Driving has started again. With Raju, our beloved chauffeur at my side. I am definitely getting better even though my main problem remains that I don't like being in control for too long. But public transport and walking isn't as much fun in Pune as I remember in The City. Here, the beauty-spots are at least a half-hour's drive away. Pune University, Fergusson College....all haunts of Desperate Weight Watchers and Beauty Seekers. The campuses are enormous and thickly overgrown. Entire roads and crossroads are named after them. But they hold themselves aloof. Perhaps, falling in love is meant only for little lanes which lead to nowhere.

I would often walk from Hazra to Theatre Road in The City. School got over at 5:30..just between dusk and darkness. It was a straight route, filled with light and colour and smell. Each step heralded a different smell. Jasmine, oranges piled into a perfect pyramid, old books, new books, musk incense....that road and I became lovers. The heavy, City air clawed at my hair and lay in my skin. My feet stomped, tripped, touched and concentrated. There is a little lane behind Excide with a paan-shop, a deliciously-smelling roll-shop and a homeless woman.

There are two 'walkways' in pune I have made friends with. One is the lane leading up to our building (see post rubble). The other is the short-cut from Samar's house to Baner road. It's over a muddy, dug-up field. Both of these are un-named and unplotted. They're short, rough and haven't been pampered. Come to think of it, most of my friends are like that.