We had a day in Pune with a flight to catch at the end of the day to return to Delhi. Nothing much was planned as I knew a work meeting had to be scheduled sometime today as well.
As soon as I realised the meeting was at lunchtime, I called up an old friend Varsha and we spent a delightful morning walking around Koregaon Park’s mind blowing greenery, passing the boarded up shop that was the German Bakery of the bomb blast fame and then moving through the cantonment to Pune’s Main Street, where we were taken through some really quaint old Parsi bakeries. Clearly, Varsha was reliving the pleasures of her college day haunts. She also bought a stash of the famed Shrewsbury biscuits for the Delhi gang, declaring it her birthright to buy us this delicious stuff!
Post the meeting and an unplanned site visit, I had time enough to catch up with family as well. Aslesha, my cousin Sunil’s wife (uncle actually, but only a few years my senior and a favourite companion of my childhood years in Mumbai) was kind enough to pick us from the hotel and take us home, feed us and make us comfortable in her lovely home. To top it all, Air India was kind enough to delay their flight so I had the chance to meet Sunil as well when he got back from work and could spend some time with their daughter Maigha who is one if the most entertaining kids I know!
The call to inform me that the airline had preponed the flight (yes, crazy) sent us all into a tizzy. Now I sit checked in, at a sleepy airport, smiling at the days events, at the sheer pleasure of unplanned jaunts, catch up sessions with friends and family, the pleasure if the warm hug and unaffected smiles of those you love. Makes it so much more worth your time to visit another city. In that sense, I guess I am and will always be my father’s daughter, above the pleasure if sights, sounds, tastes and smells will always remain the pleasure of company!