Enchanting caves of Elephanta !!

I happen to be in Mumbai for 6 months to pursue my diploma in gemology, every weekend hangouts were for sure with my PG pals n course mates to different places in and around Mumbai, and once we decided to visit Historical Monument the Elephanta Caves, which would be a lovely daycation.

  

         It was a Sunny Sunday, a day in midst of April we left to Elephanta Caves, as journey was of an hour+, Hired a cab till Gate way of India which is on Mumbai Harbor, spent 150 bucks each and bought twin journey tickets to travel in Ferry boat which is the only way to reach out Elephanta Caves, were asked to rush towards Apollo Bunder and the ferry boat with its passengers was ready to departure from the dock. We occupied a front seat which was luckily vacant and which gave me a boat driver feel who’s sailing through the great Arabian Sea. Within the couple of minutes the boat slowly moved away from the dock, and picked up its speed. After few mins, on turning back, a lovely panorama of Gateway of India, two huge builds of Hotel Taj and several ferry boats on the harbor were visible.

         

On the way we were able to see many huge ships carrying crude n other cargo moving around in different directions. It was just a great experience traveling across a mighty Arabian Sea.

  

Now lemme describe a bit about Elephanta caves, these are located on an island which is situated nearly 10 kms away towards east from the Gateway of India shoreline; it takes around 50 mins to reach this island. This island is named after a colossal elephant found in the island, which is popularly known as ‘Gharapuri’.   Portuguese named this caves as Elephanta on seeing the huge gigantic statue of an elephant head at entrance. And now this statue is housed at Jijamata Garden in Mumbai. These caves are datable from circa 6th – 7th centuries A.D. (as mentioned in guide booklet). And here comes the island..

  We got down on to the island and we were surrounded by the local guides, restaurant waalas n many other. On seeing the local guides who were just teenagers, I recalled a typical scene from movie “Slum dog Millionaire” were in   a  so called guide Jamal Malik tells a cock n bull story about Taj Mahal to foreign tourists n loot them like anything,,lol,,!  The small hillock which was visible from coast of a lovely island is the one on which caves are situated, we had to cover a distance of couple of kms to reach in close proximity of the hill, to cover this small distance we had two options i.,e either by a toy train or by walk and we choose to walk, as there were many stalls of handicrafts and few artiste along with which we headed towards the hill, most of the stalls for ladies products, only few of them sold some foolish quotes n one-liner t shirts which didn’t interest me, just around a couple of meters away I got a shop which were selling antiques, murals but the only things which were visible to me in varieties was, a hookah, cigar n chillum pipes, a small portable wooden carved pipe which can be used for all 3 purpose was one which I liked the most, negotiated it from 250 bucks to 100 n purchased it,  this would be the best gift I can give to one of  my close buddy Kiran, who's fond of collecting such antiques.

Along with window shopping, in next 20 mins we were on the main entrance of caves. Here again we were surrounded by some local ladies who were selling unsealed mineral water bottles and butter milk aka (Desi daaru) at just 5 bucks per bottle, Ignored them and moved a head to buy entrance tickets. 10 bucks per head was a cost if ticket which included the visit of all seven caves of Elephanta. The information board near by ticket counter said that this cave was renovated in the 1970s and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 to preserve the artwork. It is currently maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India

The Main entrance to first cave

 Beginning with the first and the mammoth temple which was sculpted in a huge deep cave with  huge courtyard, several pillars,  and corridors in it.  It consisted of many figurines of lord Shiva, and Vishnu which were partially damaged.

Partial Damaged figurine of Lord Vishnu

Lord shiva in Nataraj Avtar

The most eye-catchy and center of attraction was 3 headed Shiva which renders him as the creator, the preserver and the destroyer of the universe.

 There is also a Gigantic shiv lingam which is guarded by two huge Dwarpalak( The Guards) on its entrance which were destructed partially,   

The 4 cardinal direction entrance to Maha Lingam

 All the caves are beautiful in their own way and its pretty difficult to pen down its beauty.     

A top view of a cave from the mountain.

A sea and a harbor from the highest peak of  the island.

  It took around couple of hours  visiting all different caves, spent some time in restaurant munching some snacks, and moved on to the harbor back were the ferry boats were ready to sail.We were lucky enough to see the sun set and even Mumbai was visible in blur from boat while our return.

Softly the evening came with the sunset.