Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Pune! Visit 2

This time I am ready..to see the city and stay in it. To get up close and move around on my own! So I am walking, and auto ricking around town. Watching women bandits, wrapped in head scarves with only eyes visible..a typicall Pune thing to do! Strange..is the only way to describe it...if you really want to save your skin, you would not be wearing sleeveless clothes, and might not wearing a helmet when you ride a bike be a smarter option? I do wonder!
Also looked at women dressed in Bridal finery walking around town and eating road side food, dressed to the nines! I did think I saw one bride too many and then was told later, it was 'sari day' in some college, which meant every female in the college has to dress up..well according to me like a bride, because there are a great many ways and great many types of saris! And not all make you look like a bride.
The next thing I did do was go to a club, oh boy!! There were women in Saris there too! And the DJ played hot bollywood hits, which meant every single person was doing the same dance steps, being Kareena Kapur from Don or being Abhishek Bachchan from Guru. Amusing and entertaining and there was no other way of making me feel a lot lot older than i thought I was :)

Went up to Sinhgarh..and ate Pitala and Bhakri with some staggeringly hot red onion sauce..oh dear was it hot or was it hot! It was a nice unique place..sitting in the shade of a tree on a reed mat, eating freshly cooked food..seems like a truly 'rustic' experience if you are not Indian..but for me..it was yet another shade of India that I had not seen.
The visit to an Ashtvinayak temple in Thevur was great, saw a temple where one of the 8 lord ganesh's appeared in Maharashtra. On my way there I saw bullock carts laden with sugar cane making their way to the local sugar factory..it made a stunning picture against the sunset! On the way home, came a brisk and smelly fish market, selling produce so fresh, it was still flipping in the basket... i was tempted to buy some.
Amazing!
Overall I have let the city in, I am thinking about it. Its not a shock to my system as it was last time. Perhaps if I get a sense of direction in more ways then one..I would be happier :) But yes this place is like Mumbai, minus all the noise that comes with being a metropolis. The 7th largest city in India..but the village heart is not too far!

3 comments:

Deepak said...

Women bandits..huh?
I used to call them militants. (I'm watching too many movies, I guess!)

They cover the tiny opening for their eyes with a pair of sunglasses too. :D

Anonymous said...

Pune's a beautiful place. Can't quite describe it. Probably cause I grew up there.
Give it time. A couple of months in Pune, and nobody wants to go away.

Morpheus said...

@deepak..the women do look scary and very unreasonable sp in sleevless tops and heads masked. Perhaps Mr Bush should pay Pune a visit!!
@Shaunak..I must say I liked Pune a Lot more this time than the last time around.