Pune Diary

On the road home from college, I saw this board, stating:

This road is maintained and repaired by MSRDC.
Now don't get me wrong, we see these kinds of boards in Mumbai too, especially the new concrete ones. On several of these boards along Link road in the Western Suburbs, the BMC has pasted its own logo, because they claim that they have done the actual work. The new roads are much better than the old ones, and both these authorities are trying to claim the goodwill of the public.

Not so in Pune. This particular road - University road- is nothing to be proud of. It has portholes, the size of graves, and the metaphor in my opinion is entirely appropriate. The traffic is so bad that it can take up to 25 minutes for a distance of about 400m. Not bad considering the road has been narrowed down to less than 5m due to construction activity, which has already extended beyond its completion date. In short, this ain't no expressway.

This would raise the important question: why would MSRDC claim that it maintains this road, when it is clear that it does not?
Methinks that this board has been put up by the PMC rather than the MSRDC.
Let me explain. Pune has horrible roads. They are narrow, Unplanned, with an excessive share of two-wheeler traffic. The buses that run on them look so broken down & ill-maintained, that would not even be accepted in Sub-Saharan Africa. The portholes are so numerous that it is hard to figure out which is road, and which is a porthole. They would be an excellent training ground for WRC enthusiasts. A common joke in Pune goes thus: 'In the rest of the country, you drive on the left of the road. In Pune, You drive on what's left of the road.

So it's no wonder that the PMC has been facing a lot of flak, with the mayor even threatening to resign, if the roads were not repaired. Some Guy in the PMC must have realised that if there was a way to decrease the brick-bats, it could at least name the road that were not under its jurisdiction. It's like when we were kids. If some toy broke, we would say, "Don't blame me, he was playing with it"



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the 7th of Sep, there was a small function to sing 'Vande Mataram' in my society. Now I live in a sort of old-age home, with a majority of the population over 60, so you can imagine that there was a lot of enthusiasm to celebrate it.
I happened to be wearing a crème coloured T-shirt and my brown coloured Shikari Shambu shorts. Some one cold have easily described me as a cross between Jeff Corwin and a RSS volunteer. Further more I was the only fellow below the age of 30. So it was no wonder that people were looking at me with wonderment.
A large tricolour was attached behind the podium, and there were speeches noting the history of the song. Before we sang the song, it was announced that keeping the sentiments of certain people in view, only the first and accepted verse would be sung. The Old Timers were visibly dejected. Further more the anchor explained, that the song would be sung to the original tune. The Old Timers smiled.
Then people began to sing. I haven't heard such an out of tune, inharmonious song before. People were singing it on their own tune, at their own speed; it was total cacophony.

But it's the though that counts.

Vande Mataram

Tomorrow happens to be the date that the GOI wants students to celebrate the centenary of a wonderful song, Vande Mataram.

There has been much controversy over this issue:

Firstly experts claim that 7th of Sep 1906 has no significance for this song. History records that Bankim Chandra Chaterjee wrote this song in 1875 and an abridged form appeared in his 1882 Magnus Opus Ananda Math. It was well known but it made its mark in 1905, in the struggle against the partition of Bengal. It was the December of 1907 that it was adopted by the Indian national Congress. So why was this particular date chosen? Only Arjun Singh knows, and we can't be too sure about his judgement.

Secondly there are questions about its secular credentials. It was no doubt written as a prayer to Goddess Durga in 1875, but it had a wider & different meaning in 1905 and was explicitly adopted by the INC, as an anthem, dependent on that fact. There will always be people wanting to pick up fights, and appear Victims. There will also be lots of people wanting to believe in conspiracy theories, despite evidence to the contrary. A case in point being the forward going around on Orkut that Jana Gana Mana being a homage to George V. Tagore had laid that controversy to rest years back, but these people were neither born then, nor do they have the brains to accept his defence.

The words 'Vande Mataram' have been a wonderful rallying point for millions during the freedom struggle, and even today to signify the Mahatma's presence in Munabhai lage raho, the lyricist had to come up with the song 'Bande me tha dum, Vande mataram'.

Frankly I don't care a damn about any of this ignorant crap. It's a wonderful song that is very beautiful when you hear it. Even if you do not know the meaning of the words, the words have a very musical air about them. It expresses wonderful ideas, and conjures up a very beautiful image in front of our eyes. It is sad that the people have had to been reminded about it and some elements are forcing people to sing the song.


Also read this wonderful article by H. Y. Sharada Prasad.

A Political Song

Finally here are the accepted lyrics of the song.


[This is from a Picture I took in Trimurti bhavan last year]