PUMBAI

hah..i dunno how to spell the name of my city. or..err i actually dunno how to spell maharshtra's capital. or..just that my English has gone for toss. but I have coined this new term. Pumbai is the combination of Pune and Mumbai. i know that might sound boring..gimmme a break or yikes. but that's the kind of feeling i have slowly started getting after analyzing the city more and more
let me make it very very clear in the beginning that I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO AFFECTION/SOFT CORNER for mumbai, let alone love.i kinda dislike or even loathe that city to certain extent. there is nothing, nothing in mumbai that i like except two things.
1. the excellent public transport. mumbai survives only coz of that. best and the locals!
2. and the extremes you get in Mumbai. you can find an arbit stall outside andheri station where you get ANYTHING in the world in 20 rs. and you find the places which are well beyond your reach, who don't talk less than some thousands. but yeah, there is variety! there really is.
but apart from that, i just don't like the city. i am not at all fashion-bothered, i hate the humid weather, i dislike the condition of beaches in mumbai, and i just loathe the no of people live there, and that too in pitiable conditions. And i see my beloved Pune getting more and more like mumbai everyday, and in all bad senses.
i would have loved to have an excellent public transport in pune. that solves half of pune's traffic problems. but sadly we are not lucky enuf to get it. and what do we have of mumbai?

1. the sheer No of people: i know pune is expanding hugely. and in saccharine terms, it is expanding, and growing etc , in bitter words its just being like this obese kid who just becomes rotund and looses the shape and the finer characteristics. there are around 40 lac people staying in pune. and i dun see any chance of stopping this growth coz pune has no geographical limitations. Mumbai ENDS at certain point. the sea starts. pune doesn't end like that. it will expand expand and expand more. morphing into a shapeless city. or probably being amorphous.  People are probably tired of going to mumbai, and think it is better to stay in pne, comparatively slightly cheaper cost of living, good std of living, good for education, will get good jobs, safe city, and good weather. what more do you want?
2. the mixed bag of ethnicity, race, languages and others: mumbai is a BHEL. or may be tossed salad. who owns Mumbai rightfully is a  extremely controversial question. but whatever it is, it is no more a  Marathi city. it has lost hat image since loooooooooooooong. everybody owns mumbai and mumbai belongs to all. Pune was not like that. Pune was still a very orthodox and nice little cozy type of city. jobs came, so came people.  IT boomed and so came many many more people. educational hub it was called. and under the pretext of education, may many others come here!  and of course, the human migration never happens in vacuum. Man moves with his language and all his other cultural belongings. i am a humanity student and i feel this is a very interesting subject. but on practical day o day basis, i still has that layman in me who feel lost in his own city when he sees this bhel happening. the language of classes was Marathi. it is no more like that. English and Hindi came in. The celebration of festivals was done in more of non maharashtrian ways. The flavor of the language changed. the typical behavioral traits that  a marathi manoos would have, changed. the sharp, on your face marathiness is lost and there is this all glossy, colorful and artificial world around you that is increasing.
3. The no of slums is increasing. and thanks to our careless government, which fails to take strong decisions, the no is gonna increase everyday. and just as Mumbai airport is like covered with slums around, pune's parvati will look covered with slums till its neck. And i know rift between the poor and the rich is increasing.

The consciousness about fashion increased. the tendency to flaunt your wealth increased. the flashing of your Ray bans, D&Gs, versaces and jimmy choos increased. The appearances of half-clad women on streets increased.the cases of rash driving increased.
the flavor of night life changed. the page 3 parties increased.
The crime rate increased. the loooong hours of wait in traffic jams increased.
slowly it is considered equal to a sin if you put your kids into a Marathi medium school. only the driver's and the maid servants kids go there you know.
just everything. things like these and many many many more.

i don't wanna put Mumbai is a bad light.but i see these things happening around me. and if Pune is going the Mumbai way, and mumbai the newyork way, Pune will soon be headed towards the new york way. we anyways have the IT guys here, and we soon will have enough no of broken family ties.

i know these things are inevitable. they are not really in anybody's hands. but yeah, the reason why it bothers me so much is that i hate it when cities lose their soul. Pune is slowly losing its soul. so did Berlin after the second world war, and so is Singapore without a soul. Mumbai has lost most of it. and so will pune in the nearer future. I hate it but i know i cant control it. i am helpless. :(  i just don't want to wake up one fine morning and discover that all the cities worldwide have lost their soul so much that i cant make out which city is which and then its really a 'global village'. . And hence i wont be surprised to find that its not just Pumbai, but probably Puneyork! wow!

