93-year-old woman relocates in search of safe street for a stroll

Pune: Ninety-three-year-old Mangala Ukidve’s story can be an eye opener for the city planners as to how policies promoting densification affect the lives of senior citizens.

Ukidve’s family owns two flats in an apartment adjacent to Grahak Peth on Tilak Road. Yet, she chose to shift to Kalpataru Sahaniwas, an assisted senior living facility along lane number 12 of Bhandarkar Road, in search of a street where she could walk without the fear of being knocked down by a vehicle.

The facility has 35 senior citizens, all aged above 85 years, who have left behind their homes in other parts of Pune to relocate there. Their personal stories differ, but they have in common a love for a peaceful stroll.

Every morning and evening, accompanied by attendants, these seniors take a stroll along the 150m small lane meeting the dead end just ahead of Beverly Estate, a five-storey building that houses the facility off Bhandarkar road and the Kamla Nehru Park road intersection.

It is this small lane, an access to barely six plots, which has been shortlisted for widening to nine metres by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The PMC had, through a notice dated December 29, 2020, sought citizens’ views within a month about widening of 335 six-metre roads to nine metres. Residents of five of the six properties along the lane and even from the neighbourhood have submitted their official objections to the PMC’s road widening proposal, accusing the civic body of violating pedestrians’ rights.

Madhavi Potdar, founder of Kalpataru Sahaniwas Foundation, said, “Ours is a non-profit organisation. We have started this facility with the cause of supporting very elderly citizens, who either stay alone or who have families but want to spend peaceful time with people of their age.”

“There is hardly any space for widening the internal lanes in the area. After the widening of the roads, I fear that the vehicles will be parked on the widened street and block the pedestrians’ way,” said Uma Hiremath, who helps Potdar in running the facility.

“Walking is the only exercise for me at this age. I shifted here (Kalpataru Sahaniwas) as it was not possible for me to even step out of my house on Tilak Road. The lanes there are ever busy with traffic,” said Ukidve, who had graduated from SP College and was principal of MES boys’ school.

Ukidve knows all the lanes and bylanes in Sadashiv Peth like the palm of her hand and recollects how these once peaceful streets turned into an urban chaos after the old wadas crumbled to pave the way for highrises. “Even confining oneself inside the Tilak Road flat is not easy. There is a constant noise of vehicles travelling at high speed and the honking,” she told TOI.

“My children had even put thick glass doors to make our flats soundproof. But the honking is so deafening that the noise penetrates the flat even if one window is kept open for ventilation. During festivals and processions, the noise is unbearable,” Ukidve said.

“You will find many senior citizens from Tilak Road moving out and relocating to other places during the festival period. At this age, all I want is peace and a safe stretch to walk,” she said.


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