Stop asking the wrong questions!

Extracts from "The Inner Journey".

Sometimes we ask questions for which we really don’t want the answer! Nonetheless, when we ask a question, our subconscious minds will get to work to answer us.

Here are some examples of questions we want to avoid:

- What’s wrong with me?
- How long could this take?
- What could go wrong?
- How much trouble could it be?
- How hard could it be?


Asking questions can be empowering – as long as they’re smart questions!

"The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions."

-- Anthony Jay

Prashant lets meet at panvel instead for this place!!

From panvel go to thakurwadi from panvel (6 20 am ka bus)
Kalavantin Durg is adjacent to Prabalgad fort. On the Mumbai Pune express highway one can take the Shedung exit. Shedung is the base village of Prabal and Kalavantin forts. The trek is a 3 hours (a lot less actually) climb from here. You need to trek up the machi and from the village on machi there are rock cut steps which lead us to the top of the fort.
We reached Panvel at around 8:00am from Dadar, it's 70 min. journey from Dadar by local ST bus. We reached Vardoli via Shendug (14kms from Panvel) by 9:00am. Instead of Thakurwadi we took another simple route which is on the right side of the Prabal. It's a one hr. walk from little ahead of the Hospital to the Machi village where around 25 houses clustered. From this village one can have a closer look of Kalawantinicha Durg to the left & Prabal on right. Kalawantinicha Durg looks little challenging from here but their exist rock cut staircase till the top. This is a small fort & I guess it must be part of prabal Since it was almost attached to the Prabalgadh. Even "Trek the Sahayadri" didn't mentioned about this fort. I got this info from "Dongar Yatra" by Anand Palade's book. From the machi one can see Karanala Pinnacle on the West.
As per other books reference due to the dense jungle it was suggested to take local guide, we didn't find anybody in the Machi village at this time. So we decided to find our own way. It took 3 hrs. to reach on the top from Machi comfortably. We had our Vanbhojan (Lunch) & little rest near a Water cistern from where one can see a some part of fortification including the viewpoint. From this view we found really it was a big fort & it should take a day to explore the fort completely. After lunch he went ahead the right side end point of the fort from where one can get a beautiful top-to-bottom view of the Kalawantinicha durg with the zig-zag rock cut staircase. One can see a water cisterns in between the steps. From this point one can get the complete view starting from Matheran, Nakhind, Chanderi, Mhasmal, Navara-Navri Pinnacle, Hajimalang From East to North. Also the famous Karnala pinnacle on the west. Since this small view point with no shed, one cannot spend more time, we also returned back. We wanted to explore the other side area where we saw the fortification but at that time the sun was very harsh on us, so we decided to return back from the same way. We returned back to the Vardoli by 5:30pm. Then by local ST bus, which arrived at 6:00pm took us to Panvel in next 40 min. From here we dispersed to respective places. This was the last trek of this season. On the way while return back we found a different personality who shared his experience of the bike expedition from Delhi to Mumbai how he experienced after hearing our after trek talk. He was happy to knew that their are some like minded people around.

Kalawantin Durg16th Mar 2003
This was a small exploratory trek undertaken with reference to our last trek of Prabal Gadh. The view point of Prabal located at the north end from where one can have an amazing top view of Kalawantinicha Durg. The shape looks like "Shivling", with rock cut steps till the top. This place is on the left of the Prabal Gadh.
Our Journey till Thakurwadi was same as mentioned in the Prabal Article above. From the Machi village we took a straight route which goes to the col between Kalawantinicha durg & Prabal
From the col the fort looks like a pinnacle wall where carved steps in the rock shows a systematic entrance on the durg. The steps are steep with the exposure. Most of the steps are almost 2 ft. high. Once the rock cut steps complete then we tackled with the scree to reach on the base of rock massif. Extreem care one should take while reaching the rock base(more care should be taken while descending). From here to reach on the top of the boulders, one needs to do rock climbing of about 15 ft. From the top, on the other side using rope one can descend down to reach a caves. From top to the south a close look of Prabal view point one can see. Rest views are similar as mentioned in the prabal article reference to the view point views of the surrounding area like Matheran, Peb Nakhind, Chanderi, Mhsamal, Navra Navri, Tavli, Malang Gadh etc.