Pensha

  A Prabhat Road bylane where road widening has been proposed. Pic: Ambika Shaligram “One of our neighbours suddenly saw notices, announcing the Pune Municipal Corporation’s proposal to widen six-metre roads to nine metres and inviting objections within a stipulated time frame, pasted randomly in the lanes of the Anand Park locality,” says Dr Dhananjay Rau, president of Anand Park Residents Association (APRA), a housing society in Aundh. “It took us completely by surprise. Thankfully, we still had time, so we submitted our objections to the PMC.” The six internal lanes of Anand Park are dead-ends and do not connect to the main road. So why widen the roads, the residents ask. Uncertain utility apart, there will also be an environmental fallout, they argue. “There are about 25-30 trees in each lane and these will have to be axed if the roads are widened,” adds Dr Rau. “We have to consider this environmental impact. Plus widening the main road will lead to more traffic and accide...

  The residents and staff of Suhruday Geri Care. Pic courtesy: Dr Vaidehi Nagarkar Raging through 2020 and continuing in the new year as well, the COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp focus the state of health infrastructure in the country. The scramble for hospital beds across cities, oxygen scarcity and medicine shortage, the helplessness of patients suffering from other chronic or terminal illnesses highlighted the wide gaps in our public healthcare system. But apart from that, another issue that came into sharp public focus, after years of neglect, is the plight of senior citizens in our urban settlements. Unable to step out of the house as they came under the vulnerable category, and often with their children living away, they faced serious problems accessing medical care, medicines and sometimes, even essentials.  The inadequacy of the system led many to take some tough decisions. Take the case of 86-year-old Nalini Karandikar, a Thane resident, who decided to move to Su...

  Vegetables grown by Snehal Gokhale. Pic courtesy Snehal A chartered accountant by profession, Snehal Gokhale takes pleasure in what used to be a hobby – watering her plants, watching the flowers bloom and the butterflies flitting from one flower to the other. “I took up gardening to nurture an eco-system where all creatures big and small had a place of their own,” says Snehal, who has a garden in her ground floor Paud Road flat. “And we take pleasure in eating what we grow and watching the birds and butterflies and insects in a symbiotic relationship with each other”. The nature of urban gardening is being transformed, perhaps the only positive fall out of COVID. From sanguine pleasures of tending to flowers and plants, it has now become a quest for urban gardeners to know more about the food they are eating, growing it organically and making judicious use of the waste generated in their homes. “I took up gardening to nurture an eco-system where all creatures had a place,” says S...