Tushar Suradkar's Whispering Wind Blog

WW Flood

2010-06-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

14-June-2010 witnessed heavy monsoon showers and within a few hours most major streets in Pune were left with no distinction from the Mula and Mutha rivers. How can Pashan-Baner link road lag behind.

The newly laid storm water drainage system just outside Whispering Wind too could not save the internal roads.

Water from as far as Kumar Sahwas was rushing down towards W.Wind like being drawn by a water magnet.

Not a square inch of area was available to walk.

Is this a road or a river ?

Work atlast starts on pblr

2010-03-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

After the publishing of tender for the PB link road on 23-July-2009 and its opening on 9-Aug-2009, work finally began in February 2010.
I happened to pass the Sus road at the time of this function presided by the mayor of Pune, but was hardly aware of what was going on - perhaps a private function i thought.

Earlier, one fine day in Oct 2009, I was at PMC head office and chatting with addl. city road engineer mr. Tayade about the pb link road tender. He informed then there were several land acquisition issues along the stretch but the work would anyways commence in early Jan 2010 and be completed by March and that the road would be done in patches whereever pmc has been able to acquire land.

This is evident in the picture below taken just outside WWind :

Builder had long ago handed over land to both MSEB and PMC for the proposed DP road. Then again the road is dug-up opposite k.sahwas probably for grouting work and also where this road touches the Sus road. Thats it ! The work seem to be abandoned for over 2 weeks now - in a style so typical of PMC contractors !

My thoughts on the upcoming PBLR are at this post dated 25-July-2009:
Open the link below in a new window and do continue scrolling down for some interesting recent stuff !!
http://whisperingwindonline.blogspot.com/2009/07/floating-of-tender-for-36m-dp-road.html

WW Valencia BhaiBhai

2010-02-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

Fun never ends on pashan-baner link road. No one knows if it is a mere conincidence or that the two signboards for Valenncia and WW phase 2 have been ordered from the same vendor under a limited time 'ek-pe-ek-free' offer.Everywhere along the P-B link road, the duo are found standing side-by-side on one and two legs respectively. Just watch this.
First at the start of the P-B link road outside the RMZ icon (symantec) building, they are found standing gaily and happy.

Then again the couple is seen standing round the steep corner which is a natural right turn. Very funny. The building under construction in the background is crystal garden.

Finally, the duo points to the last lap opposite the Rolling Hills gate. Buildings in the background are Blossom 'n' Springs and Echelon.

Builder has taken great pains to guide to W.Wind from far-off areas like Sus road too. There are unusually large number of sign-boards erected from as far as Sus road at the start of the PB link road:
Closer still at the turn near Athashree, the jodi pack is seen again:

Farther towards W.Wind the duo again appear at the ugly turn near K.Sahwas under the neem tree:

In all seven signboards stand erect to guide people to W.Wind only to be greeted by pits dug-up all over the premises. First this large one for the E-bldg and abandoned for over two months now with no signs of any building coming up.

Outside the temple, right inside the children play area:

The worst part of these pits outside the temple is they are made between two existing flowering plants which I have been nursing and watering painstkingly for over 2 years now after the gardner absconded for payment defaulted by builder in Mar 2008. Since the pits are dug very close to the existing plants, their roots are exposed and no new plants are in place for 2 months now.
Then there are dozens of these meant for plantation, near the main gate and besides A-bldg:

The zenith of builder's antagonism and the nadir of residents' apathy are these pits dug up near the entrance gates. Neighbouring Crystal Garden completed beautiful entrance gates in the same time as a couple of pillars came up for W.Wind.
Nails used for making the scaffolding which I found scattered all over the internal road between main gate and the club-house alone are seen in picture below:

WWind Pots

2010-01-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

Back in 1996, NRDC - National Research Development Corp (http://www.nrdcindia.com/pub.htm) published two very popular and highly regarded magazines - 'Invention Intelligence' in English and 'Awishkar' in Hindi.

Also in 1996, environment and carbon footprint, etc. were not burning issues, but water scarcity was, especially at the place I lived where we had water supply on alternate days for just 2 hrs. So water conservation was on everyone's mind.
My article on 'Water conserving automatic irrigation system' was published in the Mar'96 issue and appreciation letters poured in from every corner of the country.

Youth was a phase full of ideas and at 35 I cannot wait till retirement to implement them. Today I purchased two earthen pots and got the holes drilled from the vendor himself who threw at me a multiple-choice question (a) Mandir ke liye hai ? (is this meant for a temple) (b) Chidiya ke liye ? (is it for the birds). I opted for none of the above. Its (c) For my plants, was my answer.

Here's the script from the images:

"It is usual to water plants in the garden by making small circular shallow pit like structure in the ground around the stem of the plant. When water is poured into it, a part of it seeps into the ground in all directions i.e. towards and also away from the roots and only a little amount actually reaches the roots. Moreover, as the soild around the roots become saturated with water, it prevents further seepage of water into the soil. As a result, a large part of water supplied accumulates in the pit around the stem and is evaporated due to heat, especially in summer, when there is shortage of water and evaporation rate is higher.
To overcome all these losses and for efficient use of water, a new method can be used effectively. Instead of digging a pit around the plant stem, dig one or two small pits close to the stem. If the plants are in a row and close enough then a singlepit between the two can be made.
Take a small earthen pot of size approximately 15 cm diameter and make a small hole at the bottom (1 cm dia) of each pot. Place these pots into the pits such that the neck is at ground level. Fill the pots completely with water and cover with lids.
Advantage of using this method are: As the hole at the bottom of the pots is close to the roots, water reaches directly to the roots. (b) Water from the pot is supplied automatically as and when the water content of soil goes below saturation. (c) Large amount of water is saved as evaporation is avoided.
Practical results have shown that as much as 50-60% of precious water in summer can be saved by this method."

