Book Review: Archaeology and the Public Purpose

A special book about a special man. My review for Scroll.

This study of archaeologist MN Deshpande’s work highlights the integrity and zeal of a true scholar

Archaeology and the Public Purpose: Writings on and by MN Deshpande
by Nayanjot Lahiri. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Before anything else, a personal disclaimer, or rather, a claim: I briefly had the pleasure of knowing MN Deshpande. I met him not in the capacity of archaeologist and scholar, but as my school friend Mita’s grandfather, calling him Azoba as she did.

As Class XI students at Delhi’s Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Mita and I often came back from school together to the Deshpande home. I was already interested in history, and although Madhusudan Narhar Deshpande was not the sort of grandfather to lecture teenagers floating around the house, I remember wonderful occasional conversations with him about ancient India. 

After one such chat, Azoba lent me his copy of Heinrich Zimmer’s Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. A classic of Indology, it was the perfect book to give an aesthetically and literarily-inclined history student at Delhi University, which I was to become soon after. I did not become a historian, but the book has remained in my bookshelf, its front page stamped with “MN Deshpande, Retired Director General of Archaeology”.

Heinrich Zimmer had held the Chair in Indian Philology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany from 1924 to 1938, but was forced to leave because of his criticism of Hitler. He moved first to Oxford and then to the USA. Soon after his arrival in New York, though, Zimmer died suddenly of pneumonia. Myths and Symbols is a collection of the lectures Zimmer delivered to his Columbia University students in the winter of 1941, posthumously compiled and published by Joseph Campbell in 1946 – the year the young Madhusudan became an Assistant Superintendent in the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), where he would serve his entire career, eventually retiring as Director General in 1978.

Deshpande was born exactly a century ago, in 1920, and historian Nayanjot Lahiri’s six essays in Archaeology and the Public Purpose do a stellar job of placing his career in context.

Since the early 2000s, historians have begun to engage with the history of Indian archaeology. Upinder Singh’s fine 2004 volume The Discovery of Ancient India, for instance, traces the establishment of the ASI as well as the individual contributions of archaeologists like Alexander Cunningham, JDM Beglar and James Burgess. 

Tapati Guha Thakurta’s Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India, also published in 2004, moves expertly between the colonial and postcolonial periods, and between institutional and individual histories. There are portraits of early Indian archaeological scholars like Rajendralal Mitra and Rakhaldas Banerjee, while other chapters explore moments when ancient Indian art and archaeology have emerged as crucial basis of flashpoints in our contemporary cultural politics: MF Husain’s depictions of Hindu goddesses, for instance, or the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute, which hinged on archaeology.

But little has been written about Indian archaeology after independence. Recent Indian history is often a tricky project for historians, partly because sources are often scattered and hard to pin down. So it is fitting that Lahiri’s work on Deshpande emerges, at least partially, from her discovery of an archive.

Early career

The scholar-archaeologist’s family had preserved his personal papers, including personal diaries, notebooks, files, photographs (many of them not in the ASI archives) and professional writing (much of it previously unpublished). Lahiri adds her own research, archival and secondary, including things gleaned from her exchanges with family members, to paint a portrait of Deshpande as a member of a generation that came of age with Indian independence – personally as well as professionally.

The sole exception in a family of Maharashtrian doctors, he was raised by a father who had given up his government job in response to a call from Lokamanya Tilak. Having become a staunch Congressman, Deshpande’s father attended the 1936 Congress session at Faizpur, taking the sixteen-year-old Madhusudan along, though it was some 500 km from their home town Rahimatpur. It was on the same trip that father and son made an excursus to see the famous Ajanta caves – on which Deshpande would come to be an expert.

The search for academic excellence led young Madhusudan to Pune for the later years of schooling, and then to Fergusson College, renowned for language studies. But having started out as a traditional language-based scholar, specifically a Jainologist specialising in an ancient Prakrit language called Ardhamagadhi, how did Deshpande enter the relatively lesser-known field of archaeology?

Again, Lahiri’s answer to that question traverses the academic, institutional and social history of an era: the setting up of Deccan College as part of Pune’s educational renaissance; HD Sankalia’s rise to being the head of its archaeology department; Deshpande’s move to Deccan College coinciding with a two-month field training school in Taxila in 1944, devised by newly appointed ASI chief Mortimer Wheeler to address India’s scarcity of archaeological staff; Sankalia responding to Wheeler’s call by sending his best students to Taxila. Deshpande went too, becoming part of what was to become the defining cohort of post-independence South Asian archaeology.

