PuneGiri - Part I

And that's the city where I am planning to settle after sometime! Still I don't like that city very much!

I am talking about Pune which was graced by my presence this weekend! 3 years in Mumbai and I am loving this place and given a choice I would like to settle at this place. I love the speed of life at this place, the life seems always energetic and they say that this city never sleeps! It may be 2 AM or 4 AM, you will still get Tea on almost every corner of this city. This is just an example. I don't mean to say that getting a Tea at any time makes this city better than others, but there are lots of other things as well! Neways, let me write something about my last week's "adventures" in Pune!

I reached Pune late. I meant "late" by this city's standards. I reached there at midnight, probably 11 45 PM or so. I had just come out of bus and all rickshaw-walas came running at me. When I told them where exactly I wanted to go, they told me the fare which was almost 4 times the normal fare. I guess after 11, charging more is okay, but this was height. (And the more height was the last time when I had visited Pune, I had actually paid that much fare and then all my friends had taken me for a ride!)

So I called up my friend and he came to pick me up in 10-15 min. I love drinking tea in the morning or in the afternoon or at night only! Mid-nights are made for drinking Tea anyways! So I thought of having a cup of tea, but could see only rickshaw-walas awake at that place. As there was no other option, I decided to wait for my friend helplessly while all rickshaw-walas enjoyed their time by looking at my hairs and passing some comments. I slightly heard Dhoni's name in their discussion! Probably I may not play as good cricket as Dhoni, but at least his hairstyle resembles mine. I tried to kill my time by laughing to myself at this thought and suddenly heard somebody calling my name!

The guy was the person whom I had made to wake up and come and pick me up from some 10-15 km long distance! As he is now going to get used to that, he didn't mind that. And I will never mind doing that again either!!

The next day, I took his bike and started going to my relative's place. I was going to his place 26
years after my birth, I mean first time in my life. I was driving first time on the wide (?) roads of Pune city with signals constructed by a 50-meters-apart rule! He guided me how to go and which turn is to be taken and which should not be taken. And I, as usual, listened that carefully and, as usual, couldn't exactly get the directions properly. So I decided to follow 'ask-n-proceed' policy. As I used to go to Pune quite regularly in the past, I knew one thing: If one road is One-Way on Sunday, from Monday it may become No-Entry. So I knew I had to be careful.

I was going fine, until I realised that I can sense a short cut at certain point. It all was based on
the logic I calculated based on the direction I was going. It was indeed a short cut. I was going on a bridge known as 'Lakadi Pool' at around 10 AM. Everything was right there; it was a green signal when I took the turn. Still immediately after I took a turn, one rickshaw-wala behind me started giving me a horn. I gave him a scary look. But as I had helmet on my head, he didn't look that scared or at least I thought that may be the reason him still smiling. I asked, "What?" in quite irritating tone. He was, "Saab, Pata nahi kya, es bridge par two wheelers allowed nahi hai!", still smiling.

And there I was, almost stoned. I realised that I had crossed almost half of bridge. There was no point in thinking that rickshaw-wala was just kidding as I could not see a single two wheeler on the bridge. I started, "S**t, how can there be a bridge only for non-two wheelers (rickshaw is three wheeler, I had started thinking immediately) and one for only two wheelers (I assumed there would be one, otherwise how, in the whole world, a two wheeler can go to the other side? Bouy, I had really started thinking!)

When you are in helpless condition, you can hardly do anything about it. I was doing nothing either! I could see people in cars looking back and giving me smiles. I couldn't do much about it, except smiling back!

I started my bike praying that there shouldn't be any traffic police at the end of the bridge. There is a certain thing about good people, whenever they prey with their hearts, HE does not listen to them. I was welcomed by not a single traffic police, but a small traffic police station having 4 police on duty. It is always good to see if they are on duty on time, but I thought if they could have come to their jobs on their "regular" times, I could have escaped. But no!! They decided to come on time today only. Had anyone told them that they are going to get one bakra today? Not sure, may be! Lot of people in this whole world do have knowledge of my plans!

There I was, amidst 4 Traffic Police staring at me as if I had come from other Planet! (This statement is enough to indicate that I had got rid of my helmet by them.)


to be continued...