Royalty by the Creek

Let me admit first: I am not a die-hard fan of putt-putting bikes; they are noisy, and they are a nuisance on the roads, especially in a city like Ahmedabad, a threat to all vehicle owners as well as pedestrians.

However, I also admit to the legendary status of Royal Enfield, having imbibed the knowledge while growing up along with the legend, in the British East Africa; the fact remains that for some in regions such as Goa, and Pondicherry in India, a bike is a source of livelihood, a cheap means of transport.

It was with this background that the family landed at a spa on Baga creek at Alpora, Goa in the second week of June 2019; we were all in a terrific holiday mood, academics being the last thing on our collective mind.

But a mild shock awaited us, a lightning stroke of good fortune no doubt!!

I never even had slightest inkling that of all the things, there will be a museum of Royal Enfield bikes, tucked away in the hot, lazy but quietly breezy neigbourhood on the Baga river, just a loitering distance from where we stayed! It was waiting to be explored with exhibits from its humble beginnings to modern bikes, from the World War series to the naked engines on the show, all so well curated by Royal Enfield, India.

Let me introduce you to the place first.

The Royal Enfield Garage Café Goa is a truly authentic, one-of its-kind experience that is centered around everything in motorcycling – a celebration of exploration through food, beverage, music, entertainment, and personal expression. It is an iconic destination and the spiritual home of Royal Enfield. Garage Café Goa is an inviting and intriguing space that is open to riders, non-riders, travelers & explorers, and families where they can experience a café and bar, an exclusive apparel and accessories store and ride out with a rented motorcycle from a well maintained fleet. And of course, the museum itself.

The Royal Enfield Garage Cafe has the following 4 business verticals:

1.    Cafe (restaurant & bar)

2.    Showroom (sale of motorcycles, apparel, genuine motorcycle accessories)

3.    Service (7 bays, complete team of qualified and trained supervisors and technicians)

4.    Rentals (a fleet of well maintained RE motorcycles for rent)

Apart from that, the main pillars that the Royal Enfield Garage Cafe centers its events and promotions around are:

• Food & Drinks
• Live Music Performances (every week, through the year)
• Motorcycle Workshops (1st Sunday every month)
• Sunday Ride (Community Bike Ride - 2nd Sunday every month)
• Full Throttle (Biker related talks / events - 3rd Sunday every month)
• Garage Cafe Sunday Stories (Generic Talk Show - 4th Sunday every month)
• Bike Rentals
• Art of Motorcycling / Exhibits / Museum
• Custom Motorcycles on display

Hopingly, the pictorial gallery below creates the lazy atmosphere in the Cafe even as it expresses the awe that the models inspires - the old bikes, the engine exposed, the bike that used to be parachuted during the world war, sitting by one for a drink and food, the night band and the screen on which we saw the India-Pakistan world cup match.

Acknowledgement: The author wishes to thank Mr. Vaibhav Nijhowne, Manager - Customer Experience, Royal Enfield Garage Café, Goa for his support and for  the information shared gladly. 

- Pics by Yashesh Anantani

Desert Thrills

Jaisalmer Desert Camp in Pictures

(Organised 13-15th January, 2019 by Gujarat Adventure Club)

Day I:

We arrive at Jaisalmer from Ahmedabad after a 10-hour comfortable bus ride overnight; we are greeted by a fierce thunderstorm and chilly weather. We will reach our campsite, another 40 km away at Sam village, only by 4 pm after seeing the Golden Fort of Jaisalmer.

Showers on arrival - short get-fresh stop; the sight of the Sonar Killa is refreshing

Entrance to the Fort with old city - all sandstone with lime with no steel infrastructure

The Old city lives! 400 people still stay inside - an unusual Live-in Heritage with true democracy - where the praja stays inside the fort-city while the raja is outside with the common men!!

End of Day I: The Accommodation with food - lovely Swiss tents against a setting sun

Day II

Dense fog and strong, chilly winds - a cup of hot tea please!

After Breakfast of hot Toasts with butter, jam and upma, we go riding the sand dunes nearby on camels and camel carts.

