The Ahilyabai Holkar Talav. That is how the water tank is officially known. But most people call it Mastani Talav.

Legend has it that Mastani, the beautiful and brave companion of Bajirao Peshwa, one of India's greatest generals, used to have an occasional, leisurely bath here.

Bajirao ardently desired that his son by Mastani be invested with the sacred thread and be declared a brahmin. But even the powerful Bajirao could not get Pune's Brahmin orthodoxy to agree.

That is history. The present is what my driver Raj Kumar tells me. The last he saw water in the talav was three years ago. For parched throats, beauty baths are distant dreams.