101 Things to do in Pune

                There are some things which you cannot explain. Love is one of those. No matter how much I crib, I love Pune to the core. This is a city that accepted me some three and a half years ago when I had no clue about my life (not that I have today either), a city where I found love, life and laughter (quite in that order too!), a place where I found friends for lifetime, joy in little things. Pune has been the crux of my life and aptly so. So when I’m given a chance, I can’t stop raving about Pune and as a tribute to this city, here I am with a list of 101 things you must do, when you stay here. Give Pune a chance. It made my life better, may the luck shine on you as well!


1) Find yourself friends like I did. Pune is no fun without your friends.

2) Take as many auto-rides as you can. You’ll crib about the rates, the attitude of the drivers but it’s worth every penny and more! It’s simply magical.

3) Sing Indian classical film songs loudly and hoarsely during the auto-rides, especially when passing by busy streets.

4) Play cards on Law College Road Barista.

5) Smoke at ‘the Wall’.

6) Sleep at 6 in the morning; wake up when you feel like.

7) Spend countless hours at a coffee shop of your choice (I recommend Barista), studying, spending time with your companions or doing nothing.

8) Watch the sun rise in Khadakwasla dam.

9) Watch Durga Pooja celebration at Congress Bhawan and Koregaon Park, lane no.7.

10) Pass by Prabhat Road after ten in night and smell the fragrance in the air.

11) Travel to places like Lonavla by train, walk miles from the station to drink a cup of tea from a particular tapri and back, and catch the next local back to Pune.

12) Trek up Singhgad Fort.

13) Shut yourself away from the world, stock up food/booze/fag and spend a day doing abstract things like reading Fyodor Doestovski’s White Nights from cover to cover or watching vernacular movies at length.

14) Walk down to places like High Spirits, Hard Rock Café, not drink and walk back.

15) Walk miles with friends, yet hire an auto for a 2 minute distance.

16) Go to crossword/landmark and spend an entire day reading.

17) Convert into a fabOHOLIC! (For those who didn’t get it, be a fab India patron).

18) Have Coffee Stop’s cold coffee at midnight (they close down by 11 30 now!).

19) Live in a space of your own, like a flat or a row-house.

20) Bike-ride on the Mumbai-Bangalore Expressway over a 100 km/hr.

21) Fight with the auto-drivers over the fare.

22) Watch every movie seated first row from the screen.

23) Travel to Mumbai by road.

24) Book a cab to Kashid, spend a leisurely day away from the world.

25) Cad B ice-cream at Kamla Nehru Park.

26) Walk on law college road at 4 in the morning.

27) Sit at om super market.

28) U have the toughest paper the next day,yet dnt study the entire nyt.

29) Spend lazy afternoons in kamla Nehru park.

30) Go mall hopping.

31) Watch people play cricket in law college cricket ground.

32) Take a train from pune to any place where you pass by the chambal ghati. It’s a journey worth every penny.

33) Go jogging early morning, in the busiest of streets like S.B. Road, law college road, bhandarkar n F.C. Rod.

34) Travel by the PMPML buses.

35) Force the auto guy to take wrong routes, get caught by the traffic police and pay the fine.

36) Stand in the long, seemingly unending and absolutely irritating queues outside the ATMs.

37) Go to far off places like Camp and Koregaon to eat the food of your choice.

38) Walk when there is an auto strike but don’t pay excess fare.

39) Visit the temples, the gurudwaras, the churches and the mosques.

40) Discover new routes to same destination.

41) Play in the Mulla river water.

42) Experience the fun of Water sports at Panshet.

43) Have the audacity to live the last week of month with last 100 Rs in pocket and no balance in the cell.

44) Stand up for yourself and the city during a disturbance like Feb,08 and the more recent swine flu.

45) Watch horror movies all night and get scary dreams.

46) Install a T.V. and the cable at home just to watch IPL.

47) Night outs!

48) Eat at Veer da Dhaba at midnight.

49) Walk a couple of miles at midnight to fetch coke from e-square and in order to eat anda-bhurji opposite jaayka in S.B. Road.