He did return to Deccan College, but only to find that a Phd had been submitted on a topic very similar to his own, the scholar having remained under the radar because he was in jail (one assumes, though Lahiri doesn’t go into it, that this was one of many promising young Indians imprisoned during the Quit India agitation of 1942 – my mother’s father BM Singhi topped Banaras Hindu University’s Hindi MA exams from jail). Deshpande’s academic ambitions in Jain studies thus dampened, he took Sankalia’s advice and accepted one of the new ASI scholarships offered by Wheeler.

Multifaceted work

Lahiri’s biographical history of Deshpande and his cohort is full of details that offer unexpected pathways into the present. She reproduces, for instance, Wheeler’s Note to the Standing Committee on Education, in which he argues brilliantly and vociferously for an improvement in research on Indian heritage, rather than a “faint and usually sentimental consciousness that this great inheritance exists”.

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“[W]ithout a high standard of research at the back of it all, even the most general education will fall short of its goal,” predicts Wheeler. He adds a great metaphor that new India’s research-scorning new technocratic elite might benefit from hearing: a country’s ability to conduct high quality research, he writes, is like its ability to produce a Rolls Royce: it helps maintain “the standard of the less intricate piece of machinery with which most of us have to be content.”

Deshpande himself did not become a university-based teacher-researcher, but his academic interests – in the caves of the Western Deccan, in Prakrit inscriptions, and in the relationship between archaeology, ethnography and history – remained. But this volume’s rarity lies in capturing the enormously multi-faceted work of the practicing public archaeologist in the second half of the 20th century: someone who “conserved monuments, undertook fieldwork, managed museums, dealt with infractions of laws relating to antiquities and protected sites, spearheaded new legislation as also replied to the stream of questions relating to archaeology raised in every parliament session”.

Deshpande’s career ranged from excavations at remote field sites – he writes of working with his mentor Sankalia on “the banks of the Sabarmati in Gujarat and in the river valleys of the Malaprabha and Ghatprabha in Karnataka” – to supervising the conservation of protected monuments, a task that involves a great deal of science, from structural engineering to acoustics to chemistry.

Highlights from Deshpande’s career include executing a conservation plan for the famed Gol Gumbad in Bijapur; following up on Sheikh Abdullah’s personal interest to bring Srinagar’s Hari Parbat fort under ASI protection; working with Indira Gandhi’s government to help pass the watershed Antiquities and Art Treasures Act in 1976 to help prevent smuggling – and arguing against the same government when it proposed a polluting oil refinery at Mathura, only 40 km from the Taj Mahal, and a “beautifying” weir on the Yamuna that would affect the Taj’s foundations.

Much before Indira, Deshpande had encountered her father – when Nehru visited the Ajanta Caves in 1958 and Deshpande, then superintendent of the South-Western circle, took him and Edwina Mountbatten around the caves as “the highest ranking archaeologist of the ASI based in Aurangabad”. Lahiri’s delighted, delightful account – aided by ASI file notings on special toilet cleaning and candid photos from Deshpande’s albums – shows us a man who never missed a chance to visit historic ruins even as a supremely busy Prime Minister, wandering about Mandu for his free day after a Congress meeting in Indore, making and executing a second Ajanta visit to experience the enchantment of the paintings again – and to show them to Edwina.

At the heart of the book is a very different sort of instance of the archaeologist at work. Deshpande’s “jugalbandi” with the famed Chipko activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt is a little-known event that changed the fate of a well-known shrine. The story of how the historic Badrinath Temple was saved from being turned into just another Birla Mandir is a remarkable one.

The temple’s amalgamation of structures, built from the 11th century through to the early 20th, was in the process of being replaced with an all-new structure by the Jayshree Trust, named for the daughter of Basant Kumar Birla. A massive new concrete wall had been built and red sandstone had arrived from Agra, which would have led to a new temple in an architectural style far from local pahari traditions, and an altogether different modern scale.

Chandi Prasad Bhatt’s interventions – reaching out to Deshpande as the ASI chief in Delhi, appealing to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, HN Bahuguna, and organising a public demonstration against the renovation – set in motion a train of events that eventually helped save the old structure. So different was Indian democracy in 1974 that we had politicians in power actually responding to agitating locals rather than being automatically on the side of the industrial magnates. 

More remarkably, when viewed from the flattened kneejerk responses of our present, public culture in that India did not equate service to history with being against tradition. A figure like MN Deshpande was emblematic of that India.

Own writings

The book is both on and by Deshpande, with more than half the volume devoted to an edited selection of Deshpande’s own writings (many translated from Marathi). These writings range widely across region, subject and style. Never verbose, Deshpande combines the archaeologist’s fine-toothed comb with an eye for what might interest the present-day layperson.

