It took me quite efforts when I googled few famous places of Pune
to know after whom they are actually named?
First I tried the famous ABC. For those unaware it doesn’t
stand for Anybody Can blah blah blah… In Pune it stands for book hub and
Dagdusheth Temple, Prabhat Theatre etc. the full form being Appa Balwant
Chowk. When I googled ‘Appa Balwant’, it didn’t show anybody
named Appa Balwant but just the famous book stores at this location. Even ‘history of appa balwant / chowk’ could
not fetch me the desired results. As a lazy citizen wanting to know the history
of Pune places, atleast I couldn’t succeed. In one of the blogs however I could
fetch that ABC was actually named after Appa Balwant Mehendale. Did you know
that?? Yup, next time you actually visit there do take efforts to see yourself
the actual full form and the next best you can do (if you are interested) is to
know about that person. Of course a location of such prime importance has to be
named after an important person and the least you can do is to find out about
that eminent person.
The least I did (lazily) was to google about Appa Balwant
Mehendale. Nothing much came up since not many have uploaded any details about
him directly but in one of the blogs I read that Sardar Appa Balwant Mehendale fought bravely in the Panipat war between
Marathas and Rohilas. Sardar Mehendale had built this big mansion, which,
since it belonged to the Mehendale family was known as Mehendalewada. The
road junction (called a Chowk in Marathi) near is known in his memory as Appa
Balwant Chowk. So that is the short story-cum-update of ABC!
So is the case of Z Bridge. Somebody rightly observed the pattern of the bridge being similar
to alphabect ‘Z’ so thus the new name came up. I bet not even one of you
reading this blog may be knowing the real name of ‘Z bridge’ as allotted by
PMC. Neither did I till this date. So what I did?? I googled again :p :P .
Finally and luckily on the first page itself I could find the bridge named
after one Kakasaheb Gadgil. Now
next question immediately popped, Kakasaheb Gadgil who? His full name was
Narhar Vishnu Gadgil affectionately called as Kakasaheb Gadgil who graduated
from Fergusson College in Pune in 1918, and obtained a degree in Law two years
later. Gadgil was a pioneer in social reform movements in Maharashtra in the
1930s. During 1947-52 period, Gadgil served as a minister in the first central
cabinet of independent India. He held the portfolios of Public Works, Commerce,
and Mines and Power. Gadgil served as the governor
of Punjab from 1958 to 1962 and as the vice-chancellor of Poona University 1964 onwards until his death less than two years
later. (Thank you Wiki!).
But it wasn’t much to educate you about ABC or Z bridge I wrote
this blog. I wrote to highlight and if at all you share the pain of one of
recent shocking incident on one of bridges in one morning of Pune. Death of
Dabholkar. The bridge he was killed on is actually not named after Balgandharva,
but popularly it is known as Balgandharva Bridge (Balgandharva was a famous
theatre personality). And just like Z bridge the name of this so called
Balgandarva bridge was adopted from nearby situated Balgandharva Rangmandir
(Theatre). This bridge was actually
named after Maharshi Shinde the famous social reformist contributing in
eradicating untouchability, a true free-thinker.
Ironically a modern free-thinker Dabholkar was shot dead on this very bridge!!
Now the moot point. Should this bridge be still known as (I’m sorry , not known
as but called as) Balgandharva bridge. I’m sure his fans, historians and
Puneities wont mind taking up this cause of keeping the name Balgandharva to
the Theatre itself. For the sake of convenience we people start calling a
location what suits us easy and best. But the horrific incident that leaves a
dent on our very being of a Puneite calls for a thinking. To call spade a spade
or not. To give the ones who deserved to be remembered the due
remembrance. Can we call Maharshi Shinde
bridge as actually Maharshi Bridge just like we call Karve road as Karve road??
Or atleast Dabholkar bridge in remembrance of a recent sacrifice. I need not
glorify here his contributions to reform our society, you are very well aware
of it. I am not sure whether PMC will erect a statue in his respect on the
bridge ( I sincerely hope it does without any requests from citizens) but then
why wait for the officials to take up this task. Can’t we simply call it Dabholkar bridge?? Or
even Shinde bridge after whom it was actually named; but not Balgandharva
bridge. It is too much to ask? Is it even a biased request you may ask. All I
can say is it is kind of injustice not to realize and remember what they stood
for. It was for a reason the officials named a place after a person. 
Some may say what difference it shall make or whats in the
name??!! I believe name is everything.
Atleast names of these reformers needs to be remembered and cherished by
us all or else there would had been no need for us to learn all those n number
of names in our history syllabus.
I urge you Puneites (Ofcourse the choice is yours) to henceforth
call this bridge as Dabholkar / Shinde bridge so as a mark of respect. If you second this thought , pass it on.
And FYI, MG Road is actually Moledina Grant Road :P
