from pune to bangalore

aaahhh!!

this post finds me in a totally different state of mind, different than it has ever been for the last 5 years! i am glad to say that i have successfully completed 5 years of education aimed towards becoming a lawyer! (results are in 1.5 months so fingers crossed!)

5 long prime years of my life have gone by...spent in pune, my hometown, my birthplace. i must say that though i hated being there for the first couple of years, the place really grows on you, and now i am feeling pretty sad about leaving pune permanently.

cold coffee and vada pav!!
pune is a city so vibrant and thronging with youth, more particularly students, and thanks to this humongous student community, the little cold coffee, vada pav, kachhi dabeli and other snack tapris are alll over. they are sooo cheap that students cannot help but haunt them! i am sure gonna miss 10 rupee cold coffee in bangalore!

the tekdi!!
another thing about pune that i will sorely miss in bangalore is the range of hills that runs right through the heart of the city. though i dint go there as often over the last 1 year or so, in the first couple of years id so often take a walk up the tekdi, spend some time at the quarry, come down and have vada pav and cold coffee! what is so exciting is to see sooo many walkers up there, walking, jogging, talking, catching up and chatting, walking their dogs etc! a public space with greenery all around...what more could one ask for?! i will sure miss the tekdi everytime i have to walk into a coffee day in bangalore and order a 100-buck coffee just to have place to meet friends and chill out!

trekking!
something every school kid in pune has grown up doing, thanks to school-organised overnight camps, treks, adventure camps etc. once these kids go to college, they go to the himalayas, or other locations in india through a pugmarks, or a yuvashakti, or zillion other trekking groups, who, most importantly, ADVERTISE their pre-organised treks! i have never seen a city where everyone is soo obsessed with trekking, and im glad to see it! i hope i get to do some trekking in and around bangalore now that i have been introduced to it slightly during my stay in pune.
and pune is the place from where i embarked upon my great adventure - the valley of flowers trek in Uttaranchal. that was truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life! here is to many more treks to the WONDERFUL NORTH INDIA!!

iranian restaurants!
pune is filled with iranian restaurants which are cheap, serve excellent food, and NEVER compromise on quality. GOOD LUCK deserves a special mention, since it is very close to college, so we have been there verry often, to devour their sumptuous "bun maska", absoultely oodling with butter, and eggs.

camp!
this is one area in pune which is soo delightful, its got that old christian town charm. east street with the burger king, and the one and only, KAYANI bakery, where we have had many a shrewsberry biscuit, and plain cake! clover centre, where my cousin would go absolutely crazy earring shopping, and mazda hall, where i attended a few classical music concerts. main street with marzorin, and budhani wafers (the best potato chips i have ever tasted!) and wonderland. just driving around the streets of this cantonment area makes one feel like they are in a quaint little land with lovely old bungalows and small streets lined with old trees.

my relatives!
i have grown up in bangalore, and while i heard all my friends constantly attending family functions, having their cousins over, celebrating their birthdays, etc, i never had that in bangalore. but these last 5 years, i was really able to spend time with my family, get to know them, attend all the boring lunches and functions on behalf of my parents! earlier i dint even know who was from which side of the family, mom's or dad's!! i am glad i got to spend so much time with them, coz now they really feel like family, as opposed to when i would just meet them all at once during summer vacation.

anyway, i suppose i could go on and on, but it would suffice to say that there are a few things about pune which bangalore will never have, and for this i will surely miss the good old city! it is a simply amazing place to spend 5 years of your college life.

after having completed college, i leave the city with a wierd feeling, like i know that i will never truly leave the place, and like i know that i will definitely keep returning here, because after all, i guess one feels a special bond with their birthplace, even if you never really spent much time there until you were in college!