PUNE CHRONICLES

Going to Pune was an on-the-spur decision. I hardly got enough time to think how much time I am going to stay at my relatives’ place. So I stuffed some clothes and took my faithful college bag because it’s my dumping ground and has every necessary and not-so-necessary thing in it. Though it is yet to be ascertained as to why I need to carry medicines well past their expiry date.

My brother and I caught the early morning bus, which was the best thing we could have done. The weather was cool and breezy which seems to have lifted up the driver’s spirit because we were in grave danger of being thrown off the road. Thankfully nothing of that sort happened. But as the bus snaked through the ghats, motion sickness seemed to set in some folks. I just looked out of the window praying hard that no one pukes in front of me. That sight just makes me so queasy. We reached Lonavla soon and almost the entire bus emptied. I had a brief temptation to check out the chikkis, but better sense prevailed when I had a look at my slight paunch. Hehe.

I soon reached my relative’s place but I had no idea about what places to visit in Pune. The problem with Pune is that it has got an absolutely pathetic public transport system (compared to Mumbai) and I had to rely on my cousins to take me sight seeing. And since they are office going people, they could only take me out in the evening and on weekends.

First day I went to see my cousin’s under construction flat near the airport. I initially thought the area must be noisy. But since the commercial flights are allowed only for particular time duration and the airport is mainly used for military purposes, noise wasn’t much of an issue. We spotted an airplane on the runway and waited and waited and waited for it to take off. Finally it did, and I could bring myself to say nothing else but a ‘wow’ when it soared into infinity. Absolutely breath-taking.

The roads are really good. There is so much of construction work going on that I doubt if they will be able to complete it before its starts raining heavily(it hasn’t yet actually started raining out there). But unlike here in Mumbai where you see debris at every random spot, the one thing I noticed about Pune folks is that they always talk in terms of kilometers. It is quite unlike Mumbai where we talk in terms of minutes. Queer.

Pune has got such fabulous gardens; it can put Mumbai to shame. By saying gardens I don’t mean the places in which a few trees are grown haphazardly; I actually mean a garden- scenic and relaxing. I also visited the snake garden, though there were less snakes and more of other animals to be seen. For a change, the animals weren’t sluggish or inactive. I saw the white eyed buzzard(that's a bird in case you were wondering), star tortoise and really cute peacocks. But the best part was watching two leopards play amongst themselves, quite oblivious of the crowd.
Absolutely amazing sight. I had just started clicking pictures on my cell phone when a man yelled out “excuse me, photography is not allowed”. For the rest of my time, I looked around for some sign prohibiting photography. By the time I left, I couldn’t spot even one warning. Cursing the idiot, I left the snake garden.

Damn, I got bullied again.