We visited Dandeli recently, a reserve forest nestled between Goa and Karnataka. Since we did not have any train bookings – we did something that we have never done in India before– we took a road trip.
Taking the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on a pleasant monsoon morning was great. We stopped off a field by the expressway and watched the birds that seemed too busy early in the morning, chirping and restless, moving about what seemed purposeless, reminiscent of Mumbaikars. A mule grazed nearby oblivious to our existence.
As we moved on, we were first irritated by the Pune-Bangalore bypass traffic snarls and later by the several toll plazas. The road was not very bad except for a few ditches and some big pot holes. Don't take me very seriously here since we Mumbaikars are magnanimous when judging roads. After we crossed Maharashtra and entered Karnataka, we were pleasantly surprised by fewer toll plazas, beautiful road and significantly less toll. Here are some quick statistics:
• For 400 kilometers in Maharashtra we paid tolls exceeding Rs.350 and for 110 kilometres of the Karnataka stretch, we paid Rs.40
• The Karnataka stretch of NH-4 was in significantly better shape as opposed to the Maharashtra stretch and comparable to Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
• The Karnataka stretch was however far prettier than the Mumbai-Pune expressway with flowers planted on the divide and public toilets every few kilometres.
What does it tell us about Maharashtra? Take Mumbai for example. While Maharashtra is proud of Mumbai, it has done very little for the city after it became part of the state in 1960. Smart, ambitious and talented people have been attracted to the city making it one of those places where everyone gets a chance to realize his dream. This has led to tremendous amount of wealth in this city attracting the Maharashtrian politicians as well. They have used this city as a brothel and picked up their choicest whores as they pleased– be it the BCCI, BMC or Bollywood. Or be it real estate, underworld or unions. Most politicians have their ‘favorite’. Or else why would India’s richest city probably be the most corrupt? Consider this…
• RTO starts a ‘drive’ on faulty meters. Good but the poor fellas had no political back-up. The auto rickshaws go on strike. So it’s like you and I going on strike as we were caught drinking and driving. Shiv Sena and MNS, self appointed bastions of Marathi manoos, threat the auto rickshaws – a good two weeks after the agitation started. They bang down a rick or two – and you can make out it’s clearly for photo opp. Next day you hear that the fares are hiked. Commuters keep wondering what they got for those fare hikes. Were faulty meters better instead?
• Mumbai is the only city in India that I know off that charges its residents and visitors Rs.30 per car when you want to go in or out of the city. I could never figure this one out.
• I am told that Sharad Pawar is the richest man of the world.
• I am also told that the recent spat between Seven Hills Hospitals and the BMC is a result of the hospital authorities refusing to pay bribe to a BMC senior official. And here is the funny part. They argued that they had already paid huge sums of money to a leading political party that controls BMC.
• The Maharahstra politicians are taking Saudi’s Mutawas (Moral Police) very seriously. They shut down dance bars which by the way resulted in increased prostitution. The recent one is that state excise taxes on alcohol in Maharashtra are so high, that alcohol is dearer by at least 30% when compared to rest of India.
• As a contrast, Mumbai is also probably the only city where you can travel from Andheri to Churchgate (35 kilometers) paying just Rs.8. And this is because railways comes under central and not state government.
Thank you so much for that.
