Originally Posted on: Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Recently, I visited my paternal uncle who
is currently staying in Yewat. They shifted to Yewat a few years back
and I had never visited their new home before.
So this was the first time I visited Yewat and here I note down some of the experiences I had while I stayed there for 3 days.
About Yewat - my first impressions:Yewat is a small town that lies between Pune and Daund Junction. I and my cousin caught the Pune - Daund Passenger at 9:45 am in the morning.
We reached Yewat at around 11:15 am. It’s a small station. As we stepped out of it, I saw that the town was a small one with some settlements near the station - mostly small houses. There is even a small Zilla Parishad school nearby - the kind we city-dwellers only come across in movies - that was a nice touch.
Most of the major settlements are along the Pune-Solapur highway. My uncle stays there, and so we had to travel along the single small road that connects the station to the highway. When we stepped out of the station, there was hardly any vehicle in sight apart from some two-wheelers. We began to walk.
The walk was unexpectedly pleasant. I hardly sweated, and there was quite a cool breeze to soothe the heat from the late-morning sun. After the initial few settlements near the station, the road is flanked on either side by farm-land - mostly sugar-cane. After a few minutes, my cousin hailed a bike-rider - who turned out to be an acquaintance of his. He could probably give one of us a ride till the highway. That’s what I thought - what I had not figured was that he could probably give BOTH of us a ride...
The Bike stunt
While visiting rural areas, I have noticed many times how people make full use of their vehicles - even two-wheelers. You will notice them balancing one or more sacks along with them on the bike, or traveling with two or even three pillion riders... Quite a stunt if you think of it - balancing the bike as you ride with more than one Pillion Rider. I had noticed it before - but never participated in one - until now...
The rider shuffled ahead a bit to make more space behind him. Then my cousin told me to sit first.
Between me and my cousin, we were carrying two big hand bags and one back-pack. I took one big hand-bag, sat on the bike and held the bag tightly on the left-hand side. My cousin settled down behind me with the other hand bag held on his right side and the back-pack slung over his back. Poor fellow - my cousin. With having to handle two bags, he also had to endure the pain in the backside (literally) - because after a fat-assed fellow like me sat on the bike, there was hardly any space left for him to rest his own backside on the bike-seat.
Well the biker let go of the brakes and so started the procession of 3 riders riding a single little bike with 2 bags, each jutting out on either side... I felt like a vada sqeezed between the two slices of pav in the vada-pav...
We reached the highway safely - whether by the biker's skill or by our pure luck is a topic of pure speculation.
A little about my Uncle's Home
My Uncle lives in a newly constructed building. It is right besides the Pune-Solapur highway.
When we reached home, there was no electricity. People in Yewat and surrounding areas face 11 hours of load-shedding - something quite difficult for us city-dwellers to understand - especially considering the kind of electricity we consume at home and in malls and over advertisement boards. The villages and rural areas pay for our splurge of energy.
Anyways, even though there was no electricity and it was afternoon time, I hardly felt any heat. The reason was the cool breeze.
The house is on the third floor, and for as far as the eye can see, there is hardly any obstruction. So there is almost always a strong pleasant breeze. Of course, anywhere you roam around the town, there is always the pleasant breeze. I think this is due to the hills near by and due to abundant availability of open spaces everywhere. No wonder our congested cities turn so stifling hot.
Behind the building where my uncle stays, there's an irrigation canal that runs parallel to the highway. There is a small bridge that runs across the canal. The bridge is quite narrow and is probably meant for pedestrians. But mostly you will notice bikers crossing it too. The canal is hardly ever without company. You will notice village ladies washing clothes along its edge, people bathing, little kids wearing nothing more than underwear swimming whole day long, even cows and buffalos bathing in the cool water.
My uncle has his Hall and Kitchen windows facing towards Solapur to the east. In the morning, the sunlight, unhindered by any natural or man-made obstacles, comes flooding in from the windows, and even at 6:30 am it’s as bright as 9:00 am in the morning...
The bedroom window faces towards the back of the building - away from the Highway - from where one gets a clear view of the canal, the bridge, and the road that leads away from the bridge - the road that runs through the farms and open land towards the temple of Bhuleshwar and the villages beyond. At the horizon the sky touches the chain of hills over which lies the Bhuleshwar temple. I will touch upon Bhuleshwar later. On the whole, the view from the bedroom window is quite picturesque.
Loadshedding - what to do during the night?
As I have mentioned before, the town of Yewat has to endure 11 hours of load-shedding everyday. The day I arrived, the schedule was that the electricity would be unavailable from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm. The morning and afternoon was bearable due to the cool breeze and there was something to read. But what to do during the evening once the sun went down? What we did was this - we took a bed-spread along with us and went up to the terrace.
The stars were out, the sky was almost cloudless and there was a nice half-moon shining out of the sky over us all. Have you ever noticed how bright moon-light can be? It spread its silver shine over the landscape accentuating details that one would never imagine possible with the feeble moon-light. Also, if there are no lights to pollute the night-time, one can see that the sky is full of so many bright twinkling stars. This is a rare phenomenon for a city-dweller like me - our lights block out any but the brightest stars from view.
