Exploring all those unexplored places around Pune and missing most obvious place like Balaji-Narayanpur was not done and so I made a weekend afternoon plan. Best thing about the trip was, I had my mom with me. We left home in the afteroon and took Pune-Satara highway.
To reach Balaji-Narayanpur (From Pune) –
Take Pune-Satara Highway (NH-4).- Travel some 35Kms to reach village ‘Kapurhol’.
- Turn left turn from here to reach village Ketkawale’.
- Travel more 12Kms to reach Balaji Temple.
Note: There is also another road to Balaji from village Saswad. Road is Pune-Hadapsar-Saswad-Narayanpur-Ketkawale(Balaji).
We reached Balaji and parked our vehicle in parking area. Balaji temple is replica of actual Tirupati Balaji temple in the south. The majestic walls in white marble and typical Gopur structure are amazingly beautiful. We joined the queue and after going through all those security measure we finally reached garbhalay. The standing idol of Balaji is royal and awesome. The upalay (surrounding area around main temple) has small temples of deities like Mahalakshmi, Padmawathi, Krishna, Kuber, etc. We took prasad and enjoyed divine and clean ambience at the temple.
Our next destination was Narayanpur. We took the Ketkawale-Saswad road. Glimpses of Purandar made me think of Sambhaji Maharaj again. In fact, Kapurhol village itself reminded me of ‘Dharau’. Dharau was a village woman from Kapurhol who was brought to fort Purandar for feeding him (baby Sambhaji) after death of his mother Saibai. Dharau stayed with Chatrapati’s family for quite long till her old age. I accelerated down to zero and stopped by to click some snaps.
Evening became pleasant. I was driving towards east and was exceptionally beautiful sunset in the back mirror. I didn’t want to waste time by getting down and got an instant idea to capture it in my car’s mirror itself.
We reached Narayanpur and visited Narayaneshwar temple. This is very ancient Shiva temple and the gabhara has gupta (hidden) Shiva-linga. Above it, there is golden shiva-linga gifted to the temple by Shivaji Maharaj’s mother Jijabai. We also visited adjacent ‘Ek-mukhi (single faced) Datta’ mandir. The standing idol of Lord Datta is worth seeing.
We started our return journey and took a ‘wadaa-paav’ break at famous ‘Joshi Wadewale’ near Khed-Shivapur village. It was quick and content trip.
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