Pune is uncool

Pune is damn expensive.

Sethi aunty started telling me about how the prices of food items have skyrocketed. She told me she bought 3 kg of ladies fingers for 80 rupees, and tomatoes at Rs 30/Kg (I was already wondering of the hidden message, that my dinner tiffin may become dearer soon, and I thought 25 rupees was itself too much!). I could hardly believe my ears, especially as compared to Delhi, you get good food quite cheap. Sethi aunty’s son was telling me how in Delhi you could eat one good meal for Rs 15 while in a day there won’t be a need to shell out more than 50 bucks for three meals. Here, if you order a paneer pasanda in a half-decent restaurant (I am not mentioning a hotel), that would lighten your wallet by 50 rupees, if not more. I had experienced the same thing too; I bought a dozen small oranges (in season time) for 30 rupees. They all turned out sour, and I do have some expertise in handpicking fruits and vegetables. That experience told me I had still some way to go before becoming an expert like my mom, or for that matter, King Solomon's garden bees which knew about the real and the fake flowers.

Not drifting away from the gist of it, why does petrol have to cost the most in Maharashtra, and especially, Pune? On an average, it is 5-6 rupees more than any other state. Even the room I am staying in is for one person only, as I think, but it's supposedly "good enough" for two, and maybe even three to "fit in". I am paying 2000 bucks a month for the accommodation. Isn't it ludicrous, insane, naive idea to pay such an exorbitant amount for living in a closet? Well not so if you consider the distance to my college. If I consider a far-off place like Sangvi, then the cost of petrol would balloon so much that on the whole, it would not be an economical option.

Recently, Pune was voted the no.2 most expensive city in the country. I am not against any particular region, but my logic says that if you are living in an expensive city, then all the services that are provided to you should be of the very highest quality. Well, Pune...oh no! You would be forgiven if you think, “Where have I landed up in this shithole?". The roads are filled with big potholes, capable of giving a minor dislocation of the shoulder or the knee, whose recovery would take only six months...and set you back by any kind of five-figure amount. The doctors would say, “Boy, you got lucky! You just beat the inflation in the pharma market that is expected next month; you are going to save a lot of money!” If you accidentally caught a good road, you would be tempted to think elections are around the corner. Just the indignity of that makes me feel sick and nauseated. The pollution just gets worse and worse. The authorities have the temerity to put up "148" on the pollution meter, right next to the respirable upper limit of 50. The temperatures nowadays makes you wonder if some years back it was really called a Pensioner's Paradise ? The noise is worse than the gaseous fumes you inhale. The fumes can only cause you lung cancer; if you are strong-willed you can fight it, but the deafening noise in the jams would make you go into a state of permanent trauma. In all these years, I don’t know of a single place, open to all the citizens, worth visiting. In Mumbai, you got a lot of parks, maidans, beaches, museums, and places of historical importance. Pune is a shithole, it really has become one. I am glad my college is one one the safe havens, an area under military control. The first time I started to dislike it was the pedestrian walks. Either you would not find one at all, or even if you did, it would be a narrow one, fit only for one person to walk in one direction, and that space too was usurped by hawkers. So the authorities don’t want to give any respect to pedestrians. Pune is uncool.


The water supply, it’s like a geyser but an unfaithful one. The water itself can give you frequent stomach bugs and cause throw-ups. The electricity, intermittent. Sometimes, my stabilizer does not get the necessary potential. It needs at least 230 V, and many times it shows just 190 V, and at this instant my computer is switched off. What you see is not what is expected. My hard disk (40 GB is no more a bully these days, in the times of 100 and 120 GB hard disks. Mine is a poor cousin) has suffered a lot at the hands of the MSEB. But it still holds some of its own; on booting my computer 5 times, it is detected once. Can I file a lawsuit against the supplier for permanently damaging my hard disk? Most of you would just laugh at that...I keep getting nightmares of my CPU bursting in fumes!

When I go in for servicing of my vehicle (people, who know me...needn't worry), I want the front headlamp part replaced with a new one, because the one that I see has some condensed vapor on the inside. My logic says, if water can seep into this part, it can go inside any other part too. But for the moment, I just want the headlamp replaced. Now, the executive starts explaining me that on these rainy days, such a thing is bound to happen and you can do nothing about it because this is a problem with the bike model. He says the condensed vapor can be found on all the bikes which are my model and offers me to show some other bikes. Not a single one has water on the inside and it's all clean. Bingo, I caught him with his pants down. Again, trying to defend now, the exec says it's because of some atmospheric pressure change and blah blah blah. I tell him I don’t want to listen to the shitty crap, just get it replaced! He says okay. I have a suspicion that he would just heat the headlamp for a while till the droplets vaporize and tell me about it. Bingo yet again, he does the same thing I had figured out. I still insist on replacing it. Why do these knucklehead execs want to erode my psyche when I am asking them to just replace one part, which is well within my rights and my domain?

