Time and Tide

The Siddhi tribe actually built an impenetrable mud fort along coastal Mahrashtra?

Wrapping up my small film on this unique tribe sounded perfect.

At age 25, in the year 2000, I was shooting a  series of films for Discovery Channel on some little known facts about India.I was returning from Gir Forest, at the heart of Gujarat, known for being a sheltered habitat of the Indian Tiger as well as home to this little known tribe.

The Abyssinian Siddhi tribe is a miniscule ethnic group that traces its origins to the Bantu tribe of East Africa. They are said to have been brought to India by the Portuguese as slave labour and then established their roots in certain specific regions, the interiors of Gir forests being one such area. The fort at Murud Janjira, on an oval shaped rock off the coast of the Arabian Ocean, is a testimony to their power and architectural genius, which was far ahead of its time.

One can only access this fort by boat, and since I was with a camera crew from Bombay, I needed a host of other bureaucratic permissions as well. My producer, a man not known for monetary largesse, had already pre-paid for a 6 hour permission to shoot inside the fortress and the clock was ticking.

My adventure began half way through my journey to Murud, along the Bangalore- Mumbai highway, since my camera person got suddenly taken unwell, doubling over with a severe stomach ache. With time ticking away for travel and our trip ostensibly being mapped out, I found myself literally stopping at every little hamlet I could find to enquire if there was a doctor who could tend to what I feared might be appendicitis.

Finally, at the fifth stop we were shown to a government doctor who gave an injection that would make him drowsy but provide pain relief.

It was a blur of activity getting to the port and finding our ferry with the agent who had our permission to enter and shoot. My challenge was now to wake up a very groggy cameraman and get him to shoot external shots of the fort as we approached it from the sea. He was sporting enough through his haze of sleep to agree to be pinched everytime I felt he was falling asleep. We had already lost three hours of shoot time and now had a lot to cover before our time ran out. We could not get back to shore during high tide and would be stranded at the Fort!

The extent of power this marine stronghold must have exercised is evident from the three of five hundred and seventy two canons that still remain. Made from a combination of five metals or ‘panchdhatu’, these canons never got heated so could be fired repeatedly. They had a range of twelve kilometres out to sea. A kilometre long underwater tunnel to the nearest village was recently sealed by the government.

The fort had two major entrances flanked with ornate carvings of animals. There was rather a grand three storey structure where court was held which is now in ruins.

It struck me as ironic while the guard was showing us  the ‘Darya Darwaza’, a doorway which opens into the sea and was probably used as an emergency escape that we were looking to do precisely that!

I was relieved to find my cameraman was well on the verge of waking up after a three hour black sleep and another 3 hours where he was shooting through his sleep- prompted and supervised by me pinching his arm black and blue every five minutes.

We still debate where the greatness really lay- in the Siddhi tribe building the mud fort or in my getting caught by a demonic urgency to finish the shoot at breakneck speed and emerge victorious within the time frame, so as not to have to pay for another round of permissions. He tells me he has never allowed anyone to pinch him since that day.