Coming back from Soho’s or Kiva’s i would always slow down crossing the German Bakery because there would always be cops or ‘mamu’ as we so lovingly call them. Not one or two but many and your mouth stuffed with mint, your seat belt safely on, you would pray that they would’n stop you. Pune, my home where i have spent twelve years of my life, went to school, college, worked, got trained in drinking, played cricket, football, learned how to ride a bike, to drive a car, had my first crush, my first girlfriend, had my first accident, the list goes on. A city so obsessed with simplicity, with convenience, moving at a casual pace, it almost seems lazy. Almost like a younger brother of Mumbai which worked so hard for all it has while the younger one just borrowed all the style, the culture, the class, the food, the places but still retained its character, its pace. The city i so love; the city where i am still an outsider; a non maharashtrian.
A blast rips german bakery, the town’s favourite place to have breakfast, best place to sit and have a snack in the evening, a stone’s throw from Mochas, right at the entrance of KP. Why should anyone be surprised and take Pune as some place different, i mean Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Banglore, its happened everywhere. I mean Pune has the NDA, one of the strongest Air Force bases etc but so does Delhi, India’s capital. What makes you wonder is why was Pune spared for this long then; and why now. No one has the answer except the man who kept that bomb and killed an IITian from kharagpur who was just sitting with his girlfriend and his sister, a few innocent waiters, even a Marathi manoos. But one would think that on a Saturday evening, Valentine ’s Day eve, there has to be cops there. I’ve always seen them every night in good numbers. But no wait; i almost forgot; one of our superstars (of another religion), an ungrateful idiot said something about cricket and Pakistani players (which i believe a lot of other cricketers and people did and did so openly on TV also but hey, they are’n big movie stars and above all they are not of a particular religion) that it hurt the true Indians, our nation’s pride in patriotism, the martyrs, the Shiv Sena, so deeply, that these fine gentlemen decided to protest against it. These civilised secular folks chose to show their displeasure in the most non violent way (per them at least) that they know; ransacking theaters and attacking people’s homes. What better cause this country needs than putting a tape on our personalities that are not of the same religion; to not allow them to express their opinions like anyone else.
The whole thing was (a very noble cause indeed) such an issue that our government decided that it was against the constitution (how ridiculous of them; what are they talking about) and chose to protect the movie theatres so as to facilitate the screening of the movie in the state. Entire police force of Pune was busy protecting our multiplexes from our enlightened brothers (oh sorry, not brothers, i am a non maharashtrian), our bringers of light from non violently protesting, while some terrorist casually walked into the unguarded koregaon park and killed what could have been my friends, my family, people i love.
It seems all the education of us Indians is for nothing if we cannot identify the real terrorists. If we cannot see right through this farce of Non mumbaiker, non maharashtrian, non hindu that these politicians are perpetrating. We cry foul over racism on Indians in Australia and accept that a man living in Pune for twelve years can still be an outsider. We need to look inside before we point a finger out. I thank god it’s not someone i loved this time and dread the next; unless we combine our thoughts and choose to change. I had tears in my eyes when i saw the news yesterday because I belong to Pune and even if a lot of people there consider me an outsider, i love my home.
