The Highway Promises Arrival. The Village Delivers Something Else.
You have driven it, or you know someone who has. The Mumbai-Goa highway, NH 66 threading through coastal Maharashtra, is a corridor of arrival anxiety. The clock runs. The kilometres count down. Somewhere past Chiplun you stop for chai and a vada pav at a dhaba, take a photograph of the ghats, and get back in the car. The Konkan is out there, just beyond the guardrail, and you never quite reach it.
