kharghar sunday

at kharghar yesterday we we were called to raj and rashmi’s place for lunch. i took the opportunity to drive through the streets that i had earlier in 1999 while doing surveys for the as yet unreleased new bombay book. kharghar at that time was a desolate empty node with roads under construction at the base of the green hills. waterfalls came down from the hills and through the unbuilt plots. yesterday all that pastoral beauty was gone and instead the same badly built small houses and apartment buildings that you see all over new bombay. the hills have been quarried and the green swathes of land left for the green belts by the original master plan seem to be in the process of disappearing. but informal shopping seems to be everywhere. i wish they existed when i was driving alone in my red maruti through the empty landscape.