Marath-awe!

There's a certain charm about that part of town that makes it so much easier to appreciate the ethnic identity of Pune as the cultural heart of Maharashtra. The many labyrinthine roads that bear the names of some of the most Marathi of Marathi names....

The eateries may boast of multi-cuisine. The ice-cream parlours scream out names of chocolate so distinctly French and Belgian, etc., etc.. There are book stores and there are juice bars. But there is this one stamp that you simply cannot deny. It is the stamp of Poona. The stamp of the cultured Marathi-Brahmin ethnicity. The bungalows and the skin, the eyes and the accent. The major hitch in these areas is that outsiders are obvious and that if you're not a Marathi- manoos , you are on the fringes of this world of old richesse. This is how the cookie was baked. These fair-skinned, light-eyed serenely dignified make the world of the un-blessed-s seem like an unfortunate, terrible, little something that, oh, we'll never have to endure.

To me, a half breed (in a sense), the Marathis of Poona, the assal Marathis make a statement far more profound than anything that anyone else could say in this ancient city of old habits. We have throngs of non-Marathi folks. Everyone is accepted and everyone is made to feel at home. There is nothing wrong with the notion of being a non-Marathi/non-Marathi-Brahmin here, in Pune. But then there is that sense of feeling the awe that i feel when you're a veritable alien among among these unassumingly-yet-proudly Marathi-Marathis.

I know a lot of them personally and i am fascinated by their accent and their seemingly inherited intellectuality, their uber-calm and composed air of being the alphas, the obviously un-obesqious ones that have to make no justifications for their lives, their interests or their mentality.

There is nothing negative about my reverence for them. There is simple awe. Awe exemplified by the fact that their theatre, their poetry, their language, their finesse always reminds me of royals. They are the uncrowned aristocracy of this little city of lasting stereotypes. They are the people that make it possible to hear some of the most endearingly Marathi-inflected-English-conversation ever. They are the blend between the new Poona of the youth and the old Poona of their grand-parents and their great-great-great-grandparents. They are the link between the vanishing mindset of "having it and knowing it" and "wanting it, coveting it, getting it". Mostly it is their charm and their command over the city as a whole.

Or else it is just me: wanting to worship something real.


----Karishma Modi
http://www.minglebox.com/KarishmaModi