In Pune, the education industry is the mother of this financial coup. My fees for one year almost touch one lakh rupees, and what are the "services" or "facilities" we get? Poor (read "NO") quality teaching, no workshops, no college funded programmes, petty politics, and just one lab with intermittent online status, with blocked websites while our staff and administrators are happily chatting away on their favorite messengers and downloading games and goody stuff from the same sites, and one professor asking the other, “Sir, why is this new GTA Vice City game priced so high at $ 19.99?”
If you live here, it would make you think that the one who coined the phrase "Time is Money” must be a zombie from outer space. Need we say anything more? Once my masters’ degree is complete I am outta here! Don't you think Pune is uncool? Or maybe it used to be hip-hop earlier but not so now...?

Story 1

Once upon a time lived a professor, called Mr.JackOfAllTrades, who had a very good record as a student in all walks, be it schooling, graduation, or higher studies. He always used to come out as a bright prospect. Then he started looking for a career which would be remunerative to his liking. He tried his hand at various jobs, before he got a chance to work with an institution of higher learning as a professor. He was never satisfied with his previous work, always living to fight another day, hoping that his time would come. But here, he got a semblance of job satisfaction. He also had a enough vision to see the opportunity which could present him with the leadership duties of this institution. At the time of the formation of this institution, he was the only person with considerable experience.

Alongside him was his batch-mate, Ms.FrightenedGirl. She was one person who tried her best to ensure that in the classroom, she looked the teacher and the all others were students, and not the other way round. The students were critical of her, sometimes openly doing so. But she enjoyed the support of the indefatigable JackOfAllTrades, for old times' sake. He was the cushion to kicks that hit her. He was her sponge which soaked in all pressure. He was her pillar of strength.Over a period of time, she gained respect from the students, who could take it away any time they wanted to do so. In the eyes of the students, they were considered best friends.

Supporting them in their duties were two women, Ms.Supermodel and Ms.Adorable Girl. Supermodel had done her masters in a subject that should better be left to men. Complained some students(especially three of them; LostInMusic, FastBowler and RoboticSmile), as they always had a right to do so,"She's not fully aware of the concepts, maybe I can teach her something". One of the common complaints made by students was that she made everyone in the class answer her silly question, the answer of which everybody knew, but still didnt know. Apparently, the reason for that is, the students answered in their own way, but she wanted it in HER way, even though the end result was the same. Still, she was liked by the male students, maybe because she somehow resembled a wannabe model who would have not made the grade in any talent-hunt. She had a good command over language, and a nice, controlled accent. She was also looking ahead and had planned her career. She was not going to stay forever with this institution as a lecturer. She had started looking elsewhere. She was simultaneously doing a management course from a reputed college. That, coupled with her nice accent and confidence would augur well for her future.

Then there was the ever-present, yet the one who went unnoticed, Ms.AdorableGirl. She was the lab administrator, so what if she didnt know how to edit an attribute table of a shapefile, leave alone extracting the IP address of the server!! She was a nobody, yet she was made a somebody. But she was cute, adorable and easy to be with. She was the one who was easily accessible to the students. She was in-charge of the lab, to make sure that everyone's conduct was adhered to by so-called rules. She wasn't the dicsciplinarian type, but since she got along well with students, nobody would raise a voice against her, barring a few exceptions here and there. Later on people would find out she was also a part-time teacher who taught school-level environmental science to the masters-level students!

Then there were people who would look after the administration of the institution. There was the office-clerk, Mr.TenaciousClerk, who was very friendly with students. His main job was to mark attendance, and put up notices, and a thousand other errands that a clerk is supposed to do. The thing is, he wasn't viewed as just a clerk, he was something more, much more than that. In fact, he would have a long face when a student walked in to ask him open the library shelf or renew a book, because he would have to temporarily abandon the chat being enjoyed on yahoo or rediff and force him to type a BRB in haste!
There were the peons, Informer and SincereBoy. SincereBoy was, well, a sincere peon. He was excellent with his duties. In fact he was too sincere to a fault. He was meek and gullible. Informer was not very fond of TenaciousClerk. In fact whenever there was some good news in the institute, which was always hyped-up, he would say what the fuss was all about. After the initial euphoria had died down, he would act informer to the students. He would scratch the surface for the students and show them the shades of grey underneath. He would hurl obscenities on TenaciousClerk and others on their back, cursing them. He only had one friend, and that was SincereBoy, apart from some of the students, who supported him. The students also thought that SincereBoy got a raw deal, and was over-used by the administration.