Tanot Rai MatajiTemple managed by uniformed men from the BSF, 120 kms from the tent site; it has survived some 2000 bombs during the 1965 war; another 20 kms further north takes us to the Indo-Pak border, with double-fencing, no-man's land, a milestone depicting 'India' & 'Pakistan' further down; a manned watchtower with guns and, at a distance, one can see the Pakistani watchtower - Pretty exciting, I say! (taking pics not permitted)

Huge male goats have a free run in Tanot mandir - no monkeys or street dogs; they are found inside the sanctum sanctorum too..and like monkeys, they also harass the visitors and 'beg' for nasta.

Day II ends (around 7 pm) on a tired, hungry note; around 7 pm, we are entertained to a live Rajasthani vocal music and folk dance show, served with hot pakoras and tea! Hot dinner follows.

Day III

One for the speed demons! The Desert Safari with no roads but only thrills in an open jeep - apparently with no one at the steering or accelerator! Screams of whoopies and wows all round!

 Post lunch, around 2 pm, the group say goodbye to the camp site and go sight-seeing even as we inch back towards home. The Kuldhara ruins is our first stop; here, legend has it that people in 84 villages around, suddenly left their homes overnight; earthquake or drought does not explain. One story is about a Minister, Salim Singh whose intense harassment drove the Palliwal community out in desperation - a forbidden love angle is not ruled out!

The Masterpiece (s) !

The 42 Centopaths or the final resting places (Chhatris or Chattardis in Kachchh))

of all the Kings of Jaisalmer

A Guide is must here to appreciate the culture behind these exquisite memorial of  sandstone and lime with joints (no concrete or steel  used)

Despite this writer's extensive tours of Rajasthan over the years, this was the first guide that informed me about why different titles are used - Maharanas for kings of Udaipur state, Sawai for the those in Jaipur state, and Maharawals for royalties of Jaisalmer. I congratulate the guide! 

The royal families continue to visit their late elders to pay respects when a child is borne

Just an expression of thought - Modern technology and heritage of old crafted, designed architecture - the two can co-exist!

Entrance to Gadisar Lake in Jaisalmer ...

.. and the lake itself

Call of Nature?? What an inviting idea!

The Magnificent Ruins of Roha

Roha-Sumri!

The name itself is very evocative I thought, even as I was being driven to that hamlet one October morning in 2018, 44 kms south of Bhuj, Kachchh; the plan was a simple, three-day stay at Jeevan Sandhya, one of the oldest ashrams for the senior citizens and inter-action with them.  I came across a small booklet at the ashram, a compilation of articles in Gujarati.

Jeevan Sandhya Ashram

As I read through, I realized the opportunity for doing some of my own research; with an air of expectancy, the ‘simple plan’ turned into a busy schedule!

Centuries back, Roha was a jagir, comprising 51 Roha-hamlets, the best being Roha-Sumri; Sursinhji Gohil was the jagirdar, the Raja of Roha and the district prospered so well under his benign rule. The booklet revealed a land of utmost beauty - both natural and geographic - that must have existed those days. The sparsely populated Roha-Sumri nestles in a depression among surrounding hills, the highest having a table top that became a site for a huge palace for the royalty, with a nearly 5 km fort on either side.

Today, this hill with its historic fort serves as a stunning backdrop to Jeevan Sandhya ashram, established in 1955 by a visionary and renovated in 2000.

The Fort on the hill with the Ruins of the Palace

The Present

Interactions with ashramites who came from all strata of society, sharing meals with them, and of course, the prayer sessions were revealing. Some vented their frustrations with family members; others talked of earthquake, of loosing entire families, them being left alone. One gentleman was into speculating the share market and lost his millions to his brothers who kicked him out! A young resident of the ashram (allowed as a caretaker of his ailing mother) seemed to be highly informed and became my companion and guide.

Sumri: Morning Dew

Every morning and evening, we strolled through the dusty, narrow lanes and by-lanes of Roha-Sumri. One observes a scattering of untouched ruins of once-beautiful small buildings done in by the earthquake, their surviving inhabitants having migrated elsewhere, many to Mumbai; a sudden appearance of an empty house here or a carved dome there, or a well preserved front porch of a long-abandoned dharmashala, speaks volumes of the heritage value of the architecture and design elements of those glory days.

The hamlet offers peace and tranquility 24x7 with hardly any vehicular traffic; the appx. 1200 people of mixed communities look after fields or run small businesses. The open spaces house the cattle. There are several temples and large groups of peacocks strutting about leisurely, their number probably more than the humans!

