No Smoking - Prohibited !

That was an actual sign!

You will think I am making it up

So, here is the proof

This was in Goa, India – cca 2009

In all probability, it is still there.

Looking at this photograph from the archives triggered a recollection of countless signs, I had seen in India.

Oh, they are endless and incredulous. More so, when you have spent a good amount of time in Pune.

That city has class, no one can come close to that attitude.

You need to just pass by the old Peths, Somvarpeth to Ravivarpeth (literally Monday-locality to Sunday-locality) and of course you need to have a keen eye.

The few that I can recollect are listed here and am requesting my friends to add more that they may recall in the comments section.

·       Press the calling bell just once – I pay the electricity bill, not your father! (near the entrance of a typical Pune uncle’s home – imagine calculating the power that is consumed by pressing the bell more than once! Amazing)

·       There will be no air in your wheels if you park here! (No parking is stale and there is no imagination. Of course, a mere No Parking will not do. As if Indian people follow signs and instructions – the consequences and repercussions must be spelled out)

o   I always imagined this Pune man/woman keeping a watch from a vantage point with a small metal pin in their hand, ready to deflate the tubes and leave your vehicle “with no air”

·       Only 500 grams per customer – Capitalism – go take a break, customer – chill, this is Pune. This actually is a sign in one of the shops, selling the famous Bhakarwadis, a Pune specialty (inedible and atrocious in my personal opinion, but if I voice it in the neighborhood of Laxmi Road, I am likely to be lynched) – there is a loophole here that you can exploit. You can stand in the queue and buy again and again till you reach the total quantity you desire, only that you get only 0.5 kg at a time.

·       We have no branches – Prominently displayed at Kayani bakery and numerous other establishments. Who said business means expanding? In Pune it is exclusive.  Only Kayani Bakery. They open at 7 in the morning, close at 12. Open again at 4 in the evening and close at 8 pm. All this Ooh Ah about shorter working hours being introduced in these Scandinavian countries mean nothing to a Puneri. (Also knowing that their bread sells like hotcakes, they still make only a standard quantity each day and the cashier gets a sadistic pleasure in putting the sign “pav sampla” (Bread is sold out) by 7.45. They will go and take the trouble of making that display board, but not make extra bread)

·       I sell my products; I am not here to give you directions – a display at a shop close to the train station. (Surely, he must have lost his patience when an endless number of “customers” walked in to ask, “how do you go to Ruby/Jehangir hospital?”)

·       Beware of dogs and ghosts – an actual sign on the main gate near the cantonment area where I was living. The building looked scary enough to host ghosts, though I was not sure of dogs. (I saw neither, ever)

·       Don’t comb your hair here – near the washbasin in a restaurant, with a mirror (I always wondered if the mirror was the trigger for people to readjust their hair, the owner could have just removed the mirror)

·       Year-long sale for the next three days – Go figure this! (No, it wasn’t on 29^th December)

·       Genuine artificial leather products sold here - !!!!!!!!!!!

·       The owner of the restaurant eats here (this one is from Bombay) – Never understood this one either – is the owner saying that his wife is a bad cook or implying he is doing cost-cutting or simply that he has no option – whatever, this can hardly be the sign to prompt customers to flock there)

·       As far as shop signs go, this one ranks as the most arresting to me. Opening hours of a cake shop, on Main Street – 10 to 1 , 4 to 7, Thursday Closed, Sunday Half Day, to this date I do not know, if it was closed in the morning or evening on Sunday, for I have always seen only the shutters down on that particular shop. 

      Life goals – Buy one cake from that shop!