Two cities.

(Pune diaries!)

Two cities........Mumbai and Pune!

One I've lived (and passionately loved, right though its bad phase of communal riots, and  rechristenings, and bomb blasts and cloudbursts ) my entire life and one I'm living in right now.

Comparision is of course inevitable!

The first thing that majorly  catches your attention about Pune  is  the people.

The average Punekar  is naturally more relaxed, more accepting of any circumstance,  more rule abiding, and basically silent as he goes about his daily chores with a somewhat clockwise precision, unlike the  hotchpotch Mumbai pulse.  ( I sincerely  secretly fear I might  permanently contaminate the city, for the worse, with my super hyper anxiety energy)!

I'm purposely  refraining from using the term laid back, though sometimes to my Mumbai trained mind,  it does seem so, almost as if Pune was the heaven for Mumbaikars, who just  couldn't keep Pace!.

Here, other than the vehicles, both two and four wheelers.....I  got brushed by a bus almost immediately on arrival...... nobody is in a hurry  to reach anywhere. And maybe because of that,  everything everywhere  seem  more spacious, more accommodating, more accepting,  and hardly  claustrophobic,  unlike Mumbai where the roads, the shops, malls, theatres, railway stations, all of which are always always   crowded and over crowded with people,  people, and people!.

My first experience of the slow and steady mantra of Pune came to me when I went to purchase the mandatory bucket, mugs, soaps, toothpaste and miscellaneous stuff usually needed when you set shop, rather a  new house in my case!

The oldish​ guy at the counter has all the time in his plodding world. He takes his time to select each item I requisition with individual care that of course, makes me rather impatient.

The Mumbaiya in me, ​ slides open the  display shelf, to select the tiffin box he seems not inclined to show me..(he has already shown two) while he exasperatedly( even this is slow motion btw)  says...Why do you think I am here. That's my job. Relax and let me handle it.
I let myself lose my urgency,  which if you think about it, is more of a habit than a need,  and decide to go with the flow!

First lesson learned!....

There is absolutely no need to rush mandatory shopping( which is  unlike window shopping which is deliberately slow, which is any ways is more of retail therapy, than a need,  for the ever stressed Mumbai woman).

In Pune,  mandatory shopping can be retail therapy too!

And I must grudgingly accept, Pune is growing on me, minute by minute!