Tag: Pune

  • Katraj Zoo

    My daughter was bugging me to go somewhere, anywhere. I told her that we would meet her brother and her relatives on Saturday (10 January 2026) after her Parent Teacher Meeting.

    My son likes to play with animal toys and seem to enjoy watching birds.

    We had driven through Katraj (via the ghat) when returning from Kerala in September and it got me curious what it was like inside.

    These were three data points I used to decide that we should visit the zoo.

    Collage of photos of my family and me at the zoo during one of our breaks.
    Collage of photos of my family and me at the zoo during one of our breaks. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas, Collage created with Collage on Google Photos.

    For the drive to Katraj, Google Maps took us right past Shaniwar wada and Dagadhushet Ganapati Temple. It took us past Swargate and on the road to Katraj. There was public parking available outside the zoo. We parked there and walked to the zoo through the dilipated platform of the bus stand.

    The road outside is full of hawkers selling fast food, finger foods, and fruits.

    Once inside we took a ticket to enter the zoo and entered at half past twelve in the afternoon. My daughter was still expecting her relatives to join us. We went past a sea of school kids who were either having lunch or running to the bathrooms to go to the bathrooms ourselves.

    After our bathroom break, we wanted to take the tour of the zoo in one of the four battery operated vehicles but after the fourth vehicle left their bay, we were informed that the vehicle that just left was the last one over the next hour. Instead of cooling our heals while waiting for the bus, we decided to walk it.

    We went through the snake park with my daughter finding the turtles cute. Most animals were on their afternoon siesta here, a pattern that would repeat throughout the visit.

    We then went on a long trek with boards pointing to animals but no signs of the animal themselves. My 3 year old son walked the distance. We walked past dears, antelopes, etc. but that did not seem to enthuse my son. A bear walking across its enclosure to probably eat food or drink water got my son’s attention. We were back to walking again.

    We saw the elephants and then took a snack break. We used the opportunity to fill our water bottles as well. It was well-advised that we carry our own snacks. We carried makhana and broken-idli-pieces (this is specifically for our son).

    I tried to tell my daughter that when we told her that we are going to visit her relatives, we meant the animals in the zoo. She did not believe me and still expected human relatives to meet us here. As we walked back and she realized that what I said was true, she expressed her anger and did not talk to me for a while.

    The session after this was more interesting with a white tiger, tigers, cheetah, etc. Most animals were enjoying an afternoon siesta after their lunch (probably). Many of the visitors were joking that Indian animals would anyway be lazy like the rest of us.

    We tried various methods to keep the children enthused on the return. We pushed and walked more than on the way back with fewer rests.

    Much of the zoo was in various stages of repair. They are probably getting ready for their summer peak.

    We ate pav bhaji and misal pav from one of the hawkers from the pavement outside. There was also a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a softie machine.

    The family all fell asleep on the way back. I drove in silence with only my playlist playing providing ambient music. The way back was through Camp and Bund Garden. Although, we have been in Pune for almost 7 years now, we haven’t explored many of the places around Pune.

    I was happy that I had taken my daughter somewhere. But, she meant going to the mall and wasn’t happy that we wandered in the zoo under the afternoon Sun.

  • Pune to Palakkad – 27 August 2025

    We drove down from Pune to Palakkad for Onam. The route we took was Kolhapur – Chitradurga – Tumkur – Sathyamangalam – Coimbatore – Palakkad.

    My main concern before the start of the journey was repair work on the Pune – Bangalore Highway (old NH4, new AH47 or NH48). Multiple people warned me about it. So, we were actively considering the Solapur – Vijayapura – Chitradurga stretch to avoid the repairs on the Kolhapur stretch.

    Two days before the drive, Rakesh had consulted multiple people himself and suggested that we take the Kolhapur, as a known bad road was better than an unknown road. I was concerned by the lack of mobile connectivity in case of any issues with our vehicle. Google Maps showed instances of roads being drowned in one or two stretches of the Solapur alternative.

    Colleagues at work I asked said that the stretch towards Bangalore was good but had no food stops nor mobile phone coverage for nearly an hour and a half as the roads went through wildlife sanctuaries.

    Following Rakesh’s advice we chose the Kolhapur alternative. 

    It was Ganesh Chaturthi that day and we started off with some Ganesh aartis. We had mentally prepared for multiple road blocks which appeared on Google Maps but did not exist on the road. Multiple times in Maharashtra, Google Aunty would ask us to take a diversion where none existed and seemed flummoxed when the car went straight ahead.

    The diversions on the Maharashtra stretch were much better built. There were potholes in some places but that was expected given the incessant rains in the past two to three weeks.

