I was reading Kundera’s ‘The unbearable lightness of being’ when I came across this line-
“and now he realized that those years were more attractive in retrospect than they were when he was living them”
It strikes a rather painful chord inside me but having realized this bitter truth now, I’ll make an effort to may be not complain about my life in the present. I would often complain to my friends about Pune- how people are not crazy about books, education, music, culture, etc. but I was only ignorant. (How many maharashtrian friends did I have anyway?) The Bengali chauvinist inside me would die within a week of stepping into Calcutta. I would miss Pune terribly- the cleaner roads, the better weather, the better friends, lesser politics, the freedom of wearing shorter clothes, of not being leered at and everything else. Pune gave me a place to breathe and be myself- this was extremely difficult in Calcutta, being surrounded by a so-called ‘upper caste’ family who were inherently bigoted, casteist, capitalist and sexist even though they were not inherently ‘bad people’. It is only because of Pune that I had friends that belonged to different classes, castes and cultures. I wonder how much of that would have been possible if I stayed back in Calcutta, studying at La Martiniere, where everything is inherently linked to status, class and caste. Mixing with people from the so called ‘lower caste’ was looked down upon, at least within our social circle in South Kolkata.
Pune not only introduced me to misal pav, pohe, dabeli, and puran poli but also to neer dosa, filter coffee, dal bati churma, puliyogare, malai kofta and Kashmiri kahwa tea- such was the diversity within my circle of friends and also my parents’. I cannot think of a city more cosmopolitan and more tolerant towards other cultures- something that I find seriously problematic living in Benagluru or hearing from my friends and relatives back in Delhi. I don’t think people in Pune care enough- as long as there is good food, loud guffaws, a little fervour during Ganesh Chaturthi, we mind our own business at the end of the day and nobody cares enough to argue on whose culture is better or worse and why. We will embrace yours without expecting anything in return. I’ll never say Pune is the best city to live in, but I sure as well had the greatest time of my life there. We may not have the best airport, not even a decent one but try stepping out of the airport and you’ll know what I am talking about. We sure have a house in Bengaluru now, two more houses and most of my family in Calcutta, and I am mostly in Cuttack for law school, but there is no other place other than Pune I would call home. And now, more than ever have I realized the stark and sombre difference between a house and a home and perhaps this is why, I find myself belonging more to the state which is a gateway to both- the north and the south.
Happy Maharashtra Day!
Literature, Poetry and Reading. 