Moden Pan Vaknar Nahi

Pune is a strange city. Well I don't really know the Pune 'city'. I know some villages in proximity which Puneites would argue- can't be called as belonging to Pune, but it doesn't matter, attitude of the people is the same (and my office located at Hinjewadi has "Pune - 411057" in its address). City is made by its people. Every city has a face. Pune has a face of rude brat in a class. No offense to Puneites.

Well I did say no offense, but by now Puneites reading this would already be fuming and waiting to snap back. They don't like being opposed. If you want to see a real Pune spirit, DRIVE. Drive on the Pune roads.

Puneites assume that traffic rules are just not for them. They hate waiting in the traffic so they get into the wrong lanes; they would bang into your vehicle or make you fall from your bikes and wouldn't even say sorry. You can even see a block at a chowk with a hell lot of vehicles trying to go in the every possible direction and eventually forming a deadlock that just can't be broken.

Every driver in Pune has an inflexible spine and it is below his dignity to take a step back. That's what you call a Marathi attitude - 'Moden pan vaaknar nahi'.

One of my trainers in IBM narrated an incident. ­­­­­­­Her husband was driving through Pune and when he wanted to turn left he gestured the signal by waving his hand out of the window. A speeding scooty came from behind, pushed his hand, shoved it inside through the window and disappeared. We laughed at the incident till it dawned on us how dangerous it could have been.

Signals?? What are they!? We don't care. Wrong lanes? So what? I want to go ahead!

Typical Pune attitude.

A driver of our company bus is another example. When he drives I sit with bated breath. He doesn't like traffic and he disregards all the speed breakers.

'I JUST DON'T CARE YOU EXIST! SCREW YOU!' I imagine him screaming at the speed breakers. They can’t be a reason to reduce the speed.

Then there are auto drivers. They are typically like auto drivers in Mumbai. Except that they just don't give you the slightest of respect even for money. Once I sat in an auto and saw the meter running at the top speed. I argued with the driver saying his meter was faulty.

He made me get down half way into the road. After I got down I offered the fare till that distance.

'I don't want your money!' he said loftily and sped ahead leaving me gawking.

For a distance of less than one kilometer, they can charge you Rs 100, that is if you are new to Pune. Well if you live in Pune, you’ll never want to use autos. There is no bargain. If you even reduce Rs 10 and ask for Rs 90, they’ll give a jeering smile and spit a stinging 'NO' at you.

Once when I took an auto from Wakad bridge for Phase 2, IBM at the settlement of Rs 120, the auto was stopped just at the end of the bridge. The traffic police asked for the license and the youth that drove my auto looked at him sheepishly. The police screamed insults at him and then turned to me as I was sitting in the auto hands clutching my head, annoyed for being late for the office.
'Where are you going Madam?' he asked me, 'IBM! And he asked for 120!'
He then turned to the driver and muttered threats in Marathi about charging fine to him for charging the commuter Rs 60 extra than the right fare.
'Madam! He should have charged you Rs 60!' expecting me to be surprised.
I wasn't oblivious to that.
'And besides he doesn't even have a license! Shouldn't you ask for a license before you take an auto!' he gave an advice.
Anyway the auto driver was released after some 'Mandavli' and he did take Rs 120 from me after I reached IBM.

If you have a vehicle of your own, you don't have to travel by PMTs where even if the one side of the bus is reserved for the ladies, no man vacates it for standing women. Travelling by PMTs is a nightmare. Women here don't argue like the women in Mumbai. If they do, the dangerous rogue looking person says 'Why do you have to go for the jobs then! You are women, stay home!', conductor stays away saying 'Please solve this among yourselves. Madam, you’ll get down, after that men here would hit me!'

'Reserved for ladies' it would mention in the buses with the Motor Vehicle Act.

Most men would sit as if mocking that board in the bus.

The last option for transport is six-seaters. Calling them six-seaters would be unfair because these vehicles which seem to accommodate six people each can accommodate around fourteen people. The only thing guys might enjoy is that they can get close to a good looking girl only here and even if they give a 'seemingly' unintentional push to her, she would't be able to complain. (Warning: guys shouldn't be too hopeful. Some of my friends did come across a beautiful but nasty tempered girl who snapped at them loudly even when she got a really unintentional push.)

Subjiwalas! That is a different topic. In the villages like Wakad, you would not see good quality vegetables. In better places like Aundh, they would display it beautifully. If you ask price, they'll shove the bags in your hands without you asking for them.

