Ah Pune!!!
It’s been close to four months that I have shifted to Pune from “Amchi Mumbai”.I did not expect that I would like the place instantly, since no shift is smooth, especially if it is from Mumbai. However there have been occasions when I have been pleasantly surprised and others when I didn’t really like the place.
Pune as opposed to Mumbai is basically a Maharashtrian city and natives in any city need that push from immigrants in order to work and keep them going.They are complacent,which is why metros are bustling with activity and have a great"working atmosphere."
Pune is growing at a rate which qualifies it to be a megacity by 2010 and the changes are already showing in the real estate prices, the number of cars on the street,the job oppurtunities,the malls and the like.
Some puneites have responded by forming cocoons around themselves.Both the groups(puneites and the immigrants)live in different communities and dont prefer with each other.
For example, places where both these communities hang around are very different.
The difference in attitude is so stark that one can tell the other from just mannerisms,speech and dressing.Most of the cream jobs/businesses are manned by non-puneites.
It in many cases it behaves like city in transit and the change is so fast and unprecedented that the natives are in a state of confusion.
The infrastructure of the city grapples to keep pace with the growth rate just like the attitude.
It takes more than a year for the pune admistration to build a fly over of about 500 metres.The worst part is that they dig up the roads and one never spots anyone working at any given point of the day.Wonder if this ever happened in Noida or Ghaziabad or Gurgaon.After all Pune is another satellite town.
The autorickshaw driver thinks he obliges you by letting you sit in his auto and very conveniently refuses business if he is resting especially post lunch!!!
You can tell a marwadi shopkeeper from a maharashtrian one, coz the maharashtrian shop opens at 10AM and shuts at 8PM while the marwadi opens at 7AM and shuts at 11PM. More often that not the maharashtrian store does not stock what you need,or will not deliver it to your place!!!
Somewhere the puneites need to realize that they are giving away there share of bread way too easily and the way pune is growing it is attracting more people from other cities. If puneites don’t realize this,they soon are gonna close!!!
Most statellite town in the north,Noida,Ghaziabad,Goregaon were formed post congestion/saturation in the capital,therefore they started on fresh ground. Pune is an older city and it cannot afford to not shed its old skin.The choice is but more individual than collective.
posted by shikha @ 2:49 PM
4 Comments:
Very neat sweetie...this is really how I felt about pune as well...and the distinction between the various groups is so in your face that it is evendent to even a visitor (such as me)who was in pune only for abput a week
thats really well written babes...the distinction between the various groups is so in your face that it is evedent even to a visitor such as me who is in the city for only about a week...
thats really well written babes...the distinction between the various groups is so in your case that it is evedent even to a visitor such as me who is in the city for anly about a week...
Heh! Can relate to most of what you have written. I moved in from Delhi about 7 years back; trust me, the divide was even more stark then. My initial choice of where to live was driven by which locality would be more 'metropolitan'. As for the pace of progress as measured by fly-over, I think it the same everywhere in India.
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