In a piece on the Maharashtrian site of Bahal, for instance, where he conducted fieldwork in 1952-3, Deshpande suggests that it may have lain on “the ancient route joining Bhrigukachha (Broach), the Barygaza of Ptolemy and Periplus, with Paithan (Pratishthan)”, been part of the kingdom of the Yadava kings of Devgiri in medieval times, and retained some degree of importance till Maratha times. He then explains why the place lost its importance: it did not lie on the railway route and became subservient to Chalisgaon, which is a junction on the Central Railways.

A scholar who limited himself to ancient times may not have ended the piece the way Deshpande does – his approach helps bring the ancient world alive, while also making a point about how the historical significance of a place depends on the vagaries of technocratic modernity.

Like his guru Sankalia, Deshpande wrote often in his native tongue, Marathi, to help communicate the archaeological worldview to laypeople. As a language scholar turned archaeologist, he was as comfortable with etymological theorising about the origin of the name Ajanta based on Pali proper names and local pronunciations as he was describing the specific architectural features of the chaityas at the site. In later life, Deshpande further developed his interest in local worship of various deities in the region, carrying out a fascinating archaeological anthropology that links the present with the past.

Despite his humanism and interest in communicating beyond scholarly circles, MN Deshpande was a true archaeologist: someone whose respect for the past was supreme. And unlike the bombast and lip-service that increasingly passes for “respect for the past” in India, this respect was measurable in the material details.

In a wonderful interview reproduced at the end of the volume, Deshpande explains how in conservation archaeology – the repair and maintenance of old structures and artwork – “structural stability is of prime importance, closely followed by aesthetic considerations.” He continues, “Some might argue that aesthetics is subjective but they would be wrong. An ancient monument signifies the achievements of a particular age and thus bears an indelible imprint...the solution of the problem of conservation of a monument lies in the complete understanding of the monument itself, that is why it cannot be left to civil engineers and practising architects.”

Spending time in Deshpande’s company helps us learn how to learn from the past. It is a lesson Indians sorely need.

Published in Scroll, 7 Feb 2021.

Book review: An Englishman In Pune

A tiny book review of a not-so-tiny book, for India Today magazine in February:

Uday S. Kulkarni’s rendezvous with James Wales is a trip down an 18th century lane in India.

One of the first records of the artist James Wales is from 1777. Aged 30, he was evicted from his two-room tenement for failing to pay rent. According to the Edinburgh City Archives, his belongings were auctioned for £11 to pay off his landlady. In 1783, Wales moved to London and set himself up as a portrait and landscape painter. A chance meeting with the artist James Forbes led to a commission to complete Forbes’s sketches of India and, in 1791, with permission from the East India Company, Wales, by then 44 years old, boarded a ship for Bombay. 

Uday S. Kulkarni’s book is a painstakingly detailed and fulsomely illustrated account of Wales’s career in India, where he lived from July 1791 till his sudden death in November 1795. India had proven to be good for Wales—by February 1792, he was advertising a framed set of engraved prints of his ‘Twelve Views in Bombay’ for Rs 350. But the real turnaround in his fortunes came when Charles Malet, long-time British Resident, suggested Wales move to Pune. Based on Malet’s recommendations, he became the painter of choice for the local elite, from the Peshwa and Nana Phadnis to Company officials.

Wales’s masterful oil portraits (‘Peshwa in Durbar attended by his Minister’, ‘Nana Phadnis’, ‘Mahadji Scindia’, and ‘Con Saib’, a portrait of Nuruddin Hussain Khan) and his watercolours (of Ellora and Elephanta, among other antiquarian sites) provide a rare visual record of late 18th century India. But what makes this more than a coffee table book is Wales’s daily journals and frequent letters to England, which bring to life this enterprising, curious foreigner’s experience of a lost world, from ‘nautch’ girls dancing before antelopes at the Maratha durbar to observing preparations for a local sati. 

 

Published in India Today, 28 Feb 2020.

CRD: film review

Kranti Kanade's sharp new film takes on questions about politics, art and life with infectious energy.

A recent profile of the film director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, The Wrestler, Black Swan) described him as having “a reputation for being combative and controlling, for breaking actors down and shooting them in extremis.” Aronofsky, however, disputed this. “It’s not about breaking them down. They break themselves down. They’re game,” he told The Guardian's Xan Brooks. “Sometimes they forget, but I think the original reason they started acting was to be able to cry in front of class... they love it, really.”

That disturbingly thin line between the realistic and the real, between performance and truth, lies at the core of CRD. Set in a fictional version of Pune's Fergusson College, Kranti Kanade's film turns a student theatre competition into a stage for his provocative exploration of life, art and politics.

The film opens with new student Chetan (the astonishing Saurabh Saraswat) interrupting an acting audition to announce that what he really wants is to write the play. But a student-written play, he is told, cannot ever be good enough to win. To have a shot at winning, the play is always written and directed by someone established: usually a Fergusson ex-student who has gone into theatre, and whose participation in Purushottam thus ensures a pay-off both for himself and the college.

