The Pune Hyderabad Route - Wait Another Year

After almost two years I tried the Pune-Hyderabad highway in my car twice in the last two weeks. Having done that I would say that unless it is absolutely mandatory you wait another year before you venture out on this highway in your car.

The big surprises are that the road between Hyderabad and Sholapur which was previously in fairly decent condition, has gone bad. The section in Karnataka is a disgrace with potholes all over the road making driving at 30 mph rather difficult. And its a long stretch mind you. This stretch of road disgusted me so much that I almost switched off the engine. Only one other stretch of road frustrated me more - another Karnataka classic - the Belgaum to Londa road which I drove then, few years ago, at less than 10 kmph. (Satish got a headache at the end of that ordeal. I did too!) No jokes. It was a long stretch too. Come on Karnataka. Pull up your socks. There are such lovely signs by your Tourism guys advertising the forts at Bidar, Gulbarga, Basavakalyan and one gets tempted to go there. But when one sees the highway in such a condition in the pre-monsoon season, one really wonders.

The Sholapur-Tmbhurni stretch is another killer with slow traffic. There are a few good stretches (toll please!) but the average speed here does not go beyond 40-45 kmph (and I did a rather early drive, before 10 a.m.). All in all the entire Pune-Hyd drive took me 10 hours which is just not worth it now with all these bad road patches, roads under construction and so on. And to think you actually pay a decent amount on toll on this road too. I'd rather wait another year for the Pune-Sholapur stretch to get done. Then, toll and all, it would be a decent drive. One option, apart form the Shatabdi are the Volvo's which do a decent time on this route. You won't feel the bumps too much in those.

As always I bumped into the zealous cops at Sholapur bypass. They are always there, stopping all passenger cars, checking for all documents. Twice before, in years gone by, the cop actually searched my bags, clothes and all. Wondering what they expected to find. In all these years I missed these zealous law upholders maybe once or twice. Today's cop only checked the documents and left out rummaging my clothes for another day.

I also had an interesting situation - or rather, two. Outside of Tembhurni as the road narrowed down suddenly, I saw a mini van in the opposite direction swerve towards me to avoid a pothole. I swerved too instinctively. I heard a yell and looked in the rear view mirror and saw a young man riding his motorcycle. He might have gotten a jolt at my swerve I thought. But no damage done as he was riding comfortably. There was an outsized box strapped on to his back seat, as big as a television or even bigger, and to add to that, he was busy talking on his mobile. After he finished talking for a few minutes, he raced me, and waved at me, asking me to pull over. I did not. There was no need to anyway and I have seen enough of such instances on this highway. I pulled down the window and asked him what he was yelling at. He went on incomprehensibly, but his main aim was to get me to stop. When I pulled up the window and continued driving he overtook me, slowed down in front of my car and tried to stop me. I did not. Finally he gave up and I moved on.

Over the years I have seen many such incidents on the highway. Once when Satish was driving, I saw two young men chasing us for well over 5 kms. They caught up near Bhigwan and left after some argument and apologies - perhaps the fact that we were in the town was why they chose to go away instead of extorting some money or trying to at least. On the way to Pune two weeks ago, I saw four youngsters on two bikes stopping an elderly truck driver and beating him up - surely for some reason like this. These incidents happen in those road stretches on the other side of Omerga towards Pune I noticed.

The second incident was this. Further down in Zaheerabad I was pulling up to the left in the city very slowly. A young lad on a motorbike was trying to overtake me at great speed from the left and he braked, having noticed my slowing down rather late. The edge of the road being sandy, the bike slipped and it was with great difficulty that he controlled it. But to his credit the young kid, who was in far greater danger than the other one, shook his head, acknowledging his mistake in trying to overtake from the left on a busy road.

And so we live and learn.

The thali at the Bharat Petroleum dhaba outside Zaheerabad (towards Hyderabad) is brilliant. Try it. I liked the butter milk too. Same goes for the food in the Hotel before Indapur - you cannot miss it. Sanman or something like that. Good clean restaurant, loos. And the Nisarg joint just outside Mohol (on the left as you go towards Sholapur) is a great breakfast joint if you get an early start. But what really gladdened my heart was the number of new joints that are springing up on either side of the new Pune-Sholapur road. They all look very inviting and clean.

Next year, life on this road looks promising indeed. Only hope that the roads from Hyderabad and Sholapur are maintained in decent condition. Hope the Roads departments in AP, Karnataka and Maharashtra are listening. Come on guys, it is not necessary that only the toll roads need to be in good condition. Even the other roads need to be maintained.