Echoes of Memory

More than a decade ago, in 2013, I participated in my first archaeological excavation. I had just appeared for my third year degree exams and was looking forward to joining a masters’ program the following academic year. It was the first time that I traveled by a ‘laal dabba’, the red local MSRTC bus. It was almost occupied by the time I managed to hop in so I sat on the seat beside the driver (what a thrill - if you know about their infamous driving!). It was an overnight journey from Mumbai Central to Mangaon, Raigad. My excitement was at its peak - finally getting to experience the archaeology life after studying the certificate course for a year! The destination was Chandore - a small village located near Mangaon in Raigad district. Archaeological investigations at this site uncovered remains of an Early Medieval-Medieval temple complex (plinths and plans) and a rock-cut step tank/ reservoir dating back to the Shilahara and the Bahamani rule in Maharashtra. You can read more about the excavations here. Today, I’m writing about my personal memories from the excavation camp. It took me many years to be able to put this into words because - it was also followed by a profound grief of my grandma passing away abruptly while I was on this excavation. I’m finally ready to look back and reminisce about the good times before the last vestiges of my memories of it fade into the distant past.

I was a part of the team that was excavating the site for the second consecutive season - in 2013. I was the youngest team member (21), the eldest being Shubha ma’am (in her mid 50s?) - a trained archaeologist who transitioned to a career in journalism, and returned back to archaeology later in life!! She was (is) a fellow classmate from the certificate course and such a source of inspiration - to never stop pursuing one’s passion. She lovingly called me her ‘usaachi bori’ (bag full of sugarcane). The other team members were Siddharth, Andre, Rajesh, Shilpa and Pallavi - all of whom were so much fun to be around and equally passionate about archaeology!! And then there was the excavation director (also my mentor), Dr. Kurush Dalal, Archaeologist and Culinary Anthropologist. He is, in my opinion, the best teacher and I’ve had the good fortune of learning from him. 

Our living arrangement was a modest cottage with a large mud courtyard attached to a farm. It had mango trees and cashew plantations among other crops (that I cannot seem to recollect). There was a small kitchen set up for tea/ coffee preparation and meals were had at a local resident - Kunda Maushi’s house, in the village. My highlight of staying in that cottage was sleeping in the courtyard under the open night skies, thousands of stars visible because there was no light pollution. As a city dweller I found it magical and would gaze at the skies, fighting sleep till I could! In the mornings we would walk through the plantations and explore our surroundings before getting ready for the digs. 

The mango trees (above) and the cashew plant (below) at the cottage where we camped.

During the day, we excavated and uncovered what turned out to be temple plinths built out of laterite blocks and other cultural materials like glass bangles, coins, potsherds, etc. The lunch breaks were an hour long when we would eat our meals in the shade of a nearby temple and get some much needed respite from the scorching Konkan heat (it was the month of May) before we headed out to the trenches again. Once back at the camp (the cottage) we would gather around and discuss the findings of the day, plans for the following day and then head out to help with dinner preps at Kunda Maushi’s home. The post dinner sessions were super interesting as Kurush sir would narrate to us little anecdotes from his college days and what excavations were like back then! On the day off, when there was no digging to be done, we would set out to survey the surrounding regions and map out and investigate any archaeological remains visible on the surface. 

A picture of me entertaining the baby of one of our daily wage workers during the lunch break, she's probably a teenager now :')

On one of the evenings after dinner, Kurush sir drove us to Vasav - an ice cream parlor in Mangaon where he said they served the best mango mastani! It was indeed the most delicious one I’ve ever had (mouth watering right now). While returning back to Chandore, we stopped the car at a point where there had been leopard sightings - hoping to see one ourselves. We waited there for 15-20 mins while sharing giggles over ‘what-if-the-leopard-comes-scenarios’ and then drove off to our destination. On another evening, my friend Rajesh and I were preparing the tea as usual but we’d run out of sugar so we decided to sweeten the teas with - was it mango pulp or mango jam? I don’t quite remember but it quickly turned into a ‘who can dare to drink this tea first’ kind of challenge! We all (almost all) ended up drinking it and having a hearty laugh about it. 

Chandore was also the place where I first encountered snakes - real up close. The first time was when I was doing the dishes in the kitchen and I noticed a dhaaman (rat snake) by the back door. It slithered out unharmed in the matter of a few minutes with some guidance from my fellow excavators. The second was when I wandered off from the excavation trenches during a break - and I came across a slender greenish coloured snake (don’t know what species as I can’t recollect exactly how it looked). It was half inside-half outside a crevice in a stone structure, and I saw that it was shedding its skin. It was almost about to complete the shedding so I just squatted to observe it and waited till it was gone inside the crevice. Thinking back, I was probably too naive being so close to a snake - not bothering to know if it was venomous! Since then I’ve come across snakes in almost every excavation/ exploration and grown to love them too. Whenever I see one I take a pause from whatever it is that I’m doing and observe it (from a safe distance), take pictures for later reference if possible and then try to find out the species and read about them. 

And lastly, of course digging in the dirt was the best part of it all! It was the first time I held a trowel and learned how to use it. That’s not all - I also handled tools like pickaxe because the soils in some regions are so compact that a trowel is not enough to excavate. It takes a lot of strength to dig in compact soils with pickaxes, by the way! We sorted the soil with bare hands to look for cultural material and once sorted we transferred it into heaps outside the trench before beginning the next dig. Then there's also documenting and recording the finds, structures, etc. It's a whole process and multitasking is one thing almost all archaeologists excel at! It may sound unintelligent, but to me, excavating is always akin to a feeling of childlike joy and excitement of what I might stumble upon. I’m not discussing the technical aspects of excavation here as this write up is not about my academic learning. Post excavation season, I had an opportunity to visit Chandore one more time - during the monsoon, on a rainy day. Although, on that visit I was more captivated by nature than archaeology as everything around me was so lush green, as if it were coming back to life after a prolonged wait!

A velvet mite (above) and some bird(?) eggs laid in a nest built inside a small niche in a stone structure (below); pictures from the monsoon visit.

Chandore was not just a first archaeological excavation - it was also a life changing experience where I fell head-over-heels in love with archaeology and everything else it had to offer - being in remote regions away from urban concrete jungles, eating food cooked with the hyperlocal fresh produce, engaging with the community, spending time in wooded areas, the clear night skies and just living completely in the moment. It marked the beginning of a series of life experiences that shaped who I am today. 

Cheers,

B.