Life has been moving for a while now…. Chennai , Pune, Mysore, Bangalore and now back to Pune which was beyond my boundaries….. its dun to move around to walk the unexplored path and experience life first hand….. learning from others experiences was never my way of life hence all the blunders are first hand and reactions to them equally unique… rather creative 🙂

when i came to Pune, this time it was different. The area we decided to reside was not my comfort zone and with peeyush’s job being a mobile one we couldnt really reply on him for any support. it was a new adventure, new place, new people, more than that the place was remote and no comfort place around was known to us….

Searching a place where peeyush (my husband), Raadny ( my daughter) and I could relax together was on priority list.  On one such search expidition we stumbled upon a place that looked a lot like Central Perk and had a library attached to it. It smelled exactly like Central Perk or atleast like the one i have always imagined to smell while watching friends…

Now the books have never been my best friends. They have come to be my companions in recent past, often in times of distress where i needed a place to get away……the library we stumbled upon was not filled with books like the retro types, no unmanned aisles, it seemed like it was everything under one roof, art, eatery, coffee, books, shopping, and along with all this a place you call your own… to relax, no one judging you on what you are wearing, eating, talking about, reading….. everyone in their own sweet bubble, lost in the place of comfort.

When I first entered this place called Pagdandi the only thing that hit me was the smell of coffee and then the corner with matress where someone was already sitting, more relaxed that i am ever at my own house …… i was told that the tea is good and so i ordered for tea and Peeyush ordered for a coffee….. Raadny was mesmerised with the display in the small bakery showcase and choose an array of things one by one……

It took us a couple of visits more to understand the culture and own sweet world of Pagdandi, then on one such sunday, we saw a group sitting in pagdandi busy writing something, curious enough to want to know what they were doing and not bold enough to go and ask…. i decided to wait and watch…. after a while it seemed that the group had finished writing and then started my most favorite part…. one by one the members of the group started reading what they had written….. it had been decades that someone had read to me and it was amazingg to listen to someone read or tell a story….. i sat there listening stories being told. There were references that were hillarious and then some that bought the tears to eyes…. i wasnt sitting next to them …. i was quiet at a distance….. the group was bold, accepting, critisiism didnt wasnt on the forefront. Oneof them noticed me sitting and enjoying the whole process and invited me in…. i like a housefly to cake grabbed the opportunity …. i am not sure if it came across like that in real life …. but in my mind i was looking forward to this opportunity for all the time i was sitting there eves dropping ….

Its been almost a year now….. I still dont know whose brain child this is … The place… Pagdandi hosts many events… book launches, reading, poetry slams, writers club, initiative where shayari enthusiast meet up and discuss great poets, so on and so forth….. there are workshops for all ages and so many different things happening through out…

We are the dedicated souls of writers club…..it gives me an opportunity to listen, learn and best to write ….. The members of writers club are unique, each one has their own way of writing…… its fun to listen to them, every reading session there are a few write up that give a new prospective to life and i really look forward to it…

the beauty of this club is … its a mix bag. no restrictions in terms of age, no criterias of education or IQ, no issues with religion, no concerns with job profiles and no judging on the same.  I admire the way sex, booze, god, love, devotion, adultery, lust, and all other justifiable and unjustifiable aspects of lifeget discussed on the same table with no one getting hurt…. its fun that we all have mutaul respect towards eachother and views no mattter how absurd it may be percieved in the world….. None of us really are bothered to check eachothers past , each others current family life, yet when it comes to being a family and waiting for one another being concerned about the eachother we all are pro at it…….

There are some who nest here, some who stay just long enough to be missed, and some just stop by in their journey towards their destination.

Pagdandi by defination is path taken on foot by many…. and this path certainly allowed me to explore the pathway of wrting that i had not taken into consideration earlier.  it gave me a platform to feel accepted, to listen to new life stories and admire the strenght with which each of us has lived beyond just working to and fro to office…..

I owe a lot to Pagdandi and the writers club.. it came into my life when i was in need of acknowledgement, when i was in my home town and yet felt alone, just like a stranger. It gave me a path to walk on and though the destination is unclear a journey like this feels far more fun than the ultimate goal…..