Pune Diary - Day Two

LIFO: Last In First Out (for the non geeks)
The world's most value for money parathas are made in Pune's Chaitanya on FC Road (Ferguson College Road). They make such enornmous parathas, that normal human beings can eat just one. If you make the mistake of ordering two after well meaning friends have warned against one, you will have your cake and eat it two/too for two days! Sorry, but I have been trying to get my mind off this thing since afternoon, but can't as must be evident.

As for yesterday, I forgot to talk about Maan's Dairy farm (lest you think of vast lines of cute bovines, this is just a one door stall)in Aundh (no you don't get new year diaries here!). Paaji & his son dish out lassi that needs to be eaten, not drunk. Will make any punju proud.

Yesterday evening, went out to NDA (no, make that NDA gate :( as they didn't let us in and said we needed defence connections to get in. A friend tells me that civilians can get in on Sundays!) We missed the turn to the lake which could have apparently taken us to Sinhagad as well. Looks like we will have to give that a miss this time.

Went to Lonavla today. Took the expressway in a Volvo bus and had to bear "Ishq de galivich no entry," the rather unpretty Bipasha and the steroid pumped-looking, bald khan dancing funny for a little less than an hour on the bus! got off the bus in a spot that looks like the starting point of the movie U turn until an auto guy inched towards us. He gave us a crash course of the places to see - some dam, some shooting spot, etc. We told him that we were out to settle down in the grass, read a book & chill out. After giving us weird looks, he settled on a deal to drop us to the station after a trip to Khandala & back. Anyways, went to a park in Khandala and I sat there for sometime trying to wade thru Seth's dumbbell of a book. Was inspired to compose the following by some really spaced out simians

Maganlal ke chikki, Aloo Tikki
No rains in Lonavla, Ghati doohickey!

Then, we went to someplace called The Shooting Point which is flat table top overlooking the Khandala valley.

Lonavla is a bad idea if there are no rains. There are just flat topped mountains and undernourished cascades to look at. You would do well to spend time at the Barista on FC Road or at Book World (also on FC Road or the branch of the same guy called Jai Jalram... also on FC Road) if you are a bibliophile. Also, the local buses back to Pune are all crowded. There are no trains after 11:50 am till 2 pm. So we spent time waiting at the station, since the taxi costs are prohibitive. And both me and pal wanted to read and not drive.

The percentage of people observing traffic rules in Pune is higher than in Bangalore. The sobering thought: Y'day a bearded auto driver jumped onto our running auto, stopped the auto, hurt himself, abused our driver, finally forcing him to abandon us and then we got onto the radical's auto! All because our auto driver violated the queue and grey bearded radical was first in line!