Foreword: This post is about a sticky
situation I experienced in a North Indian city. To be precise, the city is Pune
and I recently understood that people there tend to feel bad when some Southie
calls them ‘North’ Indians. Well, please remember what Einstein had to say:
‘It’s all relative, brother’. I am a Hindi-illiterate South Indian whose Hindi
knowledge is limited to a few movie names (courtesy: The Khans); ‘Keval ek run
milega’ sort of cricket commentaries (courtesy: Doordarshan); some swear words
(courtesy: Virat Kohli and Harbhajan Singh) and the ABCD stuff like ‘Thumara
naam kya hai? Mera nam blah blah blah hai’ (courtesy: Margoschis Matriculation
School , upto 7th standard). Apart from the poor farmer who lives in
that famous Hindi village – some Tamilians say his name is Ragu Thatha – I have
no acquaintances either in the Hindi speaking land.
You might have read a few open letters in
the blogosphere before and my introduction would have already created the urge
in you to grab the nearest available Vel Kambu or lathi -depending on your
location- to prepare for battle. If that
be the case, I kindly request you to drop them immediately and focus your mind instead
on a degree kaapi or dhai lassi – again depending on your location – and then read
on. This post is about a Vada paav and an Appavi (roughly translated to a poor
innocent man in Tamil) based on a small language problem. If you still refuse
to embrace ahimsa, read my epilogue, make sure you forget my name and
immediately close this page.
Once upon a time in the recent past, I got
an opportunity to visit Pune for the first time in my life. The northern most
place in India I had ever visited prior to that was Bangalore. The city threw the usual surprises at me as
any new place would do for a first timer. Only Pune seemed to have a unique
style and flavour of its own to do so – the paan! It was omnipotent, like God. While
I could see paan stains everywhere, I also witnessed another feature of the
Almighty through my mobile phone. Just like God, my mobile service provider’s
network signal also teased me in that big city. It would never show itself to
me and just when I start to lose heart and contemplate atheism, it would give
me a fleeting vision and then disappear. There was no network coverage even in
the city’s main locations. Even if every friend is important to me, this
restricted me from calling any of my friends when I am in dire need of location
or translation assistance.
