It’s a tight ropewalk

The other option for Bendase’s residents is to catch a bus or an auto rickshaw to Karjat station that has connecting trains to Bhepuri. The bus stop is a half-an-hour walk from the village. “Many women opt for the longer route which is expensive too. If we cross the river, we reach the station in half the time. What we really need is a permanent bridge here. The river swells during the monsoons and that makes it even more difficult to cross the bridge,” says Vasudev Kadu, who takes the train from Bhepuri station to Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, for work.

About 10 years ago, Pushpa Kadu, tired of the exhausting longer route, thought she would try the wire bridge—after all, it seemed so easy when Janabai did it. But halfway through it, the swirling waters made her dizzy and she scrambled back. That was the last she tried. Ever since, she has been taking the longer route to Karjat station—seven kilometers long and which takes an hour.

But for most of the residents of the 40-odd houses in Bendase village, this bridge remains an important link to the world beyond their village. With most of the services, schools, jobs, markets and fields located on the other side—in Bhepuri village—the people of Bendase have little choice but to do this balancing act everyday. On an average, at least 100 villagers use this bridge every day, even hauling with them canisters of milk, farming equipment and luggage.

Fifty five-year-old Madhukar Kadu and 15 of his family members use the makeshift bridge almost every day. “Everyone in my family, except the kids, take the bridge. It is scary when the water level rises and the lower wire is completely submerged. Once, after a heavy downpour, the water had risen close to the overhead wire. Everyone—from members of the Panchayat Samiti to the PWD—has visited and inspected the place but there is no sign of a permanent bridge,” says Madhukar.

Sixty-year-old Nathuramchander Kadu is one of the “architects” of the bridge. “Around 25 years ago, we found some wires lying on the railway track. We thought they could be of use and tied them to a defunct electricity pole. A few years ago, the bridge snapped but we tied it again. During the rains, the wire sags. People keep falling off the bridge but no one has been injured in the last 25 years because everyone knows swimming,” he says.

Bharat Kadu and Manohar Garad, both physically challenged, cross the bridge everyday. While Kadu goes to a college across the river, Garad works on a farm in a village on the other side.

The overhead wire and the one below are separated by at least 6 feet. So children, who cannot reach the overhead wire, have devised their own method to get across. Ten-year-old Haresh Garad says, “We use a hook and slide along the rope. Our school is on the other side.”

Laxmibai Shinde and her 80-year-old mother-in-law use the rope too. “My mother-in-law is too old to travel this way but poor people like us can’t afford the daily autorickshaw and bus ride,” says Laxmibai.

Besides villagers from Bendase, people from the half-a-dozen adjoining villages too use the makeshift bridge. Some day, they hope, the village will get a permanent bridge and they won’t have to swing their way across. For a village that is connected to the outside world through cell phones and cable television, bridging this physical divide seems tough.