When I first landed at Baroda in 1995 I decided to go to my cousin sister's place from the railway station. Being from Mumbai I thought lets use public transport. I went to the bus stand and started asking people which bus could take me to my cousin's place, I started by asking the name of a road, a certain landmark etc. nobody seemed to know which bus would take me there then one bright person asked "which society does your sister stay?" I said "Samta" and he immediately pointed to a bus and told me to hurry and catch it as it would take me to my destination. I was impressed my cousin was staying in a society famous in Baroda. I later realised that all address were based on societies either your society will be in front of or behind and sometimes near some "famous" society.
I stayed at a trainees hostel for some time, it had a caretaker Navin bhai. My friend Dr. Kannan joined the same day as I did in a company in Baroda. A trainee took Kannan to Navinbhai and introduced him saying he is Dr. Kanan a very important person in the company and that he would be staying there for some time, the first response of Navinbhai was "My tooth is aching!". He was disappointed when told that Kanan was a Phd. doctor and not a doctor of medicine!
I would discuss with my friend as to who is most comfortable in Baroda. After much discussion we came to the conclusion that its not a rich man but being a cow. Cows have their meetings regularly at several points in the city. After it rains l invariably all cows are found in the middle of the road as that is the first to dry up. Knowing they can have their way they will happily continue their meetings or inspect cars as they go past. I would wonder what do they discuss in the several meetings. Almost all houses would have a place outside where they would keep some food for a cow to come and eat. I would guess the discussions would be something like this:
Cow1: Hey do you know their was a feast at the Patel's they had mixed every dish they had prepared it was really Yummy
Cow2: You are really lucky my Massi (aunty) is fasting so get all the boring stuff. I think the Gulab Jamuns eaten during fasting are not served to us. I want to protest.
When I first went to Baroda I tried o find out what are the differences between Mumbai and Baroda. There were several. I and my friend used to commute by bus to office and back. The bus would stop properly and we could get into the bus comfortably. I realized that to get into the bus you don't have to be an acrobat like Mumbai but to stand in the bus you had to be one. The bus would rumble along the road shaking, there was hardly anything to hold on to so balancing was the only way. I used to struggle to stand but found that the conductor would not only stand properly without support but would accept money and hand over tickets to passengers I admired him very much and wished some gymnastics coach should have traveled in the bus, he would have spotted a talent for the Olympics!
Malaria was quite common in Baroda. When I first got it and told my friend I got it thinking I would get some sympathy he told me it was good that I got Malaria. Surprised I asked why he felt like that, he told me that doctors here are expert at treating malaria and any other disease would have taken time to diagnose and cure!
Baroda is a great city I thoroughly miss it.
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