Pune signboards (Puneri Patya)
The world abounds with wierd, funny and hilarious signboards and these ones are from Pune. They are a collection of boards (Patya) from the Puneri Patya site and reproduced here with the kind permission of the owner of the site. He has a huge collection and I am showing just a few here. Those who understand Marathi need no further explanation but wherever necessary I have translated.
This first one is a sign outside a restaurant. The Marathi line above the English one actually says that this is where you get food prepared by the Maharashtrian method, and it sounds perfect in Marathi…
Misal is a popular Maharashtrian snack. The sign below says that two people cannot eat one Misal, and if they do then they will be charged Rs 10/- extra! I have heard of more than one person being prevented from eating an unlimited buffet meal or a thali, but never heard of any restaurant which stop its patrons from sharing one dish!
Shortage of change has driven many of us up the wall and we see signs demanding change everywhere! From local buses to ticket counters to toll booths. Hotels are generally kinder. Not this one though!
The next photograph, of a pot holed Pune road was first published in a Marathi newspaper. We are all used to bad roads but Pune residents could not take it and expressed their anger by putting up a sign saying that this is the site of a 100 m motorcross race organised by the Pune municipal corporation!
The next sign is to designate different queues. This board says: 2T Mix Petrol. Rickshaws and Ladies!
This is a weird one. Outside a public toilet, below the sign that says “restroom” there is a line in red which says “place to burst firecrackers.” I am still figuring this one out!
No Parking signs often come with their own brand of humor, such as this one! The sign says: Parking is available on the left side through the lane in the front of the side of the building. No way I am going to try finding that parking spot!
And this one says: I am a donkey. I have parked in front of the gate. No Parking.
Related viewing: Funny signs
Amul hoardings
Sweet Salted Translations
A funny battered car
Bal Thackeray’s election campaign ads
Freaky electronic scenes
A wide angle view of India 
ha ha very funny ..
i recently came accross a mail which had similar (funny) signboards from china.
Chinglish as it was called.
You make me miss India. Thanks for the fond memories.
Funny Signboards !!
Nice collection, Nita !!
The firecrackers are very perplexing!
‘Bhavya 100 meter motocross spardha’ made me laugh. I guess to cope with such inefficiencies, people have to keep a sense of humour about them.
@Shefaly:
Since you do read Marathi, you must visit their website at http://www.busybeescorp.com/puneripatya/ .
What Nita has captured is a mere minimicrocosm of the treasures to be found there. Many of them are untranslatable, and quite a few would be incomprehensible to someone knowing Marathi but unfamiliar with the legendary Puneri idiosyncrasies.
One, which I hope somebody will add to the website, is a collage of two signs installed at a small but neat park I saw last month during a visit to Pune. It is named in honour of Sachin Tendulkar.
The first sign, prominently placed at the entrance, proclaims the name. The second, placed just inside, reads: yethe cricket khelnyaas manaaii aahe (playing cricket here is forbidden). I did not have a camera handy to document this.
Vivek
Thanks. Checked it and went straight to ‘shauchaalyaat paanyacha vaapar karne’. Brilliant! I can’t stop laughing.
Your Sachin Tendulkar marg and the prohibition on cricket – quelle ironie!
I found another gem: ‘Toilet fakat gents karita aahe’. I presume Punekar women are angels! No need for them to use the loos. OMG! Nita, what a treasure you have unearthed.
“Rickshaw and Ladies”…can’t figure what was the intent. Was the sign meant to say “No rickshaw and ladies allowed in there?” Or “Rickshaws and ladies available here?!!” 😛
I was a printing mistake from Diesel to Ladies(in Marathi)
Very funny!!! Nice collection…
There was a tailor shop in my city which had a name board that read : ‘God makes man; taylor makes him Gentleman’ – Inspiration???
Destination Infinity
lol 😛
wow, what a collection, Nita!
😉
Could fire-crackers refer to the sounds of passing wind? 🙂
If this is so then full marks to the sense of humour of the writer! 🙂 – Nita.
These used to be very popular as email forwards, until puneripatya.com came along…they’re just too good.
The real fun lies in spotting these while living your daily life in Pune – it provides a spark of humor that makes your day!
