Welcome to Pune

As someone who has lived in Pune for a major part of his ancestry, I feel this post is long overdue. After all you can’t be considered a serious blog writer if you don’t write at least one blog post bitching about your city *cough* Ashish Shakya *cough* Rohan Joshi *cough*. And I feel it is time we joined the big leagues of blogging by dragging Pune into the list entitled “Cities bloggers bitch about”.

A little background would be nice here. I was born in Pune, my parents were born in Pune, my grandfather was born in Pune. Heck, the wannabe life insurance ad-makers were born in Pune. I have lived here for the first 11 years of my life, and after a brief hiatus of about 7 years I returned, much like a prodigal son. Now having established my credentials we shall proceed with the generic complaining.

Pune would have been a giant Peth if they had not already run out of names of days. Pune has a population of who cares cramped in the area of a nucleonic can of sardines (physics joke, sue me). The distribution of population is so diverse it almost seems bipolar. On one hand you have places like Laxmi Road where you go, “Where are all these people coming from??!!” and on the other you have places like Armament Road where you feel like God decided to move up the Rapture to yesterday. From ‘Oye, kidhar se aara Hero’ to the Cantonment Roads, Pune missed the lecture about Population Density.

The people of Pune are horrifyingly rude, from the rickshaw drivers to businessmen, every one of them. Scientists have been trying to fathom the reason for eons now, but they were shooed away by the Sadashiv Peth patriarchs. In a situation where you are a victim of this hospitality, the golden words are ‘Jau dya na’.

There are certain areas which are rather nice, or at least appear nice, simply because I’m more biased towards them. Camp comes at the top of that list. It’s a shopping area in the heart of the city where you can kill time for hours and then cry at the bill you ran at Marz-o-Rin in the process. The thing about Camp is that no matter how little time you spend there, you will always meet the following set of characters: (in no particular order)

1. Bohri uncle with the typical cap on his head.
2. A Marathi aunty with the gigantic bindi
3. A girl from Choksey’s school, in the pink salwar (this is true at any time of the day)
4. A Christian matriarch, with the flower print frock, carrying a carry bag
5. A Muslim rickshaw driver chewing Manikchand
6. A Parsi couple, and a separate Parsi uncle sunbathing in his nightdress
7. Sindhi aunties, type A and B:
   • Type A Sindhi aunty can be characterized by her simple dressing, often chikan print, accompanied with a scowl that has been plastered since the time Hero, Anita Bhojwani’s son hit the cosmic lottery in Spain while her son is still peddling watches in Trinidad
   • Type B Sindhi aunty (Scientific name: Homo govindus), can be spotted from a mile away, with the ostentatious clothing, gaudy accessories, and lard oozing out of every sleeve

Then there are places like Sadashiv Peth and its extension, Kothrud, which are so Hindu, Brahma decided to get a PO Box there. Did I mention that people in Pune are rude? Well Sadashiv Peth is the distillate of all that is rude and mean. Out here the song goes, “Why you gotta be so rude?” *Gets hit by a MH12*

This article would not be complete without a segue into the realm that is Shivajinagar. If there is Middle earth, it is here. Distances in Pune are calculated from Shivajinagar, to Shivajinagar, through Shivajinagar. PMC played a mean Lego game with all the roads of Weekday Peths and gave them to Shivajinagar. FC Road, JM Road, SB Road (Pick the next two alphabets yo.) The place has some 8 colleges in a 6 kilometer radius, right from COEP, an engineering college with the worst sex ratio south of Haryana, to Symbiosis, which seems like it only takes in pretty girls, all in that 6 kilometer radius. It’s bustling with a lot of cheps, drunks who are not drunk enough to totter around but are still drunk enough to start professing their love to every girl passing by, pretty girls with half the world’s supply of makeup on them, nice girls who are ready to experiment, and a few bouncers (traffic mamas). Basically a giant nightclub.

My co-writer Ritu insists that I mention PCMC here. She lives in Balewadi which is nothing but the Stadium with, wait I don’t know what… PCMC is like an illegitimate son with more illegitimate sons with Phase 1 2 3… say no more. Dear MH14, you may be a lot of things, better flyovers, better mayor, wider roads, closer to Mumbai… but you are not MH12. HA!

We have one Vaishali, the most popular among the sisters. Vaishali has a queue longer than its menu at all times of the day. FC Road is where you take your date; Fergusson College if you need some privacy. Koregaon Park is like our Beverly Hills. Punekars are shopaholics with an AREA 51 Mystery about where they go shopping. Bal Gandharva Rangmandir is our Times Square. Appa Balwant Chowk is Hands Down the Largest Public Library, EVER. We might carry the Times Food Guide, but we only eat a Vada Pav.

There’s a lot to more to tell you about Pune but I couldn’t fit it in here. In conclusion I’d just like to say this: travel here at your own risk. And look out for the sign that says “Welcome to Pune, where the men are nicer than Delhi and the women dress like terrorists.”