The birds got to us before the guide did. Their calls carried over the trees as we gathered at the start of the path, and then the guide began to speak.
The Puranas say that thousands of years ago, Lord Parshuram conquered the whole earth and then gave all of it away. What has been given in donation can never be taken back for you. But Parshuram still needed somewhere to live.
"Where we are standing now," our guide said, "was sea."
The birds picked up as she told it. A steady chirping rose from the branches above us, and somewhere in it squirrels were chattering, as if they had heard this one before. I could now easily differentiate between a squirrel chattering and bird chattering, being a personal audience to the former just a few days back on my house window.
Parshuram fought the sea and pushed it back 40 to 50 km. The land that arose out of the water is Konkan, the land of Parshuram. Though I personally didn’t like the sound of it, taking over someone else’s area by power but that happened.
Under our feet was a path of red stone. The stone is called jambha, and a footpath made of it is called a pakhadi in Konkani. This one, she told us, is 400 years old. Paths like it once led villagers to the temple of the gram devata, the village deity. Most were lost to modern roads, and now they survive only in places like this.
"Today," she said, "we take this pakhadi into the village of Prachin Konkan." So we walked. The birdsong followed us along the stones, from somewhere off the path, and as the trees thickened, insects began to hum around us.
A village that governed itself
Our first stop was the people of the hills. Long before the villages on the plain, Konkan's hills were home to tribal communities, and the one shown here is the Katkari.
A little further on, our guide stopped under a fruit tree, it was of kokum. Its fruit keeps food from spoiling and goes into fish curry, she said, and there was some for sale at the shop at the end. Then she told us how the village ran itself. There was no outside authority. When a quarrel broke out, the whole village gathered and the village elders gave their judgement.
Here, faith worked differently too. "Everywhere in the world, people go to their temple, church or mosque to meet God," she said. "Here in Konkan, at Holi, we carry our deity to every house in the village." God comes to the door. The forest itself is sacred. The trees are treated divine, and so is the tiger that lives among them. The people of Konkan set aside a day to worship it, and the village goddess carries its name.
The barber who knew everything
By the water's edge stood the fishermen's homes. They are happy where the sea comes right up to the door, our guide said. They take a small boat out at night and come home with the catch in the morning.
Then she explained the balutedari system that held village life together. The carpenter, the blacksmith, the potter, the barber and the other tradespeople went from house to house with their skills. They were paid in grain, not money. The barber, for example, cut every man's hair for a whole year for four measures of grain, about 8 kg today. They were poor, but the whole village leaned on them.
The barber also has a story in Konkan's folk literature that every bit of village news reaches him first, and whatever the barber knows, the whole village soon knows. The she smiled at us. "The news that you have arrived has already reached the barber. So now the whole village knows. This whole story was our welcome to you."
Tradition says a guest goes first to the headman's house, so that is where we went.
The Khot, the headman, collected the village's taxes. Beside him stood his wife, beautiful and clever, but not free. "The threshold of the house was her boundary," our guide said. Their two children sat nearby.
She showed us the old game of dice, the same game Dharmaraj and Duryodhan played in the Mahabharata. Here a game could run for one or two nights. The Khot sat in his place while the villagers sat in the verandah. Behind them were the bedroom, the kitchen and the prayer room. In front lay a wide courtyard with a Tulsi Vrindavan at its centre.
Hands that built Konkan
The farmer stood in his grass rain cover. He was the backbone of the village, our guide said, because he fed everyone from the Khot down. In his house the hearth was never allowed to go out, because there were no matches. If it ever did, two pieces were struck together to bring the fire back.
Grain was stored in a basket called a kanagi, sealed at the top. A cradle hung in the house all the time, because there was a new baby almost every year. Families were joint, and eight to ten children was ordinary.
Beside the house lay a fish trap. You set it in running water, and the fish that swim in can never find their way out. Inside, the house was dressed for Gauri-Ganpati, the great festival of Konkan. The potter, she said, made everything that came from clay: Ganesh idols for Chaturthi, lamps for Diwali, water pots for summer, and tiles for the roofs.
Next to him hung a pot for collecting maadi. Before a coconut palm fruits, it puts out a flower bud. The bud is cut, a pot is tied beneath it, and the sap drips in slowly.
"What is maadi?" I asked.
"It's a drink," she said.
We then passed the goldsmith, and she turned to the old ports of this coast, which she said were 5,000 years old. Merchants from all over India traded through them, and gold flowed in from across the world. "When India was called the golden bird," she said, "the doorway was Konkan."
A few birds chirped over the carpenter's corner. This was a carpenter from Sawantwadi, whose wooden toys are known around the world. The blacksmith worked beside him. Five hundred years ago, many men here served as soldiers, so he forged swords as well as farm tools.
The last stop in this lane was the oil press. She explained that farmers cooked with coconut oil, so they brought dried coconut from their own gardens to be pressed. A tall wooden post called the laat turned round and round, crushing the coconut until the oil ran out. Fresh coconut went in for every batch, and one batch took an hour to an hour and a half.
The kitchen, a cave and a poem
The old kitchen came next. Our guide showed us the grinding stone and the modak patra, the steamer that came before pressure cookers. Water sits at the bottom with a tray above it. A green leaf goes on the tray, the modaks go on the leaf, and the lid goes on top so the steam cooks them.
There was a press for cooked lentils: turn the handle and the sweet filling for rotis drops out below. One press was made of wood and another of iron. The tiffin had three compartments for food and one for water, and a large vessel in the corner had once been used for bathing. All twelve balutedars, she said, did their work without counting profit and loss.
A dove was cooing as we reached the cobbler, and she told us his story.
Shiva’s Konkan residence
About 80 km from here, Lord Shiva lives in a mountain cave called Marleshwar. A shivling sits inside, and live snakes are found there to this day. Long ago, the god lived in a village, but he grew unhappy with how the villagers behaved and decided to leave. He set out on the day of Sankranti. At the edge of the village lived a cobbler, poor but devout. Shiva asked him to light the way with his torch. The cobbler did not know who his guest was, but he went with him anyway. Then the god showed his true form and said, "From today, I will stay in this cave."
That was 500 years ago. Every Sankranti, the palanquin still leaves the village, and the cobbler's family still carries the torch ahead of it. There is no distinction of caste at Marleshwar. "There are two shivlings there, and two Nandis," she added. "Why two?" my sister asked. But the answer got lost to the wind and the footsteps, so maybe I'll have to go back and ask one day.
Then we passed the herdsman who owned 100 to 150 animals, and a single buffalo could fetch lakhs of rupees. He was a wealthy man but lived simply.
At the last stop, there were costumes to try on for photos and a small shop of things from the sea, shells.
“This is the last stop", she said.
Before we left, I asked for the poem she had mentioned earlier, written by the poet Madhav about 100 years ago. "What does it mean?"
Before heading out we enjoyed fresh and hot modaks and bought some toys made from Sawantwadi wood.
Note:
- Entry Fee: ₹50 per person
- Timings: Open daily from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM
- Location: Konkan Tourism Development & Research Centre, near Ganpatipule Temple, Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra
- Guided Tour: Free guided walking tours are provided on-site to explain the 500-year-old Konkan village history and culture (A free guided tour, available to the group with min no. If you want, you can get a personal guide at additional ₹50, and photography will cost another ₹50 per mobile)
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