Facts n Fiction

To summarize the title and simply put it, just come to Pune, and deal with some shopkeepers in “the peth area” and rickshaw drivers in “out-of-the-city-limit areas” . With over 1 year already spent here in Pune, I have encountered such people every single day and I am yet to find an exception. Public transport in the city is still at its worst. While on one side it gives pride to see the IT growth and consumerism flourishing in the city, basic infrastructure necessities still stand in debatable position. The day I am not lucky enough to find a friend to go to office, I start feeling very low, depressed thinking about what vehicle will I get to go and how will I deal with the rickshaw drivers – the most shameless fellows that I have ever experienced in my life (I am talking of the ones plying between Hinjewadi and Wakad upto Pimple Saudagar etc). 100, 150, 70, 80, they quote anything for a distance of 3kms to 7 kms and you should look at the pride on their face. The rickshaw stands sho...

It has been over a year that I am taking the same route from home to office and back. Nothing has changed ever since except the face of the road that I travel on, from muddy to stony to rocky to messy to bumpy to dusty and so on, needless to mention the bottlenecks and eventual traffic jams. The road was being mended from time to time – widening, concretization, but it stopped one day only to begin again just before the onset of monsoon. There were troughs, craters, humps everything possible on that road and then there were rains too to mess it up further. I was surprised (I was beyond everything to get worried, frustrated or angry) with the planning, vision, and estimation of the body governing the road renovation – right in times of rains they took up the execution task. It doesn’t take much of logic to anticipate that it would be better to complete the work before the rains so that commuters have a hassle free ride/drive. This is just a micro example of the kind of leadership we are...