Once I was at a subji shop whose owner was a Maharastrian. He told me Bhindi costed Rs 10 for 250 grams. I started to pick the good pieces of Bhindi leaving the bad ones, he observed for some time and came to me and said, 'Madam if you are picking the subji, we charge Rs 15. If you don't, it is Rs 10'.

I had never heard stuff like that. Being another straight-spined Maharastrian, I got up from there and left. He did not call me back like they do in Mumbai after a customer tries this trick. They just don't care.

Since then I have been getting the vegetables from a vendor who is a so-called 'Bhaiyya'. He seems to have a flexible spine and he even apologizes in a sugar coated words when I complain that the Garlic he sold me the other day was not good, he even replaces it with the good ones.

Pune doesn't care about business. It feels like they don't want to grow their work. They are okay with whatever they are earning. You cannot go to shopping after 8 pm because at the shopping places like Laxmi Road, Tulsibaag, you'll see the shopkeepers and vendors calling it a day at 9 pm. Mumbaikars aren't used to it. Lazy city- it yawns and goes to sleep before midnight and does not wake up unless it is 8 am. It is unlikely to see a tapri opened for breakfast if you look around before 8.

You will surely notice one thing in Pune. Punery Patya, that is boards in Pune. I never really lived in the heart of the city for long, so I havn’t seen much of them. I did see an auto which had a funny message written at the back.

'Please don’t use horn unnecessarily. Loud noise tears your eardrums. And if your eardrums get torn, even the tailors from Singapore cannot mend it!'

I clapped my hand on my forehead.

In Wakad and Hinjewadi, you’ll see posters, hoardings everywhere. Hoardings of the residential apartments being developed are very common in Wakad now. But what can really entertain you is hoarding wishing some political person on their birthdays. They have the big photos of the local politicians and the photos of the people wishing them too. They don't have money to beautify their village but they have a lot of money to display these unnecessary hoardings. Hoardings of birthday of a small boy, of some guy winning a Kusti/ Kabaddi game, of some person’s death. There are 'Sambhaji Group', 'Hanuman group', 'Wakad Boys' and groups with other stylish names that sound cool and stress the fighting spirit of the people in the respective groups.

The houses here would be like some old fashioned bungalows. You might see at a corner outside those houses and expect a cattle shed, but.. Warning: You might faint.
You might just see a BMW or a Jaguar (yes you read it right, a car that costs A CRORE) standing royally like the Airavat at Indra's making you go green with envy.

This city is mad. But it has something lovely about it, which would make you want to settle here. The weather is charming. Life is slow, lazy. People don't give any importance to the bandhs. The waves in the outer world just don't touch Pune. 'Bharat Bandh??? HA!!!!' You'll imagine the Pune people saying, "The traffic would be even worse that day than it normally is!"

I have a special place in my heart for this city. I hate it sometimes; feel it is no match for my Mumbai. But it is the city that has given me a lot of things, a lot of beautiful moments for which I would be grateful to it for all my life.

A luxury driver

We removed our bags from the auto and gave the auto driver his money. The iron gate creaked and a small lean boy with his face full of excitement ran forward.

‘Ilaas tumhi??’ he welcomed us in Malvani. Mom and dad smiled at him.

I squinted at him trying to rack my brains if we had met before. I saw our neighboring lady hurrying to get our luggage and it dawned on me that he must be her son.

I am not one of the people who get along with the new people easily.

I tried to give a warm smile to the kid, which I later thought must have looked awkward.

‘Valaakhlas naay maaka??’ He asked me if I did not recognize him.

Before I could answer his question, he started talking enthusiastically.

‘I recognized you. You are Ketaki Taai. Shraddha Taai didn’t come?’

I was pleasantly shocked. I hadn’t been at that place for around six years. I had never seen him; well my sister had been there last year. She has a way with people so I thought they might have played together. I wondered how he knew my name and how he recognized me without having seen me before.

I ruffled his hair.

A lot had changed after six years. The Madhumalati tree bearing flowers that filled our yard with maddening fragrance was cut short. My favorite Hibiscus bush was no more. The house looked dusty and derelict. Moss and termites had adorned most of the walls.

Within an hour or two, mom-dad made the house worth sleeping in, with the help of the neighbors. I relaxed on a chair in the front-yard looking around. Smooth sand tickled my feet. He appeared out of nowhere and removed something from his pocket.

