A 23-year-old engineering student of MIT, Malhar Pandey, has made it a mission to keep old and historic sites in Pune clean and bring them back to their glory.
Pandey, a history enthusiast, is a student at MIT ADT university. He along with a group of friends have begun “Jhunj Mohim” under which they will undertake the mission to clean historical sites in and around Pune.
“I am deeply interested in history, politics, and other aspects related to social sciences more than my technical studies. I love to write about Maratha history, and wish to propagate it around the world,” said Pandey who is deeply influenced by the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Lokmanya Tilak, Swami Vivekananda, and Veer Savarkar.“Mohim” means campaign in Marathi. Jhunj is an organisation that was started by my friends and myself when we were exploring historical sites in Pune.
We found that the condition of our historical sites is really poor, and we thought it is our duty to conserve these sites.” said Pandey.“The first mohim that we undertook was cleaning of Sati Ramabai Peshwa Samadhi in Theur, on January 26, 2020. At that time, nearly 20 people joined us. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, we were not able to undertake any such mohim in the year 2020. With a reduction in Covid-19 cases, we have decided to undertake this mission of cleaning and restoring the samadhi of Nanasaheb Peshwa.
We wrote a letter to Pune mayor Murlidhar Mohol and he gave the permissions and readily offered the team of PMC to help us in this cause,” he added.The samadhi of Nanasaheb Peshwe had a special appeal for Pandey.“Seeing the disfigured samadhi of Nanasaheb Peshwa, we felt really bad and as torchbearers of this glorious history and citizens of Pune we took it upon ourselves to clean and restore it.”People from all age groups have joined the mission whose main goal is not just conservation of historical sites but in general to conserve the glorious history of ancestors.
Now every Sunday, he and his friends go on cycle rides to unknown places around Pune, looking at part of history that is in despair and shortlisting their next cleanliness and restoration missions.
