Murud-Janjira

BEACHFULL OF PARADOXES:
MURUD JANJIRA
Armin ...

It’s strange, what a pile of ruins in the middle of the ocean can do to fire the imagination!
It’s a brooding, sinister presence. Still. Awesome. Remote. Viewed in the gathering dusk from the Murud beach, bathed in the diffused rays of the sinking sun poised directly above, it appears the perfect perch for a Lorelei, luring sailors to their doom . . .
As I was to discover, the Kasa Fort --- indeed, the whole of Murud-Janjira --- is much too steeped in history to require the illusory aura of imagination.

Maharashtra too is green! But not many of us know that.
Driving down from Bombay along the Konkan coast, you will discover small hamlets and tiny towns, clean, green, and quaint, set amidst sleeping fields and swaying palms dotting the jagged coastline. Past Karnala sanctuary, past Pen and Alibaug and Korlai and Revdanda and Nandgaon, and Kashid, (yes, you can do a bit of beach-hopping, here!) onward to Murud . . .
The location is a rare one: between one massive island Fort and a Palace on a hillock, across the sea from yet another Fort, lies this stretch of sandy beach lapped gently by the Arabian Sea. This is not a beach full of sound and fury. It’s a quiet, contemplative beach, the tide running up before you even realize it’s got there. Here, breakers do not crash onto the shore; rather, waves roll up with languorous, easy motion. It’s a peaceful beach, still and serene, crying out for a Mathew Arnold; and yet the atmosphere seems suffused with the latent potential for drama … the looming presence of the fortifications across the waters in the visible distance suggests the violence of centuries past, not quite Nun-like quietude and calm!

We drove down from Bombay, on New Year’s Day, past fields and scrub and haystacks, with occasional glimpses of the sea sparkling along the coast road fringed with cashew and coconut and betelnut, listening to Jethro Tull rhapsodize about the poet and the painter casting shadows on the water … Bliss is made of This!
As we neared Murud there suddenly arose, on a slight incline, a turreted, castle-like edifice. Could that be the resort? we wondered rather uneasily. An architect with imagination run amok, I murmured to Shiraz apprehensively. His objection was that the place didn’t seem bang on the beach. Luckily, that wasn’t `the place’; it turned out to be the Nawab’s Palace. Sighs of relief. I mean, a Palace is all very well, in its place --- but you don’t want a beach resort built like one!
Our expectations were not dashed down by the reality. The resort did have direct access to the beach, through a wicket gate, past a fringe of casurina trees. It also had a tiny artificial pond of water in which floated, somewhat cramped but perky, three geese and a couple of mandarin ducks. From time to time Abdullah, the diminutive waiter, would chivvy the geese to `make noise’ --- “Awaaz kar, awaaz kar,” he’d urge the trio whenever they fell silent.

The beach is clean and uncrowded. And utterly safe, ideal for swimming and wading. There’s a fine strip of sandy beach just outside the resort, but it gets rocky as one goes towards the northern end, where the Nawab’s imposing Palace stands on a small hillock, with the cliff falling sharply into the sea. At the southern end is a village of the koli fisherfolk, who provide for this sleepy town one of the most delicious reasons for visiting it: the daily fresh catch from the sea.
The seafood in Murud is not only delicious, it’s amazingly light on the pocket! The resort did have a canteen and the food was quite good; but we got a tip-off to a gem: the Hotel Kinara, a short walk along the sea-front, locally known as the `Murud Chowpatty’, with stalls of nariel-pani and `Bombay Bhel . The crab curry at Hotel Kinara is to die for, the fried tiger prawns sinful, the pomfret, the surmai and the rawas, freshly-caught, delicately fried so as to almost appear grilled, or steamed in typical Konkani masala.
As we were waiting for our food, we noticed a distinctly well nourished cow amble up to the door of the hotel restaurant. The proprietor hurried into the kitchen and came out with what looked like a couple of white dosas and fed them reverently to the cow.
“This is a daily ritual”, he explained sheepishly. “This cow only eats bhakhri, nothing else.”
The bhakhri was chapatti made from rice flour. The cow had good taste. It was delicious!

The people are easy-going and laid-back; the main occupations, fishing and farming; Murud is among the largest producers of betel-nut in the country. It figured --- the slogans shrieked from every makeshift stall: “No tension, only Fashion”; the mystification deconstructed when we realized that “Fashion” was the brand-name of the locally-available ghutka!

