Monday, November 5, 2007

Their side of the story…

I happened to meet mother of this one, Mr Khade, on Sunday… as the construction work is still not complete and I was not able to shift into this apartment. I went there to see the progress myself and called the estate broker to take care of the matter. She got the this old lady happened to be his mom.

While talking to me, she also asked me my name and then she told me that she (and possibly her son too) had mistaken me by the caste which they belong to. They themselves are Namdeo Shimpi by caste, and they thought my surname resembles to their caste so she asked. That made me think about the whole incident in different way. And all my anger and depression also about the incident reported in the blog below seemed pretty much mis-placed.

After getting known this, I guess, I need to give some benefit of doubt to the Khade family and forget whole incident.

But as many of friends had already read and called or mailed or scrapped me their comments and shown surprise about this incident, I guess, writing this side of the story also carries same, if not more, importance…

Friday, November 2, 2007

Shocking experience…

After lot of contemplation, I decided to write about this incident… After lot of bad experiences people tell me about the people of Pune, I used to be un-perturbed about being in this city and staying here. But finally it hit me too… and sadly, I felt really really bad about it…

I was searching for the apartment to shift into as my current place is not very suitable for married couple and simply coz the land-lords wants the place to be rented to single working bachelors for the least problems, so be it. Finally I found OK kinda place, which is pretty costly per say, but very well located, close from all the well known land-marks. Bang on the Karve Road. I couldn’t be happier, but then this bad experience was written in my destiny to happen, to open my eyes may be…

The apartment is under repair, due to leakage of sewage into the flat below mine. So the keys were lying over with one Mr Khade, who owns the flat on the downstairs. When the estate agent told me to get the keys from him to visit my place, I decided to go there directly. Of course being thorough un-professional, agent have not informed this guy and he was not expecting me.

When I reached his place, it was past 9pm in the evening. I rang the bell and the door opened. I introduced myself and told that I am supposed to collect the key for the flat upstairs. He said, he didn’t knew that I will come, but still he will give the keys as it doesn’t matter to him anyways.

While someone in the house went inside to collect the keys, this person asked me my name, if u know Pune style of asking name, they ask you your surname. As that’s what they are more interested in, to know your caste, and possibly judge you based on that. When I told my full name to him, he was blunt enough to ask me, if I am shimpi (Taylor) by caste since he could not make out my caste from my surname. I said NO, trying to avoid the direct attack, even though I am not shy of what I am. He was adamant enough on knowing my caste, so without batting an eyelid, he asked me, “then?”. After seeing his persistence, I gave up and told him that I am Patil (Kshatriya for those who don’t know exactly marathi castes). After satisfying his curiousity only, he handed over the keys to me, only to remind me that I had to return them as work is still remaining.

This may be really small incident, but had left pretty bad scar on my psyche. On one side, we are all the way drumming trumpets about India and its proposed super-power status and all… and at the ground level, even in the big, good(?), great(sic), so called cosmopolitan cities we are still thinking about the caste of the person.

This is the eye-opening incident for me, and I felt so sorry that I didn’t paid attention to the cautionary tales of many of my friends about this city. Also this seems to have hardened my resolve to DO SOMETHING about my life and many other things… I just hope that someone special in my life, who loves this country so much will change her approach about it, and give a thought to what I had always maintained with her…

p.s. Names and incident in this post had been kept un-changed to keep the identity of people un-hidden...