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Life in Pune
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‘Whether rains or storms, whether bomb blasts or floods…you can’t take away the spirit of Mumbai from a Mumbaikar…after all ‘Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan’. Born and brought up in a suburb in Mumbai, the city has surely molded and added its touch to my personality. And ever since I stepped into the ‘marriage phase’ of life (where your parents thinks every boy you talk to is an eligible bachelor), I had made one thing very clear: NO BOY FROM OUT OF MUMBAI. Various matches from abroad or anywhere out of Mumbai, were not even considered how much ever a gem the boy was. Whenever some over-enthusiastic aunt would consult a matchmaker with my horoscope, and if it indicated that I would go abroad and all such things, I couldn’t help but snigger and laugh at why all these people were wasting their time and effort, when I had made up my mind never to leave Mumbai. And then, as they say, ‘No one can change destiny’, there came this guy (now my husband), from Pune who swept me off my feet and all those years of thinking that I won’t step out of Mumbai were all gone in a second. Pune seemed just a three hours drive! What if I had met someone from Virar or some place on the outskirts of Mumbai which took 3 hours to travel by train…at least Pune was connected by the expressway where you could just zoom into Mumbai within 3 hours. And so, there it was I became a ‘Puneri’ from a ‘Mumbaikar’. The initial days of married life were a total haze (now if I look back!). The house was full of people and every weekend went in either visiting people or acting hosts. The initial 2 months just flew by and what a time I had chosen to enter this new city the peak of summer. Pune, albeit known for its wonderful weather, is a disaster in summers. The dry weather where the sun not only pulls your cheeks from both sides (as if tearing them apart), but also drains every drop out of your system. One can hardly step out of the house after 10am right up to around 4pm when the sun slowly sets. Being a true Mumbaikar, there was never a need to learn the two-wheeler, thanks to the wonderful public transport system in Mumbai, but here the scene was totally different. Every second person beyond the age of 18 was on two-wheelers. Every second driver resembled a terrorist with their faces covered beyond recognition, with only their eyes exposed (that too covered with sunglasses). And since I didn’t know the art of riding the bike, I was confident of my walking skills, of course, underestimating the severity of the sun above. Barely had I walked 10 minutes (that too at around 11am), with nothing covering my head or face except sunglasses, everything seemed to be going round and round and I had to hail a rickshaw to get me to my destination, which was just 2 lanes away. The rickshaws in Pune are another story altogether and just as someone has written on the ‘Dabbawallas in Mumbai’ (in praise); I would definitely want to write on the ‘Rickshaw-wallas in Pune’ (of course with all the hatred I can muster). The meter system in Pune is ridiculously over-priced as compared to Mumbai, so for short distances you land up paying almost 2 ½ times that of Mumbai. And after 8pm, it is a dream if you get a rickshaw anywhere within 5 minutes of stepping out. Rickshaws are there on the road but they flatly refuse to come to where you want to go or ask for Rs. 20 or 30 more than the meter (which is anyway- overpriced). The calculation for the meter is another story of its kind, where you have to multiply the number with 6 and add 2 to get the price you have to pay the rickshaw fellow. The math wizard that I am, had I sat calculating the fare, I could have gone and come back thrice in that much time. The tariff card that my mother-in-law got for me was like a boon. No more calculations and breaking my head on why the rickshaw fellow took such a huge amount. All that I had to do was refer to the card and pay the fellow the amount printed alongside the figure. Life became much simpler but it always pinched to pay so much more (if you compared it to Mumbai). The second difficult aspect in Pune was getting used to the ‘Shuddha Marathi’ here. I was quite well-versed with Mumbaiya Marathi but here I was left speechless at their pure language. I kept fumbling for words and then either shifted to English or Hindi. The ‘cha’ of the ‘Chandani Chowk’ or the ‘pha’ being different from the ‘fa’, I had to mark each of my words so that I didn’t goof up on the meanings or pronunciations. The third and the most difficult thing of Pune was the mentality of the people here, which I experienced when I started looking for a job. Wherever I went, the only sentence I heard was ‘You must understand that Pune is different from Mumbai’, which meant you can’t expect to be paid that much. The transportation charges were double than that of Mumbai but Pune is yet different from Mumbai. The Puneris, who wouldn’t think twice while watching a movie in a multiplex, would think five times over silly things like paying teachers their due for private classes. They would want everything at their doorstep at prices so low, that they probably won’t pay their maid servants that less. ‘What to do, Pune is different from Mumbai na!’ Getting used to all these things, it’s almost been more than a year since I shifted to this city. I do keep visiting Mumbai regularly and when I do, the regular shopping places are yet visited even to buy the smallest of small things which you would get even in Pune, but I guess, it’s just a matter of getting used to a city. Pune, in spite of all its differences, has a lot that I won’t get in Mumbai. The superb weather (except in summer) all the time so pleasant that you don’t have to bother about the sweat marks showing on your clothes when you go out. The pace of life in Pune is another wonderful aspect that I love this city for. People here have a life beyond work, where they come in the evenings and either go for walks or just laze around at home, whereas in Mumbai, you spend half your time travelling long distances, thus making it so fast paced that you crave for a break very soon. Every city has its ups and downs and though I have been a Puneri for only the last one year, I might yet be very partial to Mumbai, but this city and its lifestyle has surely affected me and my life. It is truly said that ‘Home is where the heart is’ and Pune seems like home now.
>> Read more articles written by Chillibreeze writers:1. Articles related to Content and Outsourcing
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