Mumbai-Pune expressway in the monsoons

It isn’t always that you get a week-end break to rediscover old loves. Sorry to disappoint, I’m not talking about old loves as in ‘people’, but old loves as in ‘places’ — this is after all a travel page, and travel can also be a trip down memory lane with the comfortable and the familiar, as much as it is an actual
journey.

So, last weekend, with the skies suitably overcast, I decided to
accompany my husband and some members of the Indian Rugby team, playing for local club Bombay Gymkhana this time, for an Away match against Pune, to be played well, in Pune. And in doing so, rediscovered the wonder of road travel around Mumbai.

The expressway to Pune has always been a road I have felt proud of. When it first came up, I was in awe, so much did it resemble European expressways, smooth, showy — plus it got me to Khandala on a traffic-less day in under two hours. I was revisiting the expressway after a four year gap, and some things had changed. The traffic monster has reared its ugly head and got cars backed up at toll nakas. The road was bumpy in some parts, as opposed to its silky newness of earlier. But what hadn’t changed, and what drew me, as it has always done in the past, was the rain-cajoled verdancy on both sides of the expressway.

Regular users of the road may be familiar with such greenness, but a being mostly exposed to the concrete mass of mill-to-mall areas and the ceaseless cement surrounding  the work-life commute would thrill at nature showing off so. The continual downpour had spawned secret waterfalls as it always does, and the mist kissed the mountain tops rather fetchingly, so as to warm the heart of the most unromantic among us. The Bhatan tunnel elicited wonder from my five year old, and I had to search my memory to befittingly explain ‘tunnel’ as opposed to ‘cave’ and the necessity of both in the expressway scheme of things.

The pleasures of such rides often come back when reflected upon, later. The surrounding vegetation so joyously alive in the rain, the smell of fresh earth, rain soaked, wet, the animals sighted in the distance huddled up to keep warm, smaller trees bending in the breeze as thundershowers forced compliance.

As we entered Pune’s outskirts, we passed Balewadi, the state-of-the-art training complex where many Indian teams including Shooting and Swimming, apart from Rugby, trained for last years’s Commonwealth Games. It boasts a shooting area that’s supposed to be the envy of Asia, apparently.

And what of the actual Pune trip in all this? It was, as I mentioned before, a safety net of all that is familiar and wonderful. The Pune home team put up a spirited effort, having included army players in their line up, but were nonetheless beaten by Mumbai’s
intrepid lot after a body-bruising game. Round one to Mumbai in the Wally Abraham Cup league matches! The teams played on the Pune Police grounds. Both the Army and the police have special ties to Rugby, both have active teams. Nearby, three sniffer dogs waited their walk in the rain, their loving demeanour belying the
sombreness of their job. The training facility for sniffers is situated very close by, I learned.

I minded three little ones, as I watched the game — mine and two
other players’ — and their shrill cheers resounded in the air, matching those of the Pune supporters. Later there were kebabs, sizzling hot off the tawa, in the mist and the downpour, and
conversation as familiar as breathing as ravenous boys dissected the game as they ate. And now, in mind’s-eye, how it was that week-end — the muddy field (dirty ankles and grime adding to the atmosphere), the pouring rain, the adrenalin-charged match and loved ones close by — can the wonder of travel be more engaging at all?