The Hindu Business Line : Kolhapur going the Pune way?

For most, the unplanned and dusty district town of Kolhapur is tied up with the famed Mahalaxmi Temple and sugar industry. The traffic is not heavy and many believe Kolhapur today resembles Pune of the '70s. People still build bungalows with garden fronts, water is not scarce and life moves easily in a 9-a.m.-to-6-p.m. time arc.

A FLAME of the Forest in its best orange-red attire on the roadside broke the drab 26-km noon run from Kolhapur town to Hupari. Popularly called the palas, the crooked trunk of the Flame of the Forest was bereft of leaves and had on show clusters of bright orange-red flowers held in coal-black calyces.

The Latin name for the tree is Butea monosperma, with Butea being in honour of John Earl of Bute, an 18th century botanist; monosperma in Latin means one seed, going by K.C. Sahni in In The Book of Indian Trees.

Paul decided to film the tree, standing alone in all its colour amid the unpoetic crop of sugarcane on the return run. But poor evening light stalled Paul's plans. We stopped the car, collected a few fallen flowers for keep's sake and thought ourselves blessed.

It was our young driver, Gopal Mane, who first noted the bloom and that was not surprising, he being a farmer with his family growing grapes in nearby Sangli. A few yards away, Mane parked the car again to show us a turmeric crop stuck between tall stalks of sugar cane. The air held the fragrance of raw turmeric as Mane poked at the deep roots to break a length of the plant for us.

For us, Kolhapur town will always go with the variety of financial entities it has. Bishtis, co-operative banks (small and big), nationalised banks and credit societies dot every lane and bylane. Hemant Kahale of Nabard said the Kolhapur District Central Co-op Bank has lent about 60 per cent of its funds to sugar farmers and factories. For the sugar farmers, the cost of money comes to 9.5 per cent while for the industry it is 13.5 per cent. Privately bankers admit to these entities in garish head offices, nursing sizable, politically-induced NPAs.

A curiosity of the town is a bakery with the moniker, Bangalore Iyengar's Bakery. We wanted to pick up some buns but that never happened.

The best part of the town is the Rankala Lake and the Shalini Palace Hotel on its west bank. Rarely has the hotel enjoyed any occupancy and during our stay, we were the lone residents. The hotel fits one comfortably like old clothes or shoes. It has about 40 high-ceilinged rooms with most having balconies overseeing a spacious garden and the Rankala Lake. Neem, gul mohur, peepal, mast trees, a bamboo cluster, rain trees and a few which looked like scarlet bottle brush trees shaded the lawns and of a morning, one saw an Indian robin with his girl friend playing on the grass. The two did not fly away even when one was about 10 feet away confirming Dr Salim Ali's observation that they are "familiar and confiding". One also spotted a crow-pheasant or coucal stalking the wooded area and taking cover on approach.

The Kolhapur royalty built the hotel in 1931-34 at a cost of Rs 8 lakh and named it after Princess Shrimant Shalini Raje. For no particular reason, the royalty never stayed at the palace. Italian marble, carved black stones and wooden doors fitted with etched Belgium glass have been left untouched, giving the place a pleasant shabbiness. An operational clock tower keeping well the passage of time and dark brown bee hives hanging from the arches of stone towers add to the decor and for two days we breathed royalty. "Kolhapur is not a tourist town. There's nothing to see here and that's why the hotel has low occupancy," said a hotel manager.

A brisk, morning walk round Rankala Lake, with a circumference of 2.5 miles, takes about 45 minutes and it could be more if one stops and stares at the winter birds in and around the waters. One identified coots and Indian moorhens in the lake with two Brahminy kites diving in for a catch, apart from egrets, pond hernons and black-headed munias. At the western end, the boundary walls have broken down providing free entry to buffalos and humans into the waters; plastic bags and varieties of muck float at the edges. The road leading to the hotel from the west bank is called Raj Kapoor Marg and has a stone bust of Kapoor the tramp. "Hope Kolhapur does not become Pune," wished Paul as we left for Mumbai.

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