Bandit Queen Outside and Cleopatra Inside

Places that we visit are unique in their own. I was reading Shikha’s ‘Bus Chimp – 2’ post. It reminded me of an incident that took place when I was in Pune last year. My company has operations nearly in all the major cities in India. Last year, I got an opportunity to travel to the Pune office to conduct a training. The Pune office is located in Hinjewadi. Since there was only one direct flight (this is a misnomer, the flight has a stoppage in Bangalore!) to Pune from Chennai, I was booked in a Mumbai flight. They had arranged for a cab to take me from the Mumbai airport to Pune.

As we reached Pune, it was close to mid-day. I’ve heard that Pune is a beautiful city known for its pleasant weather and sweet girls (!). So the next day on my way to the office I was hoping to enjoy the pleasantries of the city. But to my dismay, I found that nearly all the girls who were driving 2 wheelers had covered their faces entirely. All I could see were their eyes (and many of them were magnanimous enough to cover their eyes with sun glasses!). I was wondering what could be the reason for this – Fashion? Eve teasing? – are girls trying to avoid the lecherous looks of men? I had no clue and decided to clarify this with my friends at the office.

I was supposed to meet a manager at the office. But since he was scheduled to be in a meeting he had asked a girl from his team to help me. I would say Pune office looked sluggish when compared to the Chennai office in the mornings. This girl who was supposed to receive me hadn’t arrived till 9:30 AM and I had to wait for her in the lobby. Then she came, I thought it was Benazir Bhutto! She was wearing a jeans trousers and a denim jacket. She had covered her face with what I thought was her duppatta. Then I realized, girls don’t wear duppattas with jeans :)

She identified me and after the mutual greetings, she took me in to the office (her face was still covered!). She showed me a seat near hers and helped me with the user id and the password to boot up the system. After every thing was set for me, she went to her seat and started taking off her facial paraphernalia. I was curious to see her face. She had Bandit Queen’s look outside and Cleopatra’s look inside. She smiled at me and after she was done with her chore, I saw a 22 or perhaps 23 year old girl in her. I could not help myself from asking her, why girls were covering their faces.

Her answer was plain and simple – protect their faces from pollution!

If Pune is supposed to be polluted, what about Chennai?? I'm still wondering!