Persuaded by the French teacher, Veena (Geetika Tyagi), and the college cultural secretary, Persis (Mrinmayee Godbole), Chetan joins the theatre workshop being conducted by Mayank (a scarily believable Vinay Sharma). What follows is a masterfully executed dance, with these four characters playing off against each other, alternating between attraction and repulsion, admiration and disgust.

Although set in a similar universe of young Indians trying to out-nerd each other while exploring sex, CRD, unlike the puerile Brahman Naman, isn't out merely to shock. It also wants to hector, to insinuate, to challenge, to play. So there's a remarkable masturbation scene, but what's even better is a documentary-style insert in which various talking heads get asked their take on masturbation. In the Indian cinematic context, the film's treatment of sex stands out not because of what it is willing to put on screen, but because of the penetrating intensity of its gaze. Kanade zooms not just into the sexual underpinnings of every situation, but the power dynamics underpinning the sex. “You surrender to me like a wife, and then see the magic,” says Mayank to Chetan in one remarkable scene.

Sex, like everything else in CRD, is a complicated matter: it can be erotic and maternal, intense and funny, sleazy and playful, often at the same time. More than anything else, though, sex in CRD is a mind game. The film's most disturbing sequence pushes Chetan to the brink, but mostly it's the men who're playing and the women who are being played. To be fair, the film recognizes this, often flagging the ways in which class or age or position are used to achieve sexual power. The talented Godbole brings Persis to sincere, quivering life, but she, Veena and Deepti (who does a fairly standard ugly-duckling-to-swan transformation) still seem like women imagined by a man. It seems to me no accident that CRD would not pass the Bechdel test.

Kanade and his co-writer Dharmakirti Sumant use a perfectly natural mix of Hindi and English to capture a very particular Marathi world. CRD's first achievement is to make us believe in the existence of this Pune: a still predominantly Brahminical cultural milieu in which theatre retains enough heft to be the site of a Bahujan actor's political “prayog” -- but where the fetishising of European thinkers now coexists with a trite, patriarchal nationalism. This world in which where Indianness is the subject of saccharine self-congratulation is also one where you can earn brownie points by namedropping Marx, Sartre or Foucault – and political mileage by discussing their pronunciation. Kanade's gaze is sharp enough to indict our hypocrisies, but remains human enough to be affectionate about our aspirations.

CRD's second, quite singular, achievement is to make us think about art. Is good art award-winning? What is the line between moving an audience and manipulating it? Or between charming someone and deluding them? Does a performance ring true only when it wrings the truth out of you? Is there such a thing as truth? The character of Chetan – and his mysterious alter ego Vikram – offer great entry-points into these questions, without necessarily bludgeoning us with answers. Kanade displays both political and aesthetic courage, constantly moving registers between lyrical intensity and playful subversion. Just when you're settling into his serious central narrative, he departs from it with exhilarating abandon, bringing in everything from animated inserts to black-and-white faux footage, from Hindi film clips to dream-like sequences about characters' inner lives.

Theatre is, of course, the film's theme and locale -- but also its self-conscious choice of form. Conversations that seem utterly sincere drop, without warning, into wink-wink mode. People we have believed to be one thing turn out to be quite another. Nothing and no-one is quite what they seem, suggests CRD. An anti-rape narrative can be co-opted into nationalism. A lack of class privilege can be turned to one's advantage. The politics of sexual liberation can be used to shame and suffocate. We are all playing several roles, and the curtain might fall at any time.

Published in Firstpost.

Singing the Bawdy Electric

My Mirror column:

A lavani dance performance and a film about American burlesque offer sparkling, subversive ways to think about women’s sexual freedom.

The incomparable Shakuntala Nagarkar during a Sangeet Bari performance

Judith Stein, ex-burlesque dancer, dresses up for a return to the stage

Recently, Delhi's Studio Safdar, an unusual performance space that also includes a second-hand bookshop and a cafe, hosted something rarely seen outside of Maharashtra: a performance of (and about) lavani. The result of Bhushan Khorgaonkar and Savitri Medhatul's years of careful research and enthusiastic engagement with the folk dance form, the show draws its name, Sangeet Bari, from the traditional theatres in which lavani troupes perform turn by turn (thus ‘bari’). It is from the same tradition that Sangeet Bari draws its prize performers: the winsome Akanksha Kadam and the incomparable Shakuntalabai Nagarkar, affectionately known as Shakubai.

