Kharadi Tales by Indraneel Majumdar

July 26, 2016

Pune developed because developers did some pretty wacky things with land wherever they found it. How did I know this? This was told to me by a developer himself. In his own words: “You know these addresses, XYZ Extension or ABC Annexe, this came about because they just did not want to write the village name alongside their posh concepts and thereby wanted to squeeze just that little bit more from the probable home buyer.”
Well, I digested that small nugget. It was forgotten till I went to rent a small apartment in Kharadi as that would be near to my project site.
Kharadi is moon. So, man could not go to Mars and so they landed on moon. In the case of Puneites, they could not land in Viman Nagar or Magarpatta, so they crashlanded in Kharadi.
In Kharadi, you will not find skimmed milk. For that, you have to travel ahead to Magarpatta. You cannot buy pet food, for that you will need to go backwards to Phoenix MarketCity probably. If you want red socks, Inorbit may be the place to go or drive ahead till you get Amanora on your left.
Kharadi does not have roads. It has paths. It has disjointed alleyways. It has people sulking on the roads because their flatmate has taken a girlfriend into the room and they have been driven out. It is a nation of small polythene bags. One vada pav for breakfast in a bag. One Idli with sambar and chutney separate in three small bags. One chai in small bag. Whoa! Chai, you will ask. Go there, find out. I am not even going to talk about the dosa packs or the biryani packs. That is what every Kharadi national has for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes, at one go because the BPO shift was such or it was his off day.
In Kharadi, the families are not seen during the evenings. It is a well laid out community there. The families will come out during the day and try and retire early. The evenings are all for the singles. The bachelors and the spinsters. The BPO and the IT guys. It goes on till the wee hours of the morning. The restaurants know it. The delivery guys know it. The Kirana shops know it and probably the paanwallahs too. The paanwallahs will know it as they are the bootleggers too.
Kharadi is the kingdom of shared apartments. You reach any alley and you will find a lost chap with a suitcase and backpack. His mobile will be at his ear and he will be yelling, “Left leke chauthi galli aa gaya na, iske baad?” Don’t laugh. The girls, of course, don’t yell. They ask, nicely, “Uncle, yeh Golden Blossom kidhar hai?” You fume. You cannot be an uncle so early in life.
Kharadi is a Nation. Peaceful. Dirty. Cheerful. Tired. Enthusiastic. Like a dhaba stop on the Ahmednagar highway.

Indraneel Majumdar is a CEO of a hospitality and amusement company, owns a business, chases trivia and enjoys ‘slice of life’ situations. After spending many years in Pune and Mumbai, he now lives in Bengaluru. This column will appear every Tuesday.