiful sight exclusive to the village.
All the evenly dung clad houses were adorned with beautiful rangolis at there doorsteps.
All the cattle's were leaving their gotha for grazing…btw every house out there had a gotha of the same size that of the house or even larger.
The morning tea from the very fresh pure unadulterated milk was hmmm…
There was this pretty young calf who was innocently wandering around. Managed to capture an amazing video of her’s.
We all headed to place called “Ganoja” Another village of its kind…!
The river near the temple was mast…had lots of fun out there. In spite of the scorching sun on top, the flowing river water was cold. Here we came across quite a few different kinds of birds. Managed to click some beautiful pics here too….
The site of the cattle’s, horses, birds heading to the water body for quenching their thirst…the village ladies washing clothes…the act of crossing the river and moving to the other side …made the day most memorable.
Can’t forget to mention about the food that we had at “Ganoja”…I wont be exaggerating it was one of the world’s best food served! The Puranpoli couldn’t have ever tasted better…my taste buds enjoyed the food carnival that day…for sure!
Day 3 and 4
With no more visits to other places…we were right there to explore the village “Revsa” Frankly speaking one can finish exploring the village in less than 1hr...It’s that small. What fascinated me was, that most of the houses were “shenani saravlele” and that was so perfectly done that the walls of those houses looked smoother and better than once painted by the best quality Paint available.
Also in case of walls the arrangements of bricks looked strikingly different…i.e.the pattern of arranging bricks for constructing the wall was different!
There was this small house out there; this was the village “dakghar”
I just loved the houses out there in the village….don’t know what exactly clicked me the most…but I surely loved them!
On people…!
I guess this might be the only village without doodhwala…coz everyone has enough cattles to take care of their dairy products requirements!
By and large I found people to be helpful and hardworking.
Worth a mention is this guy called “bhaiyaji”…a muslim by religion but stays and works in the temple…this man is really hardworking and energetic...he never looks tired…is never bugged…does all the work that comes to him…the first one to get up and last one to sleep out there…we all actually doubted that he sleeps!
The people here are creative too…on the day the “palkhi” takes a tour of the village…the people in their locality arrange or make a “dekhava” There was this one particular dekhava in which there was this child dressed like hanuman and was made to lean on a wooden plank connected up in the air using cables and was made to head towards a source of light representing the sun…that was really good! (btw this act symbolized the (apparently)well known story of hanuman who one’s gets up hungry…and tries to eat the sun thinking that its some kind of a big fruit)
One of the other theme was unity in diversity!
There was this other dekhava…which made an excellent use of the small water holders in the village meant for cattle's…as a source of drinking water. Using a long rubber pipe they constructed a snake and made a child dress like Krishna and stand on it!
During the palkhi tour through the village, clad with dekhava at different locations …the route that the palki followed was decorated beautifully with rangolis, flowers, lighting and happiness and enthusiasm on people’s face!
On food…!
I have never in my post childhood ages drank so much of milk and ate so much of dahi ever!!!! The taste of fresh unadulterated milk and dahi made out of it…was just yummy…! Everyday we used to have minimum one and a half or two ltrs of dahi and 3-4 ltrs of milk for approx 10 -15 ppl and the distribution was definitely not equal …highly skewed at 3-4 ppl including me of course!!!
Even the vegetables brought by the bhajiwala…were so fresh and they definitely tasted and looked better than the vegetables we get out here! And they were definitely cheap…everything was around 5-6 Rs kg…! We hardly get 250gms for the same cost here and that to grown along the rails or some other shabby place using dirty water…!
Even enjoyed cooking…for the first time ever in my life!
On Gaon Jevan…!
On the final day is the “Gaon jevan” it’s a feast for all the villagers and people who come up to the village for the yatra. Literally thousands of people have lunch out there at the same time…and there’s just one pangat…!
This is were the management of the people was strikingly evident…with little place for confusion everyone is served with tons of tasty food that is cooked!
The food that is cooked for gaon jevan is tremendous… looking at the containers used to cook…stacks of chapattis made and rooms filled with food…you get the whole picture of the gaon jevan crystal clear!
All in all completely, thoroughly, dilse enjoyed my stay…my first visit of a kind…was full of fun, masti and quality time with my family…made me forget of all the tensions, backlogs and submissions back here…a perfect system reboot!