50) For a class of 8 30, reach at 9 30, get the attendance and rush back home to catch up on the sleep you had to forego.

51) Have the ‘Chaat’ at Canal Road and Manmeet.

52) Be a regular at places like Subway, Foodiez etc.etc.

53) Survive solely on junk food.

54) Never, ever make your own notes but be smart enough to get the best ones photocopied well in advance.

55) Stay in Pune for a festival or two. The city is at its best.

56) Enjoy the craze of Ganpati Festival.

57) Watch the moon from your balcony and while the entire night just like that.

58) Get wet in the Pune rains.

59) Join the best and the most expensive gym, only to end up watching TV all the time.

60) Go shopping at Tulsibaug.

61) Dream big, join IMS and CareerForum etc. only to never go there.

62) Surprise the people who mean the most to you and see the glimmer in their eyes.

63) Go to Pune station 2 have anda bhurji, chaai etc. at the oddest of hours.

64) Walk someone home.

65) Take odd trips alone!

66) Listen to the same song in loop at home when you are down.

67) Go to Essel World/Water Kingdom.

68) Trek up Hanuman Tekri.

69) Be an Airtel customer. It’s a lot cheaper to connect through this and comes in handy during the ‘recession’ week of the month.

70) Play chess at Barista.

71) Own a bike, car anything(preferably a bike).

72) If and when you have to buy books, buy from Appa Balwant Chauk. They have the cheapest rates.

73) Go to the most expensive of hospitals even when you have a trivial cough.

74) Eat road-side food, fall sick, crib, and vow never to eat there again, recover, only to eat there again.

75) Play street cricket.

76) If you drink, visit places like Apache.

77) Watch football matches at Toons.

78) Visit wonder funkey.

79) An evening at 3D destination.

80) If you are into clubbing, visit all the clubs on the nights when couple entry is free. Don’t worry about a partner, you will find many at the entrance looking for one.

81) Work or get an internship. Pune is a fab place to work.

82) Take frequent bike trips to places like Lonavla at 3 in the night(this one is specially for guys).

83) Experience random and abstract photography.

84) Navigate the city during Sant Gyaneshwar’s Paduka festival.

85) Sway to the beats of the Nashik Dhol.

86) Visit ABC Farms.

87) Sit on the footpaths and have a cup of tea/coffee. It’s a student’s prerogative here.

88) Specially wake up in the morning to have breakfast at places like Goodluck or in Karve Road.

89) Wander around the city. There’s so much to see.

90) If you are a history buff, visit places like Aga Khan Palace and Shanivarwaada.

91) Frequently visit DagruSheth Halwai Ganpati in Laxmi Road.

92) Go for evening walks in Range Hills.

93) Find out places/areas where you can get the cheapest and most durable stuff.

94) Discover the romantic in you. 

95) Learn to live without electricity. Pune faces acute power crunch at times.

96) Live near a hyper-market. Half the times you will remember to buy a thing only exactly when you need it.

97) Shop! Splurge! If not here, then where?

98) Learn to play pool.

99) Live everyday here to the fullest. You won’t get the same life elsewhere.

100) Discover the innate potential you have.

101) Find that perfect companion to do all this with! 

Mutual Benefits Agreement

A hallmark day! We finally finished with our internal evaluations. it was a time when ideally, I should have gone out partying but one when I actually sat down thinking. With no impending assignments, this was a day i had been eagerly waiting for because I needed a much-needed break from studying. This, coming from me is quite rich. So I sat in my room which overlooks the Sahyadri Mountains with Yesudas crooning to some of the sweetest of tunes and thought at bay.

My life has turned upside down over the past few months, least for good. This has been perhaps one of the toughest and most challenging periods of my life wherein I seem to have matured dramatically fast. I see more logic than before and even though this era has not been high in terms of contentment, it is so in terms of learning.

