Wildflowers of Kaas- Part I

About a fortnight ago, a friend suggested me that I join him for a day's excursion to see the wildflowers of “Kaas.” To be frank, I was quite apprehensive at first, perhaps because of my ignorance. I had imagined the place to be just acres of cultivated farm flowers like say tulips or roses, stretching before my eyes. I had felt that such farm acres, though no doubt looking stunningly beautiful, they were not worth a day's excursion. I however, did some browsing and research on the net. What I read and saw on net, was difficult to grasp fully, but nevertheless I realised that it was a different kind of a dish altogether and I booked my ticket for a bus for a round trip excursion along with a couple of friends.

“Kaas” is a plateau on mountain tops, located deep in the ranges of Western Ghat mountains that are spread north-south, along India's western seaboard. It is at a distance of roughly 115 Km from home town Pune and can easily be approached, since there is an excellent road leading right up to the plateau. After having taken the plunge, I am now off to see this plateau, popularly known as “ Plateau of flowers.” The bus has left my home town around 6.45 AM and we are cruising at about 80-100 Km/Hour on the busy Pune- Bengaluru Highway. “Kaas plateau” (17 d 43' N, 73 d 49' E) is situated about 25 KM west of the historic city of Satara and we need to pass through the town.

Meanwhile, everyone in the bus appears hungry, having started rather early from home. We stop at a highway food joint for our breakfast with a typical Maharashtra style fare; “Kandapoha” ( Flattened rice flakes, moistened and cooked after lightly frying with mustard seeds, turmeric, chili powder and finely chopped onions ) and “VadaPau,” (round cakes of hash brown mixed with spices; dipped in gram flour paste; deep fried and inserted like a patty in two halves of a fluffy bread piece) and finally, sugary, milky tea- the way it is prepared all over India. While others are ravishing on the spicy grub, I have a look at our motley group- travelling together. There are four of us middle aged( with my exception being a senior citizen) and who have come to see the wildflowers. There is group of three families with full complement of kids of various ages, who probably have come for a picnic or an excursion. Then there is a group of IT guys wearing black rimmed frames, Bermudas, printed Tee shirts and above all, expensive DSLR cameras hanging from their necks and telling the world that they are on a serious photographic expedition. Then there is a group of young student type group of boys and girls, fun loving type. Finally there are couple of ladies travelling single, one of them very talkative.

I find out that I am the only senior citizen in the group, a black sheep or an odd man out. I feel slightly dejected, but I finish my Tea, buy some “Chikki,” ( A sugary sweet bar made from peanuts and sugar), share it with my friends and then slowly walk back to the bus. Soon, the bus leaves for Satara. Relaxed, I put on my iPod earphones and doze off listening to the music. I wake up to the hourly-burly noises of a city, which means that we have reached the Satara city. Soon the bus takes a diversion and we are on the “Kaas” road. The bus soon starts climbing uphill, which means that we are now climbing the ridge that connects the “Kaas” plateau with Satara city. This ridge consisting of several hills in tandem is fairly a long one; about 20 Km.

As the bus climbs up, I can see the landscape changing slowly to beautiful lush green meadows, interspersed with shallow valleys and small ponds, full of muddy water. This is natural because the south-west monsoon rains are just withdrawing. Within next two or three weeks all this will change, with lush green meadows changing over first to yellow brown and then disappearing altogether, exposing the reddish Lateritic soil underneath and patches of blackish basalt rocks. I, however leave the future scenario at bay and concentrate on the things around me as on the moment.

I also notice the change in weather, which is turning surprisingly pleasant with a cool refreshing breeze. The altitude of “Kaas” plateau is above 1200 meters (4000 ft). This is the reason for this sudden change in the weather, which ensures that our trip is likely to be a pleasant experience. We cross some wooded groves, perhaps with trees planted by forest department, but they make the environment soothing to the nerves and rather charming for the first time visitor like me. I see more green meadows ahead but now stretched longer and flatter.

