The Salubrious Hills of Malcom Peth (aka Mahableshwar) 1

The Mahableshwar market has changed so much since my childhood. I remember two kinds of shops - one with leather goods especially simple footwear, and the other with wooden walking sticks and other handicrafts. Now you have glitzy restaurants (with crappy over-priced food no doubt), fancy clothing and footwear stores, video game parlours, expensive glass handicraft and toy shops and so on. Now what remains of the old-school stores are the street vendors like the one in the photo. There is so much advertising and branding going on as well. There's a famous chanawalla called Dada Chanawalla, and then there's
Mama Chanawalla and can you believe it, Bapu Chanawalla! You can't ignore the advertising for the Mapro farm and Sherbaug, both between Panchgini and Mahableshwar. "What is Fun" is the slogan used by Mapro to draw vistors to the Mapro farm, a pseudo-theme park. You can see how strawberry and other fruit products are made into a juice concentrate, you can sample them for free and you can finally buy them. You can even take a walk in the garden near by. A great time-pass idea. The Sherbaug advertising is very creative as well. There are couple of ads made in a film poster style and the others, like the one on the upper left, are also quick to catch your attention. But despite the commercialization of the town, Mahableshwar is still beautiful in a lot of areas. I have to admit that the Market area, and the area around the lake remind you of a crazy Mumbai suburb. But once you go a few kilometers away from the hub of the town, you feel you are in paradise. And the salubrious weather relaxes you again.