Citygritty — Pune

Neighbourhood watch
While planning the decor of your home, along with the furniture and lighting, you should now make arrangements for concealed (but handy) placement of chili powder, as many sticks (wooden or otherwise) as there are adult members in the family, big locks (never mind if they are rusty) and old leather balls too!

Sounds funny all right, but they ought to be taken seriously too, as entreats the Maharashtra Police and Rotary Club of Pune South in their 10-point programme on security and self-defence. The other details for safe living in apartments include provision of alarm bells, safety doors, entry permits for vendors. It also advocates the establishment of a group of 10 young boys who should take up the responsibility of protecting the society, and whom the police department officials should recognise as `police friends.’ Imparting training in self-defence is yet another suggestion.

Enlisted in a pamphlet issued by the two bodies, the programme also urges citizens to keep a watch on their neighbours’ homes (not peek into them!), so that any suspicious-looking people lurking around can be reported immediately. Aapla Shejari Khara Paharekari (your neighbour is your true guardian) is the motto they urge Puneites to follow. The leaflet also lists important telephone numbers of the police, and, of course, takes the opportunity to include some image-building quotes on the force. “Law-abiding citizens must feel police as the supporter,” declares Police Commissioner K.K. Kashyap. We are our own best friends also, right?!

Concert-ed efforts!
One has heard Pankaj Udhas and one has heard Anup Jalota in Pune but here’s a concert that will have the two singers coming together on a common stage for the first time. Scheduled for December 9 at the Residency Club, the event is actually a fund-raising attempt on the part of RESCUE, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing medical relief and services to accident victims, particularly on the Pune-Mumbai highway.

RESCUE aims include running a free ambulance service, providing counselling to people through a telephone helpline and adopting a village near Pune to develop it. The passes are priced from Rs. 5,000 to 300 a couple, with the evening promising to be one of the first of its kind in the city.

Taste the thunder
For video games enthusiasts, here’s some good news! Thunderbolt, a hotshot video games parlour on Nagar Road, has an offer which the cool pool types will find hard to resist. Till November 27, one can play as many games as possible for one hour, at the nominal rate of Rs 50. It has more offers coming along, such as the winter carnival and 100th day celebrations. People, make the most of these groovy offers.