Its June and hence its Palkhi time here in Pune. We are witnessing it for the first time since we were not here last year in June. 2 Palkhis (Sant Dnyaneshwar and Sant Tukaram) are making their way thru the Pune city to Pandharpur. Pilgrims in the thousands are walking 30 km daily to reach the final destination. In total they would have walked about 250 – 300 km. The palkhis originate from the place where the Sants took the samadhi.
Major roads are closed for 2 days in Pune and Schools have holidays too. The Palkhis arrived in Pune on June 13 and will leave Pune on June 15. We have not seen the actual palkhis since it would be too crowded. But we saw many people walking on the street to join the Palkhis.
The Palkhi is a unique Pune culture thing.
Offices have sent out emails advising people to either work from home or take alternate routes. Various people are offering water, snacks, food to the pilgrims.
30 min commute took 1 and 1/2 hours today thanks to the Palkhi. 🙂
I wish print/TV media could have given some coverage to this annual event. No picture of actual palkhi or wari in TOI. There were few indirectly related articles.
Have you posted pictures of this somewhere already?