Beyond the headlines in Pune

Special passenger
One of our colleagues was riding past Nashik Phata. At the traffic lights, an unusual sight caught the eyes of all who were waiting for the signal to turn green. A dog, not tied or held by anyone, was sitting pillion on a motorcycle, while his master was showing off while riding the bike. When the signal turned green, he took a U-turn and sped away, while others took time to recover from the unusual spectacle. The ease and grace of the canine caught the attention of our colleague, who wished human pillion riders were as graceful.

Once-in-a-lifetime jugalbandi
On lazy Sunday afternoons, when all people are relaxing, journalists are at work. On one such afternoon, the journalists of DNA were busy in the office, when one of them played music on his cellphone and left it on his table. He trailed off to the other section to talk with others while the famous Qurbani song, ‘Hum Tumhe Chahate Hai Aise’ composed by Kalyanji-Anandji was playing. The best part was when his cellphone started ringing and once-in-a-lifetime jugalbandi between the music director duo and Amadeus Mozart started and startled all those listening to the music.

The farther, the better
Our colleague had a revelation when he learnt that schools prefer giving admissions to children who stay far away from the school. It seems this is to promote the bus transport service of the schools. While discussing the same, a parent told our colleague that often the transport fees are higher than the tuition fees of the school. Big business?

When no news is bad news
While the whole city was in a joyous mood for the festival of Diwali, reporters approach the festival with a mixture of happiness and gloom. The happiness stems from the fact that — as for everyone else — festivals are dear to reporters too. But the gloom arises from the fact that during the festival season, story generation hits rock bottom.

Recently, our colleague approached a senior government officer to get some stories in his bank for tiding over the dry festive spell. Much to his surprise, the officer said, “Please allow me some time to shop for Diwali or else my family will disown me.” Well, no stories were generated here for sure.

(Contributed by Kiran Dahitule, Rajesh Rao and Partha Sarathi Biswas. Compiled by Partha Sarathi Biswas)