I was in Pune recently. It was not the normal business trip that got me here. This time it is a personal break. A friend’s son is getting married. It is not just another friend; he is the best I have, and there was no way I was missing this trip.
There are many friends that I have to catch up with. There are many of them, each one playing a part in the unforgettable stories in my life that are worth a laugh. I was here for seven years, and each moment spent with the guys here remains a clear memory.
Some of those stories will come later; today, it is about Pune and its impact on my literary inclination.
While here on this trip, we stayed at a hotel on Law College Road. A road that had a charm that the old Pune I knew always had. Leafy trees lined the road; the small lanes that went off the road had old houses that sat in peace and silence. The famed Film Institute gates opened up to this road. A little down the line, the back gate of the SNDT college stood watching.
We woke early and took a walk looking for a cup of tea. The air is crisp as winter has arrived. The Law College Road has just a few people, either walking or delivering milk and newspapers. The madness of the modern-day traffic would take over a bit later. Walking down the road, one reaches a fork just past the Film Institute.
At the junction, a set of three shining boards on the wall next to the pedestrian walkway caught my eye. One look and it transported me back in time. One of the bright steel plates had the sketch of a familiar figure. The protagonist of this story. The one and only Pu La Deshpande.
A man who inspired me to try and improve my knowledge of Marathi while I stayed decades ago in this high seat of Maharashtrian culture.
I had just joined my first job and soon realized that I had to learn better Marathi. While my college mates had taught me some of the language, it was more street-level with massive doses of profanity. All my work colleagues were from the heart of Pune and spoke a smooth style of Marathi, which was almost alien to me. It was soft, cultured and polished. The rough dialect that I had picked from further south of the state, where my college was, would not do me any good.
I went in search of ways of learning the language better. One of my seniors those days, Sanjay Desai, who went on to be one of the best friends I have in life, was my first port of call for advice. Sanjay, a man with an artist in him, was the right pick for the query. He turned up once with an audio cassette, the type that played audio before the shinier and advanced Compact discs took over. Thank you Sanjay for that…
The audio was a series of talks by Pu La Deshpande. Being the sport I was, I promptly put that into a player and listened.
The soft, inviting voice of Pu La took over my world. The first story was one where he visits a typical Marathi household. While waiting for the gentleman to appear, the lady of the house shows him the photograph of a young kid. The way Pu La described the photograph floored me. Almost three decades later, I can still recall the awe I felt at the words. He said
Tyani mala ek bagitlaywarch ugach kana khali wajwae asa watnaare ek kartyacha chitr dakahawla.
( She showed me the photograph of a brat, the kind who you would just feel like giving a tight slap the moment you see him )
For me, that was just too stunning. It was far removed from the Marathi I had picked up. The power of expressing a feeling that Pu La had was unreal.
I had fallen for it and never stopped.
The bumpy village bus that rams into a buffalo in Mhais was a masterpiece. The subtle digs at the people of Nagpur/Pune/Mumbai were classical social commentary. The quirky Antu Barva and his Konkan tilt, the travails of a postman and the post office, the list went on. Pu La was like a man on a roll; there was never a dull moment.
Though I could not read his books, I have devoured every talk show audio of the genius that he was.
More needs to be told of him.
Born in 1919 in Mumbai, he grew up absorbing the city’s chaos, its characters, its quiet absurdities. He studied music, literature, and languages, and somehow turned all of it into laughter. On stage, he was a magician. He delivered masterful punchlines while describing daily, mundane life. It was almost like a living room conversation.
One moment, he would be a schoolteacher from behind the reading stand, grumbling about students, and in the next a middle-class man negotiating with destiny over a cup of tea. His humour wasn’t loud; it was subtle, ordinary and effective as it always should be. There was no ill-meaning sarcasm, no sharp satire; it was just wit and humour, the type that crept up on you, tapped your shoulder, and stayed with you for years.
It would, on reflection, make one feel inadequate for not having seen what he saw.
Ordinary people like us saw the jarring part of this rough and ragged life, while the masterful Pu La saw the subtle irony, the soft hue and the inevitability of the moment in a human life.
His work sprawled across essays, short stories, travelogues, plays, music, and iconic one-man shows. Books like Vyakti ani Valli ( where Antu Barva shows up) and Batatyachi Chawl turned ordinary people into legends, celebrating their quirks without ever mocking their dignity.
His travel writing made you feel the fatigue of long journeys and the joy of getting lost. The crazy train journey with a Parsi couple is a rollicking one. His take on pets and more so on pet owners was as hilarious as it could get.
Pu La Deshpande—Pu La to anyone who loved Marathi words the way they love their chai —didn’t just write, he performed life with a raised eyebrow beneath a row of forehead creases and a perfectly timed pause.
While Indian literature did have its share of humorists in R K Narayanan in English, Harishankar Parsai in Hindi and VKN in Malayalam, for me , Pu La Deshpande stood out head and shoulders above them. With no intent of disrespect, Pu La was to be placed on a much elevated platform.
P.G. Wodehouse (read the link) was the only humorist who could hold my attention. My liking for his works probably meant I could hardly enjoy many others; Pu La had the same effect. I could never appreciate or listen to anything else in Marathi, or for that matter, in any other language.
I may have ended up a bit short on my reading, and may still cringe at the comedy shows, but then I will take it anytime, any day, as long as I have read PG Wodehouse and heard Pu La Deshpande.
And Pu La did make sure that I can speak passable and decent Marathi.
Pu La had the rare gift of finding comedy in routine and philosophy in nonsense. Long after the laughter faded, his words lingered—gentle, observant, and deeply human—reminding readers that life, at its best, is a well-told story with a punchline delivered softly.
If you have kept up with me, you would have noted I mentioned three shiny plates on the wall. The other two had on them quotes from Pu La.
Quotes that said all that Pu La stood for.
Thank you Pu La
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Nice one👌
Thanks
The great Pula!!.