Ganpati Bappa Moraya: Part Five

Day Three: Walking trail to the hidden waterfall (21.09.2023)

My morning started with listening to the chirping birds who have made their abode on our coconut tree. See the above picture. I brushed my teeth and had a bath. Then we had an upma breakfast and got into the household chores. Yesterday aunty had given alu leaves, hence we would be having alu-wadi for lunch today. We did the morning aarati and then waited for the common aarati. Post that we had lunch (paatole, a version of Karanji, as sweet) and rested for a while. Actually, we did not get to rest completely because we had to attend guests (relatives who came in to worship Ganpati Bappa). Since I had visited the hometown after 9 years, I became talk of the house. Well on day one when I visited everyone's home for worshipping Ganpati Bappa, there were talks on why I am single and how come my parents allow me with that. Hence, I have been avoiding my hometown, but this year Ganpati Bappa made this visit happen. I thought let's focus on the good part of it. We had planned for a few places in the evening.

Hidden Waterfall

We started trekking uphill at 4:15pm in the jungle. Our cousins who stay in the village, guided us on the walking trail. We walked through stones and rocks, passing through trees, etc. See the below images in the order we walked to the hidden waterfall and reached there at 4:40pm. 

It was awe-inspiring watching this hidden waterfall through two large boulders. Nature's beauty is at its best. We sat on the rocks in the small pond created by the waterfall and put our feet in the water. 

And guess what, we had a fish pedicure!! in the middle of the jungle, in front of the waterfall. We waited there appreciating the nature and enjoying fish pedicure till 5pm. Post that we trekked further uphill to the rice fields and walked our way back to the base village, watching the river, talking on different topics, watching monkeys, etc. We were back to the starting point at 5:45pm and then visited the cowshed. We met our two bullocks, bittu(brown) and guddu(black) and fed them some grass. 

We watched granny's kitchen garden where cucumbers and serpent gourd were in full bloom. 

Post that we went ahead to the school for worshipping the Ganpati Bappa at 6pm. 

We walked around the school garden and my cousins played on the see saw and swing. We got back home by 7pm. Today I read Atomic Habits. Post the common aarati, we had dinner and went to sleep.

Day Four: Walking trail to the riverbank (22.09.2023)

The day started with poha breakfast. We had cucumber vade and gulaab jamun for lunch. Since guests come in post lunch, today I decided to sleep upstairs in the room. After having a much-needed sleep, we set off for the river trail. We started from home at 4:30pm. We passed the Krishna temple, School, and a big well on the way to the river. 

This river works as the way to reach the opposite village via a hand rowed boat. We walked our way to the river listening to the chirping birds, talking on random topics, reached there at 5:15pm. 

There is boating available, but we did not opt for the same. Having admired the majestic river, we walked back to the main road. We had to walk to the adjacent village for watching the Ganesh Visarjan of the four-day idols. Look at the village name, every house here has this surname!!

There were only two idols, the visarjan of school Ganpati Bappa was done already. We had to walk quite fast and reached the venue at the last aarati. Hence, we did not miss the visarjan. 

Done with the visarjan, it was getting dark, we got back to our village and then home. Post the common aarati, we had dinner and went to sleep. Tomorrow we will have to say goodbye to our own Ganpati Bappa as well!! Time just flies so soon!

Read next: Ganpati Bappa Moraya: Part Six