All about Access Roads

2009-12-30T16:35:00.000-08:00

Whispering Wind over the past many years has remained land-locked with virtually no access to the Pashan-Baner link road from any side. As seen in the graphic below:

(1) Access to PBLR on the left side is restricted since the stretch of road in front of K.Sahawas was owned by k.builders and WWind residents were informed they were being allowed to commute on this road out-of-good-faith.

(2) Access along the same stretch but on the Valenncia side also remained perpetually restricted since the land was rumoured to be owned by local corporator who had even put up a fencing as seen clearly in the photo in the post http://whisperingwindonline.blogspot.com/2009/04/pune-mirror-troubleshooters.html

(3) Access to PBLR in the direction of Rolling Hills too is restricted by the Ram Wagle plot between WWind and Crystal Garden.

Meanwhile, Mahesh S Prabhu of Rolling Hills has provided indepth information about the various access roads between Pashan-Baner link road to Baner road. Read all about the various access roads that were originally planned/proposed and their status as on date on his blog. The url is http://rollinghillsbaner.blogspot.com/2009/06/access-roads-story-so-far.html

Do read the above informative post and drop a mail pledging your support for the cause.

One of Mahesh's recent activity has been to have streetlights on PBLR operational last month by tirelessly following up with pmc and also getting the issue highlighted in Pune Mirror.

Link Road Tender

2009-07-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

The floating of tender for the 36M DP road outside Whispering Wind is both a good news and bad. If pmc has its way, its going to be a nightmare for residents of buildings directly on this road. pmc contractors are notorious for delaying road projects. News and photos of work on Baner rd, Karve rd, Paud rd, etc. appearing in various newspapers over the past one year sends a chill down the spine when one recalls the horrific condition of roads under construction and post-comlpetion.

Telephone cables are disrupted, exits and entrance to buildings becomes a problem due to changes in levels of internal and the road being constructed.
The alarm bell for Whispering Wind is its being on the downstream side of the road which invites rainwater, dust, dirt, etc, from the elevated road inside the building premises.

The proposed total duration for this project is 12 months and upon comlpetion this road would be wider than Baner road which is 30M. The road should appear a bit like the Sus road between balaji mandir chowk to sai chowk.

Part of the tender that appeared in 'Sakaal' dt. 23-July-2009 is below:

(click for larger view)

The tender describes the DP road as 36M DP road between 'Pashan Sus rd' and 'the boundary between Pashan and Baner' which is the road near Rolling Hills.

Part of Baner DP map downloaded from pmc website is shown below. This map shows the Pashan-Baner link road as the boundary between Pashan and Baner.

So the road for which tender is floated seems to be the one marked in green below.

The tender will be opened on 7-Aug-2009 and since this will be done using money take from our pockets, following are our tasks as alert citizens:

• Keep close eye on which company is assigned the contract.

• Check the past expertise and past experience of this company in the area of road development.

• Check the credentials and past performance of the company.

• Check if this company was black listed for non-performance, etc. PMC is known to have assigned projects to such companies in the recent past.

• Keep continuous touch with supervising pmc officials and seek updates on the progress of the project.

• Work with company and pmc officials to ensure that road work does not cause any inconvenience to residents for commuting in and out of Whispering Wind.

• Intervene and demand for proper foothpath, road-divider, speed breakers, plantation, cycle-track and storm water pipeline.

But, given the perpetual apathy and ignorance of WW residents this seems only a pipe-dream, with no pun intended ;-)

Whispering Wind Plaque

2009-07-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

This concrete plaque stands outside Whispering Wind across the road and erected in 1972 is the oldest man-made object in the entire Pashan-Baner link road area.

A closer view reveals the wear-out paint that reads 'Sushant Saha Gruha Rachana Sanstha', ' Pashan Pune', 'Survey no 35'. Below that is perhaps the date 19 January and the year is not seen. But Mr. Sudhir Kolhatkar knows it is 1972 since he is one of the original members of this housing society which has a turbulent history since its inception 37 years back until Whispering Wind was built.

In year 2003, the concrete board is seen at the far end in photo below, ahead of the large Whispering Wind hoarding and just to the left of the auto-rickshaw with a white hood.

(click photo to view larger)

Panning to the right from here still standing on first floor of B-bldg, one has a romantic view of the hills with only MontVert Finesse Bldg-A complete and Bldg-C under construction.

The heap of bricks are not meant for construction at WW. Its one of the many brick kilns in the neighbourhood. No doubt atleast half a dozen corporators from the Pashan-Baner belt have a history of either owners of and some even workers at these brick kilns.

(click photo to view larger)

This is a partial view of the original play-area planned by builder and as shown in the brochure given to customers of Whispering Wind.

(click photo to view larger)

Here is the view of B-bldg under construction from where the photos were taken:

This is the view of A-bldg with the sample flat on 1st floor ready.

This is a photo of the central sitout area with the water-treatment plant just in place. Disregard by residents has left this facility unused till date.

This photo below is dated mid-august 2004 and the most striking feature herein is the absence of the joint between C- and B-bldgs which is shown in my previous post.

