Pune - my version

I grew up in the 80s and 90s in Pune.

Pune that was very sure of itself. Peshwas, culture, education… and of course, Marathi.
Not just Marathi. The right Marathi.
The kind where people could figure out exactly where you came from just by how you spoke one sentence.
And then there was us.
English medium kids.
Not convent school. But Karnatak, Abhinav types
So in a city that took pride in PuNE and not Poona, we were growing up on Enid Blyton and things we had never actually seen in real life.
Root beer sounded fancy. Slightly foreign. Important.
When I finally tasted it — it felt like my life had been a lie.
Like someone had taken toothpaste, added soda, and called it a beverage.
Same with scones.
In books, they sounded soft, buttery, comforting.
In real life, they were… dry.
Like they needed chai more than we did.
We quietly went back to vada pav and didn’t mention it again.
Even the music was different.
We didn’t fall in love to Hindi songs the way everyone else seemed to.
No “Nazar ke samne”, no “Mera dil bhi kitna pagal hai.”
Our version was
“Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You”
and
“Everything I Do (I Do It for You)”
And heartbreak?
Not “Tu pyaar hai kisi aur ka.”
It was “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
Appa Balwant Chowk didn’t really exist for us growing up.
We discovered it much later — when suddenly in college someone said,
“Books are cheaper there.”
And we all went like…
“Wait. There’s a whole book market there?”
As if Pune had unlocked a new level.
And then came the real struggle — reading Marathi.
Speaking was fine. We spoke Marathi all the time.
But reading Devanagari?
It still is a challenge and the mental block comes up as soon as you see a long paragraph in devnagri. My father sends me Whatsapp forwards, and now also sends an English translation using GPT as he knows that there is a 1% better chance of me reading it if it came in English.
And numbers — even better.
“Ek, don, teen, chaar, paach…”
All good.
Then somewhere after 25, the system would just give up.
“…chovis, panchvis… twenty-six, twenty-seven…”
Clean switch. No explanation.
And the funny part? Nobody found it odd.
Perfectly balanced.
Perfectly confused.
A generation that could say
“Excuse me” and “zara side la ho”
in the same sentence…
…and feel completely correct doing it

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