    Google Aunty did much better with the diversions on the Karnataka stretch of NH4. Here, the roads were much worse than the Maharashtra stretch with unnecessary speed bumpers, non tarred roads, and numerous potholes. 

    We made our first stop at the Kamat’s in Satara just before going up the ghats. The meals were good. We carried some snacks from here for what we expected to be a bad Kolhapur stretch.

    The Kolhapur stretch wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. We went through but at slower speeds. 

    We crossed the border into Karnataka and stopped at a McDonalds (called Viraj Junction) just past the RTO check post for bathroom breaks and some coffee. 

    There are not too many food places on this stretch upto Chitradurga. So, we stopped at a familiar place for lunch when we saw it. It just says Restaurant but Google calls it Itagi Cross.

    We met a foreigner here who was going the other way on his Honda Goldwing. My 2 yo son waved hi to him. He waved back and asked him how he was. My 2 yo said, I’m fine. We had rice and dal here and it was really good.

    We had planned to reach Tumkur by evening that day but the Dharwad- Hubli stretch had other plans. This stretch was the worst stretch on our way to Palakkad. But, I’m happy they are expanding it now. When we reached Chitradurga, it was half past five. We stopped for tea and decided to push to Tumkur.

    We called ahead and booked Hotel Sadananda. We then had the first spell of rain on the road. This slowed us down a little. We then stopped for the night at Hotel Sadananda and had dinner from there. We had a simple meal at the hotel which was fine but not great.

    We had a hot water bath and had a good night’s sleep. We decided to leave around six the next night.

  • Pen Festival 2025 + Ramsar Bakery

    I went to the Pen Festival yesterday with my daughter. I had written about the last time here.

    The Festival had graphologists, pen doctor, leather covers and bags, lots of fountain pens, some paper stationary, and inks. We met Vishwesh and Vipul.

    Image: V’sign Neo (maroon) for my wife. V’sign Cute (green) for my daughter, her first fountain pen. Daughter and me, on the right. Image credit: Pradeep Mohandas.

    We got two pens – one for my wife and another for my daughter.

    We were heading back from the venue back home when the pleasant aroma of the bakery caught me.

    I drank the cola flavour after a really long time. I opened the crimped down glass bottle cap with an old style bottle opener tied with a twine around the refrigerator handle.

    The refrigerator had various flavours. My wife drank the lemon flavour a day before when we passed through here. I tried a sip.

    We got this at Ramsar Bakery in Pune. It was on the way home on a route Google Maps had suggested we take.

    Image: Crimped Down bottle cap (left) from a brand from Pune called Ardy’s. Nankhatai (right).

    We bought nankhatai. The man sitting at the counter offered our son one. When his eyes lit up at the taste of the nankhatai, the man offered him one more. We bought a pav kilo (250 gm) of it. My daughter liked it too. My wife was crazy about it too. We finished the pack that evening.

    My wife said we should buy these every time we pass through that road on the corner of a busy street where the scooters park adjacent to the side walk, sometimes causing a traffic commotion – a cacophony of horns from scooters behind them who now have to change their paths.

  • The Dhuradhurapatradi Scale

    This morning was strangely cold. My upper body felt warm while my lower body felt chilly. I thought about why that might be but could eliminate several reasons. Then I remembered my bottle of Dhuradhurapatradi.

    The bottle of Dhuradhurapatradi tells me how seriously I should take the cold I feel in my bones.

    My Dhuradhurapatradi Scale
    State of oilHow I should feel?
    FluidNot Cold
    Semi-solidSomewhat Cold
    Frozen OverVery cold

    The above table illustrates how I use the scale. Dhuradhurapatradi is a brand of coconut oil manufactured by Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala in Kerala.

    I have used the oil since my childhood. I developed the scale when I felt that people’s (ahem, my wife’s) experience of temperature was different than my own. I needed a neutral way to tell me how I experienced temperature.

    The weird weather this morning was a good example of my use of this scale. Today morning, the oil was semi-solid. So, I knew it was somewhat cold. This allowed me to fearlessly express my opinion about the weather to people who asked me about it.

    I thought of expressing this opinion on social media – where this post would not have been this long. However, reading Jatan’s post yesterday made me yearn for those days of the long blog posts. Hence, I wrote a long blog post instead of a short social media post.

    Also, a look at my Dhuradhurapatradi scale this winter, also makes me confident to opine that the number of days we experienced cold weather in Pune this winter were lesser than the number of days we experienced cold weather last winter.

  • Weekly Notes 29/2023

    I missed posting the weekly notes for the twenty eighth week. This update is also a good two to three days old.