Janjira Fort is a must-see, of course. Among the most important maritime forts in India, it is held to have been unconquered in all the centuries of its existence --- one report does suggest ultimate conquest by Shivaji, but that is highly doubtful --- even the Marathas could not win this impregnable stronghold of the Siddis, (originally Abyssinian traders/sailors, some of whom later joined the army of the Bahmani Kingdom) who ruled the State of Janjira (corruption of the Arabic Jazeera, meaning `island’), of which Murud was the capital.
A sail-boat ferried us to the fort. Our guide-cum-boatman was named Afzal Khan!
The provenance of the fort is shrouded in the confused renderings of history: Some say the fort was built by Siddi Johar; construction work started in 1118, and took 22 years to complete; work could go on only during low tide, as the fort was constructed on a massive rock island 2 km or so into the Rajpuri creek, 5 km. from Murud `City Centre’.
Another account states the fort was built initially by the Kolis under the headmanship of one Rambhau Patil, with permission from the Siddi’s Thanedar, in the early 1100’s. It was originally a wooden structure. As Rambhau began to assert his independence, the Siddis sent a commander, Piramkhan, disguised as a trade merchant, who turned out to be for the unsuspecting Kolis the Abyssinian Trojan Horse: he took 300 boxes, supposedly of imported wares, with him into the fort, each harbouring a soldier inside, and thus wrested control of the Fort from the Kolis. Piramkhan’s successor pulled down the wooden structure and constructed the massive, impregnable stone fort.
Yet another version reports that the fort was built by the Siddis themselves, possibly Mallik Ambar, a Regent in the Court of the Bahmani Kings, sometime between 1567 to 1571. Some reports even place the construction of the Fort in the 13th century!
It’s like what Rona Greer said: after you hear two eyewitness accounts of the same accident, you begin to wonder about history!

Inside the Fort, paradoxes continue to abound, co-existing harmoniously: like the dargah of a Muslim Pir; the carving of a Hindu Goddess; a Ganpati temple, together with four mosques; two deep, fresh-water ponds, in the middle of the salty sea; and a population mix of Hindu Kolis and Muslim Habshees. (It is said the last group of villagers left the Island Fort as recently as 1972, when the Ganpati Temple was relocated in the village.)
This population mix of Muslims and Hindus endures even today, and the paradoxes extend to the town of Murud itself: the same hillock holds a Hindu Temple as also an Idd-Gah, where the Muslim populace offer Namaaz twice a year, on the days of Idd; it’s a sleepy, peaceful town; and yet, on the quiet beach of Dighi, a ferry-ride across the Rajpuri creek, was landed the RDX used in the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts!

The Janjira Fort is indeed a marvel of architectural design, and engineering skill. The walls still stand secure and unbroken, withstanding admirably the constant lash of the sea. Afzal Khan explained that the joints in the stone were cemented together by a mixture of jaggery, flour and lead! The Palace of the Siddis was originally seven stories high, decorated with mirrors and coloured glass; the fort has several levels, with chor gates to enable a hasty, unobserved retreat. From the 165 (or 265?) cannons in its heyday, some still stand, bearing individual names: Kalal Bangadi, Chavari, Landa Kasam, Gaimukhi … The Siddis were apparently a formidable force: neither the Portuguese, nor the British, nor the Marathas were able to win Janjira Fort. Interestingly, the Siddis made two attempts to invade Bombay, but were driven back; the second invasion, around 1692, was reportedly repulsed by a Parsee General, Rustom Dorabji Nanabhoy, with the help of an army of Kolis.
Shivaji (or his son Sambhaji ? ) built a Fort NorthWest of Janjira, also in sea, to get at Janjira, named Padmadurga (later nicknamed Kasa, meaning `tortoise’, by the locals) sometime in the 17th century. Legend has it that an underwater tunnel was attempted between the Kasa Fort and Janjira Fort; some say the attempt failed, some swear the tunnel exists even today! The ruins of the Kasa Fort provide a picturesque backdrop for the setting sun, viewed from the beach just outside the resort.

An interesting carving at the entrance of the Janjira Fort, reportedly used as an insignia on coins during the Siddi reign, says it all; the carving is of six elephants in the grip of one tiger; The tiger has each of its four paws on the backs of four elephants. the tail of another elephant grasped in its own tail, and the tail of the sixth elephant caught in its mouth. Etched in stone, the might of the Janjira Siddis! But as the poet said, even this shall pass away … it did! The Siddis no longer rule Janjira, the fort is in the indifferent hands of the Archeological Society of India, and the tiger is becoming extinct!
The enduring images of Murud however remain: sunset over Kasa fort; a gull in flight; sandpipers fleeting along the ocean’s edge; the Islamic Khokar Domes looming on the road to the Buddhist caves of Kuda-Leni; the sea aflame with a myriad sparkles; cattle lying recumbent in the shade of the haystacks; green fields alongside aquatic prawn farms; the Idd-Gah on the hilltop, the Temple nestled nearby …
And the final 21st century paradox to top ‘em all: Sumos and Hondas turning in at the gates of the resort, even as just outside on the beach, a skeletal yet wiry Koli woman heads home into the dusk, a huge pile of firewood balanced on her head.


****