“The wind was not blowing in the desired direction and hence the paragliding exercises could not be conducted,” said Sanjay Rao, founder and director of Nirvana Adventures that was instrumental in imparting the three-day training in paragliding. “However, Gandhi and his crew had already finished the basic training in the past two days itself and had already completed some paragliding exercises on Wednesday. Due to the unfavourable weather, we could not undertake additional sessions,” said Rao. “The training went amazingly well,” he said.

As Thursday dawned and the last few hours of Gandhi’s Pune visit ticked away, the police milled around the Karanjgaon chowk while the representatives of both the print and the electronic media who had stationed themselves at the spot, stood waiting for Gandhi’s convoy. Gandhi and his eight-member crew who were lodged at Rao’s guesthouse were due to pass the chowk in order to go to the Karanjgaon village located at the foothills of the mountain.

Around 3.30 pm, Gandhi’s tinted Black car passed the chowk, accompanied by his fleet of cars. However, like the past two days, neither did the car stop, nor could the crowd get a glimpse of the leader ensconced behind the tinted windows. Meanwhile, police bandobast continued to remain “unshakable” at the chowk with “no media entry” messages ricocheting the walkie-talkies.

Faced with bad climatic conditions, the convoy returned to the village around 5.30 pm. Soon, Gandhi elevated the excitement levels by interacting with the village children.

“The entire village had gathered to welcome him and his security personnel were very strict. But he came to us with a smile, and even shook hands with us,” said Rahul Shankar Takwe, a Class IX student from the village. We had approached him for an autograph, but he urged us to take photos instead and even posed with us,” related Shankar Balashinge (18), proudly showing off his photo with the leader.

The children said that they had been informed by Rao a few days prior to Gandhi’s arrival and added that they had helped the crew with the luggage.