Gargoti - one of the wonders of the world !

I had been to Nashik recently for a short two day trip. And visiting this place called Gargoti was one of the items on our agenda !

Gargoti is located near a place called Sinnar on the Pune-Nashik highway. In the malegaon MIDC area, lies this small building - not too much rush, not so popular as yet - but you can hardly guess what lies inside unless you get to see it.

It is a museum which houses a collection of various stones and semi-precious, precious stones, gems collected from many areas in Maharashtra and some from outside India. It is quite a large collection which would take one around 2 hours to see carefully and appreciate the beauty of nature. Most of the rocks kept there are those which have been found accidently during excavations. They charge Rs. 100 for an individual visitor and Rs. 50 per person for a group of 3 or more people. But what lies inside is worth much more than that probably !

What the guide there told us is that while mining for normal Basalt rock, one can come across those pieces of rock - more beautiful than any piece of art one can make ! It is unbelievable that the earth can hide such beauty within apparently uninteresting black Basalt rock.

We got to see rocks of all types - various shapes, sizes, colours - just about everything one ca ever imagine. From very delicate needle like rock structures romed from cooling of hot lava to solid sedimentary rocks found in rivers, which would be weighing in tons ! Many of the pieces were found in and around Nashik, some near Mumbai, near Pune - everywhere where mining is carried out. Nature seems to have found a perfect way of hiding its underlying beauty from the outer world - the most delicate and beautiful rocks are found inside hollow cavities in larger basalt rocks which keep them protected from the outside world until some basalt rock is broken into smaller pieces accidently. Inside those cavities are housed so many colours, formed by the mixture of various minerals in the hot lava juices while the rock is formed which imparts the specific properties to the rock - mainly its colour. At Gargoti, they claim they haven't done anything to the rocks except for washing them correctly under pressured water streams - so what we get to see is 100 % percent natural ... and there is no reason not to believe them - the best artist in the world would also be unable to make those kind of rock forms !

Really, they call the place one of the wonders of the modern world, which houses the most ancient rocks on earth - surfaced recently though - and the place deserves this recognition. The worst part was that they allowed Cameras inside and I didn't have one ! Really sad ... but those wonderful works of His art would remain in my memory for a long long time - thats for sure.