'Strap in and hold on tight': Maharashtra juice seller paraglides to exam hall—clock is ticking and he’s hanging by a thread! Watch

KOLHAPUR: First-year BCom student Samarth Mahangde was busy serving freshly crushed cane juice to some tourists in Panchgani when friends called him about his exam wondering why he had not shown up.


Mahangde's first thought was how he would reach the centre which was about 15km away in Pasarni village at the foothills. The road route down the winding Pasarni Ghat would have taken at least half an hour and he did not have the luxury of time.

Mahangde quickly went up to Govind Yewale who organises paragliding sessions in the area and pleaded with him to take him to the village on a paraglider. After a dressing down, Yewale agreed. He was strapped on to a paraglider and dropped on the grounds of the exam centre. He got there in five minutes and rushed to take his exam.

A video of the Dec 15 incident went viral on social media recently.

Mahangde runs his juice centre at Harrison's Folly point, a scenic spot along Pasarni Ghat connecting Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar. Harrison's Folly is 5km before Panchgani and is a paragliding centre that sees hundreds of tourists during the weekends.

"The first semester paper for Natural Dissolution Management subject of university exam was earlier cancelled and I was not aware of the changed date as I could not get my hall ticket updated. While I was at work, I got to know about it from my friends," Mahangde told TOI. He said had he tried the ghat section of the road he would have surely missed the exam because of the traffic.

Yewale, who is also from Pasarni village, said he knew the youngster well and first scolded him. "Then I asked one of the paragliders to help him. He was landed on the grounds of the centre just 10 minutes before the exam."

Short of time, boy paraglides to his exam centre in Pasarni
I had asked another person to rush to get Samarth's hall ticket, writing pad and pens from his house. The traffic, one-way towards Panchgani, was moving very slow owing to road works," Yewale said.

Samarth said the question papers were being distributed but he was allowed inside. "I study in a college affiliated to Shivaji University, Kolhapur. I work to support my family. My education is equally important," he said.

Samir Shaikh, Satara superintendent of police, said, "Since Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani are tourist capitals of Maharashtra, traffic can be witnessed along ghats even on normal days. We ensure traffic police deployment throughout the year. We have ensured year-round traffic management so that tourists don't get stuck in traffic and vehicles continue to move at normal speed."

Shaikh added that the social media viral video is an old one and pointed out that it takes some time to travel along Pasarni ghat section during any time of the year.

He added that there was no abnormal traffic congestion during the period.



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