C-building is also complete now and the play-area has all vanished and work on the new club-house is seen underway. The pit with rainwater accumulated is perhaps the location of the swimming pool or may be just the trench for the wall foundation.

Finally, this is a distant view that shows consrtuction of D-bldg just started.

City Pride in Pashan

2009-07-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

Pune Pratibimb is a suppliment for the Marathi daily 'Sakal'. I read about the pmc budget on their blog at http://punepratibimb.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-post_03.html

I got curious about the proposed garden in survey 140/6 and started looking for this at http://www.wikimapia.org/ which is a website built on google maps and allows marking areas along with comments.

This would be an exciting development if materialzes in the near future. The location map is as below. When coming from Cosmos bank, do not turn left on Sus road after crossing the bridge but move straight further on the narrow road along the Ramnadi. Here State Bank nagar, Nikash Lawns, etc. are on the left and the site is to the right as shown in green in map below.

The area marked in magenta is proposed site for the City Pride Multiplex and Mall. search for 'Balaji Mandir Pashan' at wikimapia.org and single click the 'Garden Reservation' area to popup the comments dialog. Scroll to read the information about both the garden and the multiplex.

The survey number got me curious so I looked at a 1978 site plan of Whispering Wind (originally Sushant Coop Hsg. Society) which Mr. Sudhir Kolhatkar generously shared with me.

I scanned and enhanced the same in photoshop and it looks like below. The site plan interested me for the direct road from the bridge over Ramnadi going to Baner. Whispering Wind was bang on this road. Right-click the image below and save, then open in a viewer to see the fine text, especially the year in the lower side.

(Right-click to save your copy)

Then I superimposed this 1978 site plan over a google maps view of the area:

(right-click the image above and save)

Adjusting for the zoom level from google and the scale of the scanned site plan was painful. I decided to match Ramnadi while sacrificing for the bridge and Sus road which went a bit offfset.

Still I have few inferences:
(1) Ramnadi has certainly shifted its course over a period of 31 yrs. Its fine by me since we know rivers have a natural tendancy for this.
(2) Also the two islands in Ramnadi shown prominently near survey 139 have almost vanished.

The most interesting part of this site plan is the road from the bridge over Ramnadi that shows the garden in survey 140 and Whispering Wind in survey 135/2 on the same direct road.
This road has almost vanished now and State Bank Nagar, Nikash lawns, Vanshaj Prestige, etc. have come up on top of this road.

Survey 132 is the site for OJAS, Kumar Sahwas, etc. and survey 135/1 for Meadows Avenue, etc. But there is no survey indicated for sites of Athashree, Basant Bahar, Camelia, etc. This is perhaps because surveys in those days @1978 was done with the Ramnadi as reference. Pashan-Baner Link road is just the western boundaries of surveys 130, 131, 132, etc.

Later in recent times, when surveys for those sites to the left of P-B link road was done i.e. for Athashree, Basant Bahar, etc, the foot of hills was taken as reference and surveys were marked down the slope towards Ramnadi.

The line of conflict where these two systems met is the real Pashan-Baner link road in front of Whipsering Wind. A testimony to this is the stripe of land near Kumar Sahwas.

This clearly shows how the width of the Pashan-Baner Link road opposite Valenncia or Magnolia was sacrificed due to surveys done with two different references.

So whether City Pride comes to Pashan or otherwise, my pride in Pashan would always be - Whispering Wind !!

History and Rumors

2009-07-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

Many like calling Pashan-Baner link road the other way, as Baner-Pashan Link road for reasons best known to them.

In my logic it should be Pashan-Baner link rd, since the road provides Pashan people connectivity to Baner. Our official addresses atleast are like this. And why anyone from Baner would like to access areas in Pashan at any point in their life? Anyways, there are few rumors and some interesting history to this road.

The original Pashan-Baner Link Road was supposed to start off Sus road near this place as seen in the picture below taken sometime in June 2007:

The major projects as on 22-April-2009 on this road are Kumar Shantiniketan, past Kumar Sahawas, Montvert Biaritzz, Magnolia, past Whispering Wind, Crystal Garden passing through the Rolling Hills area between the Rolling Hills appartment on the right and the row houses on the left, finally touching Baner road at a place somewhere ahead of food bazar.

For many months until Mar-2008 when throughfare from Rolling Hills was allowed due to work on Pashan-Baner Link road, I remember a board inside the Rolling Hills area mentioning 'Proposed Pashan-Baner Link Road'. This board was in the open space when one entered Rolling Hills gate and reached the other end of the concrete internal road.

The Current Pashan-Baner Link road starts at the Balaji Mandir Chowk and was supposed to go straight to Baner Gaon without a single turn as shown with dotted line. Orange County, Kubera Bahar, Athashri, OJAS, Basant-Bahar, Camelia, etc. being the major projects along this stretch. But rumors are that the road was diverted to the right towards Ramnadi as shown in the Google view below.

To me this diversion towards Ramnadi looks fine, since today we can access both Aundh and also reach Pune Univ square faster than it would have been if the road had gone straight to Baner Gaothan.

But the fate of the straight road did not end here. If it had travelled straight as shown in map below, a bridge would have come up over RamNadi at the spot circled red.

But this was not to happen. Afterall why would the Richie Rich in town allow a busy road pass right beside their peaceful and serene backyard. So the road was diverted to the left again towards its final destiny to Baner road only awaiting its most miserable part in the last leg besides Symantec.