After just returning from the US, I spotted one at Deccan Gymkhana: “Parking prohibited for visitors. If visitors park vehicles here, their tyres will be punctured.” This actually caught on and began appearing at multiple places in Pune! 🙂
would anyone here know where i can get original lunch of maharashtrian method at pune? am going there soon.
Vasudev bua. Punyaat Tilak roadwar Durvankur dining hall ahe. Thithe Milel.
mr. vasudev, punyaamadhe kuthehi original mahaaraashtriya jevan milat naahi .kaahi lok kaahi hotelaanchi naave ghetaat pan te kaahi khare naahi .punyaatil bhojanbhaaunaa jevanaachi chav maahiti naahi. kaahi lokanaa aapan je jevato aahot te maraashtriyan jevan aahe ki rajastaani ki gujaraati he suddhaa kalat naahi.nusate haanat asataat .kaahi prakhyaat naave ghetali jaataat , pan tethil dekhaavaa haa anna chatra chaalu asalyaachaa bhaas hoto.[kunaalaa raag yenyaachi garaj naahi jevavaamadhe sudhaaranaa honyaachi garaj aahe] tar mr. vaasudev maharaashtriya paddhatiche jevan paahije asalyaas ghari banavaa aani jevaa.
would anyone here know where i could get original lunch of maharashtrian method at pune? am going there soon.
Go to Hotel Shreyas. You will get the most mind blowing veg thali you would have ever had.
निता, खुपच् छान. पुणेरी पाट्या कधीही, कितीही वेळा वाचल्या तरी प्रत्येक वेळेला तेवढीच माजा येते, नाहीका? 🙂
Very interesting signs indeed. 😀
typically indian ishtyle 😛
well i have come across such cheap signs which says ” look the donkey is peeing ” ….now if you want to prevent somebody from peeing…..than write “no peeing” ……..why insult the donkey 😆
….well i guess there are certain “weird” things which you find only in india 😛
“Begbaan maharaj Haadu Chalwa” is one which I know.
Excellent collection! I remember few from collage days while i use to stay in Sadashiv Peth (Where most of this weird stuff has its root! :). I dont have photos, but i’ll still share same:
1. In front of a Hardware & electrical shop :
“Ithe Doodh milat nahi” (We don’t sale Milk here!)
2. In front of STD/ISD and general store shop:
“Patta Vicharoo naye. Apman zalyas amhi jababdar nahi.” (Don’t ask for other peoples’ addresses; we are not responsible if you are insulted after asking the same)
3. On the ground floor of an apartment building , next to stairs:
“3 Payarya n chya jinya ne 21 payarya chadhalyvar Mr. Barve Bhettil. Ugach aajo bajoo la chukashi karu naye” (After climbing 21 stairs from a staircase consisting of 3 stairs, you’ll meet Mr. Barve. Dont enquire anywhere else unnecessarily)
4. In an Amrut bhavan (Chai shop):
“Ithalya porya na neet pagar dila jato. Ugach tip devu naye” (We pay appropriately to our waiters . Don’t give them tip unnecessarily)
And there are so many others in each chai shop, missal /snacks shops ! I shd have had photos of them!
Always enjoy your photo posts 🙂
The fire crackers sign could be to designate a spot for lighting firecrackers to prevent fire etc during Diwali and then it stayed??
When we were traveling from Agra to Jaipur we stopped here for something to eat. The food was ok, and the sign made us enjoy the stop even more.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pswansen/2201576533/in/set-72157603688926438/
ROLF
@ Nita : OMG the road! I have seen some bad one’s but never something so terrible! Lovely signs and I usually thought such signs are to be found only in English but it seems I was wrong 🙂
ROFL!! Can never get enough of Puneri Patya! Another one that I’ll never get tired of – a sign under the door bell: “Ikde Joshi rahtat. Ugach bell vajvu naye.”
What’s with the fataake vajavnyachi jaaga one?!
Had a much needed laugh, thanks!
g
Gauri, that was a good one! 😀 And as for the phatake thing, I wonder what will happen if phatake are actually burst there! No way to reach the restroom! – Nita.
Ha Ha. Too good!! This is quite a collection. Kudos!!
