Poo-nah became Pu-nay. Along the way, the hobbling pensioner town turned into a dancing, trancing, blond sanyasin, and then a preening IT girl.Getting on the map now also means getting into the jihadi’s crosshairs. Pune recently learnt that there are many ways of being global. Just as Mumbai did, or Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, or any in that bloodied litany.
In the simpler ‘Poonah’ times, if you were a Parsi growing up in Bombay, you treated this salubrious little town as your ‘monsoon capital’ much as the Presidency colonials had done. You played amidst the ancient trees in your getaway bungalow, pigged out on high teas at the Club, or later, in as obligatory rite of passage, varroomed up the
ghats on daredevil motorcycles.
But even in faraway Calcutta, the loveliest mothers of my friends had all been ‘Poona girls’. Little did we know of its Peshwa glory, its literary fame. Less did we care. ‘Poonah’ was a state of mind before the big C’s of commerce and concrete ate into the idyll with carcinogenic greed. And ruined the climate too.
I had a Wordsworth moment the other day.
It was a warm, sleepy Pune afternoon at my society's park. With my headphones on, I went for a lazy stroll. Everybody in the park was happy, mellow and relaxed. Even the icy expression on Aunty Victoria's statue seemed to have thawed a bit in the afternoon breeze.
The sunlight filtering through the treetops made beautiful dappled patterns on the duck pond. It reflected off the oiled heads of a lone couple under a sprawling banyan, and brought the bald pate of a man asleep on a bench, into dramatic focus. A bunch of burqa clad women were busy picking fallen leaves out of their lunch boxes as they sat in a circle, giggling.
Everything was just as lazy as it could get. Then it suddenly took me back to my...well Calcutta days.
I still remember those lanes that led to my school, and a friend's house next to the school, where I've spend hundreds of lazy afternoons. I used to wait for the school bus, standing in front of a shop that sold hot "kochuri" in the morning, and it was always crowded. The school bus gave a short tour through the crowded South Calcutta streets as it picked up my friends waiting at different stops.
And then, stepping out of school and landing up in University opened the door to a completely new world for me. It was during my college days that I actually started exploring the city, got closer to her, and fell in love with her every now and then.Walking down from college to home was something I loved, and I had numerous reasons for enjoying the walk...The friend who accompanied me and the conversations we had, the Benfish bus that offered Prawn cutlets in front of Dakshinapan, the Elaichi-chaa at Gariahat.
There were countless days when I bunked college and roamed around Nandan, or took a walk around the St.Paul's Cathedral. Tibetan Delights, a shabby restaurant in the dingy Elgin Road lanes, serving excellent momos and soup was my favorite. A friend, who came from a far away land, used to insist me to get my books and to sit and study at the gardens next to Victoria Memorial. We hardly read a line, and spend the afternoons laughing and gossiping. It seemed that she knew Calcutta more than I did, and I often used to wonder how she knows all the details about the places. Perhaps that's the way things unfold - we are always more eager to know about things that are distant to us. Surprisingly, she showed me a lot of Calcutta that was unknown to me. It was more fun to explore with her because people (autowalas, shopkeepers mostly) got amazed when she used to speak in Hindi and at times broken Bangla.
I think am aging. Wait. No! I think there's so much that Calcutta has to offer, I guess I can never pen-down everything... Now that I've moved out of the city, I look back and cherish all of that. All the memories are intrinsically weaved with certain people - those people who added colors to my life. May be it is only when you cease to do the things you have to do, and do the things you like to do and you want to do, that you achieve the highest value of your time.
Last time when I was in Kolkata – which I still think of as Calcutta – and am glad to report that it’s much as it’s always been. The old Howrah bridge is there, and the Victoria Memorial, and the Maidan with its vendors selling spicy jhaal moori flavoured with mustard oil, and puchkas – what north Indians called golgappas – flavoured with something you really don’t want to know about. But what pleased me most was that the most Kolkatan thing about Kolkata – or indeed, all of Bengal – was not just in evidence but was obviously going from strength to strength: the institution of the adda.
Other communities pass the time in idle chatter and gossip. Not so the Bengali. There is nothing idle about his chatter or gossip, which goes by the local name of ‘adda’. For the Bengali, adda is not mere time-pass; it is a timeless passion. It is a conversation devoutly to be wished, and the Bengali spends hours at it, convinced of the profound truth that adda is not a waste of time, but rather that time is a waste of adda. What is the topic of discussion at an adda? Anything and everything, from mountains to molehills, from the sublime genius of Manikda (Satyajit Ray to you) to the stepmotherly treatment meted out to Sourav Ganguly by the raskails (rascals) who run the IPL.
Oh! Calcutta.
I spotted the old favourites that my grandmother had taught me to name: The baby-pink Eterna, the lavender Whiskey, the delightfully fragrant yellow-and-red Double Delight, the blood red Prince Edward. And hundreds of nameless but astoundingly beautiful others. Absolutely breathtaking.
Like "Amchi Mumbai", there's "Apla Pune". There's nothing more beuatiful than a quiet spring afternoon in Pune. The city has its own charm. So I put on my headphones back and start humming...
"I'm sitting here in the boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon
I'm wasting my time
I got nothing to do
I'm hanging around
I'm waiting for you
But nothing ever happens and I wonder."
2 comments:
Good post...
Thank You
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