    OTT

    • Ntikkakkakkoru Premondarnn (Malayalam)
    • Janaki Jaane (Malayalam)

    I was sorry to see the series, The Blacklist (English) end on Netflix.

    Writing

    I did no writing other than work-related writing over the last two weeks.

    Reading

    I was reading/listening to:

    • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Audible, English)

  • Tree Walk

    My daughter and I went for a Tree Walk in Camp, Pune on 26 March 2023. This follows the star party that we went together for.

    We travelled to Camp by car and parked opposite Bishop’s school in Camp. We met with the group of about 10 people who had also come there. After a brief round of introductions, we started the walk.

    The main thrust of the walk was not to make us overnight experts on all things trees. It was to get us to look at the trees in our surroundings with more curiosity. Learn how they transform through the seasons. How to identify them using the Internet and thereafter, by yourself. Observe how they flower and grow.

    I tried to get my daughter to climb one of the trees but she was afraid to go more than a couple of feet off the ground. She collected a lot of fallen flowers, fruits, berries, etc. Being the youngest in the group, she got the attention of many others in the group, who helped her collect these things.

    I did not follow all the tree related guidance too closely.

    I have been enjoying the tree-related articles on The Marginalian. I also enjoyed the theme of trees when listening to Richard Powers’ The Overstory.

  • Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter

    Zoomed in and edited using Snapseed. Image taken using Realme GT Master. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas

    The question my wife had was how do the planets that are on either side of the Earth are seen together in the night sky.

    A drawing to explain how Venus and Jupiter whose orbit is on either side of Earth can be seen together in the night sky. Drawing: Pradeep Mohandas

    When we see from Earth, Jupiter must be on the other side of the Sun. Whereas, Venus could be between the Sun and Earth or between the Sun and Jupiter.

    This is the first time that I tried to capture a celestial event with a mobile phone camera and edited it.

  • Pacha Pana

    I’ve always wanted to have a bicycle of my own, as an adult. Bicyclists are some of the out-of-the-box and contrarian thinkers that I have met. Other people with a similar mindset are amateur astronomers and open source enthusiasts. There is no sensible reason to follow these hobbies in this age of instant gratification.

    Since 2023 had begun I had already hung out with a few amateur astronomers and so I was thinking about which of the other two I wanted to do. I could not find any meeting of the Pune Linux Users Group (PLUG) to attend and hence decided that perhaps it was time to look at cyclists.

    The minimum requirement before one meets cyclists is to have a bicycle of one’s own and if nothing else to at least be able to ride it for a few kilometers. It was at this time that I came across this blog post on choosing a bike in India by Priyanka.

    After reading the blog post I went through the websites of the bicycles that I had used as a child – Hero and Hercules. I also went through the websites of Montra. It was while discussing the distance of some of these cycle shops in and around home with Rakesh that he told me about a bike store above the Maruti showroom at Viman Nagar.

    I went there a day before with my scooter and told them frankly that it had been years since I pedaled and asked for their bicycle suggestions. I also told them I did not intend to spend a lot of money. They showed me a few Firefox and Ninety One bikes. They explained the different types of the bicycles to me and finally suggested a Ninety One Viper X-101.

    I decided to get the bicycle the next day. They thought I was probably not coming back again and tried to get me to book the bicycle on the same day. I managed to escape from their clutches and headed home.

    I went on the next day a little after 11 am. I paid for the cycle and the accessories and then got instructions on how to use the gear system on the cycle as well as a few pro-tips on cycle maintenance and checks to perform before taking it out for a ride. I got a pic clicked just like I would get when I might have bought a car.

    I then drove the cycle for 11.7 km on the journey back home slowly in the mid-day heat. I was happy it was February and not May. The gear system made sure that I did not sweat the couple of up-hills on the way home. I reached home in time for lunch.

    The cycle did not fit into the lift in our building on its stand. It had to be lifted on the back wheel to fit in the lift.

    I decided to name her Pacha Pana (green palmyra palm) and to call her Pachu for short. Pachu from Pune.

  • Star Party

    It was the sight of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope by the Space Shuttle Discovery on Discovery Channel that shifted my interest from archaeology to astronomy. After the lift-off the Discovery Channel proceeded to show some of the fascinating images that the Hubble captured. I was in awe.

    This anecdote also holds the confusion I held for the longest time. I did not know if I wanted to do astronomy or build rockets that would launch people and telescopes into orbit. I am not sure if I still have an answer to this question. The move towards engineering was pragmatic and not based on interest.

    After marriage, my wife was interested in the bright objects in the night sky and did not mind me watching rocket launches because Indian rocket launches were few and far between. They were not as frequent as the SpaceX launches of today of almost one a week.

