Once upon a time there was a place which was in the heart of Sahayadri hills surrounded by beautiful mountains and touched upon by sun rays. But now the picture is changed Lonavala is a crowded place surrounded by people and touched by garbage. Once considered the hill station of Maharashtra now is overly crowded on weekends with its temperature continuously rising because of global warning.
The place still has breathtaking views of the city but its not a place anymore to spend time away from city pollution and population.The very famous tiger point (sunset point) as it is known as is so dirty with garbage and plastic bottles with vendors and hawkers blocking the actual sunset view. I do not completely blame the hawkers and vendors but the tourist who come to visit the place also have no respect to the place. I don't think anyone will be able to show the place to the next generation as they are seeing it now . Its sad but I doubt if it Lonavala will still exist in the next 20 years as a hill station of Maharashtra.
When we travelled from Mumbai to Lonavala in the early morning hours all we could see was people especially people riding 2 wheelers taking the wrong lane in the name of short cut and not understanding the severity of their wrong doing.Also the famous "chikki" and "fudge"in Lonavala is no more a rare sight as most of town is painted red with famous Maganlal's Chikki banners. There are so many resorts and adventure parks there that when we stand on the cliff of the mountain expecting to see beautiful flowers, green leaves and rare species of birds and butterfly all we see are big resorts and cottages with there leaking water pipelines and the smoke from their chimney. Also these resorts and homestays provide more facilities and adventure than the actual place. It hardly matters if its in Pune , Mumbai or Lonavala.
One more disturbing thing is that now there are big wall protectors , iron rods and walls installed on the cliffs as we hardly bother to take care of ourselves when we take the newest most technologically advanced way of killing also known as "Selfie". People forget that taking weird unnatural pictures is not something to be proud of.
All said and done I wish we respect all such beautiful places and make it our won after all they don't need us but we humans need them.
' fill='%23359391'%3e %3cpath d='M46.1538462%2c43.5714286 L41.5%2c50 L36.8461538%2c43.5714286 L36.8670256%2c43.5714286 C36.3173077%2c42.7142857 36%2c41.6851429 36%2c40.5714286 C36%2c37.4854286 38.4535641%2c35 41.5%2c35 C44.5464359%2c35 47%2c37.4854286 47%2c40.5714286 C47%2c41.6851429 46.6826923%2c42.7142857 46.1329744%2c43.5714286 L46.1538462%2c43.5714286 Z M41.4294872%2c39 C40.6150641%2c39 39.9487179%2c39.675 39.9487179%2c40.5 C39.9487179%2c41.325 40.6150641%2c42 41.4294872%2c42 C42.2439103%2c42 42.9102564%2c41.325 42.9102564%2c40.5 C42.9102564%2c39.675 42.2439103%2c39 41.4294872%2c39 L41.4294872%2c39 Z' id='Location-white'%3e%3c/path%3e %3c/g%3e %3c/svg%3e)