The breeze was quite strong - and hardly any trace of the summer heat. We spread the bed-spread and sat or lay down - there were 4 of us - Me, my cousin, my aunt, and my grandma (my uncle was away at work). And we talked and enjoyed the panorama that Mother Nature spreads every night across the dark sky for anyone who can find the time to see it.
One time, I was watching up, and I happened to look at the moon. It was bright and had a halo of moonlight surrounding it. And as I watched, I saw a small "+" shaped shadow appear over the moon. It first entered the halo at one end, then glided over the moon and was lost into the darkness as it glided out the other end. It happened so fast, it hardly took more than a second. My first impression was that it looked like a bird. But judging from its height and size, that did not seem possible. What was it then? I got my answer immediately - as the shadow passed out of the field of the moon's halo, multiple pin-points of light blinked from it. It was a plane. One has to see it to understand how awesome it looked as the plane had glided right across the bright moon... Kind of reminded me of the scene in E.T. where the shadow of E.T. and the kids glide across the moon over the bicycle.
I thought - what a coincidence. But do coincidences happen more than once? Apparently they do... For, after a few minutes, I saw another plane pass right across the moon... This time, we were alert and enjoyed the little scene - that little special effects spectacle orchestrated by fate and nature together as if for our benefit alone... For is it not more than a coincidence that the moon happened to be right above what must have been one of the regular sky-routes, and we happened the be right below it to watch the planes glide across the moon?
Soon, it was 10 o'clock - time for us to go back and have our dinner...
Where do the sparrows sleep?
I have always wondered - where exactly do birds sleep? "Surely in the trees, in their nests", one would say. But personally speaking, I have hardly ever seen any crows or sparrows sleeping in the trees.
Well, that night, I got to know.
After dinner, me and my cousin went out to have a little walk. Right outside the building, there is a paan-walla's shop. It lies at one corner of the building's perimeter, and it lies beneath a tree. The tree is average sized, but it has a lot of thorns and is densely foliaged. As we passed by, I happened to look up. There was a dim light falling over the tree's foliage from the paan-walla's shop, and in that dim light I noticed lots of little oblong shapes hanging around clustered in big groups. At first they looked like some sort of Christmas decorations. But when we stopped and looked harder, I saw a few of them move. And then I saw them for what they were - sparrows - lots of them - all clustered in groups all around the branches. It was awesome to see so many sparrows collected together at one place. They appeared to be dozing or resting. It was a sight I will not forget.
So I conclude that sparrows do sleep in trees. But I think it would be safe to specify that they prefer only specific trees. I guess you can call them sparrow-inns??
There is more to add and I will update this soon.
So this was the first time I visited Yewat and here I note down some of the experiences I had while I stayed there for 3 days.
About Yewat - my first impressions:Yewat is a small town that lies between Pune and Daund Junction. I and my cousin caught the Pune - Daund Passenger at 9:45 am in the morning.
We reached Yewat at around 11:15 am. It’s a small station. As we stepped out of it, I saw that the town was a small one with some settlements near the station - mostly small houses. There is even a small Zilla Parishad school nearby - the kind we city-dwellers only come across in movies - that was a nice touch.
Most of the major settlements are along the Pune-Solapur highway. My uncle stays there, and so we had to travel along the single small road that connects the station to the highway. When we stepped out of the station, there was hardly any vehicle in sight apart from some two-wheelers. We began to walk.
The walk was unexpectedly pleasant. I hardly sweated, and there was quite a cool breeze to soothe the heat from the late-morning sun. After the initial few settlements near the station, the road is flanked on either side by farm-land - mostly sugar-cane. After a few minutes, my cousin hailed a bike-rider - who turned out to be an acquaintance of his. He could probably give one of us a ride till the highway. That’s what I thought - what I had not figured was that he could probably give BOTH of us a ride...
The Bike stunt
While visiting rural areas, I have noticed many times how people make full use of their vehicles - even two-wheelers. You will notice them balancing one or more sacks along with them on the bike, or traveling with two or even three pillion riders... Quite a stunt if you think of it - balancing the bike as you ride with more than one Pillion Rider. I had noticed it before - but never participated in one - until now...
The rider shuffled ahead a bit to make more space behind him. Then my cousin told me to sit first.
Between me and my cousin, we were carrying two big hand bags and one back-pack. I took one big hand-bag, sat on the bike and held the bag tightly on the left-hand side. My cousin settled down behind me with the other hand bag held on his right side and the back-pack slung over his back. Poor fellow - my cousin. With having to handle two bags, he also had to endure the pain in the backside (literally) - because after a fat-assed fellow like me sat on the bike, there was hardly any space left for him to rest his own backside on the bike-seat.
Well the biker let go of the brakes and so started the procession of 3 riders riding a single little bike with 2 bags, each jutting out on either side... I felt like a vada sqeezed between the two slices of pav in the vada-pav...
We reached the highway safely - whether by the biker's skill or by our pure luck is a topic of pure speculation.
A little about my Uncle's Home
My Uncle lives in a newly constructed building. It is right besides the Pune-Solapur highway.