At least three migrant families, two of them being the Vyas and Sachde families have later re-grouped in Mumbai and established temples of their kuldevis or family deities and kshetrapals on their devastated lands at Roha-Sumri, complete with modern-day holiday facilities housed within the huge bungalows.

The area abounds in dry scrub land forest and wildlife including deer, civet cats, hares, snakes and mongooses; at least three leopards are known to inhabit the hills; occasionally, I am told that they visit the hamlet to drink water from the avadas  or make a killing of a cow!

Back to the Past – The Palace

The Raja jagirdar Sursinh Gohil commissioned hundreds of shilpis (artisans) to begin building of the Palace and a Fort atop the hill. The Palace included a huge Durbar Hall, the Queen’s quarters, the jharokhhas (balconies) and separate quarters for servants, stables, a separate building for mehfils and a huge water tank -  just to name a few elements. Remnants of the delicate filigree work and carvings with exquisite design exist even today but amidst the ruins; apparently, the quake of 2001 has not caused any further visible damage.

For the mehfils....

..a peep through its window reveals a series of arches

As a result, it’s not all rubble. A one hour walk cum climb to the Palace and a walk-through the ruins leaves one awe-struck. The evidence of all structures is recognizable – the huge nakas or gates, the balconies, walls, rooms, water tank etc. are still visible.

One wonders: If the ruins could be so beautiful, how magnificent must be the Palace itself?

The Storage Tank for water

Romance in the Air

Sursinh Gohil married his daughter Princess Rajba to a refined, intelligent gentleman from outside Kachchh; he also gave in gift, a maid (dasi) named Monghi to the Princess so that she could be cared for at her new home; the just-married gentleman fell head over hills for Monghi and thus started a life of secret, unspoken love in those days of social taboos and reputation. To give vent to his feelings and pain arising out of unfulfilled love, the gentleman started writing exquisite poems and love songs, often from the balconies in the palace; the said gentleman transformed and Kavi Kalapi was born!

In his poetic outpouring of love, Princess Rajba became ‘Ramaba’, and the other angle of the love triangle, the beautiful Monghi, transformed into ‘Shobhna’. Who lost and who gained thereby? In an ironical twist to the tale, the Gujarati literature today stands enriched by Kavi Kalapi’s poetries.

Essence of Roha-Sumri as an Entity

With such a myriad of facets of history, beauty and the heritage value experienced at Roha-Sumri, how should one summarize the range of emotions so inflicted?

What really is ‘Roha-Sumri’? The answers could be more confounding than the question itself.

Is it just a district of 51 hamlets ravaged by Time? An area further devastated by the recent earthquake?

Or, is it the re-establishment of destroyed landed properties by three now-prosperous families as large and beautiful family temples, fully equipped as holiday homes for their progeny?

Or should one perceive it as a period when it was a royalty with all its glory of nature, wildlife and heady economic boom?

Or perhaps, as a period when there was palace intrigue of silent, unspeakable but heady romance between the three protagonists that led to outpouring of unrequited love through some of the best Gujarati poetries and the birth of a genius, Poet Kalapi?

Was it a period of a renaissance for Gujarati literature brought about accidentally by fate? Whatever it was or is, one thing is certain. Kalapi’s yearning for unfulfilled love turned out to be a gain for Gujarati literature!

An informed visitor is sure to experience and even feel a strange, heady concoction of all facets of Roha-Sumri – love poems, architectural heritage, ruins of built infrastructure and human lives ruined!

From its high perch, the magnificent ramparts of the once-palace, continues to be a mute witness to centuries of history and happenings in Roha-Sumri, even as Jeevan Sandhya ashram in its lap gives hope to those in the evening of human life!

A couplet or two about Waqt, Time, by late Sahir Ludhianvi would probably serve as an apt conclusion to this piece – at least I sincerely hope so!

waqt se din aur raat, waqt se kal aur aaj

waqt ki har shai gulaam, waqt kaa har shai pe raaj

waqt ki paaband hai, aati jaati raunake

waqt hai phulon ki sej, waqt hai kaanto kaa taaj

aadami ko chaahiye, waqt se dar kar rahe

kaun jaane kis ghadi, waqt kaa badale mizaaj.

The Author at the Site