Pune Times

When I was leaving US for good half a year ago, my Indian friends there asked me where I was going. Learning about Pune, all of them told me that Pune is a good place to work and live. We arrived in Pune with a mix of skepticism and optimism in equal proportions. Skeptic about the good things we heard and the amount of truth in them, and optimistic, believing an age-old Bengali proverb.

It was late May, so the city was literally scorching with a temperature of around 40 C. I had an idea that the Pune summer is very pleasant, but first-hand experience proved something else. The heat was like that of US Midwest-without humidity, and hence, without perspiration, but very difficult for going outside. The heat will burn the skin and cause irritation. In order to protect the skin, the people were dressed strangely. Their faces were covered entirely except their eyes. They had a strong resemblance with the Maoists, as we saw their pictures in the newspapers of Kolkata.  Almost all the women we saw had the same appearance.  The percentage of Maoist-looking men, however, was much less.

 The number of two-wheelers in Pune is huge. Almost everyone has a scooter or a motorcycle, or at worst, a Scooty. Previously, I thought that Scooty was strictly for women in India (just like VW Beatle is for US women). But here, men happily ride on a Scooty, and nobody bothers about it. Unofficially, Pune is known as the “two-wheeler capital” of India.

Being new, we did not have a cell phone connection. Nowadays, life is incomplete without a cell phone, but we thought that just like Kolkata, we’ll see STD booths all around and hence will manage till we get a connection. But we were proved wrong. Combing a radius of 3 kms around my office, we did not find a single STD booth! We were informed that STD booths are extinct in the city, and an elderly realtor said, “Booth kahan milega aapko? Jabse woh cellphone wali bhrastachar aayi hai, boothon ki zaroorat kya hai”?  (Booths are nowhere. The “rotten” cell phone came, so the booths are no longer needed). We were stunned! This was really unexpected. But help came from a security guard. He gave us his cell phone for talking purpose. I haven’t seen such a friendly and jolly security guard before.

In my brief encounter of six months so far, I found that the Puneites are a friendly lot. They will help you without any vested interest. Communication with them is not a problem. Usually, they start a conversation in Marathi, but happily switch to Hindi or English on request. This is unlike the South Indians, who pretend to know only two languages: Tamil and Silence (I have been to Chennai twice and the experience is not that good). During our initial setup period, we got a lot of help from the people around our residential society. In general, they are good people, devoid of petty dishonesties.

Unlike Kolkata, every grocery store in Pune is a “Super Shoppe” (I don’t know why they put the extra “pe”, because they do not have the charm or quaintness which an authentic Shoppe should provide), named after the owner (Mahesh Super Shoppe, Manju Super Shoppe etc). Apart from the usual stationary items, each one of these “shoppe” sells vegetables. However, the price of vegetables in the “shoppe” is higher than the market prices. Initially, we did not know that and paid high prices. The first time I bought rice in Pune from a shoppe took me Rs. 60 a kilo, while the market price was Rs. 36.

Pune shopkeepers do not like bargaining. In Kolkata, we are used to this practice. Even a reduction of Rs. 5 from the asked amount is a victory from the customer’s point of view in Kolkata. But here, bargaining is a strict no-no, except maybe with a fishmonger. The person from whom I buy fish sometimes gives some reduction, mostly to round up the amount (Rs. 870 reduced to Rs. 800, for example). But he is a character and needs detailed cultivation (according to our beloved Mr. Jatayu). May be I’ll write a post about him later.

It is not possible to dwell upon all the characteristics of Pune in a single post. So I am planning to write some posts covering various features of the city. The opinions will be based on my experiences and my feelings. The only thing which I can tell with certainty right now is that my initial skepticism has largely reduced and the amount of optimism is growing gradually. Let me see what lies ahead of this journey.

