ONE of the nicest hill-stations I have seen in India, is Panhala in Maharashtra, a small little hill town 20 kilometres outside of Kolhapur on the highway to Goa. It is beautiful because of its location, and historic because of the Fort Panhala, one of the 29 that Chhatrapati Shivaji had in Maharashtra and over which he was forever engaged in battles with the Mughals.

I drove over from Kolhapur, past sunflower fields and sugarcane crops, where workers sang in smoking factories and made jaggery. It is a 30-minute drive before the car arrives at the Panhala Outpost Naka at the foot of the hill.

The lone statue of a Maratha warrior with sword upraised guards the outpost. This is Maratha territory. But it is also Mughal.

An old mosque called Sadobar, where the Emperor Aurangzeb once prayed, still stands here besides a tank of greenish water. The population of Panhala is 60 per cent Muslim, the rest is Brahmin, but they live in great amity. The days of fighting are over. Up the hill, some 3,627 feet high, you come to Fort Panhala. It belonged to Aurangzeb before Shivaji captured it in 1500. The story goes that this is where he clawed Afzal Khan to death in one of history�s great battles. Now the fort is a picnic spot though its watch tower (called Du Tondi, meaning two faces) still looks somewhat forbidding.

But I wasn�t there to explore the fort and go over Maratha history. I was checking out Valley View Grand, a hotel built in 1995 there by Saroj and Soli Engineer of the Grand Hotel in Bombay.

Saroj is the late Marathi film-maker V. Shantaram�s daughter. And where the Valley View Grand today stands was once Shantaram�s bungalow. It used to be called Rajkamal, like his film studio in Bombay. It is a very old property and the late film-maker�s ashes are buried somewhere in the four acres of saucer-shaped gardens called Tabak Udyan.

The morning I was there, neither of the Engineers was available to show me around, instead there was Solomon Robinson, the manager of Valley View Grand. He first made me comfortable with a plate of Kolhapur kande-bhaji and kadak green tea. Then he led me on a tour of the hotel and the ramparts of the Fort Panhala. It is difficult to figure out where the fort ends and the hotel begins, unless you spend time there going over the place with a toothcomb.

Solomon pointed out a room where Shantaram stayed and in whose dungeons Sambhaji, Shivaji�s son, was said to be incarcerated. He showed me the Marathas� escape route for when the fort was attacked: a dark and dank tunnel carved into the hill. It ran from the dungeons, under the hotel, and came out some distance away. I took two steps in and shivered. Perhaps the ghosts of the warriors killed in battles of the past still lurked around! I hesitated to go further.

Besides, outside was the better place to be. And outside was a riot of colour, birds sang in glorious voices and bright bougainvillaea clawed its way up the sloping roofs of Valley View Grand�s cottages that stood peacefully in the dappled sunshine. The hotel has 31 rooms including five cottages, all well-appointed with attached baths, satellite TV, and all the other facilities a city five-star may offer. The rooms are either standard, bungalow or cottage. There are also standard air-conditioned rooms. �Though you don�t really need air-conditioning in Panhala,� Solomon said. �It�s very pleasant throughout the year. Winters, it gets extremely cold.�

The tariffs of the rooms are pretty reasonable. From Rs. 900 for a bungalow room to Rs. 1,600 for a cottage room, you take your pick. Or get Solomon to work out a package for you. In the off-season, which is almost five months of the year, between July and September and February to March, they offer further discounts on the rooms. Though the hotel is really popular, it gets guests from Bombay and Pune nearby, and also from cities in Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa. In the off-season, the hotel is opened for block bookings, conferences, seminars and training programmes.

This is one hotel and hill-station people go to because both are peaceful beyond imagination. Panhala is also absolutely pollution-free, and scenic enough to overwhelm the senses. Now the food: the hotel has one large dining room that could also be described as a restaurant. The Maharashtrian cooks here are experts at Kolhapuri cuisine, but they also produce fairly outstanding Chinese and Continental menus. And a very comprehensive barbecue in the evenings that is done out in the open, in a garden overlooking the valley. �Drink one glass of crystal clear stream water after your meal, two hours later you will be hungry again,� said Solomon with a grin.

According to him most of the hill-station including the Panhala fort is under maintenance by the forest department. And the effort to keep it like what it must have been in Shivaji�s time is constantly there. Now how do you get to this enchanting hotel in Panhala? Like I said, I drove over from Kolhapur, though it not too far from Goa too. The road from Bombay to Panhala takes about eight hours. From Goa, it is about five hours. There is a rail service from Bombay to Kolhapur with two excellent trains, the Sahyadri Express and the Mahalaxmi Express, departing from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Bombay every day. The Valley View Grand will pick you up from the Kolhapur station and deposit you in Solomon Robinson�s care in lesser time than you think.

Valley View Grand,
Tabak Baug,
Panhala 416 201,
Kolhapur.
Telephone: (02328) 35036/ 35325/35327.
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.grandhotelbombay.com

Bookings can be made at:
Grand Hotel
Ballard Estate, Bombay 400 038.
Tel: 22618211/22613558.

Gypsy Caterers
New P. M. Terminus
Dahanukar Colony, Kothrud.
Tel: 0212-5383868.