Skip to main content

Pune and me




Three long years has passed since I had first come to this city. Belonging to a small town, life had a complete different meaning to me, till this journey began three years back.
 24th June 2009, I jumped out of Azad Hind Express with some huge load on my shoulder. The load was not of the luggage, but of the dreams, of the responsibilities, of the fear of surviving in this huge city, all alone. I knew no one in this city. A complete stranger was this huge city to me. I struggled out of the station, trying to find a way to reach the accommodation which had been pre-booked for me. Not that I was new to a huge and busy station with streams of people flowing in all directions, I have had similar sights in Howrah stations as well, many a times. But then what was new this time that was giving me Goosebumps? The fact that this was the first time I was all alone. This time I wasn’t holding dad’s hand and waiting for him to rescue me out of this crowd to safety. This time I had to manage myself, that’s what my parents had told me when they were swaying me farewell with teary eyes.
Lonely nights and scary days were the beginning of my journey in this city. I was an adult, but probably only by age. The experiences here made me a real adult. I had done my schooling from a convent, where I had spent 13 years of my life. When I say 13 years, it probably describes itself, that school wasn’t a school for me, it was a big huge family where 62 of us siblings had grown up together. Friendship had a completely different meaning. Sharing tiffin, sharing homework, getting punishments together, crying together when any one got scolding….that was friendship to me, rather to us in school. This city redefined friendship to me. Using each other for personal needs, back bitching, jealousy….these were the new definitions I got to learn.
If I end writing here, it will surely be an injustice to whatever the city has given me. No doubt I have had toughest of time here; I also had the time of my life in this very city. It taught me to live life. Life is no fairy tale, but still its worth living. If there are pains, we need to find the joy as well. This city made me fall, skin my knees but at the same time, this very city helped me get up, gave me the medicine.
There is so much I owe to the city and am sure the story will get longer as I continue my journey in this city for at least the coming 2 years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quarantining Alone - A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

This Covid-19 virus has turned the entire world upside down. It has broken a lot of older habits and set a lot of new normals. Towards the early days of this lockdown, I had written a blog - An Extrovert in Isolation . The early lockdown days were extremely difficult for me. That was the phase of breaking old habits. An extrovert by nature, couldn't accept the sudden change of being locked alone inside my house. I am writing this blog again after being locked at home for more than 100 days now. Most of the older habits are broken by now. A few new habits have become a part of my new normal. What seemed to have been painful 100 days back has now turned to be blissful. Here, I am sharing my story of how quarantining alone has ended up being the greatest opportunity and a huge transformation in my life.  I have been struggling for years to fix my sleep patterns. Going to bed late and waking up late had been a habit for a really long time. My struggles to change this habit had...
1 comment
Read more

RASCI model - the responsibility assignment matrix

In the last few days, both at my workplace as well as while dealing with a few activities around me, I have realized the importance of implementing a better responsibility assignment matrix, to get things done in a less messed up way. A few months back, during some random conversation, a friend of mine had introduced me to the RASCI model, one of the responsibility assignment matrices. Wikipedia says that the responsibility assignment matrix 'describes the participation by various roles in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process.'  In simple words, for any project, if we can divide each person's role and responsibility, it not only ensures a better end product, but also saves the time, otherwise lost in discussions (which organizations like to call as meetings). A RASCI implementation ensures that each person is responsible for only and only the task assigned to him (or her) and will not need to interfere with another person's task, un...
5 comments
Read more

A lot can happen over coffee....only if you are allowed to sit at a CCD outlet!

Cafe Coffee Day is no more a new name for the youngsters in India. For a warm cup of coffee at an affordable price, thats where we generally go to! But more than the cup of coffee, its the atmosphere of Café Coffee Days which attracts all of us. An informal setup...good beverage and snacks...soothing music (most of the time)...complimentary wi-fi (at many outlets)...well, CCD always had a lot to offer its customers. Photo source - https://www.zomato.com/pune/cafe-coffee-day-2-koregaon-park For Siddhartha, coffee always used to be an experience to be offered...not just beans to be grown. I have had my job interview conducted at a CCD outlet. I have hosted and attended several community meetups at different CCD outlets across the country. I have even had my coffee dates at CCDs. Well, truely, a lot has happened in my life over coffee...at different CCD outlets. Once, Siddhartha himself had spent his new year's eve, serving customers at a Café Coffee Day (CCD) outlet near C...
8 comments
Read more