PUB OR HILL STATION

Mahableshwar is a beautiful hill station, 285 km from Mumbai. Once the summer capital for the Britishers. Homes and hotels built by the British stand strong and beautiful more than 70 years later. I met a lady who owns a hotel, built in the British days, that will complete 100 years in 2024. With great efforts she is managing to keep herself and the huge structure as it is. She reminisces of the days when Indian film star Dev Anand would come every year, sit in the beautiful lawns of the hotel, with the Sahyadri mountain ranges before him, enjoying the cool breeze and more importantly the silence of nature, to write scripts of his movies. Now she says the crowd is so different.

A crowd that has made hill stations their pubs. Hill stations are places to breathe fresh oxygen, to feel the stillness of nature, to hear the beautiful chirping of the birds and to be touched by nature to bring out the best in you. Unfortunately that is not the case now.

I pass by this newly set up hotel which has no aesthetic whatsoever. Young boys and girls are staying there. Some are dancing outside and some smoking, drinking and blowing away the hookah! A mismatch in those hilly forested surroundings. Out of curiosity, I should have asked where they come from, but they were too immersed in their smoke world. The idea of fun has changed. The idea of a holiday destination has changed. There is blaring music all over the hill station dimming the natural sounds of nature.

The money comes from these young people as they are spending like there is no tomorrow. The reason why hotels are mushrooming everywhere with absolutely no thought for the environment. Hotels are being built on agricultural and forest land. Below is a picture of a cemetery built on a tourist spot which has a beautiful waterfall with the Venna lake flowing below.

One local says he is surprised nowadays to see so many of the local animal, the bison, out in the open. He does not even realise that we have disturbed their forest land and water spots, so they are coming out.

I wonder how hotel permissions have been given so brazenly. But why am I wondering. A corrupt municipal officer is giving licences left, right and centre. 

Everyone wants a room with a view. So these guys are literally giving you a room with a view. They are building hotels on mountain tops and near the lakes, so you pay handsomely to get a view. One can see the mountain land curving in and loosening.

The hotel property of the old lady I spoke about earlier is being eyed by many, waiting to demolish it and perhaps make another big pub.

Indian governments are engaging in environment discussions world over but ignorant that closer home the environment is being disturbed and lost, all because of corrupt officials and the madness of money.

Maharashtra politician Uddhav Thackeray had his night sleep disturbed in Mahableshwar recently by blaring music being played at a hotel next to his. When the music did not stop despite his orders, he used his power to shut it down. But sadly he did not look around and see the seriousness of the problem.

He would have then realised it is more than a one night disturbance.