A weekly 3-hour communication skills interaction was presided by Mr.Bored-With-Wife. Usually, only the girls in the classroom used to take interest with his way of interacting. Apparently, he did not come to the classroom with any plan, he just asked the students "What do you want me to take today ?" It did not sound like a request, it was more like an order. He never used to make such sessions more interesting. The boys would be forgiven for thinking -> When would all this get over ? There was a feeling among the boys that they were being jailed for 3 hours every week. The frustrations got to them and attendance decreased. Bored-With-Wife would get angry at the dwindling number of people for his classes, and would demand an explanation from the rest who were present, who could only drop down their heads, cursing the man from within. Actually, there was not much need of a weekly communication skills session considering the fact that these students had passed rigorous group discussions and interviews not just at this institution but everywhere else in the country. Sure enough, he was indirectly shown the door, fuelled by the lack of interest by the students. On his way out, he made a lurid statement, that was the last nail in the coffin.

Then there was Mrs.Mid-Life-Crisis, also the dean of the institution. The probablity of her coming to the college was equivalent to a full moon making an appearance in the night sky. And when she did make an entry in the college register, she was invariably a couple of hours late. And to think that she was brave enough to lambast some students who trooped in after she made her presence felt in the classroom, for being late in coming back from the canteen! She was nowhere to be seen on most days, yet she used to pop up like an unwanted internet advertisement on the big days, the days when the senior students were getting placed in big companies, and also being given the credit. It was always a mystery whenever she would be seen sitting in front of her computer in the staff room, as to what work she was doing ?

Then there was a visiting faculty, Mr.AdvancedScientist, easily the best professor the institute could boast of. He came on time, did not expect a full house in the classroom, taught his stuff, which was the toughest and also the most interesting subject, and would go home. He would answer queries from the students, which would range not only form his subject, but all the other domains as well. He was only too glad to help out. In the true sense, he was the only real professor. His way of teaching was such that, if you understood it, then its ok, but he didn't wait for anyone and everyone. Surprisingly, many people used to bunk his classes.

As time went on, FrightenedGirl got an opportunity to work elsewhere, which was a job more to her liking. So she opted out of here, she had had experienced enough problems and probably figured out teaching was not for her. So there was a need for a replacement, and soon enough, in came Mr.Youngster, a young, athletic person who also happened to be a batch-mate of FrightenedGirl and JackOfAllTrades. Apparently, that was the single biggest reason for his appointment. He became an instant hit with the students. He changed the way of teaching in classroom and lab, making it more exciting and challenging. Suddenly, every student wanted to meet him and ask him several doubts and queries. Nobody gave a damn to JackOfAllTrades. He was only too happy to be a spectator, for he knew one thing about Youngster that others hadn't realised yet. He was still raw, a kid, a bacha. When you start out, you have big plans and ambitions, and want to impress everyone. Slowly you come to terms with the nuances of the game. JackOfAllTades knew that very well, he was a master at the game. The game is simply this - Try not to use your aces on the very first time, keep them for later, use them only if you have to!

That was the cardinal sin that Youngster committed, now he was too exposed. He did not have much left to really teach the students. The students were now at par with him.

Behind all this drama, was the MasterOfCeremonies, the man who held the whip, the director of the institution. At first, he took into confidence all the students and their parents, and assured them of the very best learning experience and the best on-campus placements. As time went on, students would see less and less of him, and whenever he would barge into the classroom, it would be to make some announcements, all hyped-up ones. Two of the students, PositiveEnergy and TechnicalCalm would agree on most points, but would disagree on this one particular topic, about MasterOfCeremonies. PositiveEnergy used to assert that MasterOfCeremonies would be good for the students, using all his influence and skills to rope in big names. TechnicalCalm, was however of the opinion that the MasterOfCeremonies was a greedy soul and the chinks in his apparent shining armour would show later on.

Throughout the first semester, there were enough indications to support PositiveEnergy's claim, but it was at around this time that the tide began to turn. The next semester would tell the truth about the MasterOfCeremonies.

Amongst the students, not very many of them were really bright ones. Most of them just wanted to have fun. But there were some students who had a plan in mind, and would make or break relationships in any manner and go to any extent to achieve those goals. One of such ambitous people was RattofyGirl. She first teamed up with BubblyCharacter for a pipeline project, and then started searching for a partner for another project for which the idea was hers. She approached many boys, but she found TechnicalCalm was willing to partner her. TechnicalCalm hadnt thought of any idea as yet, but he listened patiently to RattofyGirl's idea and instantly liked it very much. But his question to RattofyGirl was "How would we implement it ?" She did not have an answer to it. She would say, well, we would look into it later on, but at this point of time, the partnership was forged. When D-Day came, for the choice of students presenting the project, RattofyGirl would face a nervous breakdown with BubblyCharacter when faced with some seemingly unanswerable questions. She cursed the people asking the questions. She would be so down mentally, that she would go up to TechnicalCalm and ask him to abandon their partnership. TechnicalCalm, being a nice guy, obliged to the request. Little did he know he would be betrayed by the very same person later on.