As seen in this image above, the Pashan-Baner Link Road would have touched Baner road somewhere between hotels Bhairavee and GreenPark, the closest Pashan people could have got to Aundh and University.

On its last leg, rumors are that work on the Pashan-Baner Link road was again stuck up besides Symantec. The present stretch of the road was within their premises and part of their planned parking space which again is only a rumor. Besides, there were also many other privately owned plots that were at risk of vanishing for this stretch of the road to be realised. Finally rumors are, there was long debate with PMC over who should create the retaining wall between Ramnadi and the road besides Symantec that is seen today.

Above is part of the old Baner-Balewadi development plan, a 5 Mb jpg downloaded from the pmc website. It summarizes and confirms all roumers and stories.

Baner road is 30M wide. Later this was widened for the CYG 2008 games. The Pashan-Baner Link Road is 24M wide and clearly shown crossing the Ramnadi in the bottom-right corner of the image.

The road that goes past Whispering Wind, Magnolia, Crystal Garden crosses over the 24M wide PB link road and is clearly shown going through Rolling Hills. This part is shown 9M wide and has now been closed as mentioned earlier.

The road besides Symantec is shown 18M wide and it finally touches Baner road which inturn crosses the Ramnadi in Survey No. 270.

The 24M wide Pashan-Baner Link Road clearly demarcates Pashan from Baner and the Pashan area is left un-detailed since this is a Baner-Balewadi DP map.

More photos and other interesting stories on the Pashan-Baner Link road in my next post. So keep scrolling...

Talk On The Walk

2009-07-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

Around November 2005 condition of roads all over Pune was pretty bad and the then municipal commissioner was facing criticism from everywhere. Work on a small stretch of the Pashan-Baner Link road was taken up at this time and was done so well that it would rival the Baner road or Sus road of today. This was the time when a prominent newspaper roared "Ithey kay dhavpattya banavun viman utarvanaar ka ?" (Is a runway being constructed here for landing airplanes ?).

Work was promptly stopped. This part of the road is seen on the far end in this photo below. The road ahead of this part until Sus Road and before this part till Baner road remained in very poor condition for the next couple of years.

Since the Pashan-Baner link road did not connect these two areas, hardly anyone from Sus road area know about this road or took the road to reach Baner, so workers from adjoining brick kilns would play cricket here at leisure:

Gold Coast was almost complete but the crown was still under construction as seen in photo above.

A view of the PB link road taken from atop the Gold Coast building is shown below. This is a low resolution photo.

On the extreme left is MontVert Finesse, then Spring & Blossom, then Echelon, then the PB link road is seen. On the right of the road is Nano Space IT park, then Rolling Hills and on the extreme right side is a building that I don't know.

This one below is a panoramic view that shows Whispering Wind too.

Kubera Bahar, Athashree, OJAS, Kumar Sahwas, Meadows Avenue are also seen. Crystal Garden had not come up yet and Echelon and Nano Space were under construction. While Magnolia, MontVert Biarritz were still being advertised, the dense green belt between Whispering Wind and Ramnadi looked very attractive.

Coming back onto the road, back in mid 2007, the PB link road had tonnes of rada-roda dumped on the stretch along Ramnadi and just one of these is as seen in photo below. There were many such humps upto Baner road and riding on a bike would give a Camel-On-Stereoids-Ride... very enjoyable. Note the two trees and the two MSEB poles on the right side.

This road seen in photo above eventually lead to Felicita and they ripped apart the rubble heaps on the right side and made a much more motorable road around Oct-Nov 2007. Construction of Symantec was still underway. Note again the two trees and the MSEB poles.

This is the view from the other direction and there was only a right turn towards the mountain. Only loose gravel was lying on this stretch for a couple of months which is so typical of PMC.

Between this stretch of the Pashan-Baner Link road and the fencing wall flows the Ramnadi. At the far end, the road takes an almost U-turn in the direction of the hills.

Though the P-B link road was motorable by now, the photo below shows the dismal state of the turn. To the right is Baner road and the left one goes in the direction of the hills.

They started improving the quality from the Baner road side but the road itself was still narrow. The heap of rubble on the right side as seen in pic below is a tarred road now.

At the far end where the P-B link road touched Baner road, work was again pending for may months until the two opening in the channels were closed. The one on the left circled red was large enough that a bike or a nano could easily vanish into it.

To the right of this junction was the old narrow bridge over Ramnadi that existed until Oct 2008. Widenening of the bridge began hastily in Sept 2008 for the Commonwealth Youth Games and a new bridge came up between the pipes on the near side and the yellow pmc dustbin on the other side as seen in this early morning photo below:

Photo below shows the piles for the new bridge under construction.

The haphazard and unplanned work resulted into something that only PMC and JNNURM could possibly achieve together, a funny looking tri-bridge that existed only for about 3 weeks after its construction.

As the bridge was widened, it was apparently broken into three segregated parts, all separated by bars. So, while the lanes on either side were used for vehicles coming from Baner and from the Pune Univ chowk, the lane in the centre was a site of perpetual confusion.

No board existed to indicate who should use the narrow middle lane. As a result, there were occasions when vehicles coming from both directions almost collided. Moreover, the centre lane had a curved slope as seen in photo above which caught motorists unaware. Later this middle part of the bridge was broken up to finally create the bridge over Ramnadi in its current state.

This image is not photoshopped. It appears to be the most colorful spot on the Baner road naturally, as seen from left to right are the pink wall of Symantec, green glass of Symantec again, the violet and magenta hoardings, deep blue color on the divider on the bridge, prominent black & white stripes on the bridge again and the deep red patches of Purple-Pride Accord building on the right.

