The post ended on a dismal note. Recondo got no further road contract from the corporation, said the presenter. The forever flat road was a story worth including in my book, *BOMBAI*. But how to find a roadworks contractor and a municipal corporator from 55 years ago? It was time to unleash my amazing WhatsApp community of detectives.

The QR code on this page invites my readers to join *Bombai Stories*, a WhatsApp community for discussing aspects of Mumbai and helping me find or verify stories for my book, *BOMBAI*. It has 146 members, all readers, and 17 chat groups dedicated to different city issues.

I posted in the chat group on Roads, asking for help in tracking down Recondo.

**Let’s talk about Bombai.**
Click the QR code above to join my WhatsApp group to share your Bombai stories for my book—and perhaps answer some of my Bombai questions.

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My Bombai sleuths tapped their networks; information began to trickle in. A reader found out Recondo was registered 78 years ago, on 21 February 1947. Deb Purkayastha sent a screenshot revealing that Recondo had ceased to exist, possibly due to political shifts and vested interests.

Ram Warrier, a volunteer walking tour guide with Khaki Tours, discovered that one of Recondo’s Parsi directors might have been named Minoo Rustom Asli. Another reader told me the company had been based in Panvel. “This is like Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson,” he said.

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The first breakthrough came with a forwarded tip from a Pune friend of Shilpa Prabhudesai: Our current MLA Shirole’s dad might have gotten Recondo to do the road.

I began calling friends in Pune. Someone knew a Gen Z Shirole who was also in politics. I rattled around Facebook and found Prithviraj Shirole. A relative? One Shirole led to another, and finally, I stumbled on a video of Shrikant Shirole, the Pune Municipal Corporation corporator who, at 20, commissioned an indestructible road.

Bingo! I had my man.

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My WhatsApp detectives went to work again. Finally, a Pune advocate, Sheela Adyanthaya, messaged me: “Here is his number.” Three days ago, I finally spoke to Shrikant Shirole about roads and potholes and miracles.

Shirole sits under a framed picture of Shivaji in his office in Pune. Apparently, there is a shared blood link: his eldest daughter-in-law is a descendant of the Nimbalkar family, to which Shivaji’s wife Saibai — mother of Sambhaji — belonged.

He is spry and energetic and doesn’t look like a man who will turn 80 next year.

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And yes, he did become Pune’s youngest corporator at 20.

With a family steeped in politics, leadership might have come to him naturally, but it seems he had something extra: a willingness to push the envelope and a cast-iron sense of doing the right thing.

In 1973, he became curious about Pune’s devastated roads. Why were they so regularly, predictably abysmal?

The city’s Chief Engineer explained how the lowest-bidder system of tendering road-building contracts always led to cheap work and third-rate roads. The engineer thought the work of Recondo, run by two Parsi brothers, might be worth a closer look.

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Recondo used hot mixing technology, in which an aggregate like stone, gravel, or sand is heated and then combined with molten bitumen. They are thoroughly blended in a hot mix plant, becoming the asphalt that is laid down to make roads that last forever.

After due diligence, Shirole asked the brothers to suggest a road on which they could do their magic. They picked Jangli Maharaj Road.

Shirole knew that Recondo would never win the Rs 15 lakh contract if it was done the usual way, so he bypassed the tendering process.

Recondo, sure of their quality, offered free repairs of any defect, including potholes, for 10 years—provided all roadworks and utilities finished their underground cabling before the road was laid down, and pandals were banned, because they required breaking roads.

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Why didn’t Recondo get any more work from the Pune Municipal Corporation?

“The Pune Municipal Corporation wanted to be sure that the road was as incredible and weather-proof as promised, so they decided to wait and see,” said Shirole. They also wanted to see if the Parsi brothers would do free repairs if needed.

Alas, the need never arose.

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“The dedication of a Parsi is something different from the dedication of a local contractor,” said Shirole.

Meanwhile, other contractors began setting up hot mix plants. The city went back to its beloved lowest-bidder tendering system, which enriched contractors and corporators alike.

The Parsi brothers shut down Recondo and moved on, migrating to the USA. Roads returned to being predictably shabby.

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In January, however, there will be a party in Pune to celebrate the 50th birthday of its one “forever road” as Jangli Maharaj Road turns 50. I don’t plan to miss it.
https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/the-hunt-for-shrikant-shirole-23595321