A momentary lapse of concentration

I arranged the purchased packet of items into my car trunk. As I laid down the last item into the trunk, I sensed a fleeting image of a person, and in order to take a better look, I closed the trunk and looked sideways. Satisfying my curiosity, I put back the trolley in its right place, and again came back in front of my car, and put hands in my pocket for the key. Surprisingly, I could not feel it, and so I made a thorough search of the four pockets - everything else was there, except the key. As I was thinking that somehow the key got dropped into the grocery store, after a moment I discarded the idea, because in that case, I would not have been able to open the trunk in the first place. Hence, the only possibility is that I have placed the key into the trunk (as the "last item" ) and closed it.

After pondering for a minute or two, the possibility changed into certainty in my mind. Fortunately, I had a duplicate key, but it was in my apartment. So I started calling my friends asking for a ride to my apartment, get the key, and return once again here.

But again, today is Friday afternoon, in fact the last Friday before the beginning of a new semester. So, I failed in the first 4 occasions. Either they were busy someplace else, or they had already started their Friday activities, or somebody else had taken their cars out! I was getting a bit tensed, because my sources were getting exhausted without any result, and hence the only possibility of calling a key-maker to get a new key was looming large. Well, this one would be both time consuming and expensive. I tried to make a last call, before switching into this option.

Surprisingly, it worked. This friend had just returned from his office, and agreed to help me. I was relieved a lot, as can be assumed. After that, it became very simple, and within 40 minutes, I was back home with my car.

But what made me absent-minded for a second? Well, to admit the truth, the fleeting image was that of a mind-blowing beautiful girl, who passed by me, lit a cigarette, got into her car and went away! Women, especially pretty women, have allured men into certain wrongdoings since time immemorial, and this case was no exception. Although the impact here was negligible, but the truth was verified yet again!

A lifetime experience

Today I was chatting with a friend of mine, as we always do, and were talking about every possible topics , recalling incidents from the good old days and narrating incidents from the not-so-good present daily happenings. He was telling about an incident of encountering a ticket-checker in a rail station which was quite enjoyable. I could not remember my solitary experience at that moment, but now, I can remember about that incident which was not pleasant at all.

It happened in 1998, during a winter afternoon. It was before exam time, and I went to see-off a friend of mine after a "study session" - which was chatting and eating mainly - at the Bidhannagar rail station. Bidding him goodbye, as his train left the platform, I was on my way back home, when I was caught at the exit gate by a ticket checker.

Ticket checkers were rare species even then, and for a station like Bidhannagar, one could hardly expect to meet with them. But whatever it was, I was right in front of him, and the following conversations followed. For getting the right tempo, I am narrating them in Bengali:

TC : Ticket dekhi.
Me : kisher ticket? Ami ekjon ke chharte esechhilaam.
TC : tahole platform ticket dekhi.
Me : seta ki jinish abaar?
TC : platform e dhukte geleo ticket laage, seta kothay?
Me : ohh, seta jantaam na, ami -
TC : shotyi ki kauke chharte eschhen? apnaar bondhu kothay?
Me : ki aschorjo, bollam je chole gechhe? train ki etokkhon dariye thakbe naki?
TC : fine lagbe.
Me : Poysha nei! kotobar bolbo je ami berate jachhilaam na, bari theke esechhi, bari jaabo.
TC : hmm......promaan ditey parben? ki kore bujhbo je apni kothao theke aschhilen na?
Me: dekhchhen na, hawai choti pore keu kothao theke ase? tar opor ei dress, eta dekhe ki mone hochhe na e ami bari thekei aschhi?
TC : jodi boli na?
Me: tahole bari cholun, fine diye debo, amar bari ei kachhei. aar noyto ektu bade eshe diye jachhi.
TC : Hmmm. ki kora hoy?
Me : porashona.
TC : besh, ekhonkaar moton chhere dilaam, in future, erokom bhul jeno aar na hoy. Bari jao!

As soon as he said this, I walked hurriedly past him without looking back. This person must have been a teacher sometimes or a lawyer it seemed, the way he was questioning me!

This incident has left such an impact on me that from then, I have never entered any platform just for seeing off somebody, and fortunately enough, I have not encountered any TC since then while travelling too, maybe because everytime I had a ticket with me!