Deceiving View

2009-07-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

This is a view of the Pashan-Baner Link road area taken from atop Whispering Wind A-bldg in mid-July of 2008 . Greenery on the distant mountains and sunshine everywhere just after a monsoon shower renders this landscape deceivingly beautiful.

A closer look however shows the ground realities. The area circled red in the photo above is enlarged as below and reveals water flowing freely on the road in front of Kumar Sahwas:

Another much closer ground level snap taken by Vikrant Kelkar a year earlier on 7-July-2007 shows the scaring reality. He sarcastically called this a red-carpet in one of his mails. Below is the photo showing road condition just in front of Kumar Sahwas:

The depiction of this turn on Kumar Builder brochure is again deceiving as seen below, but that is so typical of builders.

In year 2009 I don't expect things to change much on this critical turn near Kumar Sahwas unless residents of Whispering Wind who are the sole sufferrers take combined efforts, especially following blunt comments by Mr. Ajit Shrowty, chairman of OJAS society "since we do not use this road, we are not with you" when I approached them for a joint application to PMC for the water logging issue.

Saving Internal Roads

2009-07-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

The channel outside the Whispering Wind main gate is critical to the health of internal roads. People who have been living in this area before construction began recollect there was a natural stream along the fencing wall between Whispering Wind and Valenncia.
In this photo dated 31 Aug 2004 cliked by Mr. Sudhir Kolhatkar, Kumar Sahwas is seen under construction and water from the right side flowed downstream towards Whispering Wind which is on the left. The man seen closest in the photo is walking in the direction of Rolling Hills.

So a channel was dug up and pipes were laid across the road. Former caretaker Ratnappa is seen seated center in striped shirt in photo below.

After completion, clear spring water from the hills flew into the concrete channel of Whispering Wind as seen in the photo taken during monsoon 2007.

Meanwhile the properly tarred road seen just above the pipes was claimed by WW builder as made jointly by them and Paranjpe of Magnolia. But on contacted, Paranjpe builder supervisor categorically refuted the claim and was ready to furnish the bills for the road claiming that entire stretch of the raod was build by them alone.

When work on Valenncia began in early 2009 they leveled the rough terrain outside their building limits and apparently the channel was filled up with the rubble.

On the other side of the road was made a proper chamber for preventing rubble or dirt to choke the pipes. Inlet to the two pipes is seen open as on 21-May-2009.

Farther beyond this square chamber, a U-shaped accumulator was made which channelised all water flowing from uphill properly into the concrete channel built between Whispering Wind and Magnolia.

I tried scratching the surface to look for existence of any pipe and easily found part of a black pipe which I realised was the same that is seen outside the flowing stream in the photo above.

I am sure the two other pipes for water still exist under the rubble. So unless all the openings for the pipes are cleaned open before onset of monsoon, the quality the internal roads is bound to drain.

Between april 2009 and the monsoon season the same year, housekeeping staff had grown lax and falied on many occassions to collect the dry+wet garbage from the four buildings before 10:30 am which is the standard time for the PMC van to collect from society gates.
So the kuda-karkat was simply dumped into the U-shaped accumulator as seen in picture below:

This blocked the flow of rainwater from the upper areas towards WW.
Also the square chamber which prevented water from flowing over the road was choked up and inlet to the underground pipes blocked:

So water simply flowed over the road towards WW as seen in picture below:

Rainwater flowed over the internal road between the clubhouse wall and the concrete channel which was supposed to drain the stormwater beyond WW.It flowed father down past A-bldg over the newly laid tar carpet depositing a thick layer of sand and mud on the far end seen in photo below:

I then removed with bare hands all the stuff that was blocking the square-chamber and now water was no longer flowing over the road since the pipes were still intact and un-chocked.

But on the other end closer to WW, the pipe openings were still covered with rada-roda dumped by valenncia.

I tried clearing up the clog at the outlet of the pipes and water gushed out vertically from the ground. Curious onlooker gathered closer since they knew nothing about the pipe that was below the road. The flow was still in the direction of WW gate:

Anil Hasabe (in striped shirt above) came in quickly with big helping hands and got the flow channelised towards Valenncia with little help from a labour standing nearby, and into the big concrete channel inside WW that was supposed to drain the rain water.
But the ordeal of the internal road was not not to end here. Recently when work on E-Bldg started, the BoB rode into WW onto the same internal road that the rainwater had awashed a couple of months back.

Then it took a turn with high speed and one can best imagine how the life of a thin crust of tar would be affected with such torture:

Finally, the Bob went towards D-bldg leaving behind it a trail of dents on the thin layer of tar ... and thus apathy prevailed in WW.

Missing Link

2009-06-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

Paleontologist say crocodiles that we see today behaved and looked same as they did 6.5 crore years ago during the Jurassic period when dinosaurs roamed i.e. they have not evolved much.

This small stretch of the Pashan-Baner Link road ahead of Athashree and past MontVert Fineese looked same as in mid 2005.

Roads on either side of this patch are in fine condition. Road behind this patch upto Sus road is good and the road ahead of this patch until Baner road too is superb.

This patch doesn't appear too bad from this angle but for the commuters who have to cross it daily.