Lavani is known as an erotically charged dance form, but the songs make space for irreverent commentary on anything from marriage to the current hot-button topic of the day (think demonetisation, or elections). The lavani dancer embraces unapologetically the pleasures of the body, while never forgetting that what fires up those physical connections is often the mind. Watching Shakubai, in her nine-yard sari and jewellery, move effortlessly from the seductive to the comic and back again, is a treat and an education. Flirtatiousness – of both banter and gesture -- is raised to an art form. One marvels at how Shakubai's feet measure the ground in perfectly calculated strides; how not just her face and hands, but every quivering muscle in her back expresses the chosen emotion; and how expertly her eyes scan the room, selecting a man to cajole, challenge, or mock-disdainfully reject.

This seduction routine – and you can tell that it is in many ways a routine – is integral to the performance of lavani. And yet somehow Shakubai's practised ease is also full of improvisational energy, each eye caught in the audience an invitation to create a spontaneous new moment of intimacy. And although the songs are written by men to be performed for an audience of men, these women of lavani display a frank, joyful embrace of their own sexuality.

Women taking an open-faced pleasure in the erotics of their own selves was also the most delightful aspect of a documentary I saw last week, as it closed the 13th Asian Women's Film Festival, organised in Delhi by the indefatigable India chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television. League of Exotique Dancers (2015), directed for Canadian television by Rama Rau, profiles eight ageing ex-burlesque dancers on the eve of their return to the stage – often after three decades or more – as part of Las Vegas' remarkable Burlesque Hall of Fame. Having worked for decades in what is considered (and perhaps was) – like lavani -- an industry created by men for the pleasure of men, you might be forgiven for imagining that these women would seem embittered, angry or at the very least, exploited. Instead, Toni Elling, Holiday O'Hara, Kitty Navidad, Judith Stein and the others all emerge as unbelievably badass women, with stunning clarity not just about the milieu they agreed to be part of, but also about what their work meant to them.

Each woman's journey was different. For Navidad and Elling, the move into burlesque was partially because of the frustratingly low-paid, boring assembly-line jobs their gender and class had equipped them for. Once on stage, though, they enjoyed themselves. “All those years I had worked as a waitress, a telephone operator, you know? But I found myself on stage, and I know who I am now,” says the Detroit-born Elling, among the first black women to be a burlesque dancer.

For O'Hara, who had spent her childhood as the nerdy 'ugly' girl damaged by self-doubt about her attractiveness, being publicly admired for her sexual, sensual identity was liberating. “With dance I got to recreate myself. It allowed me the opportunity to reclaim my body. And that healed my mind, too.” Meanwhile Judith Stein, whose feminist friends disapproved of her becoming an erotic dancer, has no doubt that her choice empowered her. “Feminism [for us] wasn't about not shaving your legs. Feminism was about shaving your legs and working in a bar and working as a 'sex object' and knowing that you were. And not trading your soul and your pussy for a wedding ring,” says Stein, unflinching.

The theme of financial independence comes up repeatedly. But equally significant is these women's aura of sexual confidence. “I refuse to believe the men were in charge here,” says O'Hara. “No-one's there to BS you. You're BS-ing them,” says another dancer. “Being a stripper, or being a sex trade worker, that has been the job... open to women through the ages. The belly dancer, the flamenco dancer... it was about being sexual, being able to be comfortably display their sexuality. And that's strong,” says Stein.

Sexuality, the film persuades us, is as legitimate a part of a woman's identity as her mathematical skills, or her talent for answering phone calls. And given that the world is what it is, why should using one's erotic skills – and indeed, developing them more fully to give pleasure to one’s self – not be something to celebrate? The body is not everything. But we have insisted for far too long that it ought to be nothing.

Published in Mumbai Mirror, 17 Mar 2017.

Konkan: Gold Coast

A quiet haven on the Maharashtra coast.

The first time I went to Tarkarli, it was June. The auto we hired from Kudal station took us through miles of shrubland, the red earth soaked from the last downpour, gleaming wetly in the sun as it waited for the next one. I spent three days there, on the Konkan coast of Maharashtra: quiet days, mostly waiting for the rain to start again. The downpours were unlike anything I had seen before, great sheets of water that seemed to merge sky with sea. But what I remembered most vividly from that time was the red soil all along the road, magically transformed into near-white sand along the water’s edge.

This time, it is December. The earth is still red, but there is no rain. The sun is mild, the sky a cloudless blue. The auto ride from Kudal is still rather lovely, but nothing feels as elemental. I am ready to be underwhelmed.

Then the road begins to wind its way slowly out of the plateau, past mango trees covered with new yellow-green leaves, down to the coast. Now there are coconut palms. And banana trees. The houses of Tarkarli began to appear. Many of the houses are still tiled in the traditional way, but their old-style red roofs sit atop the most funkily painted walls. It isn’t quite rainbow town (I never see a true blue, or a proper green) but there are oranges and yellows and reds and pinks and purples, in the most remarkable combinations. Banana-yellow walls with a fuchsia door, a red house with a purple well, a white temple with orange eaves and green trellises. Why don’t I remember these colours from the last time around? Had the monsoon lashed the colours into submission before I got there? Or was I so preoccupied with red earth and pouring rain that I never noticed all the brilliant ways in which people had added to that palette?