The total area of “Kaas” plateau is huge, about 1800 hectares (4500 acres) and as we enter this pristine land , what could be a better welcome for us than the sudden appearance on both sides of the road of stunning beautiful clusters of golden yellow flowers, swaying with the breeze and dazzling on the widespread background of lush green grass. The yellow wildflowers are known as Sonki (Senecio bombyensis.) These are members of the large Asteraceae family to which many commonly known flowering plants like the aster or daisy belong.

The bus moves among the flower meadows of yellow wild flowers. Soon I see a barbed wire fence stretching on both sides of the road. I try to look beyond the fence, I can clearly see small dots of pink, white and purple in the greens. I know, we have arrived at “Kaas.”

(To be continued)

1^st October 2014

The drum girls of Pune

All over the world, towns and cities with long historical traditions, have evolved over the years, their own special cultural events and processions. My home town Pune is no exception to this general finding. In the early years of the twentieth century, one of India's great freedom fighter, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, came up with an idea of starting a cultural festival from out of an old Hindu tradition. Under this tradition, an earthen idol of an elephant headed Hindu God of Ganesha was worshiped for 10 specific days of the Hindu calender in many Hindu homes. On the 10^th day, this earthen image of the lord was immersed in the river nearby the town.

Tilak came up with an idea of carrying out this special worshiping publicly, so that for the 10 days, the idol could be revered and worshiped by members of a community or a street block. The idea spread like wild fire all over Maharashtra state of India and Pune was in the forefront of this new movement. During these 10 days, many cultural programmes would be performed, where the idol was installed with political undertones against the British, which was the real aim of Tilak in starting this movement. Soon, the immersion process of the idol got converted into a joyous procession in which the idol was placed on a highly decorated chariot and was paraded through heart of the city before immersion. Troupes playing traditional Maharashtra martial instruments like big drums played with a gong and known as “Dhol” and drums played with sticks known as “Tasha” were brought in along with a simple musical instruments known as “Lezim: which could be played by a troupe of youngsters in a rhythm on the beats of the drums.

Today, after almost a century, the 10 day festival not only is firmly embedded in the cultural traditions of Pune, but has widely spread in Maharashtra and all over India. With this growth of the movement, which can not be considered as organic, many unpleasant aspects have also got in. The processions have become randy and rowdy, with anti social elements creeping in. Sometime in eighties, a new element was introduced in the processions, when new high power audio amplifiers along with walls of speakers became easily available to the groups organizing these public Ganesha worshiping. Thereafter every year, each Ganesha chariot in the immersion procession started having its own high power music system. With this, also came in the cheap and vulgar Bollywood songs, that could be easily played on the music system. Gone were the artistic players of drums and disciplined troupes playing “Lezim” and were replaced by shabby and rowdy troupes of unruly youth, whose idea of dancing was making vulgar and cheap body movements and actions copied from third rate Bollywood flicks.

The immersion processions had always been a male bastion, because in early years, Indian women were confined mostly to their domestic domains and rarely ventured out. During last three or four decades, as the immersion processions turned progressively raunchy and rowdy,most of the women found their participation in the processions limited to that of spectators.

Perhaps fed up and bored with this mega speaker audio blaring out, the procession participants are slowly turning back to the traditional drums and Lezim troupes, but with a welcome change. The drum playing is no longer restricted to boys and youths, an increasing number of enthusiastic young girls have taken a fancy to drum playing. More and more female drum playing groups known as “ Dhol-Tasha” groups are being formed each and every year. Their dignity, talent and dedication have won them a lot of respect over the years. Dhol-tasha players come from diverse educational fields and professions, including physiotherapists, engineers, info-tech professionals and even house wives. They practice their art for a month or two before the procession.

With the drum girls playing in the procession, there is another welcome change. The raunchiness and the rowdiness is slowly disappearing with these girls playing the drums along with their male counterparts. There is no doubt that the entry of girls in this otherwise male-dominated field has added a unique flavour to Ganesha festival in the city. Playing the “Dhol” is no easy job with the “ Dhol” weighing around six to seven kilograms, tied around the waist. The girls however do not seem to mind the physical hardship as they feel that they are doing it as part of their worship of Lord Ganesha and actually feel happy about it. It also needs tremendous stamina as the immersion procession might go on for as long as 24 hours.