There was, of course, PositiveEnergy, who was a friendly person to be with and the whole class liked him. In fact, many girls queued up to be his project partner. He thought a girl called TomBoy would be his best fit for a project partner, and initially, TomBoy thought likewise too. Later on, TomBoy would start to lose interest in his project and spend her time having so-called fun with her so-called friends. PositiveEnergy did not expect such a thing from her, but he remained calm, and thought maybe she will come back. But she didnt, in fact, she spent the whole day whiling away time with her friends. The situation had only worsened. That was the final straw, he dumped her from his project.

There was one person, who, though tiny in frame, was the shrewdest of them all. She was SmartGirl. She seemed to have no enemies, everyone liked her. She was canny, smart, direct, friendly, helpful...A hundred other similar sounding adjectives could be added to it. She a favorite with the teachers, and especially the MasterOfCeremonies liked her very much. Though externally, it looked as though she was having a whale of a time with close friends and having fun, deep within she was quietly working at her plans too. She was doing her work and enjoying life to the fullest too. One reason that TechnicalCalm suspected of her smartness was the unusually large head-to-body ratio, as told to PositiveEnergy. TechnicalCalm and PositiveEnergy would talk for hours about anything and everything related to their classmates and teachers and the administration.

There was one group of girls, the Hostelites, as they were called, which had a distinct identity in the class. They were viewed as one entity, all credit to them. Their common sin was; always being late for class, like Maharanis. One of them had no expressions on the face at any point of time, which was definitely a hard thing to do. Another was a confused soul, but the thing about her was that she rattofied quite well, ensuring very good marks in the tests. One of them was the only certified "Beautiful" lady in the whole class. Another one of them was a shorty, and was also very friendly with everyone. But the apparent leader of this group, ImpressiveBrain, had one quality in large amounts that no one else could even think of matching, and that quality was - Getting things done, more by others than by herself. The "Others" group included not only the students, but the teachers as well! It was an art skill really. At one point of time, TechnicalCalm told PositiveEnergy, he thought there was a cold war going on between ImpressiveBrain and SmartGirl. PositiveEnergy would just shrug off such suggestions.

TechnicalCalm was called so because many classmates, both boys and girls would need his help when faced with a seemingly complex problem, the solution to which would be equally easy, such that those same classmates would curse their oversight and say "Oh ! just how did I miss that ?" or "It was so easy, I should've known". TechnicalCalm was doing such social work in lab, until one day he finally grew frustrated. He finally vowed not to help out anyone unless he or she was a very close friend. One of such instances was with ImpressiveBrain, but this time, he genuinely could not help her out.

Another such social worker was BubblyCharacter. He would help anyone and everyone at any time with anything. His reasoning was - Your concepts only get clearer when you troubleshoot others' problems. He used to make fun of Youngster and JackOfAllTrades, citing the instances when he knew a solution which they didn't.

Another of the peculiar characters was BuddhistDude. He lived life on his own terms. He was never afraid of speaking his mind, be it in any situation. That was one good thing about him, which won him many admirers. He also kept his word everytime, and would fail no one. He had a girlfriend, a beautiful and an innocent lady. He was also the tallest person, and used to experiment a lot on his haircut. He liked to keep a goatee.

BuddhistDude's best friend in class was another dude, RapStar. RapStar was someone, who had never known how to be serious in life. He was forever making jokes, pulling someone's leg, amusing others and making comments which invariably resulted in unbroken laughter. He knew how to make people laugh. He liked listening to 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg and Eminem, the lyrics of which only he could understand and sometimes, translate for others!!!

Finally it was all down to the exams, and after it there was speculation of who would be topper of the class. RattofyGirl was the hot favorite for that position although TechnicalCalm and PositiveEnergy had secretly hoped for one of the Hostelites claiming it. They were disappointed. RattofyGirl had rattofied too much and won by some distance. She left behind DisgruntledBoy and SincereToExtreme to take the top spot. TechnicalCalm and BubblyCharacter were just happy to be in the top ten, knowing they had only studied at half-pace. SmartGirl and PositiveEnergy were a disappointment, even further back. But deep within, they all knew, such marks don't count in the final analysis.

Meanwhile, JackOfAllTrades was a bit perturbed, when at the end of the semester, a new professor, Mr. WorthyChallenger was drafted in by MasterOfCeremonies. Obviously, it was a gameplan devised by MasterOfCeremonies to decrease the growing clout that JackOfAllTrades held within the staff, to keep himself safe.

A war was in the offing, and the big players in this high intensity chess match were some of these big names, and students were the sacrificial pawns! How this chess match played out? Wait for Story 2!!