Families travel out of Pune to get away from dhol tasha noise during visarjan
As the city turns into a cacophony of sounds, there are several such families and groups headed out of Pune to hill stations and tourist spots
Since the past four years, Amol Pol and his family have been travelling out of Pune city on the last two days of the Ganesh festival. And this year is no exception (especially with a two-month-old baby in the house). Reason: The unbearable noise caused by DJ sound systems and dhol-tasha pathaks that have become more of a nuisance for most Punekars.
“Since the past four years, we have been travelling out of Pune on the last two days of the Ganpati festival just to avoid the heavy noise pollution. As there were no processions for the last two years, we were at home but this year again with visarjan processions planned in a grand manner, we are travelling to Mahabaleshwar,” said Pol, a filmmaker who stays on the busy Sinhagad road.
“Me along with my elderly mother; wife; daughter, 5; and the newest member of our family are all going to Mahabaleshwar. Like me, there are two more families of my friends staying in the peth areas coming with us and we are all going to stay there till Sunday,” he said.
As the city turns into a cacophony of sounds, there are several such families and groups headed out of Pune to hill stations and tourist spots just to get away from the noise. While the main processions are held on Laxmi road, Shivaji road and Tilak road, there are several local Ganpati mandals that have processions in their own areas.
Siddhesh Joshi, a resident from Sadashiv peth on Tilak road, said, “We are already in Lonavala since yesterday. My wife and I along with our seven-year-old son have come for a three-day stay. Our entire peth area turns into a large DJ pub with hundreds of sounds playing at the same time. We cannot even hear our own voices and it affects senior citizens badly. So, we decided to head out of Pune as it is a weekend too.”
While Suryakant Jadhav, vice-president, Mahabaleshwar Hotel Owners’ Association, said, “There is good response for booking across Mahabaleshwar hotels this weekend as over 60% bookings are done. And, we are getting continuous enquiries from people in Pune and Mumbai who want to come here and avoid visarjan day. Also there is light rain and people want to enjoy a nice weekend. Mostly IT company employees are the ones booking hotels.”
