Vijay Deenanath Chauhan’s Home

beaches,lined with fishing boats,palm-fringed bays and coconut groves is like any other along the Konkan coastline.

While Agneepath made Mandwa famous,off screen its claim-to-fame lies in its proximity to one of Mumbai’s favourite weekend holiday destinations,Alibaug. For revellers heading for Alibaug,which boasts of having second homes of most of Mumbai’s rich and famous people,the nearby Mandwa jetty is the connecting point.

Spread across a 5-kilometre radius,Mandwa is dotted with hutments and concrete structures. The winding bylanes,however,mostly remain deserted since the closest marketplace is in Alibaug,7 kilometres away. The weekends and holidays witness a frenzy of activity with an influx of tourists from Mumbai.

Due to its porous coastline,Mandwa was once considered a soft spot for smuggling boats to unload their goods. While these activities ended in the 70s,the perception,fuelled by Agneepath,has stayed in the popular psyche. Yet much to the dissatisfaction of its residents,the film established Mandwa as a backward village and the centre for a crime syndicate.

“Smuggling is an old story. That generation is dead and gone,” snaps the village head’s wife,Vatsala Namdev Koli. “Such nefarious activities were common in every coastal village,” she adds.

Mumbai historian Deepak Rao is sympathetic. “This village,too far from the main Gujarat port,guarded furiously by the navy,and a preferred holiday destination of the rich since those days,was never a prominent location to unload smuggled goods,” he explains. Nevertheless,our guide promptly points to the spot which was frequented by the smuggling boats.

In contrast to the popular perception,the roads are well-maintained and lined with beach-facing resorts and hotels. Huge bungalows — fenced and secluded — belonging to Mumbai’s A-listers,can be spotted every few metres. “Sachin Tendulkar,Vijay Mallya,the Tatas,the Kotaks,Sharad Pawar — they all have bungalows close to the jetty,” says Uttam S Patil,an auto-rickshaw driver-cum-tourist guide.

Mandwa experienced a tourism boom in the early 1990s when the Maharashtra government started the waterway connecting it with Mumbai. The village has since prospered and also witnessed a growth in the realty sector. As a result,Mandwa also witnessed reverse migration. Jayantilal Parmar was a resident of Mumbai’s Dharavi but decided to shift base to Mandwa two decades ago. He now runs a cloth shop here. “The locals now have the purchasing power,” he explains.

Agneepath’s impressions of Mandwa when Bachchan’s character Vijay was a young boy,however,may be closer to reality. “We had electricity but it was limited,and very few people went to school as the closest one was in Alibaug,” Koli recounts. Even today,Mandwa has one only school with classes up to Class VIII and the villagers travel to the town to avail hospital facilities.

Incidentally,Mandwa,despite its scenic location,has never been a favoured shooting locale. In fact,neither the original Agneepath nor the recent remake were shot there. Only portions of a handful films,including Ram Balram and Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi were filmed there. Karan Malhotra,director of the new Angeepath explains,“During our recce,Mandwa proved too congested. But the name of the place sounds so fantastical,especially the way Mr Bachchan says it in the film,that it is impossible to not be taken in by Mandwa.”