The Centre of the Universe

Our old place is located in M G Road in Pune. The ‘main street’ of town for ages. No more… Pune has expanded at a rapid clip in the last five years. The burgeoning growth is driven by the IT, BPO, and manufacturing industry. It is being touted as the next “Detroit”. Quite a makeover from the erstwhile “Oxford of the East” and pensioner’s paradise it was. Of course education is more of an industry too. All the mushrooming growth with our typical lack of political foresight and bureaucratic apathy is literally causing the city to burst at the seams. Traffic is atrocious. The roads can very well qualify as a venue for DARPA’s annual robotic race or NASA’s Martian vehicle-prototype testing. Electricity supply often is erratic and the water works threaten to give way with the ever-increasing demand. Malls have shot up at almost every nook and available corner. Big apartment complexes by builders dot the landscape—not a bad thing in itself. Apart from the fact that they are more like almost perfect islands which tax infrastructure of drainage etc. and thus adding to the morass of confusion rather that simplifying matters. A public transport system exists but is skeletal and of a poor standard. Pollution of our environs increases and we are poised to gain the mantle of one of the most polluted cities in Asia. Migrant population increasing. Slums refusing to disappear. Road rage surfacing and transforming even sedate house-wives. Road accidents a dime a dozen.

All these blemishes.

Pune is still the centre of the Universe.

And a perfect place to be.

The first 18 years that I spent walking on planet Earth I lived at M G Road. School, granary, fresh produce, stationary, household essentials, clothes, shoes, watches, locksmiths, bicycle repair shop, restaurants, cobbler, flower-seller, optician, and undergarments even. Hell, the bank was right next door! It was like living on Canal or Adams in Chicago. Or in the “grid” of Manhattan on some numbered street. Anything that you needed to buy you could hop out of home and skip a bit and jump into the appropriate store. Most store keepers knew you by face and credit was never an issue. Most things were a stone-throw away. And if you had a real good arm—that could mean practically everything!

Back in those days.

Its laughable—I’m only 24!

The city has transformed itself in the last five years more than I could imagine. It is poised to grow at a scorching pace. I can’t help thinking of it taking a life of its own. A city sooner or later transforms into this living thing. When one talks about a ‘buzz’ or ‘pulse’ that a city has, I think this is what it means. As the city expands and envelops more land and people into its fold… it feeds into the energy of its inhabitants and in return citizens are fed by all that the city offers in return. A city can turn into a monster or a gentle giant depending on how it is shaped. Growth is inevitable. In the coming year I can only hope we do so in a sane manner.

As for a way to look at the space-time thingamajig as explained by Einstein and/or the theory of a dimension that we can’t really perceive, what is the universe? It doesn’t really matter where you are.

I am here. In Pune.

It is home.

Thus, the centre of the universe.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Post-Script: Douglas Adams may have a plausible theory.