After seeing the rhino at Chave, we got back on the road to return to the main Ganpatipule Nivali road. We now had to reach Ukshi fata. The Konkan railway has railway stations just outside some of the longest tunnels (the Konkan has some of the biggest and mightiest of everything remember). Ukshi and Bhoke are two such stations. A little short of Nivali is the Ukshi- Karbude (one more tunnel) crossroads. You turn South for Karbude and North for Ukshi. At the Karbude turning there is usually a line of auto rickshaws who helpfully pointed us in the right direction. Ukshi village is a long way away from the junction. And the road winds down from the high plateau into the depths of the valley. Along the way are wonderful picture postcard views of lush green mountains and way down below you can see the creek lazily winding it’s way to the sea. The road bridge spanning the creek is a snap worthy sight.
You go all the way down to Ukshi village and land up right next to a temple where preparations were on for a wedding. Some of the people said they were wedding guests from outside Ukshi and they pointed out some locals who said we were on the right track for the Katal Shilpa (rock carving). Rutwij the archeologist had given us the sarpanch’s telephone number and said that snacks would also be arranged. However, Mr Sarpanch was in Ratnagiri and helpfully supplied his deputy’s number. We decided not to disturb him.
Ukshi is one village where the villagers have understood the significance of their heritage and have built a proper enclosure for their stone carving with a road leading right up to it. Since Ukshi is at the depth of a valley and Mr Prehistoric Man (maybe Ms P Woman) carved only on plateaus we pushed ahead further on the road which kept going higher and higher. Ukshi seems to have wadis or colonies which are way away from each other with dense jungle in between. It was almost 15 km away from the Ukshi fata and several times we thought we were going astray but both Rutwij on his mobile and a few signages assured us that we were not lost. We finally got up onto the table land and reached a T junction. The road on the right went to Ukshi station and the one on the left to the stone carving. But straight ahead across the road was a huge open area. It was only when we got out of the car that we realised that a huge area was covered fully with geometric squiggles and circles covering an area of 20×20 metres at least. It was almost as if a whole school of amateur artists had been let loose on a rock classroom. Something that looked like an elephant, a fish and a top view of Superman flying (well almost) and multiple other seemingly random patterns.
There’s a small platform besides the rocky canvas which helps to better see the entire picture. We then pushed ahead in the direction pointed out by a signboard on a completely desolate road on the plateau till we reached a small turn-off which announced itself as the road to the carving. Around 200 metres ahead, was a circular enclosure of chire with a viewing platform on one side. Enclosed was a magnificient elephant who looked nonchalantly around the country side.
There were some stylised carvings in his ears and the eyes were a little modernistic as well. The artist made no bones about the fact that it was a male elephant. His sophisticated appearance was a little incongruous on that lonely desolate plateau. The few minutes that we spent there did little justice to his majesty but we had miles to go before we slept.