I’m still contemplating my oddly selective memory when we reach Devbagh, the next village along the coast after Tarkarli. Devbagh is where we’re staying this time round. The road has somehow managed to run alongside the coast while keeping the beach firmly out of sight, so that when we draw up in front of Siddhivinayak Beach Resort, the sea is like a surprise present. The Khobrekars live in the old house, closer to the road, and they’ve built a series of rooms for guests closer to the beach. In the large open area are several palm trees and a big thatched umbrella.

I’m just slightly anxious because our mobile phones have refused to work on the way here and the last time I called was three weeks ago. But everyone seems to know who we are. Yes, yes, our train reached on time. Yes, we’re from Delhi. Yes, we’d like our rooms. While our rooms are readied, we settle down in the shade of the thatched umbrella-roof. The benches are rough-hewn slabs of cool black granite, balanced on stumps of local reddish stone. The tables are covered with red plastic tablecloths. It is New Year’s Eve, and the Maharashtrian family there looks curiously at us. But there is white sand between my toes. There is a cat. There is cold Kingfisher. And there, with not even a palm tree standing between me and it, is the sea.

It is no time to be underwhelmed.


Fishermen buying ice to store their evening catch

For lunch, we eat the first of the vast meals that are to characterise this holiday. Each thali consists of rice and fish and chapattis and a vegetable — and sol kadi, a digestive drink that’s served in small steel katoris but should ideally be drunk by the gallon. There are four of us, so we’ve asked for two bangda (mackerel) thalis and two surmai (seer fish) thalis. Surmai is not available, so they suggest something called sawandara instead. It’s the local fish, we’re told, the fish that’s caught in Devbagh village. What we’re not told is that it is the tastiest fish in the world.

Suffice it to say, we eat a lot. We take naps. Then we do nothing at all, unless you count watching the sun go down. The evening brings a few more revellers, mostly families. We watch the men drink lots of beer while the women don’t. There are a few young men, too—a college gang on holiday. The resort guys decide they must please the crowds and put on ‘Sheila ki Jawani’. Thankfully, they soon run out of Hindi film songs, and start to play raunchy Marathi lavani hits: the only one I recognise is ‘Apsara Aali Re’ from the film Natrang. The songs are filmi, but the mood is real. The boys have brought fireworks. We sip our wine and watch the display. It’s a happy new year.

* * *

The next day we take a bus to Malvan, the nearest town (and the place which gives its name to the gorgeous food we’ve been eating). From Malvan jetty, we catch a boat to Sindhudurg — literally, the Sea Fort. It’s a massive stone fortress on an island called Kurte. There are crowds of tourists, including hordes of schoolchildren who spontaneously seem to break into chants of "Shivaji maharaj ki jai". I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since this is Maharashtra and the fort was built by Shivaji.

Our boat contains a group centred around a curly-haired man in sunglasses and white kurta-pajama, who I decide is a local politician. We are ferried through somewhat choppy sea, only to be told to get off far from an entrance. We descend into knee-high water and clamber stoically across a tricky stretch of rocks, gazing up at the impregnable stone walls above us, feeling like medieval invaders (or Crystal Maze participants, depending on your authenticity quotient). Stragglers (i.e. those who display reluctance to leap into seaweedy water) are exhorted to be more manly by Sunglasses. Thankfully, no battles ensue.

The inside of the fort is remarkably bare. There are trees, some houses, a temple to Shivaji. There seems to be nothing to do except climb up to the highest point like dutiful tourists. The view is spectacular. The land spread out below: dull brown, barren and bone-dry and, all around it, as far as the eye can see, an expanse of blues. And as I look out at the massive stone walls that we were so recently on the outside of, I suddenly recognise the space for what it is: territory. I’m reluctant to go but Sunglasses will be in a hurry. Sure enough, there he is, watching the children yell "Jai Maharashtra" as he waits to hustle us back to shore.

It is almost lunchtime. We head straight to Chaitanya, a restaurant I remember fondly. It’s packed. I’m just thinking about how much more Malvan locals are eating out these days when I realise it’s New Year’s Day. We eat a thali each, as we should, and add two new items to our Malvani repertoire—mutton and ‘mori mutton’, which turns out to be shark meat. (I prefer the mutton.) We wander around the town, admiring wooden houses and roadside churches, and window grills with Queen Elizabeth’s head in the pattern. We drink kokam soda. Then we catch an auto back to Devbagh.