One of the most different things I have learnt over a couple of months is the concept of Mutual Benefits Agreement (read: MBA). Not that I was earlier totally unaware of it, but seeing it here and living right in the middle of it is altogether a different ball-game. It’s very complex in implementation and yet so very simplistic in its approach. Allow me to enlighten the ignorant lot, if any. According to this concept, two or people mutually agree to be in each other’s company because:

i. They have no other company because of whatever is the reason.

ii. They each see some benefit in being with each other. This could be platonic, romantic, academic or simply because they like being with each other.

iii. They need a climber (know what I mean?)

iv. They are comfortable with each other because somewhere their thought is at the same plane and their thinking matches.

It can be easily assumed that almost everyone adopts this concept, more so in a B-school. This might easily be prevalent elsewhere also but because I am in one, I can see and relate to it better. This is not friendship as some of you might want to argue, this is merely a way to survive the two year imprisonment each one of us has granted ourselves willingly.

You are very lucky if you find a true friend in a B-school. It happens to very few. Most of the people I live around go by the philosophy of selective interaction. They talk to each other if and only if they need a job done, an errand run or if they are in the same assignment/presentation group. They’ll have a plastic smile fixed on their face, almost as irritating as the stewardesses of Jet Airways. They’ll strategize and put any politician to shame, screw people left and right; without so much of even batting an eyelid. You have got to see the finesse. You have to admire the thinking, the devotion given to planning and the smooth, sleek execution of a perfectly crafted plan. What is perhaps the disturbing fact here is the fact that many innocent people fall a prey to this and do not come out of the Utopian world, till the very end. Anyways, I am no social worker, so all I can realistically do, is to empathize with their plight, for they know not, what doom actually beckons them.

There are two ways of surviving these two years. First and the simpler way is to be what people want you to be and the second one is to be what you actually are. Till date I fail to understand the aura, the magic behind acting as something or someone you actually are not. I mean, how difficult is to be your real self? Each one of us is born special, different from the rest and better than the best. Still people crave to be what they actually are not and I have not been able to find any rhyme to that. This is a decision each one takes for himself and I have no qualms about it. But I do wonder whether it actually is worth the efforts.

You have got to be smart enough to know and realize what is right and what is wrong, you have to have the courage of not running behind the mirage. You have to be bold enough to be what you are and face the world. And if you can’t then I fail to see the purpose behind your degree, your education. Yes, you might land up with a great job, a great salary but what about your peace of mind? It may sound downright philosophical and straight out of an Ayn Rand novel but it’s a question each one of us faces at some point of time. Is a pretentious life what you came here for? Are you made for running behind elusive and absolutely worthless baubles? Is this your quest, your ultimate goal?

It’s easy to fall a prey to circumstances and hurdles that come your way but as Rabindranath Tagore said, the mind should be led forward by ever-widening thought and action. It is difficult, not to trod along a path that has already been traversed by millions but if you cannot dare to be different, if you cannot stand up to your own beliefs, if you do not have a philosophy for you life, what a waste of a great life!

In the end, the decision is ours, to be what others want us to or to be what we are. Education is not supposed to ruin us. It is supposed to give us a clarity of thought and to enable us to determine what is wrong and what is right. At the end, you should be able to stand up for your own self, for your own beliefs, for your own principles. What is right for me, may not be right for you. Find out what is right for you. Education is an endless pursuit, an ongoing quest to know yourself and your horizons.

So, I end the day, sipping a coke with the select few people whose thought matches mine, instead of painting the town red. That’s because I have found that it’s right for me and I have a quest for life. And as I walk back towards my room, Tagore’s words come floating by again.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free ;( and not according to MBA)

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action;

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,

Let my fellow-men awake.

Cheers!

