Pune is where I live. And I have lived here for nearly a quarter century. The main reasons for my late wife and I choosing to move here was its climate and its very laid back attitude to life. Compared to Mumbai where we had spent the maximum time together and Bengaluru where we were living before we moved here, Pune was a paradise.
So, when I caught sight of this headline, I was stumped.
The Pune that I knew does not run or even walk. Its usual pace is a limp. Its next faster pace is to simply saunter along at a leisurely pace. In fact, where I live and quite a few localities of the city, life goes on at a limpy leisurely pace bar the rush hours due to school/office/factory timings. The Punekar is not to be hurried to do anything. He will take his time.
Take my mentee who for the purpose of this post will remain unnamed though will receive a link to it via email. She has just got engaged to be married and wanted to come and give me the invitation card and to personally invite me to attend the marriage function and the reception in the evening. She rang me up at 11.30 am yesterday to announce her arrival and readily accepted my invitation to have lunch with me. She promptly asked if I needed anything from the city where she was shopping and I gave her the task of getting a couple of things that you get only in that part of the city. She said that she would be at my place at 1.00 pm. That is my usual lunch time. At 1.30 I rang her up and she said that she would be reaching in 20 minutes. I said that I won’t wait for lunch for her and she could have lunch whenever she came. She eventually came at 3.00 pm profusely apologising for delaying but insisting that I skip my siesta and spend the afternoon chatting with her. Thankfully, she got what I wanted instead of forgetting that and as a peace offering brought something extra as well. Incidentally forgetting to do chores is another Punekari trait.
That is the typical Punekar’s attitude towards life. Punekars don’t limp back to normalcy. They are already limping around. And look at the nitwit who planted the bomb. He could not even cause sufficient damage because he did not expect the bomb to explode vertically! I would not be surprised if s/he turns out to be a Punekar.
I am an oddball in this beautiful city because I am always on time and the other people involved are stumped by my punctuality. My hosts particularly can usually be expected to be in their house coats when I land up at their place at the announced time.
I would not like to live in any other city.