Konkan … heaven of greenery ….contd.
This was just background of this region. Now we the visitors to this region after completing our tour at gopuri returned, yes of course we did not forget to purchase a few dozen alphonso mangoes, cashew nuts at the gopuri counter. And those mangoes were a la-treat to our palates. Any city dweller has to keep a restrain on the food for the first two or three days of the travel. The reason for this is that the fruits specifically jackfruit, mangoes, cashew nuts are so yummy that one tends to eat a little beyond the boundaries of the digestion system.
After tea, the same evening we i.e. our entire group left for poip. Poip is a place around 55 minutes drive from kankavli. It is equi-distant from kudal. Kudal is the next station after kankavli on the konkan railway track.
Piling our luggage and ourselves in two 6-seater cars, we drove towards poip. On the way, we watched the trees and grass, the vast expansion of land the smell of the earth.
We reached poip late evening the village seemed ready to go to bed, but one has to know that in a village whatever happens anywhere any corner it reaches the ear /eyes of all villagers. It looks silent on the outside. The house we lived was small ground floor house with a courtyard (padvi) a large hall with sofa chairs a dining table in one corner then a kitchen having gas, a bathroom, and a room for the gods. Three bedrooms, but as it was the summers we all slept in the open in the outside yard under the skies.


It was a very new experience to all. The chirping of the birds, the cuckoo singing. The clear blue sky the vast farm land with all the trees of mangoes, coconut, beetle nut, berries, the earth below without the touch of cement, experiencing all this we were happy to have taken the decision to come and stay here.
Earlier we had thought that we would be staying in a hotel at malwan and giving this place a day visit. But it has to be noted that many of the lodgings are very old fashioned but in places like malwan, ratnagiri etc one does find a few hotels good for your stay and for the pocket. After dinner, we all settled for a song performance by our cousin (house we had settled) and 3 members from our group. It should be observed here that people pf konkan have an inborn affiliation for the art like singing the tabla, the harmonium dancing and talking endlessly for hours on topics close to his heart like politics and social on goings in the surrounding. A Konkani will always discuss the most serious topic with a blend of humour.He will criticize, appreciate, Comment, everything with a pinch of humour. So the tabla harmonium was all set and the party continued until the wee hours of the morning.
We slept around 3.30am but in a village one always gets up with the first break of the sun’s rays.





The people of this region are Konkani. The language they speak is Konkani but the major portion of the Maharashtra konkan region speaks the malwani language. This malwani word derived from the “malwan” region. Malwan is a prominent and advance place/city in this region. .
People living in this area are of various caste sub caste and religion. The original residents are gramins or the Gramit or Gamit tribals of the Maharashtra Konkan; they live in the forestlands, now reduced to tribal, and "low caste. Gramit gramin originates from the word gramin, which means Grama or a village-
Another prominent caste of this region is the Marathas and the chittapavan kokanasth Brahmins. There are three subgroups among the Konkani Marathas - the Shahnav Kuli Marathas, the Kunbi Marathas and the Gomantak Marathas. The Marathas of this region are coming from different social strata the very rich, the rich and the lower middle class. People are quite friendly and hospitable They are happy with whatever they have ,are very peace loving and satisfied lot.
Now regarding our journey the next day, we toured the entire village and the surrounding area. There is a school primary and secondary. There is a church, could not find any mosques as I think there were no Muslims residing, but quite a few houses of the Christian community are found.


There is a big dam built with mud but it had no water in it (it was summer), also visited the mandir (temple) of gram devta (god of the village) on our way to the dam we notice that an entire jungle had been turned into ashes. This had happened due to a jungle fire (always a problem) due to scorching heat of the sun. The Konkani muslim.israelis Catholics are other such people living a peaceful life.
There are wadas or wadis in each village and people following a particular religion will prominently live clustered together in their own wadas /wadis. Like we have Brahman Wada (Hindus) kazi Wada (Muslim) teli wada (considered of a lower caste than Brahmans do) etc. In general as a village, they all share a good rapport with each other. The entire village celebrates urus, mela, bhandara, dashavtar etc,
Then there are the kolis (fisherfolks), gabits, aagris, mahaars, chambars, Buddhists, etc.
Let us take a break and happy blogging until next.