The next morning we have arranged to go see the dolphins. Even though we’ve been shown pictures of a wounded dolphin that washed up on Devbagh beach just days ago, I am not hopeful.

The last time I was here, the sea was too choppy to go out to the spot where dolphins apparently gather, where the Karli river meets the sea. Since then I have been to the Sundarbans, clutching my copy of Amitav Ghosh’s Hungry Tide and (bookish tourist that I am) hoping to see dolphins almost more than tigers. But to no avail. Still, we wake at six and scramble out to discover that the boatman has forgotten about the plan. He has to be woken, as do the others apparently coming with us. We crossly refuse placatory offers of tea. When we set out, it is nearly seven.

But no grumpiness can hold out against a dawn sky and a grey sea slowly turning translucent blue. When we reach the river’s mouth, there are already two boats biding their time. We wait and watch. Then there’s a flutter of activity—someone has spotted something. It’s like the classic moment when the guide whips out his walkie-talkie and all the jeeps congregate next to the nala near which someone has just reported the sharp barking call of the chital.

Except we’re at sea and there’s nothing to mark the terrain. But there is also nothing to distract us. So that when the first gleaming silver snout appears, there’s a collective gasp. Then there’s another snout, then a fin, then a tail. There seems to be a pair of them, diving in and out in a kind of playful dance for several minutes before they vanish below the waves. For a minute there is silence. Then someone spies another, in the opposite direction. The boats jump to attention, revving up their motors to move as close as possible. There are more dolphins now and we watch in delight as they somersault. But they know we’re there and gradually they move away from us, swimming further out to sea.

* * *

We return to Devbagh via what is known as Tsunami Island, a sandbank created during the tsunami in 2004. Boats are parked there, and we wander around barefoot in knee-deep water, happy to discover a stall selling tea and—to our joy—fluffy homemade dosas and the wonderful Maharashtrian sweet called modak: plump parcels of rice flour filled with coconut and jaggery. It’s a thoroughly charming breakfast in a thoroughly charming place, but once we’ve boated and walked our way back to Siddhivinayak, we’re not unwilling to eat another one kept ready for us. It’s poha, light and lemony, with a sprinkling of grated coconut and the super-fine bhujiya that I am told goes by the super-fine name of nylon sev.

But it’s not just double breakfast day. It’s double marine-life expedition day, too. After a quick swim, we head to Malvan again—to snorkel. Two of our party are not-quite-swimmers—they can stay afloat but don’t know if they like the idea of going underwater. It’s only after our exceptional instructor explains that snorkelling doesn’t involve going underwater at all that they look a little more convinced. By this time we’re behind Sindhudurg—that rocky stretch of sea from yesterday turns out to be a coral bed too—and once we see the people already snorkelling, with float tubes around their waists and only their faces in the water, there’s no more tentativeness.

The coral reef is magical. None of us have ever seen one before and the multi-hued world that suddenly opens up before our eyes is indescribable. Jewel-like fish dart about in the shadows, their swiftness in stark contrast to the slow-motion quality of everything else underwater: the tendrils of various plants, the vast cabbage-like corals and us, slowly circling the area, our flippered feet trying their best to follow instructions not to splash.


A couple floats in the waters near the Sindhudurg fort

The afternoon meal feels much-deserved and we eat pretty much every kind of seafood on the menu. Then we wander through the backstreets, looking for a way back to the jetty that goes along the sea. There isn’t one, but we do find a rock garden, and a sunset point, and a cricket club on the beach. Eventually we reach the jetty and find the municipal fish market. We get back to Siddhivinayak, where we seem to be the only people for dinner. We eat and talk of various things. But, from time to time, one of us looks up and catches a dreamy look in the other’s eye and we both know it’s the coral we’re thinking of. Nearly two months later, the sea still haunts my dreams.

THE INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
The nearest railway station to Tarkarli is Kudal, approximately 45km away. The most convenient train from Mumbai is the overnight Konkan Kanya Express (`910 on 2A). Autos are easily available from Kudal to Tarkarli (`400). From Delhi, the Trivandrum Raj-dhani (`2,495) takes 24 hours to Sawantwadi Road, a station 54km from Tarkarli. If you choose to fly, the nearest airport is Dabolim in Goa, from where Tarkarli is 100km (a two-and-a-half hour drive). There are flights to Dabolim from all major Indian cities (from `3,000 one way ex-Delhi; `1,800 ex-Mumbai; `2,300 ex- Bengaluru; `4,000 ex-Kolkata). Maharashtra State Transport buses (msrtc.gov.in) ply from Mumbai (`375) and Pune (`415) to Malvan.

GETTING AROUND
The local bus from Devbagh to Malvan (`9) is fairly regular during the daytime. Autos from Malvan to Tarkarli or Devbagh will charge `125–150. The ferry from Malvan to Sindhudurg costs `33.

