Bizman paints pimple saudagar red, saying sorry to his girlfriend

Wears heart on his sleeve and spends Rs 72,000 overnight to plaster the neighbourhood with 300 posters, cajoling her to return

Residents of Pimple Saudagar woke up to a sight of several unique hoardings plastered across this bustling suburb on Friday morning. The person who had put them up, in the dead of the previous night, was expressing a tender apology to one Shivde. Over the next few hours, several residents took photographs to fuel social media. By afternoon, the hoardings had become the talk of the town, forcing the police to initiate action.

By late evening, Wakad police had tracked down the printer, the boys who had put up the hoardings and even the man who had commissioned the job. They were able to zero in on Nilesh Khedekar, a resident of Ghorpadi Peth, who had the hoardings printed and put up.

Khedekar, 25, who hails from a business family, was trying to reach out to his girlfriend and apologise to her, as he had got into an argument with her a few days ago. In a bid to make up with her, he decided to do something “creative”. His idea was to put up the banners and hoardings on the route that she would take to return home from Mumbai on Friday.

Sources revealed that while his girlfriend had gone to Mumbai, Khedekar learnt that she was supposed to return on Friday to her home in Pimple Saudagar. He sought help from a friend residing in Keshav Nagar, Chinchwad, who in turn got in touch with a printer. Overnight, 300 big and small flex banners were printed. Next, a group of boys who are known for putting them up were roped in. The total cost of printing and putting up the banners went up to Rs 72,000, the boys who had been subsequently caught by Wakad police, told Mirror.


By Friday morning, they had put up 300 hoardings on the 4-km stretch between Sai Chowk to Kalpataru Society in Pimple Saudagar. As word got around, everybody was curious to know who Shivde was and who was the one apologising to her. By evening, cops found that Khedekar used this name as a term of endearment for his girlfriend. The cops summoned him to the police station, but since he was in Mumbai he could not make it there.

“We got in touch with the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) officials who told us that they would lodge a formal complaint on Saturday as Friday was a government holiday. We have found that a resident of Keshav Nagar had put up the banners on behalf of Nilesh Sanjay Khedekar,” said sub inspector Harish Mane, attached to Wakad police station.

This turn of events was beyond Khedekar’s anticipation — and given the manner in which the situation snowballed he was quite at a loss in gauging his girlfriend’s reaction to his apology. “The entire thing has turned ugly. My idea was to be creative in apologising to her. Now I think I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I have let my parents down. I have let her (girlfriend) and her family down as well,” said Khedekar, who is currently pursuing his MBA and is a director in a familyfloated company.