My friend, Russi Irani, of Russo Snack Bar, Panchgani Bazar, was in town, with wife Kaity. He goes back this evening, by the Deccan Queen to Pune, then a car ride over the Katraj and Wai Ghats to Panchgani.

He is a permanent Panchgani resident, and his father before him, but he occasionally drops into Bombay, for weddings, funerals, friend�s-horse-running-in-the-Derby, sundry such reasons. The Bombay-Panchgani distance means little to him, it is like Dadar-Bhandup or Matunga Road-Goregaon. And he never stays here long, three days maximum, then Panchgani calls.

It is not that he leads a retired life in Panchgani. Far from it, he is very active. He manages his snack bar, though wife Kaity does that more than he, riding into the bazar twice a day on her scooter, serving strawberry milk-shakes and hot chocolates to tourists in the summer, and to the children of the various boarding schools in the off season.

Russi, or Russo as he is generally known, serves more like the town�s guardian, watching that no more trees are cut to widen roads, fighting against the municipality�s most inadequate water supply, acting as unofficial guide to tourists, and honorary caretaker to scores of houses left locked by house owners from the city. Anything you want, from buying property to getting hotel reservation, finding a gardener, a mason, a water diviner to recommend spots to dig tube wells, and keeping an eye on your children in school, you tell Russo. He is always there, and his faithful jeep, that zooms through the town on various errands.

He is Mr. Irani�s son, the locals tell you, Mr. Irani who ran the boat club on Mahabaleshwar lake. Mr. Irani is dead now, God bless, and the family does not have the boat club any more, but Russo has his own boat, with petrol engine, that he takes down to the dammed waters of the Krishna in the valleys below and sails in the backwaters of the Koyna and Dhom dams.

He is a tall, strapping man, of indeterminate age, standing out among the short but equally tough Marathas. And he has an adventurous spirit, roaming through the mountains, climbing rocks, camping in the jungles. He used to shoot wild life, now, like the rest of the WWF world, he only watches it, often spending entire nights in wet forests to do so.

His house is in a shelf of the Table Land, as old as the silver oaks that surround it. It has long armchairs in the lounge and National Geographics in the bookshelf, and the walls outside are weatherbeaten with a century of rain and cold.