the new tunes

hello hello. i have not written in good four months on this blog. poor blog has been ignored coz of my THE blog. but yeah, i suddenly had this rush of affection for pune, and decided that i would write something today. though, something apart from swine flu, the one ways on JM and FC road, the proposed water cuts and so on. i would write about some small things that i have seen, experienced in last month or so.
1. Cad B- i know almost all the young brigade in pune knows about it. it is not something fancy related to comp sci( i have just heard cad cam etc!). its a drink. yes, a drink which is a chocolate milkshake mixed with chocolate icecream. extremely extremely sweet in taste, gives you all those extra calories and tastes superfabulously wonderful :) a bit high on the pocket yes, with half a glass for Rs 30- but that makes you full, and yeah 30 rs is not THAT  expensive :-p i am a big fan, and everytime i go theer i stop counting the calories and gulp it down stat. helps in cheering you up and yeah.. if taken in excess amounts, you surely can be high!
2. The Traffic control room- i had decided i am specifically being away from anything to do with traffic, though i must mention that this control room gave me a pleasant surprise. the phone got picked up, i was provided with the number i wanted, and i  was politely talked with. applause applause!
3. The bike servicing centre: the famous honda servicing centre in pune( you know who!) has suddenly lost all it's discipline and have become heywire. they used to give out appointments earlier. they do not do that anymore, and randomly call people. the queing up is ta boring, and then the serviceman shows you his bit of attitude. they do only that work whicb is told to them, do not check a single thing other than specified. so you could perhaps have a bike which has a great average, but has a mirror missing, a torn seatcover, a broken kick, and the shock absorber have gone to toss. yeah-thats mine! sigh!

so ...some offbeat and wierd updates. i know they look wiertd together and probably many would have had such experiences.i just thought of singing some different tunes than the whole of pune is singing currently. the music has to be original, you see :-p

chittaranjan vatika- the garden next door

Model colony, pune 16 houses a small and beautiful garden- by the name of chittarnjan vatika. It has all the elements required to be called as a garden. Trees, jungle gym and swings, kids at play, paths to walk, fresh green lawns, and yes not to forget, the 'lovestrucks' and the 'laughing clubs'! i frequently go there to walk with my friends or my mom, and more i go there, more i like the garden.
well, there is nothing particularly special about this place, but still it has itt's own charm. the trees are HUGE! and they cover the garden so thickly from above that not a single ray of the prickly hot sun comes down on the walking folks. There are these small huts, where the laughing clubs get together or gang of fitness freaks excersises. And the most favourite thing for me is the chirping you hear out there! in city like Pune it has become extremely difficult to be able to hear the chirping of birds. this Vatika, with its huge trees houses lots and lots of birds, and they make you aware about their existence every morning and evening..and trust me, its really fascinating to hear that :-)
the second thing is bit wierd. it has number of boards placed somewhere along the jogging track. they show the traffic signs, and the traffic signals and the distances between Pune and Jaipur, alahabad and thiruanantpuram! well, it is put encircling a small cycle track, where the kids are supposed to be with their'vehicle' and learn the 'traffic rules' ( high hopes i must say, especially in pune!) but that looks quite neat.
Whether the Vatika is named as chittaranjan in the memory of any chittaranjan i really do not know, though it perfectly serves the purpose of my chitta-ranjan.. manoranjan- entertainment you see :-)
more to come are the osho garden, the pu la deshpande udyan and the tekdi!

This is the blog about pune- from a punekar. the posts will be only and only related to pune
well, that does not mean that pune news or the infamous characteristics of punekars will be written about. it can be about history, (pune is famous for that!)about geography- including the rapidly changing one- about politics( since it is hot topic of the day), psychology (the famous punekars) the chemistry( what solutions makes a punekar a punekar) and even the anotomy( sadly, this is not a great topic) of pune. just about pune.. thats it.

now why i write this blog? well, the thought struck me some time back, and i took a rapid action! i am someone who loves pune to fullest. with all its goods bads and uglys. i survive in and on pune. i belong here. and hence, i feel i am qualified to write about it!
so all you punekars, and well, non punekars especially, keep reading. you may find something which touches the chord- and then some memory, some impression, some thought about pune just comes in focus! till then...