What's it like to live in Pune?

We've lived in Pune for over two years now; not decided to make it our home, at least not yet. I don't love it; I don't hate it. There's something about the place that I can't quite point my finger to that makes me oscillate between this love-hate thing.

Indian cities that way are quite different from the American ones, never been to Europe so I don't know if they are stereotypical like their American counterparts. Every Indian town and city is diverse from the rest - in its culture, its people, language, cuisine, tolerance level for people from other states, festivals, real estate, mannerisms and communities. Every city will not have a Reliance Fresh or Spencer's, though that's changing now.

I was town-bred for the most part of my childhood. The first metro I lived in was Bangalore and that became my benchmark for a city lifestyle. The move to Pune was difficult; assimilation of the local culture tougher than expected. It took us a while to understand people are not yelling at you when they open their mouths; that's the normal way of talking here and they are polite all the same.

Given a choice to move back to Bangalore, I would have said "yes" without thinking a year back. Now, I realise why it's so much fun to live in Pune. Life is a celebration here and that's one of the reasons I love it. From Dahi Handi for Krishna Jayanthi to the Ganesh Mandals during Ganesh Chaturthi to Pandals for Durga Pooja, it's fun all the way. I can't remember once when we played Holi in Bangalore. Here, I can't keep track of the no. of people turning out for Holi for Diwali. It's not "I"; it's "We" here.

You'll know you are in Pune when ----

- you see young women cruising on motorcycles
- poha for breakfast
- every dish is garnished with kothimber and pyaaj gets replaced soon with kandha in your vocab
- hooded young girls and women (with their face covered in scarves even while walking on the road)
- 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. power cuts on Thursday
- when the shops pull down their shutters between 1 p.m. and 4:3 0 p.m. for the customary nap
- celebration is not individualistic; it is for the community
- when the Rain Gods don't pay heed to your prayers even after 48 hours, it is time to stay indoors than be stuck on flooded roads
- the roads have gone larger, wider and more flyovers have appeared but the traffic has got worse
- there is a chat shop in the corner of every street, so much so that some streets are named Bhel Chowk.
- there are more students than any other city in India

Beware of sending courier to/from Pune by DTDC / First Flight

Till date, I've lost 3 parcels sent to and from Pune and all of them by different couriers - Professional, DTDC and most recently First Flight totallig to Rs.6000. While in the first two cases, the entire parcel got lost, the last one sent on April 2nd was tactically stolen by First Flight. The parcel comprised of 2 expensive shirts in one box. While 1 shirt reached, the other one was removed from the pack by slittig one corner, repacked the same way and sent with the outer cover that had my handwritten to and from address. In this case, it is hard to recover the insurance money as there is no way to prove to those guys that only 1 shirt was delivered. I have lost faith now after 3 experiences in sending anything to and from Pune. I thought it was a mere coincidence when a set of Titan watches sent from Pune got lost a year back followed by sent of dresses sent from Delhi. Sometimes, this is reason enough to hate the corrupt society we live in! More than the cost value of these parcels, what hurts is that all of them were gifts ... so the thoughts, effort and love that went behind selecting/shopping each of them also is stolen!