Once I heard somebody saying about pune on an FM channel. "Ye pune ki baarish, ye November ki tandi, ye summer ka garmi aur ye traffic ki lambi line". I really liked her description of her Pune. I have lived in pune and in the suburbs of pune more than four years.I came to pune with the dream of a career in automotive design.
Just like my dream it used to rain heavily at pune, if I could remember every day. I used to go to the academy on our motorbikes along with my room mates. Even with the thick layer of water proofing that we do with rain-coats it wet us some way or the other. We ( Chandu, Dev, Ameen & myself) used to stay at Ameen's cousins house at Dhayari area on the Singhgad Road at pune. The apartments where we stayed are located on top of Dhayari hills and got a big town ship up there. It is very scenic there and Ameen ended up buying an apartment for him there itself years later.
Just like my dream it used to rain heavily at pune, if I could remember every day. I used to go to the academy on our motorbikes along with my room mates. Even with the thick layer of water proofing that we do with rain-coats it wet us some way or the other. We ( Chandu, Dev, Ameen & myself) used to stay at Ameen's cousins house at Dhayari area on the Singhgad Road at pune. The apartments where we stayed are located on top of Dhayari hills and got a big town ship up there. It is very scenic there and Ameen ended up buying an apartment for him there itself years later.
During our college days I used to be the last one to wake up in the morning but I don't remember getting late because of my extra sleep..! We put on our academy uniforms and go to the small resto near to the apartment for the morning breakfast. There the talkative daughter of the resto aunty serve us garam "Pohe" and tea. She was indeed was very talkative and very active, running around all the time. As we sit there and sip tea and light a cigarette before we start our epic 12kms journey to the academy, the adjacent shop's owner come for opening her shop for the day. She used to be very beautiful, especially in the mornings with her untied locks after the morning bath..!. After all these morning quick, routine fun sessions we set out on our trustworthy two wheelers. If I could remember only once Dev's bikes foot rest broke away in a mid turn on our way to "Khandala" and we almost flew off the cliff.! Chandu and Dev got their bikes from home for our conveyance. Our academy was on top of another hill in the heart of city. So we travel from one hill to another every morning and evening. The daily dose of "gyan" was not that
easy to digest. So we try to make it up in the lunch time and have a sumptuous meal in the canteen. After the days study we find ourselves on top of our bikes again heading towards our "residential" hill. More than tackling traffic it was difficult to tackle the traffic police men of pune who is all set to get that "extra" for finding a vehicle with a different state registration. We poor guys coming from south of India obviously used to have our vehicle registered on south Indian states. So it was a tough time escaping their greedy radar.Once I ended up paying too. As we pass through our usual route I notice familiar faces by the road whom I have been seeing at the same place on our daily trips to academy. We also had our dose of falling off the bikes too. I did my first "launch" on Dev's bike and ended up breaking the instrument panel of his bike. Chandu also couldn't solve the puzzle of traffic one day and fell off his bike.
easy to digest. So we try to make it up in the lunch time and have a sumptuous meal in the canteen. After the days study we find ourselves on top of our bikes again heading towards our "residential" hill. More than tackling traffic it was difficult to tackle the traffic police men of pune who is all set to get that "extra" for finding a vehicle with a different state registration. We poor guys coming from south of India obviously used to have our vehicle registered on south Indian states. So it was a tough time escaping their greedy radar.Once I ended up paying too. As we pass through our usual route I notice familiar faces by the road whom I have been seeing at the same place on our daily trips to academy. We also had our dose of falling off the bikes too. I did my first "launch" on Dev's bike and ended up breaking the instrument panel of his bike. Chandu also couldn't solve the puzzle of traffic one day and fell off his bike.
I found terrain of pune very similar to my home town Trivandrum. "Khandala" the popular destination of local tourists did'nt got me in awe as I am used with a similar terrain. But we did make a trip to Khandala on our bikes. The 60kms jounery on Dev's Bajaj Boxer saw the limits of my spinal-chord which is usually very durable. The place we used to visit the maximum was "khadakvasala dam" . The reason being its awesome place and just 4kms from our apartment. Its on the way to "Singhgad Fort". We made some three or four attempts to go till the fort all the way up the hill. But the winding roads up hill tested our patience and we ended up sitting in between some bushes and finished our stock of booze and return back. But I did went up the hill once but that was with my wife Anjaly almost three years later.!.
Stay at pune was my first real experience of living of my own, even though I used to stay away from home during my grad-college also. Though I enjoyed a lot but the tension of getting a job after the course was always there since I was on bank loan for my studies taken on my name . But eventually everything fell in places and I managed a job in an vehicle OEM in the suburbs of Pune. The later stay was spent riding my bike to and from pune city every weekly off. That drive was in deed another epic one. May be I can write about it also :)
Stay at pune was my first real experience of living of my own, even though I used to stay away from home during my grad-college also. Though I enjoyed a lot but the tension of getting a job after the course was always there since I was on bank loan for my studies taken on my name . But eventually everything fell in places and I managed a job in an vehicle OEM in the suburbs of Pune. The later stay was spent riding my bike to and from pune city every weekly off. That drive was in deed another epic one. May be I can write about it also :)