I still remember an all-appartment meeting held right in front of Athashree gate sometime in Oct-2005. People from the only appartments in existence then, viz. OJAS, Kubera-Bahar, Athashree, MontVert Fineese and Whispering Wind had gathered and small speeches were made where people typically narrated details of the trouble and inconvenience caused due to the bad state of the Pashan-Baner Link road. None had any directions or thoughts on how to tackle this situation or improve the condition of the road. An enthusiastic attendee also declared formation of a forum which he fondly named the 'mohalla comittee' which was never to meet again.

I remember only Pandit Mali and Deepak Jawarkar from Whispering Wind attending this meeting since many in WW have not yet moved in while D-bldg was still under construction.

In early 2007, walking on the the P-B link road was a nightmare, especially where it touched the Sus road, as is evident from the photo below. The only respite was this narrow footpath which again was broken intermittently as in this case for entrance to Orange County, for example.

Looking in the other direction, the glorious 4x4 lane Sus road had not come up yet. It is still early 2007 and CYG games were still 18 months away. Nor did the circle in the Balaji Mandir Chowk exist then.

(Click photos to enlarge)

The empty land on the left side of the footpath was occupied by hutments and people living there frequently crossed the P-B link road to fetch water on the right side where the green plastic pots are seen.

Ok so the mohalla committe meeting was held at the spot right where this truck has got stuckup. This is in front of Athashree gate and tells more about the sorry state of the road.

The condition of the road was absolutely pathetic and the small patch of road in the first photo in this blogpost is a remnant from those days.

Saplings

2009-06-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

Little knowledge is available with me on how exactly we take from mother earth and how to give back.
But looking at the various construction sites around Whispering Wind, it only appears that we are neither taking nor giving but virtually dumping mother earth.

It all begins when digging starts at a construction site and then with or without consent of the adjacent open plot owner, they start laying the rada-roda on the open plot as in the example of this plot besides Whispering Wind Phase II. The building under construction in the background is Crystal Garden.

The rada-roda could be from various sites like Crystal Garden, WW II or this unknown site opposite Crystal Garden. The buildings in the background are all MontVert Finesse.

The photo above is dated mid-summer (8-April-09) and its a pity that the water table below this plot will be a lost gift from mother earth.

The most unfortunate thing about these diggings is that green fields flourishing on top of rich black alluvial soil are lost forever.

The plot of WW Phase II looks barren when construuction had just begun im March 2009.

But underneath the cross section reveals the almost 3 ft thick layer of black soil.

And a testimony to this fact that were rich farming lands is the photo below dated Aug-2005 taken from Whispering Wind B-bldg and shows the site of WW Phase II.

The plot looks barren because rada-roda from WW was perhaps dumped on top of the green fields.

The dense trees lined up along the right edge are no longer seen now.Elsewhere, the cross-section on Pashan-Baner Link road near Symantec's parking entrance shows various layers of black soil and rada-roda.

Closer to WW, the cross-section of Valenncia besides WW also reveals about a foot thick layer of black soil.

Another latest instance is the plot for Padma-Vilas opposite OJAS and besides Kubera Bahar as below:

No one can now imagine or bothers to ponder over who lived in the fields, what they did, etc.

Q: So why is an earthworm called the friend of a farmer ?

A: Because the farmer works alone in the fields all day and the worm gossips with him, thats why...

Good joke, but they have both gone. I can't bring the farmers back but certainly could pull a few worms off the Mula river bed near under rajaram bridge in June 2008.

They are happily living in the 3'x3' pit that I made for them exclusively and fed with all the bio-waste generated in my home.

They have now grown into a joint-family of few hundred worms and creating rich manure.

A testimony to this was a sapling which grew out of the mango seeds that I also dumped as part of the bio-waste last year into their home.

I planted the 2-leaf mango sapling behind the Ganesh temple in Whispering Wind in July 2008 and by May 2009 it had steadly developed almost a dozen leaves and grew over a feet tall.

In June 2009 I discovered that all but the stem remained. The utterly lax security of Whispering Wind promptly informed that this must be mischief of some naughty stranger or passerby.

Loss of a sapling is only the tip of iceberg with many more thefts reported in the past one year.

This year again 3 new mango saplings have grown - a gift from my worms.

I will plant these again - one in the same place and the rest elsewhere, probably outside the premises of Whispering Wind where they are not at the mercy of naughty passer byes or the ridiculous security.

In essence, here is what we have done to mother earth:

(a) Destroyed a natural eco-system that was self-sustaining and self-governing.

(b) Built a man-made system i.e. buildings and more buildings, which niether are able to sustain itself not govern or manage itself like security, builders, housekeeping, etc.

The gist of the story - Its time to start giving back to mother earth is now !!!

WW Rainbow

2009-05-27T14:52:00.001-07:00

It was a dull afternoon somewhere in mid-august of 2008. I peeped out of my kitchen window still sipping from my cup of foaming cofee when I saw part of this rainbow beckoning me from behind C building. In under one minute I was atop A-bldg trying to capture the entire version with my Sony DSC W60.

In the photo above, note the one-of-its-kind joint in the pillar which glues together B- and C-buildings. I don't know how pmc approves of such innovations but it has been a source of perennial problem of water leakage for those flats of C-Bldg who share the terraces on the left of this joint.

However hard I would try, the entire rainbow won't fit in the lens view. The one below is clicked atop A-bldg.

This is a snap from C-bldg terrace:

Heavy winds were blowing over Whispering Wind with no pun indended and it was a bit risky but finally I climbed the water tank on the terrace of B-bldg seen partially in the above two photos and managed a panoramic view using a different Nikon Coolpix as below:

If you are on IE, right-click and select 'open in new window' to marvel at the breathtaking view.

