Demon King Ravana victim of inflation – becomes smaller

Demon King Ravana is a symbol of Evil and on Dussera day, effigies of Ravana are burnt in a ritual that signifies the win in the battle of good over Evil. However, while Evil continues to grow by leaps and bounds in all walks of life, the size of Ravana is gradually becoming smaller and smaller because of inflation.
As the organizer of 87-year-old Sadar Ramlila has admitted – last year a 60-foot Ravana costed around Rs 45,000 inclusive of fire crackers installed in the effigy. This year, with the same budget, they had to be satisfied with a 45-foot-tall Ravan. In fact, inflation has seen Ravan's height reduce from 110 foot to around 50 foot in the span of a decade.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 20 October 2015.

Apart from height reduction, other methods employed to keep within the budget is to do away with Kumbhkaran as has been done by an organizer – for the past two years, they have erected effigies of only Ravan and Megnath only.
Earlier, the cost of all three would come to around Rs 20,000 but now, the cost escalated to more than Rs 25,000 for just two.
Some others have cut down on firecrackers in order to but maintain the heights of Ravana and Megnath.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Travel by MSRTC buses from Nashik to Pune

It takes roughly six hours to travel by bus from Nashik to Pune and, the prompt service of the MSRTC at half-hourly intervals have ensured that there are no hiccups. There are the semi-luxury buses as well as the air-conditioned Shivneri buses. During peak season or during festivals like Diwali or Dussera, passengers go in for online booking and those who do not do so get frustrated.
I had to wait in queue at Nashik for nearly two hours before I managed to get a seat to travel to Pune last week because it was ending of Diwali and the crowd comprised mostly of young men and women who were employed in IT firms in Pune and were going back to join duties.
The IT industry in Pune has resulted in hundreds of hotels and restaurants on the way – some of them like Daulat, Indraprastha, Kamats and Purohit are always busy and the cars in the parking lots bear testimony to the fact that for any place to prosper it is necessary to have good infrastructure that attracts investments.
As I waited at the Nashik bus stand I saw people ahead of me in queue getting their reservations for the 10am bus, then for the 10.30 am bus and by then, I was third in queue for the 11am bus. Unfortunately, when that bus arrived, there were only two vacant seats because all the remaining had been booked online!! I finally managed to get the 12am bus. Incidentally, the road for a major portion is through hills and the Ghat sections and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the huge mountains had been demolished in certain areas to eliminate curves and make the journey by road more pleasant. Moreover, elimination of frequent curves help to economize on fuel consumption and reduces fatigue for the drivers.
A proposal to have a railway route as an alternate means of communication failed to take off the ground.
As per the plans of the railways, the route between Nashik and Pune would be via Sinnar, Sangamner, Alephata, Manchar, Rajgurunagar, Chakan and Begadevadi on the Mumbai-Pune main line. This is the route that is flowed by the MSRTC buses. However, an alternate route has been proposed by an NGO named Rail Parishad – this is a route that will pass through Sinnar and then pass on through Akole, Kotul, Junnar, Ghodegaon before reaching Begadewadi. In the opinion of the NGO, this route would reduce the distance and also the cost of laying out railway lines.