Pune Diary - Day Three

I had earlier reserved my day three for an early morning cycling trip to Sinhagad. But when we discovered that it was located near NDA or thereabouts, I lost half my motivation, considering that we had managed only to see the gates of NDA, the previous time. We did find out that civilians are let in on Sundays, but by then, our enthusiasm had waned.

I started my Saturday with a rendezvous with my newly found (LLB) long lost brother (in Kumbh Mela he claims!) and his wife, alongwith Sabnis at a restaurant on FC Road named Shabari. We ordered the thali - partly out of the habit of not wanting to spend time when meeting people and partly wanting to see what a Maharashtrian thali is like. Big Mistake! First the dishes were insipid (hopefully an exception at the restaurant which was recommended by friends). I am sure that the typical Maharashtrian thali is more delightful. The koshambir was soggy and was like something I had tasted long ago at a YHA camp in Himachal Pradesh. Yecch! The waiter we got was having his tubelight day of the decade. First he didn’t hear what I said or pretended not to have heard, when I told him that the note he gave me in change, was cut and hence I wanted a better one. He nodded and never returned. After about 15 mins, when I went crazy at what took so much time, the manager sent the waiter who it turns out had pocketed the change as tips, mistaking my displeasure for delight! Man, I need to brush up my reactions!



After this rollicking start to my day, we set out for the Boat Club at COEP, where my first quiz for the day an informal event where everyone attending, brought ten questions or more. I took 5, taking 50% discount for being a tourist! This was a cool affair with the backdrop of the boatclub, quite literally (I had my back to a large set of rowing boats, all neatly placed, a set of boards with the list of functionaries over the years, etc. ) Sadly, the river, right besides COEP, also serves as the dumping ground for sewage and hence no longer the aquatic splendor it must have been once. Anyways, the questions were glorious, asked by avid youngsters in various years of engineering, mostly and were on sports, especially motor sports. This is what I did in my early days, when we would set questions to generally jolt people out of their reveries in Balls by Picasso days. I had teamed up with the earlier named LLB and his wife! We did reasonably well. Next came the formal quiz at Persistent Systems Auditorium. The company lets the quizzers use their audi once in a little while to conduct quizzes. It is a lovely place. But before that, I must mention Meghshyam, Sudarshan (who ferried me around on his Royal Enfield) Major Shankar, and other enthu junta from Pune who kept me company, for almost an entire evening. We did well in the prelims and qualified for the finals as the 2nd highest scorers. The finals were miserable, as we came 4th (or was it 5th ?) while attempting to come atleast 3rd, the winners being Kunal & Shamanth by scoring almost a little more than twice that of the 2nd team. Terrible dressing down, but these days I am hardly wearing anything, with a string of miserable performances, behind me. The quiz was conducted by a 2nd year engg grad and 2 other people and was very good, save for a few sitters. Augurs well for Pune, considering the folks at BCQC have been rocking like this for a few decades now…

The evening was spent in the company of a doctor from AFMC at a decent place called Charcoal Pit on the terrace of Regence around MG Road. We exchanged legends of mostly other quizzers all over India, we had known and had heard off, over dinner and beer. And the chance meeting between us, happened as I needed a lift to Kayani bakery to get some cookies. Kayani was closed as I got there beyond 8 pm.

The night and some part of the early day was spent having more fun, adding to my increasing body weight at the place of a friend's family. They were delightful hosts, slightly pained that I had not met them earlier. God bless bandhus;)

p.s. the pic is from the boat club at COEP. unusual notice i thought!