Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani …Fraternal Twins

By Savio D'costa

Mahabaleshwar & Panchgani are twin hill stations at a height of 4000 feet separated by 18 km nestled in the Sahyadari hills in the Western ghats. However they could not be more different.

Located 120 km from Pune & 285 km from Mumbai, Mahabaleshwar is thronged by thousands of tourists all year round. Being a premier honeymoon destination it gets tourists even during monsoon season even though it receives among the highest rainfall in the world. Personally I love Mahabaleshwar during the monsoons. The dense fog & numerous waterfalls you see on your drive up will make you feel you are in heaven.

Mahabaleshwar gets it name from the Mahabaleshwar temple in old Mahabaleshwar. According to the resident Pandit, the site is over 5000 years old and was consecrated by the guru of the Kaurava’s and the Pandava’s. The shape of the ling is a volcanic protrusion that looks like a Rudraksha and it has a diameter of about eight feet. Within the ling you can see pools of water which the Pandit says is from five rivers whose confluence, the Panchganga is nearby. It also is the source of the river Krishna.

It is a trekker’s paradise and there are numerous trails for novices or experts. Most tourists will visit Arthur’s seat. There are a number of steps that lead to it. Enroute you will pass echo point & tigers spring. At Arthur’s seat you can buy bottle caps. When you flip these high in the air, air currents will bring them back to you. You can also take a boat ride on the famous Venna Lake.

Mahabaleshwar is strawberry country and 90% of the strawberry output in India comes from here. You will be welcome to visit a farm and some farms will even let you pluck your own strawberries. You might be interested to know that the strawberry plant is a member of the rose family and that it is the only fruit with seeds on the outside!

You can also visit a bee keeping farm. It is a government initiative to give the farmers a second source of income. A wooden box with frames inside is given with a queen bee. Other bees will then inhabit the box. When the queen bee is removed the bees move to the new box. The honey can than be extracted. This does away with the practice of smoking the hive and killing the bees to get the honey. Patil the beekeeper will remove the frame from the wooden box and show you the queen bee. You will not be stung as long as you stay away from the flight path of the bees.

No visit to Mahabaleshwar will be complete without going to Pratapgad, the hill fort of the guerilla warfare king Shivaji. It takes over 400 steps to get you on the top. This is where Shivaji killed the general Afzal Khan with tiger claws.

Mahabaleshwar has a quaint market where you can buy all types of jams, crushes, jelly sweets and fudge. On the way to Panchgani you can visit Mapro’s jam factory and even get a factory discount. You can see the manufacture of jams or confectionaries and even taste the various crushes and squashes before buying. No wonder it records over 12 lakh footfalls a year!

On the other hand Panchgani is a quiet boarding school town. There were only 7 boarding schools here 30 years ago. I am an ex-student of St Peter’s boarding school. Today there are 42.

It has been the favorite location of the bollywood film industry for decades. I can still recall on my way for football practice to tableland seeing the filming of Mausam starring Sharmila Tagore and Sanjeev Kumar. The director was traipsing between the tall pine trees near tableland showing the couple what to do. ( Video from film Mausam courtesy Eros films ).Recently movies like Dhamal have been filmed here.

If you love to be far from the madding crowd, you will not find a better place than Panchgani. You can take long walks to Parsi Point, Sydney point or to Panchgani’s crowning glory – Tableland. It is nearly 8 km long and is Asia’s 2nd largest plateau after Tibet.

For me and I am sure many share my sentiments, Panchgani is heaven on earth!