Keep Blogging!!
Hey all, glad you enjoyed these patyas. Some of you are already familiar with them I think! Thanks for leaving your comment of appreciation!
Shefaly, yeah that was a good way to vent their rage! 🙂
IHM, yeah I think so too but near a restroom? 🙂
Rashmi, thanks for those delightful patyas!
Paul, boards with wrong English are extremely common here, but at times it goes beyond that.
😀 😆 😀
Very funny!
Marathi is not very different from Hindi, I could understand most of it, I wonder what this Marathi-Hindi ruckus is all about?
The spellings are a little different.
Deepak is written as Dipak. Rajeev is written as Rajiv. Doodh is written as Dudh.
The script is the same.
Milind, originally it wasn’t. Marathi had a different script.
Prerna, I think the languages are very different because I can speak fairly okay Marathi but very poor Hindi. Sure they share a lot of common words, but I think in that case there is a similarity between Gujarati and Marathi too. Overall people who speak good Marathi do not automatically understand Hindi, or for that matter Gujarati. The difference is far more than in Hindi and Urdu.
Also dont forget the importance of context here, knowing the context definitely eases the understanding of a different language as long as the script is the same. I am often able to understand newspaper headlines and signboards in Spanish because of those reasons.
As a person of North-Central Indian ancestry growing up in Mumbai, I can tell you that Marathi is very different from Hindi. 🙂
Yep! I agree Vikram. Marathi and Hindi are very very different, whether speaking, listening or writing. It was only after independence that the script of marathi was changed to devanagiri in any case.
@ Nita:
“It was only after independence that the script of marathi was changed to devanagiri in any case.”
NOT TRUE !!!
The writing of Marathi in an old form of Devanagari, derived from Brahmi and Nandinagari, goes back to the well before the 12th c. It was later used used parallelly with the Modi script, which evolved during the Yadava period (ca. 1000-1400 AD), but the earliest documents available in Modi today date only from 1597. Half a century later, from Shivaji’s rule, until the beginning of Peshwa rule (ca. 1713), the scripts in common use for writing in Marathi were Modi and Persian.
From the beginning of Peshwa rule Modi became prominent and Devanagari lost some ground. During the half-century from the fall of the Peshwas to the mid-19th c. when the EIC was compelled to yield its power to the Crown, Marathi printing had already begun in Devanagari (1815), while Modi, briefly used in printing during the early EIC years, continued as a hand-written script. It died a natural death in the late 195os, though it is now enjoying an revival as a calligraphic art.
Postscript: Until I lost them sometime in the 1980s, I had a bunch of old postcards dating from roughly 1920 to 1960, written and addressed in Modi and delivered to their correct addresses in Pune and Wai. This means that, at least until 1960, postmen were equally capable of reading Devanagari and Modi.
You are the expert in this so I bow to your better knowledge! – Nita.
@ Vivek, I think students in Maharashtra need to learn both the Modi and Devanagri script. Also the way Marathi is taught needs to be revised. Much more focus needs to be put on Marathi literature and cinema.
It is ironic that even though all the four Southern states are smaller than Maharashtra, they have much better developed cinema.
Vikram,
I think the most basic need in Maharashtra is for people to take pride in their own language and culture. The rest will automatically follow. Our role models in cultural pride should be the Bengalis, the Japanese and the French. Or even relatively insignificant nations such as the Catalans, the Basques and the Celts.
Vivek, I agree. At this rate, the language will die in another 50 years. If you read Pune based newspaper Sakal, you’ll see the decaying state of the language. When I visited Mumbai last year, I was shocked to see grammatically incorrect announcements on local trains.
Unfortunately adopting imposition strategy is not going to help, who cares about shop signs when (in all likelihood) the perpetrators themselves don’t care about Marathi literature and art…
If you see the way Marathi is taught in schools or read some of the text books….they are dull, insipid and uninspiring.
Sure way to kill interest in the language and treat it as a “pass somehow” and opt for French in the 10th / 12th standard.
Again this switch is not for the love of the language. It is because one can score better marks.