The booming sound of a “Dhole” is something, which one needs to experience. You keep feeling all the time that your ear membranes are going to puncture any moment. The earth shatters and one feels stunned. Just imagine the effect when 10 or 20 “Dhole” playing girls bring out their youthful energy in unison in for a massive boom. I am however happy about one thing, however painful the “Dhols” are, they are thousand times better than the mega watt audio systems playing senseless and meaningless third rate songs from Bollywood flicks.

12^th September 2014

Holding a common man hostage for selfish gains

Few months back, I wrote an article about having multiple choices for the consumer, after Government of India at the end of a long parliamentary struggle, opened up organized retail marketing sector to foreign multi brand corporations like wall-mart. Unfortunately, no progress has taken place in this matter and no multinational has yet opened a store in India. I must admit that this far, I had never felt real need for availability of such multinational stores, as I am feeling now for last few days.

For last one week, ordinary citizens like me, are being subjected to unnecessary hardships and troubles, just because traders, distributors and small retailers from my home city Pune, who were once projected as victims or poor sufferers, when large retails shops would open up their stores in India, have arrogantly shuttered down their shops over some trivial issue of local taxes. They do not seem to realize that they form an important link in the chain which delivers consumable goods like food to the common man and have certain responsibilities in this respect.

It all started in third week of March 2013, when State Government of Maharashtra, announced that they would be abolishing a centuries old entry tax, commonly known as Octroi, from 1st April 2013. The step was welcome by everyone because this archaic tax was collected, when goods enter the boundaries of the city. This means that the goods would not be allowed to enter the city, unless this tax is paid to a tax collecting office located near major road arteries. This system required the truckers to wait on roadsides till importer of goods or his representative physically came to tax collecting office and paid the tax. This involved delays, traffic congestion and in general inefficiency in movement of goods near city boundaries and the system caused great harassment for ordinary people, who moved their residence from one city to other.

This tax, as Government announced in March, was to have been replaced with a new tax, based on the books of accounts of the importer of goods, known as LBT or local body tax. I think this was an excellent idea, as this new tax was to be paid by the importer, much later like other taxes, such as sales taxes or service taxes and not at the time of the physical import of goods. The trading community of the city, however was extremely unhappy. Account based tax meant their books of accounts would be subjected to scrutiny, which meant that their operations would have to adhere to the rules.

The traders tried to block the new tax by petition to courts of law, giving all kinds of justifications and reasons. The High court however refused to give any interim stay to the Government order and the law came into force on 1^st April 2013. Having left with no legal recourse to block the new law, trading community suddenly decided to close down their shops from 1st April 2013, causing enormous hardships to common and poor people.

As happens everywhere else in the world, salaried people from my home town Pune, also receive their monthly salaries in the first week of every calender month, and with that money, usually bye groceries and other provisions for the month. With all grocery and provision shops closed, they are being subjected to unnecessary hardships and troubles. 

 

I have nothing to say about the rules and clauses of new tax and the way it is to be implemented. It is a matter between the Government and the importers of goods within the city. They can discuss and negotiate for whatever changes that they desire. What I do not understand is why common man is made to suffer because of the quarrel between Government and the traders.

Incidences like this, really highlight the need to have multiple choices for the consumer in each and every area that caters to some or other aspect of living, may it be food, banking or transport. In banking, we have private banks, government banks and credit unions. In a city like Mumbai, a city dweller has multiple choices for his transport, in the form of local trains, buses and taxis. Similarly, we must have a choice for our shopping needs. There are big and organized grocery stores run by Indian companies like Reliance and Big Bazaar. However, it appears that they have preferred to keep their stores closed during this week for unknown reasons. This means that they are just an extension of other trading chains and not really an alternative. This is why a multinational marketing chain would be useful here, which would not have links with other traders and would operate independently on its own. The present chain of distributors and retailers have to be clearly shown that they are just an alternative. The consumer is the real king and he would choose the best alternative.

In any case, this unilateral action to close down their shops by traders, is very much regretted, as it is nothing but harassment of common people. I sincerely hope that Government remains firm and settles the issue with traders on its merits. The trading community must appreciate that taking a common man as hostage to blackmail the Government, would not achieve whatever they hope to gain.

