Sleepless in Mumbai

A highway can mean different things to different people. I found that the story changed every few kilometres on the Pune-Bangalore highway. The road that runs south through Maharashtra, cutting through sugarcane country and emerging urban centres like Kohapur, has touched lives in different ways and affected electoral priorities.

Lakshman Pandhare, deputy sarpanch of Garade village, says water supplies are desperately short. Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar for Hindustan Times.

Lakshman Pandhare (60), deputy sarpanch of Garade village, 220 km south of Mumbai, squints to see through the darkness that has engulfed the gram panchayat (village council) office at 11 in the morning. Power cuts, he explains, often last up to 16 hours a day.

The highway, says Pandhare, has changed the way they sell their crops.  It would take villagers all day to get to the Pune market earlier. “Now, we can leave early in the morning and return by 10 am,” he says.

This, points out Vidyadhar Ambedkar, manager of the Union Bank of India’s Garade branch, has resulted in a 30-40 per cent rise in savings. Checking the data on a flashing computer screen, he says deposits have risen from Rs 4 crore three years ago to Rs 5.30 crore today.

But, points out Pandhare, there are larger issues that overshadow the highway’s benefits for Garade’s 5,000 residents.

Inadequate rainfall has left their fields parched. “We have water only for 15 days. We desperately need a few small dams in this region. Highways can bring markets and hospitals closer, but the government should think about the basics first,” says Pandhare.

Looking across his 0.75-acre field, Balwant Ghare (48) is agitated. Ten tons of onions are lying in the open, unsold because he’s not getting the price he needs to cover his costs. “All I’m getting is Rs 90 per 10 kg. My cost price is Rs 100; I should get at least Rs 125 for agriculture to have any meaning,” he says.

What makes him angrier is the “politicisation of onion prices”. “It doesn’t matter that all prices — from sugar to dal — have risen. It’s only when onion prices rise that governments get jittery,” he thunders. “Why should we not be allowed to sell onions in other states where we may get better prices?”

Rajendra Shewat, panchayat member of Bhuinj village, at the Wai Panchayat Samiti office. Photograph by Anshuman Poyrekar for the Hindustan Times.

In Wai, 300 km from Mumbai, none of this is an issue. There are dams aplenty for the sugarcane crop. It has to be – sugarcane cooperatives are too politically powerful to not be looked after.

Rajendra Shewat (41), panchayat member of Bhuinj village, says villagers are only angry that the government didn’t consult them before widening the highway.

Sitting in the dark, damp Wai Panchayat Samiti office — no electricity here either — he says no pedestrian bridges or subways were built. Now, Bhuinj’s 3,600 students flirt with death every day while trying to get to their school across the road.

“There are no signs warning motorists of turns either. As a result, there are major accidents every day,” says Shewat. “Chhe baje ke baad motorcycle chalaana matlab maut ko saath le ke chalna hai.” (Riding the bike after 6 pm is like having death as your pillion.)

The quick ride — you can get to Kolhapur from Mumbai in six hours — means many highway businesses, like dhabas, have shut down. “People just don’t need to stop anymore,” sighs Pramod Shinde (42), Panchayat Samiti head. “The two things going for the government,” he says, “are the loan waiver for farmers and the savings on transport that the highway allows.”

This blog emerged from a report I did for the Hindustan Times’ pre-election series in September 2009.

A stretch of the Pune-Bangalore highway near Wai. Photograph by Anshuman Poyrekar for the Hindustan Times.

Yatin Jambhale, of Jambhulwadi, is the first graduate in his village. He will leave next month for Wales, where he will do his MBA. Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar for Hindustan Times’ Maha Yatra series.

 

Three road trips, eight days, 2,600 kilometres.

Hidden in those statistics lie a hundred stories and an experience that changed the way I look at small-town and rural india.

These were pre-state-election reporting tours that I undertook for the Hindustan Times, Mumbai. I hope, through a series of blogs, to tell some of the stories that were crowded out of the newspaper or only found a mention.

This is the first of those.

