Kelve beach on Western Railway is famous among Mumbaikars. Danda Khadi is 9 km from Kelve station on Western Railway and 1 km from Kelve village. Get down at Kelve station and take rickshaw or ST bus to Kelve village. After crossing the Danda Khadi bridge while proceeding from Kelve Shitladevi temple, there are very few remains of Kittal Fort in the village on the right hand side and those remains are also scattered in three parts of the village. The remains of two places are bastion-like and two-storied. One of these bastion is hexagonal in shape and the other is round. In the ruins of the third place, the foundations of a large wada (huge mansion) can be found. It was the mansion of the Portuguese governor. The building in which Portuguese laws were made has now become a toilet and a dustbin. The settlement near these ruins is predominantly Muslim. ... At present Danda Kittal Fort is used as a toilet by the locals, so seeing the fort is a challenge. Kittal Fort is entangled in the bushes along Danda Bay. From the remains available in the so called fort, which is a Vakhar. Its appearance has changed due to the fall of the protective walls around it. This structure must have been built to store the goods that arrived by waterway in the Danda area. The forts, Fortresses, old administrative buildings in the Danda area are built in a parallel line to the creek. A special feature found in the construction of this fort is the grooved section or Dalan (storage area). Its interior has a sitting arrangement parallel to the wall and other areas have space for storing goods. There is confusion about the name of these forts as there are Portuguese remains in four sections in the vicinity of Danda village. On the way from Kelve to Bhawanigad, after crossing the Danda creek bridge, the ruins on the left hand side are Danda Fort and the scattered ruins on the right hand side of the village are Danda Kittal Fort. Along with other forts in this area, this fort was built by the Portuguese. Using all these small forts, watchtowers, the Portuguese established their empire along the North Konkan sea route. The fort is small and can be seen in fifteen to twenty minutes. Built by the Portuguese around the 16th century, the main purpose of these small forts and watchtowers was to provide necessary logistics to other forts in the Datiware to Manor region. On January 10, 1739, after the victory over Mahim Fort in the Vasai campaign of 1739 AD, the Kelve fort area was captured by the Marathas and the Portuguese were eliminated from this area. One who comes here with purpose of seeing a fort is likely to be disappointed, but if one wants to see the Portuguese watch post on the ancient sea trade route and its geographical importance, one must visit this place. The ancient reference to the region of Danda is as 'Danda Rishadigan'.
© Suresh Nimbalkar