Travel With Tanvi: Where Mythological Stories Are Told Through Thousands Of Statues- Neelkantheshwar

About 25 kms from Khadakwasla Dam via NDA road, lies Neelkantheshwar- a place that depicts mythology through statues. It was a Sunday morning, when I and my mother decided to have another day trip. Since my mom is always busy with her work, she hardly gets time to visit a new place. So, whenever time permits we both go out on an adventure. My brother suggested us about Neelkantheshwar the previous day. So after getting ready, we left for it. The rains had no mood of pouring that day and the skies were clear. The climate was pleasant, but we kept our rain gears, just incase we would need them.

We left. Since we didn't know the route, I sat behind looking at the maps & my mom rode as I told her the path. We reached Khadakwasla, there was no water to the dam. We moved forward and approached to NDA road. The road was cutting through the lush green mountains. The pleasant weather and the beautiful view made our ride more comfortable than tiring. after riding for about and hour we reached near a sign that said Neelkantheshwar 8 kms. We took a left and from there started the real deal. Now we know that the roads have so many potholes on it during the rainy season that we don't understand whether there are potholes on the road or whether the road is in the potholes & that is what we faced here. A stretch of 8 kms filled with potholes, mud, water, etc. There were fields all along and the sides were still green, but, those 8 kms were the worst ride that we've ever had.

Somehow we managed to reach the parking of Neelkantheshwar. We looked around and there was nothing much there, just a small temple. We saw people climbing up a mountain. So we asked the parking person, where were the people going? He said the temple is up on the mountain and there are even statues up there. How far is it? we asked, he said about 1 km. I looked at my mom. She has this problem of vericos veins, in which the veins of her legs swell if she stands for a long time. She said we'll go taking halts. We started climbing at 1 PM. Taking halts as we got tired we reached half way. We asked a few people coming down, how far it was & they answered that it has just begun, there's lot more to go. I suggested my mom to wait while I go up and come. But she refused, she said when will I come back to see all this, now that we are here, lets go. Slowly we again started walking.

After about 35 minutes of walking, we saw something at a distance. Much to our relief we were about to reach. Our footsteps now got bigger and faster & finally we reached the main destination. We took a sigh of relief and sat down on the stairs. After we gained our energy back, we got up to see the place. There were many people up here. Some had come for a trek, some as an outing, some had even bought tiffins and sat amidst the statues to eat.

The mountain is filled with thousands of statues. We began counting, but lost track of it as there were so many of them. Each section had a depiction of a mythological story. The statues told everything from Draupadi Cheer-Haran to Samudra Manthan. Apart from mythological stories, there were statues of saints, Gods & Goddess. There was a temple dedicated to Mahadev. There are even rooms where devotees can stay. We offered our prayers and continued with looking at the different depictions of stories. We had been walking for so long that eventually we both got tired and decided to leave the remaining part half way. We knew that there are mythological stories. I don't know if we missed something, but we were just too tired to go further. There was a small restaurant up there. We went in as we were both hungry. We had the best wada pav and misal there. As we ate we were thinking whether the statues we built up here or were the built and then brought up here.

There were no boards or no person who could give us information about it, so, we were asking each other questions and trying our best to give answers according to our imagination. After we finished eating, we started to walk back down. Coming down was much easier than climbing up. The view was something to die for- green mountains, paddy fields and Khadakwasla reservoir. As we got closer to reaching the parking, it started raining. We quickly came down and put our rain gears on. I then took the front seat to ride. & OMG! the road was so slippery. It was actually scary, but we somehow came down the mountain and passed through that rough patch of road. We took a halt at Khadakwasla to eat sweet corn and then came back home only to be tired yet satisfied.