When we reached home, there was no electricity. People in Yewat and surrounding areas face 11 hours of load-shedding - something quite difficult for us city-dwellers to understand - especially considering the kind of electricity we consume at home and in malls and over advertisement boards. The villages and rural areas pay for our splurge of energy.
Anyways, even though there was no electricity and it was afternoon time, I hardly felt any heat. The reason was the cool breeze.
The house is on the third floor, and for as far as the eye can see, there is hardly any obstruction. So there is almost always a strong pleasant breeze. Of course, anywhere you roam around the town, there is always the pleasant breeze. I think this is due to the hills near by and due to abundant availability of open spaces everywhere. No wonder our congested cities turn so stifling hot.
Behind the building where my uncle stays, there's an irrigation canal that runs parallel to the highway. There is a small bridge that runs across the canal. The bridge is quite narrow and is probably meant for pedestrians. But mostly you will notice bikers crossing it too. The canal is hardly ever without company. You will notice village ladies washing clothes along its edge, people bathing, little kids wearing nothing more than underwear swimming whole day long, even cows and buffalos bathing in the cool water.
My uncle has his Hall and Kitchen windows facing towards Solapur to the east. In the morning, the sunlight, unhindered by any natural or man-made obstacles, comes flooding in from the windows, and even at 6:30 am it’s as bright as 9:00 am in the morning...
The bedroom window faces towards the back of the building - away from the Highway - from where one gets a clear view of the canal, the bridge, and the road that leads away from the bridge - the road that runs through the farms and open land towards the temple of Bhuleshwar and the villages beyond. At the horizon the sky touches the chain of hills over which lies the Bhuleshwar temple. I will touch upon Bhuleshwar later. On the whole, the view from the bedroom window is quite picturesque.
Loadshedding - what to do during the night?
As I have mentioned before, the town of Yewat has to endure 11 hours of load-shedding everyday. The day I arrived, the schedule was that the electricity would be unavailable from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm. The morning and afternoon was bearable due to the cool breeze and there was something to read. But what to do during the evening once the sun went down? What we did was this - we took a bed-spread along with us and went up to the terrace.
The stars were out, the sky was almost cloudless and there was a nice half-moon shining out of the sky over us all. Have you ever noticed how bright moon-light can be? It spread its silver shine over the landscape accentuating details that one would never imagine possible with the feeble moon-light. Also, if there are no lights to pollute the night-time, one can see that the sky is full of so many bright twinkling stars. This is a rare phenomenon for a city-dweller like me - our lights block out any but the brightest stars from view.
The breeze was quite strong - and hardly any trace of the summer heat. We spread the bed-spread and sat or lay down - there were 4 of us - Me, my cousin, my aunt, and my grandma (my uncle was away at work). And we talked and enjoyed the panorama that Mother Nature spreads every night across the dark sky for anyone who can find the time to see it.
One time, I was watching up, and I happened to look at the moon. It was bright and had a halo of moonlight surrounding it. And as I watched, I saw a small "+" shaped shadow appear over the moon. It first entered the halo at one end, then glided over the moon and was lost into the darkness as it glided out the other end. It happened so fast, it hardly took more than a second. My first impression was that it looked like a bird. But judging from its height and size, that did not seem possible. What was it then? I got my answer immediately - as the shadow passed out of the field of the moon's halo, multiple pin-points of light blinked from it. It was a plane. One has to see it to understand how awesome it looked as the plane had glided right across the bright moon... Kind of reminded me of the scene in E.T. where the shadow of E.T. and the kids glide across the moon over the bicycle.
I thought - what a coincidence. But do coincidences happen more than once? Apparently they do... For, after a few minutes, I saw another plane pass right across the moon... This time, we were alert and enjoyed the little scene - that little special effects spectacle orchestrated by fate and nature together as if for our benefit alone... For is it not more than a coincidence that the moon happened to be right above what must have been one of the regular sky-routes, and we happened the be right below it to watch the planes glide across the moon?
Soon, it was 10 o'clock - time for us to go back and have our dinner...
Where do the sparrows sleep?
I have always wondered - where exactly do birds sleep? "Surely in the trees, in their nests", one would say. But personally speaking, I have hardly ever seen any crows or sparrows sleeping in the trees.
Well, that night, I got to know.
After dinner, me and my cousin went out to have a little walk. Right outside the building, there is a paan-walla's shop. It lies at one corner of the building's perimeter, and it lies beneath a tree. The tree is average sized, but it has a lot of thorns and is densely foliaged. As we passed by, I happened to look up. There was a dim light falling over the tree's foliage from the paan-walla's shop, and in that dim light I noticed lots of little oblong shapes hanging around clustered in big groups. At first they looked like some sort of Christmas decorations. But when we stopped and looked harder, I saw a few of them move. And then I saw them for what they were - sparrows - lots of them - all clustered in groups all around the branches. It was awesome to see so many sparrows collected together at one place. They appeared to be dozing or resting. It was a sight I will not forget.
So I conclude that sparrows do sleep in trees. But I think it would be safe to specify that they prefer only specific trees. I guess you can call them sparrow-inns??
There is more to add and I will update this soon.
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