‘What is that?’ I asked him with curiosity.

‘I got a Cadbury! See!!’ He showed me.

It had a wrapper that looked similar to that of the Cadbury.

‘You want to taste that?’ before I could say anything, he had already torn the wrapper apart and given a piece to me.

My tongue gone used to the taste of Cadbury hated the taste of that cheaper version of Cadbury.

‘You liked it?’ he asked innocently with the gleam in his eyes. It was too hard to be a killjoy.

‘Umm… yeah! It is good!’ I smiled at him.

‘Oh then I bring some more for you!’

The next second he was running past the coconut tree, past the Madhumalati, beyond the gate, past the small houses with red slanting roofs, into the paddy fields.

‘Heyyyy wait! Where are you getting money from?? Come back!’ I shouted at him.

He had disappeared.

He only came back with the chocolate and sweet tamarind.

‘It costs only a rupee,’ he informed me while eating a piece of chocolate greedily, ‘I sit at the counter of our shop and I keep 10 rs aside.’ He said.

They ran shop of bangles. While his mother returned home to cook, he would sit there for a while and attend the customers.

‘Oh you cheat your mother?’

He bit his tongue and looked a little guilty.

‘My mom knows that!’ he said with a grin.

‘Do you want something else?’ he asked me, ‘Banana? Ravisells bananas beside our shop. He doesn’t even know how sometimes I steal a banana and eat!’ he had a naughty proud grin on his face.

For him, stealing a banana was an achievement. It was fun. He was just too innocent to know that it is a bad thing. The kids in the village are like that. Far from malicious intentions… There is a kind of sweetness in their wrongdoings. Even Ravi would know where his bananas go, I thought. He was just letting the kid have fun and boast about his achievements.

‘…. Or some sweet tamarind??? Or raw mango? Shobha’s mom has kept some to dry in the sun! Or would you like a guava? I can climb the tree in Rawale’s yard and get it!’

All this time he was listing all the items he could bring for me.

‘Do you know English?’ he asked me, looking at a novel in my hand.

‘What is this book about? Would you teach me English?’

He never gave me time to answer.

‘We have English too. I am in fifth standard. I want to learn English and go to Mumbai.’

I laughed. ‘You don’t have to learn English to go to Mumbai!’

‘Really?’ his big eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and happiness, ‘I have never been there. Is it very costly, going there? How much was your ticket?’

I laughed.

That evening he came at my house with his English book in his hand. He sat beside me n kept the opened book in my lap.

‘Teach me!’ he sat with determination.

I read a paragraph for him and explained him the meaning. He looked satisfied.

‘Aaaah I am hungry!’ I told mom.

‘Oh! I can bring you something!’ his eyes had the usual gleam.

Before I could stop him, he was already on the run. Past the coconut tree, past the Madhumalati, beyond the gate, past the small houses with red slanting roofs, into the paddy fields…

He came back with his mom squeezing his ears.

‘Why on earth did u go running there in the dark!!!!’ she screamed.

He stood in a corner fuming at her.

The next day he and another smart girl in the neighborhood accompanied me to a temple at the nearby beach. They were chattering all the time, dancing around me as I walked, taking my hands, he requesting me to come to buy bangles from his shops, asking me stupid questions.

‘Wow a luxury bus!!!’ He stopped suddenly when he saw a luxury bus to Mumbai made a stylish royal entry on the village road.

His eyes became dreamy.

‘Oh this goes to Thane right?’ he asked me. I had not expected him to know this. Looked like he hadn’t just seen, he had observed. He had been observing.

‘You know taai, I want to become an engineer like you!’ the smart girl said, ‘My uncle is one. He is at Mumbai too.’ She said with her nose in the air.

I couldn’t believe she was only seven.

Children in the village act more than their ages.

He was still lost. We were almost home.

‘Heyy! What do you want to become???’ I asked him.

‘A luxury driver!’ he said dreamily.

The girl burst into a cheeky laugh. ‘Hahahaha! You should become an engineer. Or doctor. They earn a lot of money!’ she said folding her arms over her chest, her eyes rolling as if she couldn’t believe anyone could be so unreasonable.

‘No!' He said sternly. 'A luxury driver!' He was totally unperturbed.

‘Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooommmmmmm!’ he acted like a driver and sprinted.

Past the coconut tree, past the Madhumalati, beyond the gate, past the small houses with red slanting roofs, into the paddy fields…