It was a fantastic day. It was a peaceful day. I wandered around in a lucid, relaxed state and ate when I was hungry and followed my inclinations, which lead me across a bridge, up a hill, into a temple, into conversation, into a ramshackle neighborhood, to an open kitchen with a friendly fellow who showed me his other business down the road. I followed the twisting streets past a group of women protesting, out onto the main street and past the monolithic office blocks housing software giants, back across the river, to a restaurant, to a cinema and finally back home.
When I see a hill I get an urge to climb it. Thus it was that on the way across the bridge, after my fascination with the untended herd of swine snuffling through the muck and garbage twenty meters below was satisfied, my focus turned to the prominence on the far bank to which I forthwith proceeded. I marched through the gate and hesitated but as the guard only averted his eyes I continued on up the stone stairway toward the Hindu temple Tarkeshwar Mandir at the peak. Soon I passed a young couple, engrossed in each other, obviously unperturbed by the their proximity to the temple. I immediately encountered more couples. In fact, I only encountered couples on the temple stairs. About five of them. One greeted me as I passed and asked me where I was from. 'I can't believe you came here!' he said, indicating the temple.
At the hilltop there was a smaller gate and so I went in to a small courtyard which held the temple itself. Inside a woman sat at a desk with a metal cash box surrounded by offerings of incense, marigolds and little white sweet pellets. I stopped at the threshold and smiled. A man exiting the temple beckoned that I should come in. Seeing I was clueless he indicated that I should take a little offering package and offer it to Shiva, his wife and son. I did so and then lit some incense and placed my last flowers and sweets on top of a little stone cow. 'You must eat some sweets!' he admonished me. So I went back and picked up one of the sweets and ate it. I paid for the offering package and left the temple.
I felt no religious fervor, no moment of bliss, and my search for enlightenment will continue, yet it was incredibly riveting as it occurred and I was nowhere except right there in the temple. Nowhere.
I asked the man who had lead me through the temple how old the temple was. At least 50 years old, he told me. Being timeless apparently works both ways.
Next to the gates at the bottom of the steps there was a yard with derelict Ambassadors, the one time ubiquitous taxi cabs of India, now mostly replaced. I left the main road and entered a residential area.
It was a low income neighborhood, bursting with life, with all the necessities to purchase there on the street and a plethora of choices of small edible sensations on display, from creamy sweets to sloshing coconuts ready to uncap with a machete for your quenching pleasure.
At a crossroads I was drawn to a busy open kitchen. The fierce patriarch refused to sell me the fried potato patties on the counter, insisting I sample them warm. While I waited for them to be retrieved from the boiling oil he treated me to a coconut from a cart in front of his establishment. The potato dumplings are referred to as an 'Indian burger' because they consist of a patty in a bun. They really are incredible and not like any burger you will ever eat. The are purely Indian. I felt exhilaration as I chewed and swallowed the five green chillies that came with it.
The owner refused my money and told me gruffly I should follow him. We crossed the market and into a street, halting before a building with a sugar cane wringer out front. Inside were a few benches built into the wall and some tables. It was very simple, neat and clean. The sugar cane juice was truly the best I had tasted. The patriarch's son spoke more English and they all seemed quite happy to see me. The Karpe family was very proud to present their stores to me and I can confirm they are very good at what they do. They have specialized in simple fair done just right and they know they are offering quality.
As I followed their directions to exit the enclave on the opposite side to where I had entered it, a group of about one hundred women, carrying placards with words in Hindi and a black and white photo of a bespectacled man rounded the corner in front of me. I stepped into a kiosk to ask what it was about. The young man behind the counter told me it was about 'murder'. Murder against women in 'backward castes'. Some of the signs were written on pink paper, which reminded me of the women vigilantes, the Pink Gang, a group of Indian women who wouldn't wait for peaceful protest to bring about change.
'Who is the man on the placards?' I asked. 'He is Babasaheb. He wrote the Indian constitution.', the man behind the kiosk counter told me as the women disappeared around the corner.
He saw me looking toward a wall with plastic statues of Hindu gods, amongst them a photo of a man in orange. 'Do you know who he is?' I shook my head, no. 'He is danger man. You know Shiv Sena?' The photo was of Bal Thackery, the founder of the notorious right wing political party.
I stepped through a tall rusted metal archway at the exit of the neighborhood onto a busy street. Looming above was a huge compound sheathed in black granite. A sign above it read BMC Software. Next to it was a similar compound with a sign reading Deutsche Bank Group.
I wandered around among the rickshaw wallahs as the first men came down out of the countless bamboo scaffolding encased buildings under construction to catch the long, rickety ride home. Buses revved their engines while scores of tea sellers and the wandering vendors of cheap little items plied their wares.
Later I treated myself to Shah Rukh Khan's latest spectacle 'Happy New Year', enjoying the action, romance, music and light of pure entertainment.
Stepping out into the warm, dusty night I dreaded the coming bargaining I knew I would have to take part in in order to get a reasonable price for the ride home. The college lies beyond the toll and the Rickshaw wallahs complain they cannot get a fair on the return journey. On top of that it is past midnight. The fact that the road is much easier to drive with less traffic is not a bargaining point to my advantage. Despite my worry we quickly agree on a price.
I begin a halting chat with the driver. 'I am from caste Muslim' he informs me. 'What percentage of the population of Pune is Muslim? '60 percent', he states with no hesitation. And what percentage of the population is Hindu? I ask, politely. '40, 50 percent' he says. 'This guy has a pretty weak grasp of mathematics' I think to myself.
