Welcome To A New Place...

Its been almost two months now for me in this new city, Pune. While travelling across the length of this country from Delhi to Maharashtra, I was really curious to find out as to how and when would I feel homesick? I had heard many accounts of people not being able to adjust to a new system, new place and returning back within a month, or even worse, half-way during their course. I knew I wasn’t going to go that way, I also hoped I wouldn’t be missing home too badly during the initial days and post senti #homesick status updates on Facebook, considering the fact that this was going to be my first long stay outside of Delhi. Thankfully, I’ve scored 2 on 2 in this regard. 

I wonder if the feeling of homesickness originates from the realization that you’re in a completely new place, surrounded by new people, outside your comfort zone? Honestly, interacting with different people here wasn’t the first thing that defined Pune for me, all of them (well almost) spoke either Hindi or English, which was the case back in Delhi as well, so it didn’t feel much different. There were some other instances which made me dawn upon the realization that I was in a totally new place. Read on: 

• What was different was when at 8 o’ clock in the morning I got hold of the newspaper and there in small font was written “Pune Edition”. For all these years, I was used to seeing New Delhi in that place. As I read on, I wondered why local events pertaining to Mumbai were there on the first page, and then I had to tell myself again, “Dude, you are in Maharashtra now, you won’t read about any major happening in West Delhi here.” Gradually I got the hang of it and along with it also the numerous advertisements of stores located across Pune, just like they used to be across Delhi sometime back.
  Welcome to a new place.
  
  
• As I bought a new sim here and called for activation, I was greeted with a pre-recorded voice in Marathi, the local language here. I pressed the 2-3 keys to set my preferred language to English and proceed with the activation procedure, but eventually, I got through to a customer care representative who spoke in Marathi!! Why ask me then my choice of language?? Anyways, because I knew what all things they ask at times like this, I just tried to focus on one word I could understand, naam, nagar, proof...and eventually got my sim activated in Marathi!!
  Welcome to a new place.
  
  
• As I went to the city on weekends, the roads, the shops, the people looked pretty much the same. This could well be some place in Delhi, but then I gazed at the vehicles around and then I read the number plate,  “MH....”, and that’s when I realized I wouldn’t get to see that “DL” prefix too often here.
  Welcome to a new place. 
  
  
• In Delhi, while commuting from home to college and back, I came across people who would ask me for help regarding the place, addresses, bus routes and all, and then they would either say that they are coming to Delhi for the first time or after a long time.
  I would then at times ask, “ Where are you from?”
  Here, when the cleaning staff came for house-keeping during the first week, and as we interacted a little, one of them asked me two questions...
  1) Tumcha gaon kuthla?
  2) Tu Marathi bolto ka?
  The former reads “Where are you from?” while the latter means “Do you speak Marathi?” Nobody would ask me this back in Delhi, here it was pretty understandable that they did.
  Welcome to a new place.

I've got used to the above now, and its not been that much of a problem. As for the future, I don't know how this city will treat me. So far, its been pretty welcoming. I'm not missing my home that badly as yet, and I hope this city will take care of it.
Here’s to more good times... at this new place.

Until next time...

Take Care :)