The Cast of Daund

And here’s the rest of the cast of Daund – heroes, baddies and onlookers, all together. The people who made it possible, the ones who made it hell, and the ones who made it hmm… interesting. But, that’s all part of the challenge! What would the experience be, if it wasn’t for these people.


The Consultants and the Client, at the Four Seasons Winery in Roti Village, about 20 mins drive, off our project road – from left, Francesco Bafaro (Material Engineer), Andrea Wolski (a representative from the Client), Warren Tan our Project Director, Dr Deokate (a representative of the winery, with a doctorate in viticulture – i.e. study of grapes and wine), CL Chong (Deputy Project Director / Structures Head IJM), and Hermann Berlot (Team Leader).

Our staff: -


Project Manager, Vijay Kumar, at Wirtgen’s function in Bhandgaon


Temple Busters of IJM – from left, Sunil Tiwari, Korra Ravi and Promod Misra, in front of a temple in Ravangaon, just before the demolition – Run, if you’re a temple, mosque or religious structure!

More Client and Consultants: -


Tree Planting Campaign at a school in Khadki – clockwise, from left, Faruque (with safety vest – Safety Officer IJM), Pramod Kumar (in light blue, with longish hair – Admin Manager IJM), School Headmaster (man with white hair), Yours Truly, Sanjay Kalbhor (village elder), Anand Kale (Client’s Safety Manager), Sunil Verma (chequered shirt – Resident Engineer), Mohanadoss (man planting tree on the right – a Client’s representative)


Wouldn’t you believe it? Yours truly, giving a speech at the school! From left, Umesh Kshirsagar (Admin Officer IJM), yours truly ahem, Paresh Galankar (Deputy Safety Manager IJM), Pramod Kumar (Admin Manager IJM) and the class teacher

The high and mighty subcontractors: -


The Brothers Gadhoke of Jitendra Singh Group, bloody rich! Diamond rings, Breitling watches, solid gold bangles, fancy cars, nothing unusual to them


A K Mallick of Kolkata, provider of our trucks (some of ‘em anyway)

The politicians: -


Marriage hall inauguration, a function hosted by the main political party of Daund, the NCP (National Congress Party, nope this ain’t the same as the Indian National Congress, the ruling party in India at the moment). The ones I can name: Supriya Sule (lady in blue making speech, current Member of Parliament, daughter of Sharad Pawar, the NCP supremo and current Agriculture Minister of India (pictured in the banner with the red turban)); Ramesh Thorat (in the middle, slightly raised, holding spectacles, also pictured in the banner second from top left, the current state assemblyman of Daund constituency); Rahul Kul (bespectacled man in the middle, just to the left of the two men in white caps, also pictured in the banner, on the bottom left corner, Chairman of Patas Sugar Factory, ex-assembly man and arch-rival of Ramesh Thorat); Rahul Khapre (sitting on the right of yours truly, friend and owner of a quarry in Bhandgaon). Getting Ramesh Thorat and Rahul Kul together in one function is nothing short of a miracle as the two go at each other like cats and dogs, and they’re both from the same party!! Funny politics in India.


A billboard commemorating Bal Thackeray, Shiv Sena Party chief, and de facto ruler of Mumbai, on his passing away in November 2012 (see earlier post ‘Two Deaths about Mumbai’). The entire state of Maharashtra ground to a halt on his funeral! Anyone caught working, was beaten up! Two million people plus loads of VIPs attended a funeral held in a Mumbai public park fit for a king! And the most amazing thing is that he held no official posts at all! Incredible, huh?


Yours truly, sporting a Maharashtrian cap, in the middle of a god damned divider! From left, name forgotten tree-planting subcon, Siddu Chinchali (IJM’s Deputy Highway Manager), a Field Engineer of our Consultant, yours truly, and Rahul Bhalerao (Leader of the Dalits (Untouchables) of South Maharashtra) in an inauguration of the tree planting work at our Project

The common folks: -


Chicken sellers of Patas


A shepherd beside the Railway Bridge


Shepherds and their flock of sheep, at our half dug rock hill at KM69


A local roadside restaurant in Kurkumbh, near our office

There’re a lot more people that I don’t have photos of, or I’d have put them in here as well. The likes of Rakshit Jain, the driving force behind our Client, the local goons, the village big shots, the wily mediators, the activists like Umesh Parge, the sand mafia, the crooks (whom I shall not name), the cops, the politicians, the Girim Village cartels, the quarry cartel of Bhandgaon Village, the high profile subcontractors, the odd gun-toting electrical subcontractor, the horde of smile-in-your-face and stab-you-in-the-back personalities, just to name a few. See? Working in this place has all the excitement of a gangster and political drama huh?

Spot the Difference

Just an experiment I did trying to compare photos taken from two different periods of time. What d’ya think? These are from my last project, the Pune Solapur Project in India. Always thought of doing something like this, just to capture the change in a project. Actually started doing it then, but never finished (What? Think I have the luxury to fiddle with things like this in that Project? Didn’t even have the time to shit! Bloody workload!) Will be better the next time I get another project to handle, hopefully…


Road along Malad Tank / Pond – The top picture was taken at the end of the dry season in 2011 (notice how much water it still had, 2010 had a particularly strong monsoon with the water levels reaching nearly the road itself, road works was done by partially filling up the tank); the bottom picture was taken towards the end of the monsoon of 2012 (it was not a good monsoon – see how little water there was even though it’s the monsoon)


The eastern approach to Kurkumbh


Kurkumbh from the west with the completed flyover in sight (bottom pic)


Between Warvand and Chaufulla – this was a particularly slow stretch. 2.5 years wasted for settling disputes on land acquisition before we got the green light to proceed with works!


Eastern approach to Patas – a series of bridges / flyover will pass through Patas town centre


Different stages of the railway bridge construction

Remembering PSP, again!

No, not the Sony Playstation PSP. The Pune-Solapur Project, what we call the project for short.


'Deep Canal', a deep irrigation canal that we had to extend in the Project

I thought – aww, what the heck! Might as well chuck in the rest of the photos of PSP I’ve collected in my special ‘PSP’ folder in the computer. Heard that the project’s completed (except for that friggin stretch of 4km in Bhandgaon, which is stuck in Court, which will probably take another umm… 10 years?!?).

I heard that Tata (the client) has still not issued the Completion Cert (like the jackass that all clients generally are), although they’ve started collecting toll since before I left the Project. That was like one and a half friggin years ago, bloody hell! In any case, it’s nothing to do with me now, hehe.


Kurkumbh Section completed


Khadki Section KM92 stretch, before the works, beautifully tree-lined, but bumpy like hell!


Some section after the works, but taken from the other direction (notice the small pink temple on the left, it was on the right in the photo above)


Deep canal - construction of an arch culvert in the irrigation canal


Deep canal, with water released – bye-bye construction materials, that’s for not finishing on time


Half completed ramp to the Railway Overhead Bridge


Same bridge, almost completed, one side anyway