By Philip Das
I came to Mumbai expecting noise. After all, Mumbai is a city that seems to have been built on the belief that silence is a waste of time.
The traffic never really stops. Horns have conversations of their own. People walk with purpose, cars squeeze through spaces that don’t appear to exist, and somehow everyone seems to know exactly where they are going.
Except me.
I am usually still trying to figure out where I am. But then I left the madness of Mumbai and travelled about 80 km out towards Karjat. And suddenly, India changed. But I’m still in the same state of Maharashtra.
I found myself at a place called Tiki Farms in Karjat. It is not quite what the name suggests.
When I first heard “Tiki Farms”, I imagined something rather rustic, a farm, probably a few cows, some chickens, a vegetable garden and someone shouting at me to get out of the way because I was standing where they wanted to park the tractor. Instead, I discovered something quite different.
Tiki Farms is a six-acre tropical retreat set among mango orchards and more than 50 varieties of tropical plants. But what makes it unusual is the idea behind it. Sitanshu Singh, the owner, has taken a little piece of Polynesia and planted it in Maharashtra.
There are Tiki statues, tropical décor and buildings inspired by islands such as Tahiti, Rarotonga, Upolu and Hawaii. I have travelled quite a bit in my life, but I never expected to find Polynesia in Karjat. Life does surprise you.
And maybe that is one of the pleasures of travelling. You leave home thinking you know what you are going to find. Then India gives you something else.
Tiki Farms has cottages, a large bungalow for groups, two swimming pools, a restaurant, lawns and spaces for celebrations. There is even a sports area where guests can play cricket, badminton, volleyball and football. There is a community centre with indoor games.
There are guided walks along the Ulhas River. And there is a bonfire area for evenings under the stars. But strangely, none of that is what caught my attention first. It was the trees.
Sitting on the patio of one of the chalets, I began to feel something I had almost forgotten existed. Quietness. Real quietness.
The wind moved gently through the branches of the mango trees, creating a soft rustling sound that sounded almost like distant music. Somewhere far away, a frog began to croak. He sounded lonely. I waited for another frog to answer. Nothing.
Perhaps he had been rejected. Maybe he was calling the wrong number!
Or frogs, like human beings, sometimes simply talk without expecting an answer. I sat there listening. And I began to understand why someone would create a place like this.
The official story of Tiki Farms talks about Polynesian culture, storytelling, celebration and the connection between people and nature. But sitting there, I thought the real luxury was much simpler. Silence.
We spend so much of our lives trying to escape silence. We turn on the television. We play music. We check our phones. We answer messages. We make phone calls. We talk. And when there is nothing left to say, we scroll.
Our phones have become so important that even when we go on holiday, they come with us. We call it getting away. Our phones call it staying connected.
I looked across the mango orchard. There was nothing spectacular happening. No famous monument. No traffic jam. No crowd.
Nobody trying to persuade me to buy something. Just trees. The wind and a frog.
And the darkness slowly settling over the farm. And somehow, it was beautiful. For beauty doesn’t always announce itself. It simply sits quietly beside you and waits for you to notice. Later I discovered that there is a restaurant here called Mai Kai.
The name itself sounds as though I should be sitting somewhere in Hawaii wearing a garland of flowers and drinking something with a little umbrella in it. Instead, I am in Maharashtra at Tiki Farms.
It is India looking at Polynesia and saying, “Why not?” The restaurant follows the same tropical theme, with Indian, Asian and Continental food. Which, when you think about it, is rather appropriate. India has always been good at taking the best of the world and making it its own.
I was told that Tiki Farms also hosts weddings, corporate gatherings and private celebrations. The lawns are enormous. There is a 26,000-square-foot lawn with a stage and another large open lawn for bigger functions.
So, this isn’t simply a place where people come to sleep. It is a place where people come to celebrate. But sitting there that evening, I wasn’t interested in celebrating anything.
I was interested in doing nothing. And that is something we don’t do enough. Doing nothing has become a lost art. We feel guilty when we are not productive. If we sit quietly for half an hour, we wonder whether we should be answering an email.
Just stare at a tree, and we wonder why we are wasting time. If we sit by a river, we take out our phone and photograph it.
We should occasionally leave the phone in the room and simply look. Look at the trees. Look at the sky. Listen to the wind.
Listen to a frog searching for a companion.
I thought about Mumbai. The city had been everything I expected it to be: exciting, colourful, chaotic, exhausting and wonderfully alive. Mumbai makes you feel alive by keeping you on the move.
Tiki Farms makes you feel alive by making you stop. And perhaps we need both. We need the excitement of the city. But occasionally we need somewhere that tells us: Slow down, just sit, breathe and listen to the sounds of nothingness.
The night had become cooler. The mango trees moved gently in the breeze. And then the frog started again. Croak, a pause and then again, another croak. I began to wonder whether he wasn’t looking for a friend at all.
Maybe he was simply enjoying the peace, sitting there, just like me, thinking about life. Although, to be honest, I suspect his thoughts were probably considerably simpler. Food, water and out of the blue, mate and then sleep! I guess the frog has figured life out better than the rest of us.
I smiled. Tomorrow I will return to Mumbai, back to the traffic and the horns. People walking quickly as though someone has announced that there is only one train left in the entire city. As for tonight, I am staying here.
At Tiki Farms. Somewhere between Mumbai and the countryside, between India and Polynesia. Somewhere between noise and silence. And perhaps, for one evening at least, somewhere between the person I have been and the person I am still becoming.
The wind moved through the mango trees once more. The frog answered. And I decided not to ask any more questions. Some evenings are better enjoyed without an explanation at Tiki Farms, I guess.
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