It has been 5yrs in Pune for me, not very long… but long enough to understand the city. I am still opening new layer each day of this young at heart city with a blend of culture, history, education, technology, religions and strong root beliefs of local people. But this blog entry doesn’t speak about Pune. This blog entry seems to be coming from deep down memory lanes.
I am sure many of you must be taking same route to office or college each day for weeks, months, years. It’s the same path everyday, isn’t it? Same “what the####!” traffic, the same wrong lane drivers, the same wadapavwala on that turn, the same flower selling kids… and so on. It has been years now for me also travelling the same roads at same hour of the day. It seems nothing has changed, everything is static here, sometimes even me. But today when I was going through the same routine, same traffic, same unending honking; I realized it has changed a lot. Its just that I got so used to seeing it that I couldn’t tell the change. But here again I don’t want to elaborate on the changes of the road.
Today I want to talk about travelling the same road by travelling miles in my life. When I first stepped in Pune, I was a family person… the youngest in my entire family and the only girl. I never was away from my home, loved my room (with a whole wall painted by me). Then I entered the institute in pune as a loner, a total tomboy with least interest in what talks happened in hostel. I look at my pics from that time and I go like “who is that? me?”. Torne denim - painted on one leg, bandana on head, short t-shirt and curly unmanaged hair. Only thing girly that I knew of was kajal(eye liner). In the next few months it turned out that I came up with more enemies than friends (friends were few but were the best). I turned out to be a strong person with deep respect for my personal space, I stood for what was right, fought for design and non-design issues with equal strength and created a whole new understanding of the world for myself. College, internship and job turned out a new side of me as a nomad, easily shifting few bags lifestyle. And slowly the personal space started getting restricted to my bed and cupboard, in hostel and as paying guest. The roads of Pune remained same.
I fell in love, tried best to convince people for accepting us and saying yes for marriage. And I finally got married a year back. Now this nomad was supposed to be tamed as a family person overnight. Why not sure!?! So this tomboy started turning to being a nice, sweet, girl who can be accepted as the daughter-in-law and a beloved wife. The task seemed very simple!!! – cook food, do job, respect everyone, dress up like a married female, learn culture, learn language, get up early……….. so I accepted the challenge. And today on the 1st marriage anniversary I can proudly claim that I have tried my best on all these levels. And again when I see my pics of what I look today, typing this blog… straight hair, Kurta-pajama, bangles, mangalsutra, bindi, toe rings… And I say “who is that? me?”