Views From Kumar Sahwas

2009-05-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

Kumar Sahwas people are one step ahead of anyone at Whispering Wind. They ask the security to get the potholes on the road ouside their gates repaired. Security told me so. I generously gave a copy of the PMC letter to the security and within 4 hrs he got 22 signatures from the
residents.
Later today he gladly escorted me to the top of their water tank on the terrace and I clicked 360 views of the surrounding and felt like one big eye.

Perspective of Whispering Wind as it appears in their sales brochure. Right click the photo to download full-size view. For a 6 mPixel image, write to me at tushar.suradkar@gmail.com.

Nascent and naked MontVert Biarritz.

This photo taken just in the nick of time - Magnolia is all dressed up while Valenncia has not yet taken off. This view will never be the same again. Right click photo to download.

The famous turn near Kumar Sahwas. People from Whispering Wind have burnt more energy on getting this repaired than any other issue but without success as of 26-May-2009.

View of Crystal Garden coming up and full birds eye view of the road from Whispering Wind upto Pashan-Baner link road.

MontVert Finesse - All three buildings C, B and A visible in one view only for a limited time until kumar project comes up between Kumar Sahwas and them.

View of Buena Vista from atop Kumar Sahwas overhead water tank:

Birds eye view of the other part of Pashan-Baner link road upto Sus road:

Vast area of the original Sushant Coope Hsg society which was parted away for the sake of the 120 ft wide Pashan-Baner Link road and partly to MSEB. The stone-built structure in the top-left corner houses MSEB stuff.

Birds Plants and Worms

2009-05-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Plants are critical to our health. Not just because they purify the air or simply provide shade but because I realised that planting, watering and nurturing trees help burning more calories, produce more sweat and results in more streching than walking aimlessly around Whispering Wind.

This picture taken a week before the Ganesh Sthapana in Feb 2008 shows plants not more than a foot tall. I have been painstakingly watering and nurturing these for over a year now after the gardner was found absconding for not being paid the maintainance dues for several months by the builder.

When some residents were up in arms against letting these trees grow in this place and wanted them to be uprooted and planted elsewhere, only a timely intervention by me saved the trees from being uprooted in mid-summer and lost for ever.

I remember relocating trees when I lived in Bavdhan. We first made required pits at an alternate location nearby, added rich black soil, added manure, etc. and then proceeded to uproot the existing ones. Homework is a must when one assigns himself a task, especially a destructive one.

Sparrows taught me punctuality. It started one day in early april 2007 when I placed foodgrain and a water bowl in my terrace. Thereafter the sparrows and various other birds have been habitually picking grain and water from my terrace. I am reminded of the supplies being exhausted by their higher pitched chirping in the morning.

Lastly, my half dozen worms whom I handpicked from under the rajaram bridge in Karvenagar in June 2008 have not only survived over the year but have grown in numbers multifold creating rich manure all the while. I have been meticulously seggregating bio-waste from my home during entire last year.

Pune mayor was recently in news for visiting the neighbouring PCMC bio-wate treatment plant with a view to setup a similar facility for Pune. This was in wake of the agitation by residents of Uruli-Kanchan where most of the garbage from city is dumped.

Today I feel proud to be a worthy Puneite for having taken the right steps in the direction of saving our environment from degrading by treating the bio-waste from atleast my house in my backyard.

Whispering Wind Neighbours

2009-04-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

As of 31-Mar-2009, Whispering Wind had no access road, no internal roads, no security cabin and no PMC bus route or bus service on the Pashan-Baner link road.

There were no children playing equipment until 3 weeks ago or no main gate for almost 3 years after occupation of flats at Whispering Wind.

But residents genuinely felt proud of their neighbourhood where the Richie rich in town lived in mansions spread over acres surrounded by sprawling lawns and of the owners who moved in and out of their homes in choppers that passed right over the Whispering Wind buildings.

The BMW 6 series

The new Beetle

The great Phantom

The Audi A8.... Hey but wait..... do you see our beloved Whispering Wind out there...... its to the rightof the left pillar in this photo below:

Pune Mirror Troubleshooters

2009-04-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

After bombarding emails for over 2 weeks, Pune Mirror, a suppliment with The times of India, agreed to and published the plight of the Pashan-Baner link road along with the photograph. Not to mention, my 12 yr old photo was also duly published alongwith.

Pune Mirror has a weekly feature called PM-Toubleshooters and this appeared in the 13-April-2009 issue of Pune mirror. See http://epaper.indiatimes.com/

The methodology of PM Troubleshooters is they visit the problem site once informed and then contact the PMC authorities to take up the issue with them. They have the PMC people's direct personal numbers so they reach them on Sundays too, as one the Pune Mirror team members revealed to me.

The most remarkable feature of the PM Troubleshooters page is the deadline they extract from the PMC authorities. The deadline date is published along with the problem and later on the promised date they take a review of the problem.

The fullsized 1600x1200 photograph incdentally is the same that I clicked for the blogpost of 4-Mar-2009. See http://whisperingwindonline.blogspot.com/2009/03/pashan-baner-link-road.html

WW Views From Hilltop

2009-03-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

The hills and the small temple on the hilltop beckoned me eversince I used Baner road in 1998 when I first visited Pune.