Time we revamped the way in which learning the language can be made interesting, fun to learn and encourage research and its development.
hey…
nice blog!!!!!!!!!!
regards
allcrap
2T Mix petrol is awesome 🙂 Hinglish every other morph of english language make stuff really worth a smile.
those are lovely !
thanks for sharing… !
@ Nita : I think i have figured out what the Rickshaw and the Ladies signboard finally meant. I think they imply that the No 2. Que at the pump is for the use of Ladies and Auto Rickshaws 🙂
Odzer, there is something called 2T Mix Petrol. See Chirag’s comment. 🙂 – Nita
Very funny.If one was to drive to Punjab from Delhi,one would come across similar hoardings/banners.In fact it is a sourse of entertainment.
Hahahahahaha…………………….
That was sheer native genius.
Re: phatake….I think Amit got it bang on…some sense of humour I must say.
I guess each city has some such quirks. I read this on a bus stop at Greenwich – London. It said “Buses must not stand”. Will try and send you that snap.
saw this in the morn and laughed 😀 though couldnt understand quite a few but your collection sure is funny 😀
Vasudev/Amit,
Oops! Missed that! Sorry. Thanks for pointing it out. Of course it is now entirely up to Nita to “do the needful”, if she would.
I liked the 2 cold coffee sign because of it’s ingenuity – make sure you have the exact change ready or else:)
Very Funny,
I love the one with Durga Cold coffee..
🙂
Nita
I am amazed that many Marathi internet users did not know about this site 😀 😀
I have also contributed two “patya” to this site.
Motocross wali pati saglyat best aahe.
Just a note: http://puneripatya.com redirects to same site 🙂
Hilarious! I have seen some of these for real but seeing them again just cracked me up like never before…
Btw the last one’s just too funny! 🙂
lolz..I always thought you were one of those hard talking,very serious bloggers..but I guess I was wrong..you have a sense of humour 😛
Hehehehe!! Absolutely brilliant! 😀
I thought the firecracker one was the best! 😀
hilarious post nita 🙂
Very funny, Best is the 100 metre motocross!
Pune is famous for being a ‘notice board’ place.. loved these signs, reminded me of my time in Pune.. Sadashiv peth was full of funny and curt warning signs..
2T mix petrol is petrol premixed with oil which is required for 2 stroke vehicles. So the line is for Autos most of which are 2 stroke and for women (ladies).
Misal in Pune is many times accompanied by a bottom less curry wati, which is called Sample to denote that it is free. So the extra charge for two eating from one order.
Funny ones…:-) Do keep posting more. By the way, what does ‘2T mix Petrol’ mean?
Nita I saw your blog being shown on NDTV ‘The buck stops here’ program. It was quick and I saw it when I was flipping channels.
Thanks for sharing these humorous signposts. Being an Indian, I enjoyed it a lot.
I loved the one with the card-board talking of a motocross race. This must be at least one or two years old. Punyatle raste sudharle ata. I mean maybe because it is just summers. But much better now.
The “bursting of crackers” actually means farting 🙂
By “bursting crackers” the painter means farting.. dats wat makes bursting sound in loos 🙂
Your blog is source of entertainment, nice job, please keep it up and post like this more………..
Marathi is the bestest , Marathi rocks !!! Thanks nita!!!
Laiiii Bhaaaarii
The one i had read on a dusty car windshield (probably by the owners’ neighbours) on Apte road…”Chaplyanwarahi Bhaandtat”
polite answers i like it
Zakkas!!!!
Marathin Manoos rocks.
I HEARED ABOUT PUNERI PATYA & TODAY I LOOK & READ AND REALY I CAN’T CONTROL MY LAUGH IN THE COLLEGE NETLAB
Hhey…………superb collection………..
really v r proud of PUNEKARs………….
keep it up………………………………………..
very fuuny hahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahah
nice……………………………………………………..
very nice collection of punery patya welldone
khupach chan…..
amazing!!!! 🙂
Wow what a grate collection it is …i like it..go punekar go
Nice Pattya
Another signboard heard of – Dara samor vahane ubhe karu naaye, eka minta sathi pan naahi, ajibat naahi
jagprasidh ahet saglya, jara mothya lavavyat.
yaar kiti chhan pattha lihitat tumhi