Kalyan Diary

Police story Anyone unfortunate enough to contact the police stations in Kalyan-Dombivli and Ulhasnagar will be subjected to: quot;The phon...

Police story

Anyone unfortunate enough to contact the police stations in Kalyan-Dombivli and Ulhasnagar will be subjected to: quot;The phone is busyquot;. The cops claim that quot;there must be some technical problemquot;. However, an insider revealed that culprit is the TV sets installed in the stations. Few want to leave the goings-on on the screen to answer the phone, it seems. Wonder what that does for the crime rate. While on cops and phones, one would think those who man the Kalyan city police control would ensure that the phones are well attended to, considering there8217;s only one line. Also, the control hasn8217;t paid phone bills for three months in a row, leading the Kalyan Telecom District officials to cut off their lines.

Colour chameleon

The Congress equals white, the Left red, the Sangh parivar saffron fluroscent orange, saffron and the ocassional ochre. So it was strange to see BJP state vice-president Ram Kapse8217;s house, down to the night lamp, done up in green. Didn8217;t know leaders weregetting so personal about the party8217;s newfound love for the Muslim vote.

Jamai raj

Shiv Sainiks never tire of singing paeans to KDMC mayor Sharayu Pradhan for refusing to shift to the official mayoral residence quot;why do I need to be given a house when I have one of my own?quot;. Her relatives, though hardly seem that sacrificing, as a ward officer in Dombivli e recently discovered. The officer had fined some labourers for allowing sewerage to flow in to the open while repairing a septic tank in a building after residents complained. He was threatened with dekh lengequot;. Turned out that the mayor8217;s son-in-law Rajan Tamhane, a private contractor was in charge of the building, who informed the officer that the labourers were quot;his men,quot; and asked, quot;why are you harassing them?quot; To his credit, the officer did not budge from fining the defaulters. Is vahini aware of how her name is being used for all the wrong reasons?Work8217;s worth

Mahadji Shinde, the valiant 18th centurywarrior who planted the Maratha flag atop Delhi8217;s Red Fort in his time, was also a great philantrophist, it is learnt. At Haji Malang, this diarist was shown records recording that in 1780, Shinde had given a princely sum of Rs 5 for tar and bamboos for the shrine8217;s upkeep.Yogesh Pawar