This is the picture of the temple taken atop the hill. The buildings behind the temple are on the other side of the hill and along the ExpressWay:

Although throughfare from Rolling Hills was closed after Mar 2008 since the Pashan-Baner Link Road was completed, earlier one could simply start walking (or drive) from Whispering Wind, cross Crystal Garden, cross Pashan-Baner link road, enter the Rolling Hills gate and take a left, marvelling at the breathtakingly beautiful row houses of Rolling Hills and then exit the gate near the heavenly charming Shyamalee bunglow and the adjoining waterfall and finally start ascending the hills on the left.

The complete route from the Whispering Wind to the hilltop is also seen clearly in this view. Whispering Wind is far away in the middle of the photo. No Crystal Garden is seen in front of WW since I visited the hilltop in Dec 2007.

Once on the hilltop, the view on the left side shows Baner Road. Click the image below to enlarge to clearly see the point where Pashan-Baner link road meets Baner road. Pride Purple Accord on the left and Symantec are also seen. Staples had not come up yet (as on 18-Dec-2007).

Moving a little to the right from this point gives a different perspective of Whispering Wind. Below is a 3x optical zoom view of WW. On the left is Echelon (white building) and no one had taken possesion yet at Echelon. Next seen is Spring & Blossom, Also seen are OJAS and Kumar Sahawas and finally on the extreme right is Mont Vert Fineese. Behind Whispering Wind are seen Magnolia and Mont Vert Biarritz under construction.

This green building, Basant-Bahar, at the far end in this photograph below is at the foothills and would continue to be seen from my house A-16 and most other flats of Whispering Wind as on 30-Mar-2009 and until Whispering Wind Bldg-E comes up and forever obstructs the hill view.

Below is the view of the barely visible Whispering Wind from behind Basant Bahar. Mostly white faces of Basant-Bahar are visible from this angle atop the hill:

Footsteps to descend the hill start immediately behind the trees on the nearside in the photo above. Once at the foothill, one can easily walk along the Basant-Bahar compound wall to reach the Pashan-Baner Link road, but ascending using this route is extremely diffcult since the path uphill is not visible clearly.

Pashan Baner Link Road

2009-03-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

The moon is visible to the naked eye from earth directly. Man decided to land on the moon, so designed a spacecraft, landed on the moon and returned.

Similarly, Whispering Wind, located on the pashan-baner link road, is also visible directly from both Baner Road and Sus road in Pashan. In the photograph below WW is directly visible from Sus Road:

(click photo to view enlarged)

While in this photo below, the building is easily visible from Baner road:

The irony is that Whispering Wind residents, whose address is on this road, cannot take this road in reality to reach the baner or the sus road without taking a roundabout route to the two roads.

While many continue to believe that the DP road that goes in front of Athashree is the Pashan-Baner Link Road, the PB link road is only a myth. The latest image as on 4th Mar 2009 looks at best, like this:

Watchful Eyes

2009-02-12T13:55:00.000-08:00

Builder, security and dogs - all are closely watching residents' inaction and lethargy very closely and are taking undue advantage.

With no one objecting, sand from the sandpit near temple has been all taken away for use in construction of a new phase. Not just that, water from B building has been used unscruplously since mid-october, for soaking bricks right upto construction of office and watering plantations adjacent to the new office. Also, electricity is provided to the newly constructed office from near the temple with the channel dug up and worked upon very promptly.

The security staff are much smarter. With their immediate supervisor stationed in far away Athashree and no resident bothering to question, security has turned lax and sloppy. No records of incoming visitor or vehicle is kept. Gate is open through all night.

Only 4 weeks back and in open daylight, thugs were able to successfully open the main door latch of my flat using duplicate keys. With my wife still in the house, not bothering to pay attention since we both are used to opening the latch with our own set of keys, the thugs smartly asked for a file that I had supposedly asked them to fetch. Very funny and very very scaring especially since no security person ever noticed the thugs entering the premises and walking all the way upto my flat.

The dogs are smartest of all. Again with no security personnel or resident willing to tame, the dogs have been foremost at taking undue advantage of the prevailing situation. Dogs roam freely in the building premises, climb up the staircase in building, barking loudly at night, making the premises dirty.

The last but not least, Whispering wind is perhaps the only known residential building in town to have a overflowing sewage chamber right inside its premises as in the photo below:

Yes: Its a dead rat barely 20 feets away from the flats and if one walks further towards the channel where the sewage is openly drained, it has filled the side-channel with sewage water upto 30 ft. towards the main gate.

Whispering Wind Problems

2009-01-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

Pending work of incomplete amenities like internal roads, children play area, intercom, etc. and many other maintainance issues like inefficient security, stray dogs, nuisance created by bachelor tenants, overflowing sewage right inside the building premises is on top of mind of most residents than any other thing these days.

Many residents exchanged mails but no consensus could be reached on a meeting time due to a long weekend, with 26 January falling on a monday.

Tushar Suradkar's Whispering Wind Blog

WW Flood

Work atlast starts on pblr

WW Valencia BhaiBhai

WWind Pots

All about Access Roads

Link Road Tender

Whispering Wind Plaque

City Pride in Pashan

History and Rumors

Talk On The Walk

Deceiving View

Saving Internal Roads

Missing Link

Saplings

WW Rainbow

Views From Kumar Sahwas

Birds Plants and Worms

Whispering Wind Neighbours

Pune Mirror Troubleshooters

WW Views From Hilltop

More on Pashan-Baner Link Road

Pashan Baner Link Road

Watchful Eyes

Whispering Wind Problems