Why Kaas is better than Your Mom: Part I

It could have something to do with being born and brought up in a city. And it could also have something to do with the company a man keeps. But if you combine subtlety with explicitness, what you get is a fantabulous road trip with images that will never go away. No matter how exciting (read loud and flashy and irritating) the city life is. Anyway, I am doing what they call as digressing. Anyway, seriously. Two friends and two new friends later, on the road, things become really exciting. Especially if you have two bird watchers, one wise man, one journalist and one Owl of Minerva :P (eheh, namely myself. I know I am narcissistic. Just move on, will you?)

So what we have is a bazillion Cosmos- the beautiful yellow coloured flowers on the Pune-Satara Highway. But before that, there are also many man-planted Oleanders of different colours. What a sight. Along your right side you have Ramnadi and on your left this stretch of vast land which your kids are not gonna see in a few years. Anywho, this was a part of Pune I had never seen. I dunno if it's the suburbs but seriously, its beautiful. Within minutes we were on flyovers - probably the Golden Quadrilateral or not, actually- from Chandani Chowk to Warje and beyond that. Its really a straight road, no turns, no hang ups.

But what took the cake, only yet was the mountains. The landscape on your right hand side which looked like a view straight out of some geography book. But oh wait, your geography books DONT have pictures that good. So anyway, it looked majorly cool and killer. Basically since the sun was rising, most of the clouds were clearing out and it was a landscape photographer's dream. I have never really been into Landscape stuff, ya know. But ever since I went to Tapola near Mahabaleshwar last Thursday, my eyes have opened to a new beam, beacon whatever your word of choice. There, the landscape was not only stunning, it was an aerial view of the collective part of a town and village. I mean I've only been to this Nagapattinam village in Tamil Nad for about a week to make a documentary and all but this was different.

I've realised that going to village/town/new place/city even displaces me a lot. I don't mean it socially, you know. I am not disparaged by the village/town or less economically and socially progressive. I don't think of them that way. In fact, my view on them has changed for even better. Earlier I used to think that farmers are noble people because they give us food but now I think that farmers are noble for existing in a social set up so beautiful and ordinary and untouched by external applications (from industrialisation or its other cousins) that they are a cosmos in itself. It's like saying the table doesn't exist because you can't see it. That's not true. Things continue existing DESPITE your knowledge. Anywho, this is major digression. Well, not really, but kinda, anyway.