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Pune has started to feel stifling now. I am very grateful to this city for allowing me to live a beautiful life drenched in peace and quietude. It perhaps was the closest I could have come to being a hermit, in the circumstances that were handed to me. In fact, during my second stint, I did believe that there was some unfinished business here and so I had to come back. I also felt exiled from Bombay and Delhi was no place to go. So, yes, Pune. Pune was the bandage I wrapped around my heart and being and it was good. But now, I think, it is not serving its purpose any more.

I don’t know but what is it with the women here? Why are they always going on and on about age and getting older and what else is there in life and clothes and colors that don’t suit your skin tone if you get a particular age or whatever. Sometimes, the best thing that they find about me is that I don’t look my age. (I look younger…and apparently that is supposed to be a good thing.) But I am not sure if I got the memo on what a 36 year old should look like. Or be like. These women are much younger – they are in their 20s or early 30s and yet…that fear, the judgment of age is just really tough to take. I don’t know…people say Bombay and Delhi are very superficial cities where only looks matter. But I suppose I just met very different people. Where wearing a bright pink nail-polish was still okay if you weren’t 24 years old and no one really gave a damn. I may be wrong and it may be projection but there is a tendency for women (or men too) to get really bitter here. This reminds me of something an Ayurvedic/ Homeopathic doctor had once told me – that the weather in cities like Pune and Bangalore is such that any ailments are drawn out in their fullness, especially related to skin and bones. So, a skin allergy will be worse here than in Bombay (even though the latter city is more polluted) or a bone problem will be more acute here (even though Delhi may have more extreme climate), etc. So even though one may suffer here, it’s a good thing because then the core reason for the ailment can be treated.

Not sure if that is accurate but maybe it’s the same for mental and emotional discomforts also. I think this city has shown me more emotional upheavals than anywhere else I’ve lived. Also, I don’t know. I can’t connect with the people here. Especially the women. I would like to. I would love to. But…off and on…we talk and it’s nice and then…all that distance.

I don’t know. Even though I really just want to get out of the city, I still feel some unfinished business here. I don’t know what that is. And until I figure that out, I ought to figure out a way to live here with peace and joy. Who knows? Maybe something more needs to be drawn out to be mended and healed. Maybe something more needs to be sandpapered for me to be kind. Because this much is sure - more than any other place, I have felt the need and the calling to be kind in Pune.

Fingers crossed that it will all be good. In the end also. In the meantime also.

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