At Jambhulwadi, 200 km south of Mumbai on the Pune-Bangalore highway, Yatin Jambhale (23) looks up at a viaduct towering 100 feet above his one-storey home.

He is the first graduate in the 250-home hamlet that was named after his family, which grows wheat on 10 acres of farmland.

A small patch has been rented out to a construction company, which mixes concrete on it for projects in Pune and pays the Jambhales Rs 30,000 per month only because the site is so close to the highway.

That’s also what prompted Idea, Aircel, Airtel and Vodafone to rent out a few acres from the Jambhales for cellphone towers. That gets them another Rs 19,000 per month.

The family has gone from being dependent on its farm to being financially secure.

As his family mills about on the porch, Jambhale, sporting a branded T-shirt and track pants, says he now plans to do his MBA. A bank, encouraged by the money the land is generating, has loaned him Rs 6 lakh.

Where will he study?

“Wales,” he says nonchalantly, ignoring the surprised look on my face. “I’ll specialise in human resources.”

Will the opportunity the Pune-Bangalore highway, relaid and widened in late 2008, offered affect his vote during the Maharashtra elections that will be held on October 13? Jambhale says it won’t. “With every generational change, such development is inevitable,” he shrugs, astride his new Yamaha FZ16. “Nobody did us any favours. The road was needed, it had to happen.”

I stopped for a red light at the Worli signal on my way back from the Strand Bookstore sale on Republic Day.
As my daughter and I chatted, a little boy ran up to us, trying to conduct a book sale of his own. He was one among the ubiquitous sellers of pirated books who man Mumbai’s signals.
As it became clear that I wasn’t buying, he asked me whether I could give him a lift to Siddhivinayak Temple, a few kilometres down the road. It was an unusual request, but I would be passing the temple anyway and he seemed a decent sort, so I agreed.
He hopped in. As the car started again, he tapped me on the shoulder and asked whether I read books. I pointed out the bags of books we had bought and said I had enough to last me a year.
Seeing his disappointment, I tried to steer the conversation to something else. I asked where he lived, and with whom.
“My father died from drinking too much,” he said. It would have been a matter of fact statement if it hadn’t been for that ever-so-slight quiver in his voice.
“How old are you,” I asked.
“Ten.”
“Why are you selling books at the signal?”
“After my father died, it fell upon my mother to earn the rent we pay for our house. But in recent times, my sister has been keeping unwell and my brother and I have to earn the rent now,” he said, adding that his name was Ajay.
I fell silent as I tried to imagine what Ajay’s life was like. Studying him intently, my daughter was just a foot away from Ajay but they may as well have been inhabiting different planets.
She had spent her morning having breakfast while watching cartoons, had driven in air-conditioned comfort into town, had bought books on subjects as diverse as pirates and reptiles, and would probably go out for dinner later.
Ajay may or may not have had a meal that day and had obviously been hawking books at signals all morning. That’s what virtually every day of his childhood must have been.
Ajay broke the silence by asking whether I had a job for him. “Everybody I ask says they would get in trouble with the police for hiring somebody so young,” he lamented.
“Don’t you go to school?”
“I used to before my father died…,” he said.
He then went on to explain how he made his money: No matter what book they sold, they would have to pay the seth (boss) Rs 150. The boys’ profits depended upon how much they could talk their customers into paying.
“Buy one book,” he exhorted. “How about Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns? Rs 250 only”
“OK,” I said, pulling over as the temple came into view.
It was when I handed him Rs 300 that I realised that, though Ajay may be facing a tough life, he had picked up all the tricks of Mumbai’s street trade. As I waited for the change, he said he didn’t have the money, repeating mournfully that he wouldn’t make much anyway. He had to give Rs 150 to the seth, remember?
I let it go. It struck me that I may have been had by somebody who knew the right emotional buttons to press. But it also struck me that a kid in his position may have had no choice but to learn how to hustle customers. How else could he have survived?
I wonder if Ajay and I will ever meet again. If we do, he can be assured of another book sold.