    When our daughter was born in 2017, I told my wife that I will introduce our daughter to the night sky but wouldn’t try to push my hobbies on her. Keeping my promise, I had only introduced my 5 year-old daughter to the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Of these, my daughter only has trouble distinguishing between Jupiter and Saturn when they are both present in the night sky.

    When the astronomy club in Pune, Jyotirvidya Parisanstha (JVP) organized a star party for the public, I forgot this promise to my wife and registered both of us (our daughter and myself) for the same. My wife could not travel as she had just given birth to our son last December.

    I decided against going by car as I was not familiar with the location. We decided to travel in the bus provided by JVP.

    We landed up around 4 pm at Shalimar Furniture at Swar Gate in Pune. We arrived there travelling in an Uber. My daughter was already impatient with the slow progress of our journey to the location of the Star Party.

    I had told my daughter that we were going for a star party. The only other party she had attended thus far were three to four hour long birthday parties of her friends who all stayed in our neighborhood, which she reached in 20 minutes at the most. She would spend time at the birthday party playing with her friends or having samosas and snacks. She was excited nonetheless.

    This Star Party was not her kind of party.

    We travelled in a Tata Motors bus to a village in the outskirts of Pune called Naigaon. This was on the Pune – Bangalore Highway a little beyond the gate of Khed Shivpur about an hour from Swar Gate. The Star Party was held at Manali Agro Farm.

    First up, it lived up to it’s name. It was probably colder than it was in Manali. My daughter had to wear her thermals, t-shirt, sweater and a blanket before she could shiver and speak. I only had an athleisure t-shirt and a sweater protecting me. JVP had warned in their email invitation and the programme that it would be very cold. The name also should have given ample warning and we should have probably prepared with winter wear we might have carried had we travelled to Manali.

    As the team at JVP was setting up their telescopes (2 Cassegarian, 2 Newtonians and a Dobsonian), we spotted a few fast moving satellites in their orbit. They were most likely Earth observation satellites taking pictures of Earth from their perch in space. I also spotted the planet Venus with my daughter.

    Venus was the first planet that the telescopes pointed to as people formed lines in front of them. We missed seeing the planet through the telescope. As the planet set in the western sky, we had the opportunity to see Jupiter and three of its moons through the telescope. I was not sure my daughter would be able to see the moons through the telescope but was happy when she could spot them easily.

    Sarang then showed the constellations in the night sky with a pointer. We saw the body of Pegasus the Winged Horse, Cetus the Sea Monster, and spoke to us about Raashis and Nakshatras. I had heard these terms and now knew their significance and meaning.

    He later shared stories from Indian and Greek mythologies. He had immense energy that comes from knowledge and passion. He spoke endlessly through the evening and then later in the night. He flawlessly mixed sharing the science of the night sky, the art of storytelling, and a healthy skepticism.

    My daughter and I were able to see the Moon through the telescope. She described it as seeming like cheese. I told her about craters without delving too much into its violent history. She saw both the Moon and Jupiter through one of the Cassegarins. The other Cassegarin of the pair was having a hard time tracking in the beginning though the volunteers were able to fix it later in the night.

    She did not eat any food at night. I ate the delicious Marathi dinner at the farm. There were a few slides and swings in the park but they were too cold to even sit on. She was immensely disappointed and spent the rest of the night sleeping on my lap. I did not feel confident about laying the mat on the floor and letting her sleep there ergo many people did.

    I missed seeing the Pleiades (Rohini) and the Orion nebula through the telescope they had set out at night.

    We reached in time as one of the JVP team members talked about imaging the comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and how he stacked images one on top of the other and used software to get an image of the comet. The comet’s tail had grown faint in the image and it’s core also seemed to have broken. It was great to see a comet but were disappointed that we missed seeing it in all its glory.

    A little past four in the morning, I wasn’t sure our cold protection systems could keep us protected from the cold any longer. So, I headed to the bus with a few of the other parents and caught up on some sleep. Although I was awake most of the night, I am not sure if I could stay awake most of the night.

    Some of the other people missed Sarang’s story sessions and caught some well deserved sleep and spent the early morning watching the sky. We missed that part but I was happy that I could brush up on both my astronomy and mythological knowledge.

    The star party was over at 7 in the morning and we headed back to Swar Gate around 7:30 am.

  • A Meetup in March

    I could not find my black Pilot V5 pen. No, that’s wrong. I did not go looking for my black Pilot V5 pen. On the days that I do not write in my analog Bullet Journal, I find myself out of control.

