There is something in you, Pune, that makes me think now, why did I not like being there? Why?
This is the city where I spent five years pursuing my 4- year course of Computer Engineering. Yes I am one of those IT guys. I call myself an IT guy not an IT geek because I am not one. On a quite Sunday you will not find me working on some project, but sipping my chai. That one cup of pure bliss. Shaking away the Saturday- night blues of the over filled glasses of Vodka. Well I am yet to get a job but who said you need to work to drink?
Coming back to Pune, the city, Oxford of the East, there’s a notable difference in the city 5 years back and now. As every proud Punekar says, “purvi cha puna ata rahila nahi…” (go find a marathi friend to translate this for you). The thought that I too would be branded as a PUNEKAR sends shivers down my spine. But somewhere, some part of me is still in Pune. Why else would I still think of it when I am sitting comfortably in my home in a Mumbai suburb, wiping sweat off my brow while it is raining outside and there’s not the slightest hint of coolness in the climate? This never happened there. One shower and the average punekar would be seen wearing sweater instead of a rain-coat. The typical puneri would even be wearing a fur or wool cap covering his ears.
Pu La hated Pune, yet settled in this cultural back-bone of Maharashtra after he retired. I hate the city. I hate its ever increasing pollution levels, which no one is bothered about. I hate the “… isn’t it someone else’s responsibility…” attitude that is gripping the entire country and is magnified in Pune. I hate the people who don’t look around while spitting out the over-flowing fountain of gutkha spittle. Bikers spit while riding, rickshaw drivers make it a point to spit on someone. And the ever so popular “Road-side Romeo” scratching his crotch by one hand and splitting his hair with other, and spitting. All at the same time. I hate the traffic jams. I have spent 3 hours covering a distance that should normally-by Pune standards, should take 30 minutes. In Mumbai it would take just 10. I hate the crater marked roads. 9 out of 10 here suffer from some form of chronic back pain. Punekars have a habbit of starting off their day with abuses to Mumbai. That’s evident because this entire city has had enough of playing the second fiddle to the financial capital of our country.
But yet… there is something that I like about this place.
May be it’s the freedom that I enjoyed. The late nights I spent eating bhurji-paav at Swargate. The climb to Parvati at 2.30 AM, the tapri chai which is every engineering student’s elixir, the bike-rides with friends, and I am not hinting at female friends. Just the thrill of it all made me feel today…
What is it about this city that makes me think, why did I hate it in the first place???
