Pune: Day 1

Meeting Bilwa and Mrunmayee

I know I told you I’d write every day while I was in Pune. But I should have known myself better.

I changed my mind after I reached Pune. Felt travel shouldn’t be about content.

Also, I spent some time working. After the work was done, I was like, “How can I have more fun.”

But of course, I can’t miss documenting all the beautiful experiences.

So here I am, with the Pune Chapter.

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Day 1 was all about exploring the café culture

I did visit quite a few of them, starting with The German Bakery.

All cafés I visited are little and cute. You notice the smallness of the place, but you never feel congested. It’s hard to imagine how the architects and engineers pulled it off, but it’s beautiful.

I was supposed to meet Bilwa for lunch at 1 pm and was out of my hostel by 11:30 am. I asked her for a good breakfast place. She suggested German Bakery.

So here I am

I had a Hazlenut Brownie. It was okayish. I had an hour to kill before I met Bilwa: I worked on Cognition’s Referral Program. I don’t know, even on vacation, work (or the act of building something) gives me joy.

Then I had a chat with the waiter about his day and left for SWIG.

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Bilwaaaaaaaaaa

Met her for the first time, and everyone on Twitter was not exaggerating when they said, “Bilwa is sweet.”

We met at SWIG and had many many conversations on work, friends, travel, relationships, food, pets, Goa, Pune, Hyderabad, and moreee.

And of course, had looooooots of food.

SWIG has good food. Tried a couple of varieties of Chicken and a Mango mocktail.

What more? I tried Sushi for the first time and wasn’t disappointed at all. Learning to use chopsticks was fun to me (and funny to Bilwa :p).

She taught me how to use them, and guess what? I had Sushi without dropping it. “Not bad for a first-timer,” she said.

We then took this cool picture at SWIG and decided to leave

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What happened next?

I was supposed to meet Mrunmayee at 5:30. Bilwa had to leave at 4 to finish her work. I thought I’d sit in some café and get some work done till five. Bilwa suggested me a place seven minutes away from SWIG.

Biwla being Bilwa, walked me to this new place.

10 minutes later, we were here

She was kind enough not to leave me alone and professional enough not to ditch her work, lol. So we took our laptops, ordered a coffee, and worked for an hour before we explored The French Window.

The place is good. Quite aesthetic and pet friendly.

This is what I meant by ‘friendly’

Minutes before our goodbyes

Some day, we’ll meet again, Bilwa.

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25 Minutes Later…

This happened

I stayed in KP (Koregaon Park), and we met at Camp—at this place called 11 East Street. It was good to catch up with her again.

Many think Mrunmayee and I became friends as creators, but our story started much before we both even began content creation. I knew from her college days when she was in Hyderabad.

We had pasta at the café. It was good.

We spoke for some time. Mostly updating ourselves with what’s happening in our lives. We didn’t plan anything after the café, so we thought we’d roam around and decide.

I forgot my umbrella at home, so we decided to hop some shops and buy an umbrella. Then we just roamed around in the rain on a scooter for about an hour (yes we did it in the rain and Pune’s traffic because yours truly wanted to explore the city.)

We then went to Joshi Wadewale for dinner (we were already full at this point, and dinner was just a formality.)

Honestly, this was the only disappointing food place on the entire trip. Vada Pav wasn’t good at all.

But my entire ‘pav’ experience changed the next day.

More on this soon…

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More Pictures from the Day: