PuNe

It is now a happy pattern when I travel to Pune, to get off the bus when I see a more or less familiar road.  It is nice to then take off all alone, following the signboards or simply sticking to the main road until I reach the place where I have decided to stay. 

This time I walked from Aundh towards Meteorological Department turning right to join the Junglee Maharaj Road.  I could not let myself pass the temple without paying it a visit.  Mom had taken me there a couple of times as a child.  I revisited it that evening. It was surprisingly quiet with just me and two other people engrossed in singing a bhajan.  It was huge and empty and peaceful and was tres temple-like...ideally so!


I enjoy walking on Junglee Maharaj Road which is touted to have maximum number of hotels lined on its streets.  It is always a well lit and busy street intersected in half by the Bal Gandharva Chowk.  Moving left on that intersection I finally arrived at Lakdee Pul (must have been made of wood in the earlier days) which is a bridge across one of the two rivers, Mula (मुळा) or the Mutha (मुठा ). Pune is made up of a series of bridges connecting land over these rivers. Standing on Lakdee Pul to catch a breather, I could see a few bridges running parallel on to my right and to the left of the bridge I was standing on. 
Having crossed Lakdee Pul I walked towards Raman Baug and Narayan Peth.  Crossed my uncle's house, my aunt's house and waved across to ABC! Punekar's take pride in this name. It is their special acronym which they consider a feat of genius.  ABC is purely अप्पा बळवंत चौक (Appa Balwant Chowk) So yeah...walked from the Raman Baug crossroad, acknowledging ABC and Narayan Peth towards another चौक called the पत्र्या मारुती चौक.  I remember an evening a couple of years back right here on this crossroad when mom, dad and I were out for a walk and we bumped into a family friend. As we stood chatting up with him and his wife, another acquaintance walked past and stopped to catch up. In about half hour, we were 12 of us almost spilling onto the middle of that narrow lane, catching up and chatting. I think for mom and dad, this is what it meant to be out on a walk in their city, on familiar streets and lanes.  this is what familiar streets and cities are made up of....

From पत्र्या मारुती चौक I turned right to walk on Lakshmi Road, a busy shopping street in Pune.  Huzoor Paga, mom's school was somewhere on that road.  The school gate is in line with the other shops on the footpath and quite easy to miss for someone like me. Only when one enters that narrow gate and moves in is when a different world opens up. Mom and I had visited her school when I was in my teens.  On the crowded footpath, looking at shops that lined it, suddenly there appeared a gate that opened up into a whole new world.....a quiet space of learning...strongly and successfully protecting the sanctity from the maddening market of Lakshmi Road.  This picture is for mom! (Taken slyly and quickly before people noticed, stared and questioned.  It has become tough to walk around streets with a camera taking pictures)

From Lakshmi Road I turned onto Bajirao Road and came across my favorite structure, the विश्राम बाग वाडा (Vishram Baug Wada).  It is stately, carved, anomalous in the urban ladscape yet precious and mysteriously historical as it stands on the crowded Bajirao Road, a structure for structure's sake, for posterity and a reminder of beauty and the past. 

I will sit here one day, alone or with someone, and watch Bajirao Road throb. So far I have only seen other people, senior citizens, young couples do it.  One day I will surely sit on the steps of this Waada.  

A few steps from Vishram Baug Waada I reach the Green Bakery.  Breakfast of many a Sunday mornings would come and still comes from here. Sometimes it is the cream rolls, unmatched in the rest of India i would dare to say.  Pattice, fresh and crumbling, and the Shrewzberry biscuits (I am sure they are originally called something else and I am saying it as Punekars do....they  have a knack for making everything sound Marathi) that melt in the mouth and I could go on....Green Bakery has served as a landmark, a breakfast place, a place to just look at and smile, and a place that makes Pune what it is for me. 


I near my house as I turn off Bajirao Road onto Shukrawar Peth crossing the barber's where I would get a haircut as a child where I would make everybody's hair stand on end with my shrill wails because I believed they were about to chop my ears!! 


By now I have almost relived Pune, the way I know it for 27 years and I am ready to enter home to my family.