Until Next Time, Pune

It was 4 in the morning when the cab pulled up outside my gate. Headlights cut through the quiet, and I dragged my suitcase over the tiles that still felt damp from the night’s mist.

“Bhaiya, 5567?” I asked the driver, double-checking the number on my phone. 

He nodded, half asleep, and got out to lift my bag into the boot.

The air had that in-between kind of chill not freezing, but enough to make me zip up my jacket. Mom’s call came right as I settled in the back seat.

“Ha Mumaa, I’m leaving for the airport. I’ll call you once I check in, okay? Go to sleep.”
She started saying something about carrying khajoor, and I smiled, cutting the call before I got sentimental.

“Bhaiya, radio lagao na,” I said, cracking open the window.

A soft tune filled the car. The city outside was sleeping, or maybe pretending to.

Pune, the city that wears two faces

one calm, one chaotic.

At 4 a.m., it’s the calm one that greets you. Empty roads, orange streetlights, that slow, comforting hum of life pausing before it restarts.

As the cab rolled past familiar turns, I caught myself wondering , who’s really grown here? 

Did Pune grow with me, or did I grow through it? Maybe both. 

Maybe that’s what growing up really means learning that change never stops choosing you.

When I was seven or eight, Pune felt magical.

We’d visit on weekends " me and papa " and every drive into the city felt like stepping into a movie. Those tall buildings, glassy malls, and of course, our ritual visit to Dagdusheth. I’d hold his hand tight in the crowd, pretending not to be scared of the noise, the people, the incense smoke.

Then life changed.

We started coming not for blessings, but for hospital appointments. The city that once meant ice creams and shopping became a place of white walls, reports, and silence.

Pune was where my dad fought the hardest battle of his life. It’s also where he lost it.

Even today, whenever my route passes near that hospital, I slow down at the bridge. I stand there for a few seconds ,long enough to remember, short enough not to break. Sometimes I wonder if I stop out of grief, or out of habit. Maybe a bit of both.
Some days I feel he might be still there.

Other days, I just stare till my eyes sting. I used to think I went there to remember him. Now I think I'm going to remember me , the girl who was praying for her father but was helpless, who learned grief doesn’t always look like tears.

The radio shifted songs, 

Do pal, do pal ka saathi, har pal ek nayi kahani...
And just like that, I was pulled back to the present.

This city has been with me through so many versions of myself.
When I first came here for my 11th, I was terrified. Mom left me at the pg's gate, said me bye, and told me to be brave. I waited till she disappeared around the corner then cried like a child who’d just realized bravery doesn’t come on command. That night, the ceiling fan hummed too loudly, and I swore I will hate this city Forever
But forever didn’t last long.

A year later, I had friends, favorite chai spots, and a small sense of who I was. Pune toughened me up in quiet ways  through missed buses, cold mess lunches, and nights I felt invisible. I learned that independence isn’t glamour, it’s survival.

After 12th, I left for Kolhapur to do my B.Tech. A new city, a new rhythm. Kolhapur had its charm  slower, softer but sometimes I’d still find myself missing Pune’s noise. 

Maybe that’s how you know a place has shaped you: even when you leave, its fingerprints stay.
Funny how now, I can’t imagine my story without it.
After college in Kolhapur, I had my heart set on Goa, maybe a job at a winery by the coast, something romantic and new. But somehow, life rerouted me back here. Pune again.

Only this time, it didn’t feel intimidating.

I had friends here now. I had a little money, a little freedom. I learned to live alone, to take care of myself, to find peace in small things : a morning coffee, clubbing in Koregaon Park, a quiet evening drive. Pune taught me to keep showing up, even on the days I didn’t want to.

But still, I never stayed too long. It’s almost like the city and I have an unspoken deal, we meet, we share, we part ways. Every time I think I’ve outgrown it, something pulls me back. 

Maybe it’s people. Maybe it’s memories. Maybe it’s unfinished business.

Now, I mostly come here for flights or short meetings. Pune is a stopover, not a destination. A connecting point between who I was and who I’m still becoming.

Some of my favorite people live here, and I make excuses to visit.
But I’ve also learned what parts of this city to avoid  Maybe it’s because someone I once knew! 

We used to joke about Pune,how he could never live there, how it wasn’t “his kind of city.”
Life has a sense of humor, though.
Last year, he shifted here.

And somehow, that changed how Pune feels again. The city that raised me and broke me now carries pieces of another story
one I try not to reread. I still come here for flights, for meetings, but I take different routes now. Avoid certain roads, certain cafés, certain people. It’s not anger, just a quiet distance the kind you keep from a flame you’ve already burned your hand on. 

Sometimes I wonder if the city pulled him here just to remind me how full circles feel

Still, I can’t unlove Pune. It’s stitched too deep. This city taught me how to survive loss, and how to let go without making noise.

“Bhaiya, awaaz vadhva song cha,” I said softly, letting the window down all the way.

The air outside carried that faint smell of wet soil and petrol ,the scent that belongs only to cities at dawn. I leaned my head against the seat, watching the road curve ahead, my reflection flickering between streetlights.

There’s something about leaving a city before sunrise. It feels less like goodbye, more like see you soon.
And that’s what Pune has become to me
a see-you-soon kind of city.
The one that watched me grow, break, rebuild, and leave again.

Until next time.