Many movies and TV shows like to narrate the journey of a small-town girl entering a metro city for realizing her dreams, adjusting to the hustle-bustle, braving several cultural and economic shocks, and finally becoming one with the city. At least that’s the conclusion people expect. Tell a producer that you would like the story to end with the protagonist realizing that it was a mistake, packing her bags and returning to her hometown, and you would be sent packing before the first frame is shot.
India, being a young and aspirational country, wants to see growth against hardships, and settling in a big city is often considered to be a proxy to growth. The last time someone made a serious attempt to narrate a story based on a diametrically opposite premise, it tanked at the box office (*cough* Swades *cough*). If a story has to be told about big city guys discovering life’s meanings outside the hustle and bustle of the city, it becomes acceptable only when the guys move to an even more (perceived) developed place (*cough* ZNMD *cough*). That’s how hungry for growth India is, which is a good thing for the country and a terrible setting for this blog post. Does it even make sense to narrate my experience? Let’s find out.
Having spent almost my entire life in Mumbai, last year I finally moved to Talegaon, a humble town on the outskirts of Pune, as my employer shifted base from Mumbai to Pune. Talegaon is the among the nearest habitable areas to my new workplace. As I now, after more than year here, move out, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the transition.
Before getting to the experience, some disclaimers! First of all, it is written by an introvert: someone who won’t go out looking for the city but would go about his day-to-day routine and experience the city as it comes to him. So, don’t expect this to be a travel blog. I’ve no idea about the good places to visit in Talegaon. Second, almost every weekend, I traveled back to Mumbai to my family. So the purists can conclude that my experience of Talegaon is neither complete nor worthy of narration. They may stop reading right here!
Saptarishi Mandala
I live on the old Mumbai-Pune highway. Deccan Hills backdrop my housing society. The highway starts as soon as I step out of my society complex. Thanks to this unique positioning, very little surface lighting is available in this part of Talegaon, and, consequently, a lot more stars are visible in the night sky here than in Mumbai. I dimly recall having been able to spot the ‘Big Dipper’ constellation (Saptarishi Mandala) once, while returning to the society after dinner one night.
I’m staying on rent. ‘Rent’ was the first economic surprise here. The rent for a 1 BHK in a branded housing society here was less than what I paid in Navi Mumbai for a single room in a PG with 5 flatmates. And the rent included access to the society’s gym and clubhouse. Pretty cool, right? The rent made me recalibrate my pricing expectations for everything else: food, travel, utilities, etc. Turns out, I shouldn’t have!
Spice, Spice and Everything Nice
Food pricing here is more or less comparable to that in Mumbai. The portion sizes are, however, much better, and I believe that through some obscure mathematics it would be possible to show that food here would be cheaper if it was shared by 2-3 people, but expensive for an individual. It is spicier than Mumbai and you often get reminded about that next morning! The taste is great, and has the typical Maharashtrian flavor to it.
The daily Thali
My regular food requirements are met by a nearby dhaba that serves pure veg food (yes, those exist here!). The waiters there recognize me. They know my customizations to their thali by heart, and as soon as they see me walking in, they place the order. If I hadn’t shown up for a few days, they enquire if I was on holiday. The dhaba is mostly sparsely populated, but the service takes almost the same amount of time or sometimes longer than a Mumbai restaurant. I take that positively, assuming that they prepare everything fresh each time.
Adhir Man Zaale
Our manufacturing plant is in Bhamboli, which is about 25 kms from Talegaon. This is about the same distance as between Borivali and Mulund in Mumbai. While it may take about 2 hours during peak office time to travel from Borivali to Mulund, we have traveled from Talegaon to Bhamboli in as little as 25 minutes, around the same peak office time. The complete lack of traffic in our route was further complemented by a pleasant weather in almost all seasons, and a scenic landscape comprising of hills, waterfalls, and snow-white clouds against a Windows-XP-blue-sky backdrop. The landscape only became better during the rains.
