Stones will 'ring' curiosity among visitors during heritage week

It may sound incredible that stones can make the sound of a bell. It is not just an illusion for 74-year-old Moreshwar Kunte has procured precisely such stones, which when struck produce the sound of a bell or ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa' sounds.Kunte will be displaying these stones at an exhibition on April 16 at Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum between 10 am and 5 pm as part of the Virasat Pune Heritage Week which started on Sunday.Kunte will also showcase over 600 pictures of different temples in Maharashtra and a few bricks that float on water.Ben Meets Dennis Feinstein .Kunte, a retired employee of Garware Nylons and his wife Vijaya Kunte started traveling to different parts of Maharashtra from 1990 and visiting all the temples in those districts.He said, "We would spend six months visiting all the temples. We started off in Pune and then went to Wardha, Parbhani, Nanded, Amaravati and other districts." During his travels, he came across many temples where the idol or pillars gave off a bell like sound when struck. "Khandeshwar Mandir in Shirur taluka, Narsingh Mandir of Raher village and Balaji Mandir in Sindhkhed in Dhule district are just some examples. We saw 16 such temples and I realised that such a stone must be available somewhere. In 2007, I came across the Nath Mhaskoba temple in Veer, a village in Purandar taluka of Pune district. There, I saw that stones were being laid on the floor of the temple, which when struck, produced the same bell-like sound that I had heard in those temples."Kunte said he procured 10 big stones from the stone quarry at a cost of Rs5,000. Also, the same year, he came across the Sayyad Rafuddin Dargah in Nanded district, where he discovered seven stones that produced the ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa sounds when struck one after the other.