Then I remember with chagrin that I am paying him twice the usual fair to get home.
When I see a hill I get an urge to climb it. Thus it was that on the way across the bridge, after my fascination with the untended herd of swine snuffling through the muck and garbage twenty meters below was satisfied, my focus turned to the prominence on the far bank to which I forthwith proceeded. I marched through the gate and hesitated but as the guard only averted his eyes I continued on up the stone stairway toward the Hindu temple Tarkeshwar Mandir at the peak. Soon I passed a young couple, engrossed in each other, obviously unperturbed by the their proximity to the temple. I immediately encountered more couples. In fact, I only encountered couples on the temple stairs. About five of them. One greeted me as I passed and asked me where I was from. 'I can't believe you came here!' he said, indicating the temple.
At the hilltop there was a smaller gate and so I went in to a small courtyard which held the temple itself. Inside a woman sat at a desk with a metal cash box surrounded by offerings of incense, marigolds and little white sweet pellets. I stopped at the threshold and smiled. A man exiting the temple beckoned that I should come in. Seeing I was clueless he indicated that I should take a little offering package and offer it to Shiva, his wife and son. I did so and then lit some incense and placed my last flowers and sweets on top of a little stone cow. 'You must eat some sweets!' he admonished me. So I went back and picked up one of the sweets and ate it. I paid for the offering package and left the temple.
I felt no religious fervor, no moment of bliss, and my search for enlightenment will continue, yet it was incredibly riveting as it occurred and I was nowhere except right there in the temple. Nowhere.
I asked the man who had lead me through the temple how old the temple was. At least 50 years old, he told me. Being timeless apparently works both ways.
It was a low income neighborhood, bursting with life, with all the necessities to purchase there on the street and a plethora of choices of small edible sensations on display, from creamy sweets to sloshing coconuts ready to uncap with a machete for your quenching pleasure. At a crossroads I was drawn to a busy open kitchen. The fierce patriarch refused to sell me the fried potato patties on the counter, insisting I sample them warm. While I waited for them to be retrieved from the boiling oil he treated me to a coconut from a cart in front of his establishment. The potato dumplings are referred to as an 'Indian burger' because they consist of a patty in a bun. They really are incredible and not like any burger you will ever eat. The are purely Indian. I felt exhilaration as I chewed and swallowed the five green chillies that came with it.
The owner refused my money and told me gruffly I should follow him. We crossed the market and into a street, halting before a building with a sugar cane wringer out front. Inside were a few benches built into the wall and some tables. It was very simple, neat and clean. The sugar cane juice was truly the best I had tasted. The patriarch's son spoke more English and they all seemed quite happy to see me. The Karpe family was very proud to present their stores to me and I can confirm they are very good at what they do. They have specialized in simple fair done just right and they know they are offering quality.
As I followed their directions to exit the enclave on the opposite side to where I had entered it, a group of about one hundred women, carrying placards with words in Hindi and a black and white photo of a bespectacled man rounded the corner in front of me. I stepped into a kiosk to ask what it was about. The young man behind the counter told me it was about 'murder'. Murder against women in 'backward castes'. Some of the signs were written on pink paper, which reminded me of the women vigilantes, the Pink Gang, a group of Indian women who wouldn't wait for peaceful protest to bring about change.
'Who is the man on the placards?' I asked. 'He is Babasaheb. He wrote the Indian constitution.', the man behind the kiosk counter told me as the women disappeared around the corner.
He saw me looking toward a wall with plastic statues of Hindu gods, amongst them a photo of a man in orange. 'Do you know who he is?' I shook my head, no. 'He is danger man. You know Shiv Sena?' The photo was of Bal Thackery, the founder of the notorious right wing political party.
I stepped through a tall rusted metal archway at the exit of the neighborhood onto a busy street. Looming above was a huge compound sheathed in black granite. A sign above it read BMC Software. Next to it was a similar compound with a sign reading Deutsche Bank Group.
I wandered around among the rickshaw wallahs as the first men came down out of the countless bamboo scaffolding encased buildings under construction to catch the long, rickety ride home. Buses revved their engines while scores of tea sellers and the wandering vendors of cheap little items plied their wares.
Later I treated myself to Shah Rukh Khan's latest spectacle 'Happy New Year', enjoying the action, romance, music and light of pure entertainment.
Stepping out into the warm, dusty night I dreaded the coming bargaining I knew I would have to take part in in order to get a reasonable price for the ride home. The college lies beyond the toll and the Rickshaw wallahs complain they cannot get a fair on the return journey. On top of that it is past midnight. The fact that the road is much easier to drive with less traffic is not a bargaining point to my advantage. Despite my worry we quickly agree on a price.
I begin a halting chat with the driver. 'I am from caste Muslim' he informs me. 'What percentage of the population of Pune is Muslim? '60 percent', he states with no hesitation. And what percentage of the population is Hindu? I ask, politely. '40, 50 percent' he says. 'This guy has a pretty weak grasp of mathematics' I think to myself.
Then I remember with chagrin that I am paying him twice the usual fair to get home.
1 comments on "Saturday in Pune"
Thanks for taking us with you on your wonderful weekend jaunt! I sense your curiosity and delight is reciprocated throughout your travels in this part of India, at any rate. Great story-telling!
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