    I write to think. I write to connect the ideas. Only a few bread crumbs of those ideas, find their way as a blog post on this blog. I want to write more because I want to think more. I want to think more to learn a little more about this world.

    It was with this intention that I joined the Clear Writing course. I hoped that the course would improve my practice of writing. I did not want to make what I write better. I wanted to make myself write more here. I completed that course in January 2022.

    The creator of the course had gone on a trip to Bengaluru to record a few episodes of his long-form podcast. He decided that he would take this opportunity to meet a few of his course participants while he was there. This made a few Punekars jealous and who decided to have their own meetup. With or without the creator of the course.

    An announcement email went out. This was followed by expressions of interest in being a part of the meetup. With or without the creator of the course. The interest swelled in the email thread. For better planning and co-ordination, a WhatsApp group was created. About twelve people joined the group.

    A political and economic institution was proposed as the location of the meetup. A Sunday morning was picked for the time. The pictures on Google Maps pointed to a British-era institution. This formed the basis of my decision for going for the meet-up. Meeting interesting people would be the cream between the biscuits. I don’t like the cherry on the cake.

    I went for the buildings but I enjoyed the conversation with the people more.

    Coming back to the meetup.

    In the early hours of the morning of the meetup, the Punekar who had been jealous and had said we should meetup pulled out because of a family emergency. A huge question mark now hung on my bedroom ceiling. Should I get up early on a Sunday morning when the meetup may involve just me?

    I think only those pictures of British-era buildings pushed me out of the bed and into the bathroom. Since, you the reader, would not want to know the details of my morning constitutional, let’s skip to the drive to the location.

    I wanted to tip the hat the Creator of the Course, even if he would not be coming. So, I played one of his long-form podcast episodes while Google Aunty (I picked the female voice on the app) directed me to the location.

    Google Aunty took me to a location that had the board of the place where I wanted to go but road blocks so that I could not go in. This could have been one of those rides where Google Aunty would take you to the back of someone’s cattle shed. But, the WhatsApp group had warned that the front gate of the institution was undergoing renovation and an alternative gate would be available to enter into the institution.

    But, to the side of the under-renovation gate, I saw the beautiful (for a Mumbaikar) parking – ergo, paid – lot. I parked there.

    I spent my slow walk to the campus of the institution frustrated by a building that hid the British-era buildings that I had hoped to see. The building housed a hotel (quite a famous one, it seems), a co-working space and a few start-ups or companies.

    Then, I saw the well laid-out British-era buildings with sloping red roofs. The buildings were laid out as if space was not a constraint. I think most of the expectations from the trip was met when I saw the buildings.

    Of the twelve who first expressed interest and joined the WhatsApp group, the leader fell to a family emergency, a couple fell to illnesses and the rest other than the four of us who turned up there were probably sleeping a few extra hours, it being a Sunday.

    We moved from the extraordinary British-era campus to an open-air hotel serving breakfast. I was slightly disappointed by this move, but as if to make up for it, we went to the hotel from a gate at the back that allowed me to explore more of the campus.

    In the hotel, I heard polite conversation, friends catching up after a week away from each other, morning strollers catching up on local gossip and friends meeting up after ages. Conversations happened in English, Hindi and Marathi. I heard a few words of Kannada but that was drowned out by the other languages.

    Our conversation started with which cohorts we belonged to. There was a person here from the first cohort! As if to continue the trend, she was also here in the first meetup of the alumni in Pune.

    The conversation mirrored the conversation outline of the long-form podcast. We broke ice with talking about ourselves. What we did, where we came from, what we wrote, where we wrote. Then, we moved on to anecdotes from our lives that we used to make points. We used the anecdotes to discuss various issues, micro and macro.

    We spoke of running, cycling, walking, tekdis not being places where we were taken to, if kidnapped; how we are able to or not able to impact the world, the difference between the ideal and the real and much much more.

    If we had spoken for a couple of hours more, I am sure we could have shipped an episode of the long-form podcast. As in the podcast, I wished we could speak more.

    We got up from the table having decided to leave. But, we continued talking, as we settled the bills. We even stood right in front of the bill payment desk and spoke some more. We spoke. We did not take photographs. But, then everyone had some call. We parted with half-good-byes. Perhaps, to return, to continue the conversation. The next time I come for the meetup, I will probably come for the people.

    The people at the meetup encouraged me to share some of the anecdotes I had shared there. I got the feeling that I must sometimes write of the everyday. This blog post is an exercise to do this. To write about the everyday. To repeat something that I said above, and I quote:

    <start quote>I went for the buildings but I enjoyed the conversation with the people more.<stop quote>.