6th April 2013

The way to go

The other day, I was reading about an interview given by the chief boss of the local Municipal corporation of my home town, Pune. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the corporation has stopped open dumping of the garbage at a site, where a garbage depot has been in existence for more than a decade since June 2010 itself.

I knew from my own experience, as a resident of this city, that at the garbage collection point itself or at primary level, the garbage is being segregated between organic waste and recyclable waste. A new organization called 'SWATCH' has been set up with the help of the corporation, that organizes the garbage collection. Around 1800 people have found employment under this programme as rag-pickers. Each of the persons covers 250-300 households everyday. The Corporation has implemented the twin-bin system – green bin for collecting the organic waste and white for recyclable waste – and charges Rupees 10 per month/house. It has also equipped the rag-pickers with hand-cart, push-cart, buckets and safety gears. Unfortunately, this segregation scheme does not seem to be working as per expectations and majority of garbage still comes to the Municipal Corporation in unsegregated form.

So far, I was always under impression, that this garbage just gets dumped in open dumping areas as a landfill. This was obviously not the case, as I learned from the interview of the commissioner. I wondered about where the unsegregated garbage collected by the corporation was actually going. In the same interview, the municipal commissioner had also talked about some new plant that has been commissioned to convert the garbage collected from city into electrical power by converting first the biodegradable waste into biogas and compost and then generating electrical power from biogas. I got quite interested in this plant as all earlier attempts of the corporation to run such plants have been completely unsuccessful.

Pune city generates about 1,300 to 1,400 tonnes of unsegregated solid waste every day. Many companies offer projects for generating energy and compost out of segregated waste, mainly biodegradable waste. Therefore it was a big risk to go a step further and set up a waste disposal plant by roping in a company with advanced technology, which can produces energy even utilising unsegregated waste. Muncipal Corporation of Pune found one such company, Concord Blue Engineering GmbH, which had proven technology with plants working in Germany and US. It had an Indian subsidiary named as Concord Blue Technology Pvt. Ltd. Pune Municipal Corporation entered into a long-term agreement with the company for setting up a plant to generate electricity from unsegregated waste through its patented and indigenously(?) developed ‘Concord Blue Tower.’ Corpration agreed to pay a processing fee of Rs. 300/- per tonne to the company and the company was free to sell the power generated. As per the agreement between Corporation and the company, which is for 25 years,, it is the corporation's responsibility to transport up to 650 tonnes of solid waste generated in the city to the ‘waste to energy’ plant, while the company’s responsibility is to process the waste on the same day, and the company has to make all the investment for the project.

A company representative says: “We can generate 1 MW of power by processing the unsegregated waste of 3 tonnes and it requires Rs. 140 Million to Rs. 150 Million for setting up a 1 MW capacity plant.” The plant set up by the company at 'Hadapsar,' a suburb of Pune city, has a capacity to generate continuously 10 MW electricity from 700 tonne waste, collected every day.

The plant, covering an area of 2,5 acres, is now processing about 300 tonnes of garbage each day and within next few months should reach its full capacity. There must have been some management change or a take over in the company because I found confusing reports about exact name of the company. Reports dated around September 2012 call this company as Concord Blue Technology Pvt. Ltd; whereas the latest reports call this company as Rochem Green Energy Pvt Ltd. Anyway, there is nothing in the name, as long as company fulfills its obligations.

Rochem Green Energy Pvt Ltd. recently had another feather in its cap. In the state of Maharashtra, a mixture of raw tobacco along with some carcinogenic substances was being sold under the name of 'Guthaka.' Sale of this mixture has been banned since last year. However companies located outside the state, continue to manufacture it and try to smuggle it inside the state. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials in and around Pune, had seized huge consignments of this 'gutkha' worth Millions of Rupees recently and were unable to destroy it. Rochem Green Energy's Pune plant has been now found very useful to destroy this harmful product and tonnes of 'Guthaka' has been destroyed producing electricity out of it.

Pune corporation's initiative to convert city waste to electrical power appears to have clicked, as representatives from many other places have started visiting the plant. Garbage disposal is a major problem faced by almost all Indian cities and Pune Corporation's initiative is surely a way to go ahead.

10 March 2013