A Rainy Day
While the landscape made the visual aspects of the journey pleasing, the music taste of our first cab driver did the same for the aural aspects. The car journeys were when I got introduced to Marathi music, and I’m still hooked.
‘Adhir Man Zaale’, ‘Sar Sukhachi Sravani’, ‘Chandra’, ‘Tu Havishi’, ‘Undirmama Aiylo’, ‘Jara Jara’, ‘Apsara Aali’ and so many more Marathi songs are now a permanent part of my playlist. I realized that many mainstream Bollywood singers like Shreya Ghoshal and Sonu Nigam have sung exceptional gems in Marathi. And I feel grateful to have discovered the voice of Bela Shende, the National Award Winning Marathi singer. Another discovery was that Ajay Atul’s musical brilliance existed far before Sairat.
Crazy Rich Locals
One fine Monday morning, when I returned to Talegaon from Mumbai, a huge billboard near the station caught my attention. There was no advertisement on the billboard, rather a wedding invitation. So the folks had literally invited the whole town for the wedding. I thought that perhaps this is one-off case involving affluent families. Soon, I realized that announcing wedding invitations on huge billboards is a common phenomenon here. I thought metro cities had those absurdly grand weddings. But these billboards make me wonder if the opposite is rather true.
Mostly Harmless
Douglas Adams, in his book ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, speaks of the guide as one containing information about anything and everything in the Universe. It had a one-word description for Earth: “Harmless”. Later, an employee of the guide spent 15 years on Earth, and wrote tons of content describing Earth in detail. The editors went through all the content and did what editors generally do, and finally, the Guide described the Earth as ‘Mostly Harmless’. If I have to describe Talegaon as concisely as possible, then ‘Mostly Harmless’ would perhaps do.
Before coming here, a couple of colleagues had planned that we’d take bicycle rides to Lonavala along the old Mumbai-Pune Highway. One day here was enough to bury that plan forever. Heavy vehicles move on the highway at speeds suitable only for light vehicles, and one of them need only touch the bicycle to give us a memorable practical lesson in the conservation of momentum!
Traffic rules in Talegaon (and perhaps the whole of Pune) are meant only for the books. One day, after I had spent nearly a year in Talegaon, our route was blocked by a herd of sheep. I, to my surprise, almost instinctively told the cab driver to take the opposite lane via the divider and drive in the wrong direction. A thought that wouldn’t even have crossed my mind in Mumbai was almost going to manifest into words in Pune. Perhaps places do have souls and personalities that are contagious.
Setting the pace
Life here moves slower than in Mumbai. To give you an example, there’s a single local train route, Pune-Lonavala, with just a single train in an hour, and yet fewer people alight at Talegaon, an important station in the route, than the number of people who alight every 5 minutes at any Mumbai railway station.
Public transport is perhaps one area where Mumbai wins hands down, although the increased population is now stressing even the lifeline of the city. Pune does have bus services, but figuring out its timetable feels like playing a treasure hunt game. If anyone wishes to settle in Talegaon, or anywhere else in Pune, then owning a personal vehicle is the way to go.
Talegaon, and Pune in general have adopted EVs at a much better rate than Mumbai. EVs are a common sightings on the road, and EV infra is also developing rapidly. A colleague was telling me that several people in Pune have standalone houses with garages, making transition to EVs a personal choice rather than that of the housing society. This has been responsible for the accelerated EV adoption.
Summing it up
The title of the post says ‘A Mumbaikar on the outskirts of Pune’ rather than ‘A Punekar who grew up in Mumbai’. So Mumbai does hold that edge so far, and several of my colleagues would argue that had I stayed in a more urban area of Pune than Talegaon, then perhaps my conclusion would be different. My family back in Mumbai would argue that I don’t get attached to places anyway (which is correct), so I should rather not comment. So let me not. Draw your conclusions from this blog post yourself. Personally, I don’t think any Mumbaikar would have much difficulty adjusting in Pune.
The I in an IITian 