Dr. Atul R Thakare

To begin with, I want to say that everything has two facets, its positive side as well as a negative one. Pune is not an exception to this. To be honest I was very happy to get transferred to Pune. Pune is called the Oxford of the East. It is the fastest developing city in the world in the last twenty years. Pune has got everything which a developed city should हवे. A Strategic location, Good Employment Opportunities, Big Corporate offices, Plush Malls, Hotels, Multiplexes and Housing Societies. But if something is missing the said list, then it’s surely Transport facility in the city. Actually, there is no mistake of Government in this. Nobody thought that one day Pune will grow like this and all the narrow lanes in the “Peths” (marketplaces) will wreak such havoc for Traffic. And particularly when the city is having the highest number of two-wheelers in the country. But when it comes to traffic control the Traffic Police and the regulatory authorities are very slack. I have never see

TAMILNADU EXPRESS (This write up is not to hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s purely based on the inputs from the passengers traveling in TN Express. Readers are requested not to take it in wrong sense.) And finally my Diwali vacations got over. For me, it didn’t only mean change of holidays into work, or rest into pressure but change from one culture into another different (rather indifferent for me) culture. I boarded the train from Nagpur (my hometown) to Chennai, where I work. The train was as usual, Tamilnadu Express. The speciality of this train is that it is the fastest train in its class and is known for its accurate timing (at least from Chennai to Nagpur). It goes from Delhi to Chennai and vice-versa. Generally we have to reserve the tickets in advance before a month or two for getting it confirmed. But during that time one of my friend Rahul who lives in Delhi booked the ticket for me, as he was also going to travel during that period to Chennai. That time, he was on training in C

The question which all the people who stay in Chennai is that Why Chennai is considered as Conservative???Before coming to this city I also used to think the same. And its obvious,being a METRO and a city providing opportunities,it should not be considered like Conservative or Cheap. But the answer for this question,i got to know only when I landed in this City. No other city be it MUMBAI,DELHI,KOLKATA,BANGALORE or HYDERABAD is considered as conservative except Chennai. The reason is all these cities are open to all other cultures and languages that are found in our diverse country called INDIA. But Chennai is a city where though there are people from various parts of INDIA,the people here are not open to other cultures and languages. I do not mean that speaking tamil is "conservative and cheap" . To be proud of your mother tongue or to speak it is good,but being ignorant and indifferent towards other languages and cultures surely shows the parochial attitude of the city towa

Last week, my friend came to Chennai from Bangalore for official work.He is not a native of Bangalore( like the 60% people in Bangalore) but he got settled there from past three years. He stayed here for a week and on weekend,he was sharing his experiences in our city, i.e. Chennai . The first thing he told me that Chennai is not yet ready for the metro revolution as well as globalisation. As it is perceived by the outsiders Chennai is still conservative city. Although Chennai is a Metrocity, and there are all the big corporate offices here, still it doesn’t appear like a Metro, as my friend was telling. People over here are very traditional, but they seem to be overpossesive about their culture, so much that they are averse to the changes that globalization is offering. Language is just one of the factor. Otherwise it’s a sheer surprise that even the autowallahs in Chennai don’t understand any other language than tamil, however the reality is that most of their customers are outsiders