Masters of Baniyagiri Administration

as i sit in my room while some of my colleagues are struggling with the recruiters from Goldman Sachs in a building just few steps away..i cannot help wonder that what is it that makes you join the rat race.MBA today is just not enough.you need to have a degree from a reputed college and in order to make your CV attractive,a good internship is a must.That is why when names like this visit the campus,its total pandemonium.People do not talk to another because each one is busy preparing for the interview secretly.the crowd in the mess thins down,so does the one that otherwise keeps loitering in and around the campus.people are locked in their rooms either strategizing or slogging and toiling(really???or mugging up formulae for the aptitude test?)it is a sight to behold,at best from an arm's length because the minute you are a part of this mud-slinging,nerve-wrecking rat race,you will,at some point or the other,curse your decision to join this.the amount of strategy that goes into each day,each minor 10-mark test can put any politician to shame,can give any john buchanan, any gary kirsten a run for his money.who says indians cannot be good coaches.please try the crowd here first.i'm sure the lot shall not disappoint you.

what is perhaps even more amusing to an extent of being disturbing is the CGPA system.we all have our own views for and against the system and i am strictly against the system.yes,the system does save us when we all(the entire class)fares badly in a subject. the drawback here is that it leaves ur future in the hand of others.so gone are the days when giving your best shot at something was considered the mantra for success.now your future is in my hand and vice versa.you cannot be good enough.you have to be as good as the next person and the next and the next.it leaves a large chunk of your fate on luck factor where you fare as well as your class of 40 permits you to be.the marks system in my opinion was much better where they tested you what percentage of the questions asked were known by you.the same pattern is followed here,only with an added spice of comparative scoring(read:CGPA). i have no clue when the educationists shall be able to come up with a full-proof system,if at all..but this one is not a very well-though solution.you get 90% marks only to be given a C-grade because of the CGPA system.does that necessarily mean you ARE a C-grade student??i shall leave the answer open to debate.

so while i sip a cup of coffee and rebuke myself at having scalded my tongue for the umpteenth time..n wait for a set of recruiters who think that 3-year graduation courses can yield personnel who are eligible for their company..i also leave you with a question.."where shall this rat race take our generation?"..n do not,for one second presume that i am not a part of it;for where else shall you get insights like these?

please vote,if you are eligible.that is one initiative which each one of you should take.

Cheers!

dis one is for yu!!

jaagte mein bhi soti hai

kuch aankhein aisi hoti hai

bemausam kaliyon ki maanoos

kisi lamha haule haule khilti hai

humne bhi ek roz dekhi thi

aisi gahri mashaal aankhein

duniya ki iis bheed me jaise

sangeen akele wo aankhein thi

yun to ab tak jitni guzri thi

bade hi khushfahmiyo me guzri thi

par wo aankhein

aye gahre sagar, aye uche aasmaan

yu laga ki meri ruuh me raasta bana jayengi

ek us saanjh ke saaye tale

baithe rahey hum der tak

dil se to ki baatein bahut

muh se kaha kuch bhi nahi

maanga khuda se raat din

tere siwa kuch bhi nahi

socha kabhi kuch bhi nahi

achha bura kuch bhi nahi

maanga khuda se raat din

tere siwa kuch bhi nahi

0.09 seconds v/s 2 hrs.!!!

