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P. Devarajan

Sawantwadi feels like the mythic Malgudi, with more men, women and children opting to walk rather than honk around in two-wheelers or cars.

"I STAY alone in the palace," says 67-year-old Rani Satvashiladevi Bhonsle. She has no commandos providing cover nor are her rooms air-conditioned. "You don't need them in Sawantwadi," she adds and royalty should know.

The Mandovi Express dropped Paul and me at an empty Sawantwadi Road Station around 4.30 in the evening. A few raindrops from a leftover monsoon, green cover and a stillness around the station were the first wholesome surprises. Porters and autorickshaw drivers did not rush at us as we stepped out of the station; they waited and offered a ride to Sawantwadi town when we approached them. The 15-minute ride to town was on a narrow, tarred road bordered by standing rice crops and coconut trees on either side. We and our autorickshaw looked like intruders till we touched Sawantwadi town and a two-storey Hotel Tara.

The town looks and feels a large bit like the mythic Malgudi created by R.K. Narayan, with more men, women and children still opting to walk rather than honk around in two-wheelers or cars. A two-hour walk should get one to all parts of Sawantwadi town spread out at the foot of Narendra Hills, forming a part of the Sahyadri range.

At the centre of the town is a largish lake owned and operated by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation and it takes about 30 minutes on foot to complete a round. By about 9 p.m., the shops shut down, the auto stand is empty and a stray walker entirely owns for free the tranquillity of the place. Towns should be rated by the clean, open spaces they have for its citizens and Sawantwadi comes nearly on top of my list.

Around 5.30 a.m. the first koel breaks into song and at six the town's siren hoots an alert. It is time for the first tea stall and a nameless barber shop to open their doors while a few go walking round the lake. On the first morning one counted a dozen wiretailed swallows, each with two long, fine, wires in the tail, staring at the waters from overhead electric wires. Australian acacias, tall coconuts, bhendi, mango and many others crowd the surroundings and one noted a few red-vented bulbuls whistling from the tree-tops.

At one end of the road leading to the lake the land falls steeply for one to look over the red-tiled tops of country homes. In the town, except for the college, run by the royal family, there are no apartments with the public living in independent bungalows, looking more like the wooden toy homes sold at Chitarli gulley by woodcrafters. For three days, some four to five large pied wagtails with prominent white-eye brows bravely darted around my feet helping one to see them a bit more in detail.

After the morning walk, one is prepared for some of the tastiest pohe (aval in Tamil) topped with grated coconut at Rs 5 a full plate, offered by Hotel Tara.

On one of the mornings, Dr Naiknaware, a reader in botany, took one on a climb up Narendra Hills. "This year, there has been no rains since the first week of September. Otherwise, the rain water comes down in long, silvery lines making their way round the rain trees, coral woods, neem, ferns and the rest. Yet, water flows down through the year," the doctor explained while helping me identify various plants. He is a regular at Narendra Hills roaming the place with a plier to pluck rare plants for planting in the college grounds.

At the half-way stage is a Hanuman temple and here the water flow is broken by a few cement tanks built by the doctor and a few others with their funds.

A good friend of the doctor is Bapu Sawant, who has been making it to the spot twice a day for the last 10 to 12 years. Employed at the college, the fair Bapu Sawant walks up the hills in shorts and a T-shirt and keeps the surroundings clean apart from tending a few young neem trees and dhruva grass for Lord Ganesh.

"All this for free," adds Naik, who complains about the lazy ways of the residents. "They will drop the routine of tending their farms if Tendulkar is out early or India loses a cricket match," he points out.

One is not in the mood for an argument and definitely not at a 30-year-old, quaint teashop in Sawantwadi. Waiting for the train back to Mumbai one played around with a few touch-me-nots on the platform and gazed at two white-breasted kingfishers and a small kingfisher before they flew away at the approach of the train.

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