My idea of a good life is to live in a place where the environment brings people together in ways that enhance their enjoyment of the facilities that are available.

I am fortunate to live in a colony that perfectly fits in to this idea of mine. When we moved in here seventeen years ago, many people did not know about the colony and auto rickshaws would ask for double the fare as it would be difficult for them to get fares back to the city. There was only one paved road and the others were on the Municipal Corporation’s drawing board. While there were some people already living in the colony, we were also welcomed as pioneers.

Most people had come to settle down in Pune either after retirement, or due to transfers to it for employment in the growing industrial sector. For many people, selling off their small flats in Mumbai, then known as Bombay, and shifting to Pune made sense. Larger flats were available at much lower prices and the left over cash made a nice cushion for the retirement nest egg. Our colony too started off mostly with this kind of residents.

Today, the colony has become what people call “up-market”. There is a multiplex, a few big name retailers, a shopping mall, some famous franchises like the McDonald, KFC, etc, besides others like, Roebock, Nike etc. Prices have shot up and the nice old gentle pace has been replaced with high speed traffic zooming around. Many software companies have set up shop here and the floating population with its attendant problems too has begun to trouble us old timers.

In this scenario, the colony’s joggers’ park a beautiful place, is a magnet in the mornings and evenings for people who wish to walk, jog or just sit around, and offers a recreational area for children too. Some very interesting things happen in this joggers park and I shall be writing on and off about those events.