I'm moving to Pune tomorrow. It's already been a month into the new year and I'm not really feeling so fresh and new about anything. Pune, though, holds the promise of a shiny, fresh kind of ching! Over the last few weeks, I've been to Pune a few times. Mostly, I've stayed over at a cousin's place in Khadakvasla and just had the most restful time there.
My niece, nephew, and I had once taken our cups of hot tea and chocolate milk and gone to an open field. It was early evening, yet the world had this sweet winter vapour around it. The light was soft and it was chilly. We sat on dried grass, spotted plants with bright orange hibiscuses, and made up stories about the neighbor's labrador, Tipsy.
In Pune again, I'd gone for a birthday party at one of my cousin's friends home. There was dinner around bonfires under a starlit sky. My finger tips remember the smudge of warmth I coaxed out from every dying ember.
I had a few chilly auto-rickshaw rides from Chandni Chowk to Baner. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine traveling in a far simpler world. I was in a bullock-cart - one that carried springtime by the sackfuls.
My interview at the job there required me to wait for a couple of hours while the company made their decision. I spent the quietest, happiest time at a nearby CCD watching the world go by. Every curl of chocolate shaving on my coffee corresponded with a smile from a happy stranger.
Pune is my second innings. I have no friends here for now. But Pune being Pune will give me a few things to start with - skies delicately embroidered with clouds, the best shafts of sunlight anywhere in the world, moments wholesome like fruits - like pretty garnet pomegranate beads. I'll have nights where the moon looks like an impostor trying to gatecrash a party of elfin stars. I'll have daybreaks that lightly tiptoe over tree-tops. There will be summers - hot, parched summers. There will also be summer evenings where my frosty eyes will look up at whisky skies and the season will get intoxicated.
Pune being Pune will give me the world where hopefully, someday, friends will come.
My niece, nephew, and I had once taken our cups of hot tea and chocolate milk and gone to an open field. It was early evening, yet the world had this sweet winter vapour around it. The light was soft and it was chilly. We sat on dried grass, spotted plants with bright orange hibiscuses, and made up stories about the neighbor's labrador, Tipsy.
In Pune again, I'd gone for a birthday party at one of my cousin's friends home. There was dinner around bonfires under a starlit sky. My finger tips remember the smudge of warmth I coaxed out from every dying ember.
I had a few chilly auto-rickshaw rides from Chandni Chowk to Baner. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine traveling in a far simpler world. I was in a bullock-cart - one that carried springtime by the sackfuls.
My interview at the job there required me to wait for a couple of hours while the company made their decision. I spent the quietest, happiest time at a nearby CCD watching the world go by. Every curl of chocolate shaving on my coffee corresponded with a smile from a happy stranger.
Pune is my second innings. I have no friends here for now. But Pune being Pune will give me a few things to start with - skies delicately embroidered with clouds, the best shafts of sunlight anywhere in the world, moments wholesome like fruits - like pretty garnet pomegranate beads. I'll have nights where the moon looks like an impostor trying to gatecrash a party of elfin stars. I'll have daybreaks that lightly tiptoe over tree-tops. There will be summers - hot, parched summers. There will also be summer evenings where my frosty eyes will look up at whisky skies and the season will get intoxicated.
Pune being Pune will give me the world where hopefully, someday, friends will come.
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