The Chateau at Roti Village

Here’s another desperate picture post, before I go on another short trip, this time to India.

Who would’ve imagined a chateau with a vineyard, and fabulous suites in the middle of rural India, surrounded by villages of goat herders and sugar cane farmers?

Well, welcome to the Four Seasons Winery, Roti Gaon (Village), Baramati District, Maharashtra, India



This place lies less than 20 minutes away from the project site office where I used to work, in Kurkumbh, Daund. We could get fleeting glimpses of the manor, from a few confined parts in our Project, but mostly the view is hidden by the many hills, buildings or farms in the area. I remember wondering what the hell the building was, until one day when a colleague suggested visiting the place. The route there is interesting. From the highway that we were building, we had to take a small trunk road up a steep rocky hill in the direction of Baramati. At the top of the climb lies Roti village (yeah, that’s the real name of the village, don’t ask me why, …maybe they’re really good with their rotis (generic name for Indian flat breads like chapatis, etc)). Right past Roti, you’ll get the full grand view of the winery, like some outlandish French manor, out of the blue, a pocket of opulence amidst bullock carts, goat herders and acres of empty grassland.

The first time there, I brought the family along on a Sunday, but it was closed, and was asked to come back another day. Since then, we’ve been there a few times, especially when visitors come for a visit. Unfortunately, all our visits were towards the end of my stay in Daund, and none were during the harvesting season (or there would certainly be a lot more photos). And with the winery being so close, what better way to get wine, than to send the driver there with a shopping list, haha. See my previous post with a picture of the Project Team in the wine cellar, and of Justin sampling wine.

Here’re more photos…








More views of the chateau, during the day, and at night


The vineyard and pastures surrounding the winery, during the monsoon


Yours truly, with Justin and brother-in-law, Gopal, at the grassland surrounding the winery, filled with sharp prickly grass (yeah, they’re nice to look at, but be warned, do not, under any circumstances, walk barefoot on it, or you’re asking for trouble).


The grounds within


The large stainless steel tanks… (nope, don’t friggin remember what they’re for, despite having it explained to me 3 times, in 3 separate tours…)


The wine cellar

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

Pictures of a Project Past

A road cutting through the rock, KM68 - 69, Pune-Solapur Highway - Picture compliments of Alex Wong Chark Yee. He presented this picture to most of us as a souvenir. Thanks a lot mate!

Have been stuck in the head office for the last 6 months now, doing mostly tenders and project support. Have visited I dunno how many project sites, but not being involved directly with one particular project is a big change from my previous stints. I’m not complaining as I get the weekends off, hehehe, but after being connected to project sites for so long, this just feels different. Kinda miss the times that I can play king, and make things happen at my command hahaha...

Here’re some pictures of my past project in India, in various stages of completion, pictures I’ve collected during the course of my work. There’re hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures, but I’ve saved just a few in a special folder for remembrance and posting, just in case I run out of things to post. And so here it is.

This should keep my blog going until I get time to sift thru the hundreds of pictures taken this year! Yeah, this year so far has been a really interesting year, in terms of holidays that is… especially during the transition time in between employments.


More pictures of the KM68 - 69 stretch, at different times. This one is from the early stages, Mar 2011, rock excavation in progress.


Same view as the above (ok, almost the same view), for comparison, with road works completed – Nov 2012


KM68 - 69, one service road through, the main carriageway and another service road to go – Oct 2011


KM68 - 69, rock breaking of the carriageway in progress – Nov 2011


Culvert construction KM70, in the vicinity of the large Cipla pharmaceutical factory, Kurkumbh Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp (MIDC) area – Dec 2011


Ups and downs, what a design? KM70 completed, Dec 2012 – Another picture from Alex Wong


Half-completed Patas Toll Plaza KM65 – Dec 2012


KM62 bridge concreting, Jun 2011 – the crappy old boom pump in the picture will prove to be one of the most important machines in our Project, with everyone fighting over it until at least near the end of the project. There’s a crew of full-time mechanics, operators and helpers dedicated specially for this machine, to make sure that it doesn’t break down.


Road construction inside Yawat town (KM43), the most congested part in the Project – Nov 2011


The Deep Canal under construction, KM79 – Mar 2012. See previous post ‘Back to Reality’ posted 25/July/2012 for views of how deep this is. The far end of the road is where the KM80 Railway Bridge is.


Launching girders over the railway at the KM80 Railway Bridge (or more commonly known as an ROB in India, short for Railway Overhead Bridge) – Dec 2012


Road paving works at the approach to the Railway Bridge, during the monsoon season – Jul 2012


Indian Independence Day Celebration 2012 at our Project Office