You were ravishing, inviting, invigorating, With expanses lush, verdant hills exhilarating. What has happened to you, damsel once pretty? Now I lament your loss, my beloved city. Hitherto courted by academics and scholars, Your august soul is being swapped for dollars! Your pride is tweaked, your image riven, Drug peddlers and felons make you their haven. Marauders swoop in with rapacity endless They foray, denude, despoil your loveliness; Disfigure you, deface your native landscapes No hill, no green acre their hungry eyes escapes Supplanting idyllic heights with hideous ugliness, Urban development they call it. The brazenness! Pride of the Deccan, erstwhile Queen supreme Pained hearts through anguished eyes stream; Ravaged, mutilated, depraved... my dream city Ensnared you are, between vice and perversity 'Metropolis', 'mega-city', your decadence justify, Unfortunate Pune, you have been nailed with a lie.