WHERE TO STAY
The MTDC Resort, Tarkarli (from `1,800; 02365-252390, maharash tratourism.gov.in) cannot be beaten for location. Each ‘Konkani hut’ (all non-AC) has an almost unobstructed view of the beach. There are dozens of homestays and ‘resorts’ in Tarkarli. Most involve a few extra rooms added on to an existing house, with food supplied by the family kitchen. Rooms are basic and usually non-AC. Try the well-regarded Ghar Mithbavkaranche (from `1,400; 02365-252941, gharmith bavkaranche.co.nr). In the adjacent village of Devbagh too, more and more families have opened up their homes to tourists. Among the more organised are Swami Samarth (`800; 9404170104, swamisamarthbeachresort.com). We stayed at the well-managed Siddhivinayak Beach Resort (`700 non-AC and `1,200 AC; 02365-248407, 9404448687), run by the marvellously hospitable Khobrekar brothers. Rooms are basic, but clean (some have AC). Whatever else you do, do not leave without having eaten ghavan (a soft pancake made from ground soaked unfermented rice, close to Karnataka’s neer dosa) here.

WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK
If you like seafood, Malvan is heaven—on a budget. Malvani cuisine centres around rice and fish, but chapattis are served with every thali, and in a restaurant, you can usually take your pick of prawn, crab, shark, chicken or mutton. Bangda (mackerel), surmai (kingfish) and pomfret (the most expensive) are all of high quality, and local varieties like sawandara are well worth trying too. The famous Malvani fish curry looks more fiery than it actually is, because the masala—a combination of whole dry red chillies, coriander, peppercorns, fennel, cumin, asafoetida, cloves, cinnamon and star anise—is tempered with the sweetness of coconut and the sourness of kokam. The best part of the thali, though, is sol kadi, which combines coconut milk with kokam to magical effect. Do not be put off by the pinkness of it; that’s the natural colour of kokam. The most well-known eatery in Malvan is the conveniently located Chaitanya (Dr Ballav Marg, Bharad Naka; 11am–10.30pm; 02365-242172), a five-minute walk from the bus stand. The bangda thali (`75), bangda fry (`25) and the mutton thali (`120) here are particularly good. Atithi Bamboo (Maghi Ganesh Chowk, Rosary Church Shejari; noon–3pm and 8–11pm; 9423304327) is further away, but worth the trek. The charming Yeshashri Coldrinks (a few minutes down the road from Chaitanya; 02365-252637) is a great place to shelter from the afternoon sun and offers a variety of lassis, flavoured sodas, amrakhand, shrikhand and homemade ice cream in such innovative flavours as ale-limbu-mirchi (ginger-lemon-chilli). I recommend the mango lassi: a rich, divine mixture of tartness and sweetness (and this is in winter, when it’s made not with fresh mangoes but with the mango extract popularly available in these alphonso-growing regions).

WHAT TO SEE & DO
The beaches of Tarkarli and Devbagh are stunningly beautiful. You may want to do nothing but swim, sunbathe and walk along the seashore. But if you’re interested, there is no dearth of activities—although these are largely weather-dependent. A boat-ride (`800 per boat) can be arranged from Devbagh to view dolphins, which tend to congregate at the point where the Karli river meets the sea. The seventeenth-century Sindhudurg fort, built by Shivaji on an island just off the coast of Malvan, is worth visiting. Ferries from Malvan Jetty depart every half an hour (`37 per person). (Not all boats can take you all the way up to the entrance, so if you’re reluctant to clamber across the final rocky stretch before the fort, inquire before getting on.) Snorkelling services are advertised in various places in Malvan—just make sure to insist on a trained instructor. `400 per person will include the cost of the boat-ride from Malvan Jetty, the snorkelling equipment and the services of the instructor. During the monsoon months—May to September—the sea is too rough to go swimming or for boats to go out to Sindhudurg fort. On a previous visit, we found a boatman who took us to Bhogwe (`800 for an hour there, more if you stay longer), which turned out to be a rather lovely neighbouring village, with mango and jackfruit trees and a small, gorgeous stretch of beach. The town of Malvan is worth exploring. The further away you go from the jetty and the bus stand, the quieter it gets. There is a rather charming Sunset Point and Rock Garden, both looking out over the sea. The Municipal Fish Market is most active in the mornings and evenings, when the fresh catch comes in. There are plenty of shops selling jewellery (real and imitation—my friend acquired a fetching nose ring). You can also shop for cashew nuts, kokam juice, Malvani masalas, papads, and sweet and sour concoctions made from mango, jackfruit, tamarind and other local fruit.

Published in Outlook Traveller magazine, March 2011. (Photos courtesy Outlook Traveller)