Had planned on visiting the university early in the morning but overslept and reached only around noon. Stopped for the traditional pehelwan ki chai to begin the day with the right flavour if not the right note - a bittersweet symphony nevertheless.
The bike refused to start after stalling at a busy junction just before the "Z-Bridge" for two-wheelers. An SP college student, Virendra, helped get hold of a mechanic who fixed the battery connectors and get me back on track.
Returned late afternoon after getting procedural data on transcripts and contact info from the univ exam section. Packed and moved toward Panchgani through the Katraj Ghats to reach after dark but well before dinner time.
Riding south on the NH4 highway, this melting-butter-sun-on-golden-brown-toast was the evening snack till darkness came:
What first appeared to be a placid lake spilling over both sides of the road was actually a river, the surprisingly calm Nira, on its way to join the Bhima, and thence the Krishna to the Bay of Bengal. The Arabian sea is only about a hundred klicks west of its source so I'd like to think taking this eastern route suggests a certain adventurous streak in its nature. As a traveller, I take my helmet off to this spirit of adventure, which must be celebrated in its own right, revered as the Krishna is in the Deccan for its spirit of benevolence in bringing water to the driest interiors. The Godavari, another Deccan river treading the less beaten path, also has a similar aura as the Krishna.
The Nira riverline divides the districts of Pune in the north (the last village being Sarola by-the-bend) and Satara to the south. The reason these waters run still could be because this stretch is between two reservoirs - the Deoghar dam up the hills to the Vir dam 50 km downriver from here. It's a good idea to stop by the NH4 when the reedy grass appears at its flanks and wet your feet in the water that, lakeside-like, laps the mud bank.
Now there's a house would make a good retirement cottage:
The water farther the down the road may not be as serene, where it nears the bridge - a narrow one compared to the width of the river. It's a belt that costs less but keeps the spread under check, like the joke.
Q:- What did the Zero say to the Eight?
A:- Nice belt!
An east-side/west-side indecision sees waterbirds constantly flying back and forth over the bridge. The hills can be seen in the distance, now only about 10 km away.
A cool hill breeze hailed the arrival of Panchgani. "Too cool for school" may be the message as this is a town with a lot of boarding schools. In fact, I had first heard of Panchgani as the place where Farrokh Balsara, also known as Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British band Queen had studied. The boarding school was the St. Peter's school which these days runs a special tour around his school life.
January 2000 was my first and only visit to Panchgani, also coincidentally on motorcycles, with a group of college friends from Pune. Two of the friends had had their birthdays recently and the deal was that they would host the stay and food while transport would be the guests' own concern. Most people had two-wheelers so five motorcycles and one Kinetic-Honda scooter were arranged for a group of 12 guys. I was riding pillion with a fellow engineer and avid biker called Chhikara, one of the hosts, who had just bought a second-hand Yamaha RX-100. This was a two-stroke 98 cc motorcycle introduced in the 80's, popular for its power and speed. Most 100 cc motorcycle races in India were won by it till the entry of the Suzuki Shogun (which gave 14 bhp @ 110cc). This trip seemed like a great opportunity to map the RX 100's performance boundaries. Other owners had spoken of a 115 km/h top speed which we were looking to beat but found that even at full throttle the speedometer wouldn't cross the 98 km/h mark. We knocked on the dial to shake the needle out of its slumber and banked the bike so gravity would help the pointer along but it just didn't budge. Not meeting the psychological mark of 100 km/h was unacceptable and we had to come to the joint conclusion that the meter was faulty. We did reach Panchgani in under two hours though and made straight for the tableland as it was still early afternoon.
This time when we neared the town it was already dark and keeping an eye out for signboards we found a rest house on the hill road short of Panchgani chowk, with a friendly caretaker, Mr. Kadam:
There was a changing room attached with two mirrors angled in two corners. A bit of fog was creeping in the open windows and one wonders how smoky the hall of mirrors would become when night deepened.
Brought back packed dinner from Panchgani chowk which was still bright and alive but readying to close down soon. It took some searching to find a restaurant making good kadhai chicken, tastefully done onion rings and soft naans with the elusive texture at the midpoint of the two extremes of chewing-gum gooeyness and paapad-like brittleness.
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