we all are aware of the SRK fiasco..it is simply unbelievable..but wat is harder 2 fathom is the ruckus that has been created around dis incident..too much of mud-slinging...ppl who have no business with this jumping in uninvitedly and giving their expert but uncalled comments...it was an entire circus show...without any ticket of course...i m all for security and taking all the reqd.steps 2 ensure that..but finding n establishing SRK's identity took 2 hrs??i m sorry amigoes!!!u need 2 speed up ur system then...u have computers..u hav all the database...everything...it takes less than 0.1 seconds(0.09 to be precise) to find out on google(guess americans should know how to use google!!!its their baby after all!!) who SRK is and what does he look like...u hav already issued him a visa..he has a valid passport..still if u need a re-check..2 hrs???time is money,my friends..dis is american philosophy..nt mine..n u most certainly don't ask a person 2 step aside for questioning if u hav lost his luggage...u 'apologize'..u r courteous 2 him..n u make sure that u leave no stone unturned as far as hospitality is concerned..so dis "luggage-lost" theory is hard 2 believe...
y just SRK was asked 2 step aside..if u r doing dis for security..i m sure there were other passengers who were foreigners..n who wre NOT questioned...n if it was done cuz he is KHAN..well..i l refrain frm commenting..u can't typecast people..much less someone who is adored by 1/6th of the world's population..those who say even bob dylan was questioned..allow me 2 inform u that mr.dylan was nt carrying ny identity proof whereas SRK had a legal n valid passport with a visa stamped..issued by USA embassy of course..
another section of people say that even the-then defence minister george fernandes was frisked at moscow airport,our beloved ex-president dr.kalam was searched..then why such hue and cry abt SRK being questioned...my point is...ask SRK 2 pass thru all the detectors..frisk him..he is such a gentleman that he will never object...scan him..make him go thru all types of x-rays n y-rays...but 2 humiliate someone for 2 full hours who has every document required..is uncalled for..no matter who he is..whether SRK,dr.kalam or a common person like me..do u question every passenger for 2 hrs?if u dnt,then y single out him?
cuz SRk is a star..n cuz it happened 2 him..we hav got an opportunity 2 know abt the loopholes wid their system..if it wud hav hpnd 2 a common man..it wudnt hav cm 2 our notice..so i m glad it hpnd 2 him..at least nw ppl knw wat happens..hw ppl are segregated and targeted..n wat r d loopholes wid der system..guys stand up!!i dnt hear victoria beckham being questioned...i dnt hear jude law being questioned..y an indian then?do they question jackie chan?michelle yoh?n SRK is a common man after all..he felt humiliated..has a right 2 bring it 2 every1's notice..did dat exactly..if he is fortunate enuf..or has that aura that the media dances around even if he sneezes..then i m glad he brought dis 2 every1's notice..if a common man rises 2 a level..faces injustice n makes it a public knowledge..i dnt see where is d pblm afterall..make me understand if u feel otherwise..to tolerate injustice is a bigger crime..salman khan wnt object 2 it cuz..lets face it..half the time his passport will be confiscated n locked safely in the police department..on other occasions his shootings(however much he has nowadays) will be indoors...i wish we needed 2 have a visa if we were to travel 2 one state frm another..then i wud luv 2 see the no.of times he wud be detained in rajasthan for questioning(for the security of black-bucks of crse!!) n the level of tolerance he wud show..all for security,aren't u mr.salman khan?wat abt security of those poor animals whu dnt hav a voice??whu r helpless against ur mighty gun?wat abt those poor ppl whu sleep on the footpath n ur car just happens 2 take the footpath route n kill them?they dnt need 2 be secure?is safety of a human being no concern in ur otherwise very "MATURE" mind??mend ur own ways first..b4 taking a go at someone who is way better a human being than you..maybe u need 2 assault another girl friend of yours or threaten another colleague b4 u get some sense..dnt try plz..u might be held for questioning on SECURITY CONCERNS!!!
dis unfortunate incident happened 2 a common man..who happens 2 be well knwn..n luckily the media covers him well..dis man thot of bringing the loophole of a system 2 every1's notice..cuz he is noticed..result??hunting hounds pounce upon him..a whole lot of mud-slinging starts..n every tom,dick and harry throws in his expert comment..u forget the pblm..join in the mud-bath..n forget..that it could hav easily been you..if it were you,then i would simply ask-"HOW U DOIN'?"maybe then i would find u smiling,co-operating,n saying that its all ffor security n nt cuz u r being segregated n detained..find the answer within urselves..

hosh ki hadd behoshi se guzar ke dekhte hai
kahte hai aag ka dariyaa utar ke dekhte hai

hame sametne waala bhi koi hai ki nahi
yah dekhne ke liye hum bikhar ke dekhte hai

suna hai ishq ibaadat bhi hai,museebat bhi
yah baat hai to chalo ishq kar ke dekhte hai

koi to baat hai yakeenan us mein sabse alag
varna log usse kyu thahar ke dekhte hai

fir zindagi bhi hosh me nahi rahti
wo jab nazrein utha kar hame dekhte hai

ek kami si

ek kami si
ek nami si
chaaro or phail rahi hai
kayi jamaane ek hi pal me
aaj mil kar bheeg rahe hai
andar sab kuch sookh raha hai
baahar manzar bheeg rahe hai