Fort: Malhargad aka Sonori
Height: 3166 feet (above MSL)
Grade: Easy
Base Village : Sonori (near Saswad)
Thought of going to Malhargad this weekend(27th Sep 2008). Had got the route info from Vindy and thought would visit it anyways. Friday night was as usual fun with a movie at esquare and coming back to a friends home slept in the morning at 2am or so. Had to wake up around 6.30 to start from there!
Morning the alarm sounded but i put it to off and went to sleep again. Some time later I woke up oblivious to the fact that I had to go so saw the time and it read 7.20am. Freshened up and bidding adieu to my friend started towards Saswad.
The route read Baner - Pune Camp - Kondhwa - Bopdev ghat - Saswad. Crossing the Bopdev ghat went down and went on towards Saswad. In the middle I was somewhat confused as to whether the turn for the fort is immediately post Bopdev or what as I didnt see Vindy's mail thoroughly as I could see some hill which resembled a fort :) , so when I was around 2km from Saswad called up Vindy to confirm and he told me that I needed to go into Saswad and get onto the road which goes to Hadapsar and had to turn off right at Dive village and continue thereafter. So there were 2 ways to saswad from Pune , one via the Dive ghat and one via the Bopdev ghat and I had to go to the dive ghat road towards Pune after coming into Saswad.
I reached Saswad around 9.15am and as didnt have anything from the morning had a great breakfast of misal and chai at a hotel in Saswad. Saswad seemed like a small quiet town.
Finally satisfied went out and paid the bill and asked the hotel owner about the road to Dive Ghat and was promptly directed to a left turn ahead at the chowk. Took the bike and turned left from there and went ahead crossing the Saswad ST bus stand and ahead. Around 2-3 km ahead found the board for Dive and the primary school which Vindy had talked about where i had to take a right for the village Sonori. Got onto a bad road and went ahead and asked a local there about Sonori who said it was ahead so I convinced I was on the right road rumbled on ahead.
The road turned from bad to worse but I kept good pace and entered Sonori village and could see the fort at a distance. The fort being small in height isnt visible until you enter the village so I went ahead passing the Sardar Panse wada in between and going ahead on a kutcha road finally could see the fort in front of me. I decided to park my bike at some point and having locked it securely went ahead.
Took out my DSLR and started shooting the fort first. The climb was uneventful and it took all of 15 mins for me to get to the top via a broken part of the wall. Most of the fort walls are intact but majority of them have crumbled and fallen. I traversed the periphery of the fort and saw that the fort had 2 levels , one the outer and the second the inner higher level. I went round and saw the Mahadarwaza and the other door.
I entered the 2nd higher level of the fort and saw there were 2 temples there. One of Lord Shiva with a Shivaling and the other of some God I couldnt identify , maybe Kaalbhairav or something. Not sure. The temple's have been maintained by the locals in good shape. There is nothing much to see on top of the fort other than this and some dry wells :)
The mahadarwaza is a nice piece of architecture like other forts and the view from the top is cool with green everywhere with water bodies in between attributed to the rainfall that was active a few days ago. Now the weather was clear.
Finally done with the fort I started the climb down from the other side of the fort near the door and down going fast and coming down in like 6-7 minutes and got to my bike. The area near the fort is quite barren and occasional small flowers nothing apart from that.
Coming down took my bike and started back. Stopped at the Sardar Panse wada the outer walls of which are intact. Took a look inside, it has a crumbled wada in it and an old temple. There is a small field inside the wada now :)
Getting back was not a problem now as I reached the highway back and came into Pune via the Dive ghat which is a cool ghat with amazing twisties. Finally entered pune and into bad traffic (as usual) and came home by 2pm.
A nice small trek there!
Photos at : http://picasaweb.google.co.in/jayaramk1983/Malhargad?authkey=r2D8QsNibwE
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3 comments:
Dear Friend,
Good snaps. Even good to see someone like you visiting these rare vanishing forts.
In your description you have written about two temples out of which one is lord Shiv with shivlin in it while other is god 'Malhar'(version of Khandoba - Jejuri) after which the fort is called as Malhargar. Lord Khandoba is riding on his horse accompanied by some dogs which you can see even at Jejuri fort.
Some additional information regarding the fort - If you want to visit only the fort then the shortest route is Pune- Hadapsar - Diveghat - Kalewadi (immediately after Dive ghat) - take left turn towards the Sonori fort. Four wheeler can go upto the fort but road is in bad shape hence you need to park your vehicle near the fort footing & take a small 5 to 10 mintues trek across the damaged four wheeler road.
This fort was built by Sardar Panse who hails from the near by village Sonori & was heading the Tofkhanna division of then Peshwas representing the Pune Kingdom. Their present generation is still living either in Sonori gaon or few have shifted to Sadashiv Peth (Pune). Fort building dates back to mid 18th century.
Also the fort was having four direction monitoring system though enterance was from West-South door which has already diminished with time. Towards North was Loni gaon - down the mountain ranges pointing to a steep valley while towards East is Sonori village hence the Sabhamandap was in this direction - still in existence but in ramshackle condition. Towards south is the hilly range directing towards Jejuri fort while towards West was the Kalewadi/Jadhawadi & Zendewadi.Present existing Devi ghat was not a part of this monitoring but some part of Shayadri ranges were included.
Jadhavgad is clearly visible from this fort in West direction which was built approximately 50 years after this fort by Pillaji Jadhav a Sardar of Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur.
Very good photos. I have been to this place over a decade back in the days of flim cameras. Now I feel like doing it again. Especially since I work in Hadapsar. This would probably my lunch break trek.
Very good fotos...I loved it....
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