Arrival in Pune!

Friday, Jan 6: On Wednesday (4th), I had a short “orientation” session with a Fulbright staffer at my Mumbai hotel, and then a driver took me about 3 hours to the city of Pune (pronounced “Poo-nay”) where I will be living and working for these next 4 months. I already love being in Pune. It is a modern, “young” city with many universities, much like Boston. Pune is sometimes referred to as “Boston of the East” and the populations of the two cities are almost identical. Pune is also ranked as the second safest city in India. (That should please my mom… 🙂 ) It was later in the day by the time I reached the hotel, so, instead of trying to get my bearings on the busy streets, I decided to stay put and splurge on a massage at the hotel spa! Me — splurging on a luxury for myself! Ah, but a massage here costs less than HALF what it does in the US, so it was a mini-splurge.

View on road to Pune

Yesterday (Thursday), I set about to find a SIM card for my iphone. Remember the adage I shared previously about never trusting a “best deal”? Well, here’s another one true to India: Sometimes people are “helpful” in the not-helpful way of telling you SOMETHING instead of admitting they don’t know. I was told I needed additional passport photos to get the SIM. Me to various strangers on the street: “Where can I get a passport photo taken?” Various answers: “Oh there are many along this major road — every block has a photo shop.” “Straight, straight, at the signal, on the left.” “Go back and turn and then go straight and it is near the shoe shop.” “Just here (*points vaguely*) and down this alley.”

After at least an hour of walking up and down and back up again and back down again the main streets, and trying my very best not to lose my sense of direction, I entered a tiny shop. Me: “Do you do passport photos?” Man, with the classic Indian head bob that can mean anything at all: “Yes, yes. We do. 5 minutes only.” Man1 takes out his own cell phone, can’t seem to get into an app for the photo. Random Man2 walks in. Man1 asks Man2 to take a photo of me with his phone. Another 10 minutes pass while they do other business, and Man2 finally agrees. He snaps a full-length shot. Me: “No, this is not a passport photo. I need head only.” Man2 nods: “Yes, he can fix.” Another 10 minutes pass while they continue their other business. Man2 emails my picture to Man1 and leaves, Man1 opens my photo and crops it to a weird 2 by 4 inch image of waist up. Me: “This is not a passport photo. I don’t think you do passport photos here.” Man1: “No, not here. We do not do that.”

If I could only express how entirely “Indian” this exchange is. It does no good to get frustrated, even when literally more than an hour has now passed, and I’m no closer to getting a SIM card. I decided to skip the photos and find a SIM card store. SAME procedure as finding a photo shop, only harder, and longer treks to each wrong spot. “Yes, there is a vodofone store, just there!” “Yes, airtel has many stores along here.” “Go to the college gate and then the small temple and beyond that is a store.” And so on. I followed every direction… But another funny quirk of Indian direction-giving is the incredible vagueness: “Just there” (where??), “down on the left” (how far down??), “stay straight” (on this street, or that side one? Or the one across the way?) — with a floaty non-committal wave of the hand.

3 hours after initially heading out for the day, I located an airtel store, where I waited another half hour to be attended to. The man was very nice and said I didn’t need a passport photo after all, as long as I had my passport with me. But, you guessed it, the process was endless. I had to text two contact-people I had, and the man called them. (AirtelMan: “Call them with your phone.” Me: “I can’t. I need an Indian SIM card to call them to set up this SIM card.”) Eventually both of my contacts (Fulbright-related) came through for me, and one, named Triveni, allowed me to use her home address on the forms. The first attempt to set up the number was denied, so we went ’round about the same process again. Eventually, the man said it was fine. Phew. All was well… until today… when I got a message that Airtel had done a surprise visit at my contact’s home and no one was there, so they stopped my SIM card!! … … … (… Back to the Airtel store, find the same man as yesterday, wait a while for him to fix the issue, and… success!!!)

India teaches you patience. (Which I admit to being somewhat short of in the best of circumstances.)

The good news is that the experience gave me loads of opportunity to explore the little shops along the busy university street, near where I will teach. Clothes, jewelry, books, food, you name it — all for pennies on the dollar. Another “mini-splurge” for myself — a pair of earrings that cost less than a dollar! I also ate a late lunch at a little place serving “thali” — a collection of dishes on one tray — and a lassi, for about 2 dollars total. The weather was a humid 80-something. Manageable, but sweaty.

(*The following photos give you the flavor of Indian streets. You can click on each one to view it bigger, which I encourage you to do, to be able to see more details.)

statue in the center of busy street

Near the college I’ll be teaching at — lots of little shops

new earrings – $1

Love the name of these stores

I first read this one as “Mother Guilt”! Ha.

the little shop where I got the thali

This is a thali! $2

airtel store – long waits, busy men (all men)

the gate of the college I’ll be at

The friend (Triveni) who had helped me through the ordeal of the SIM card met me at my hotel, and she asked if I wanted to find a place for coffee or tea. I asked, “Would it be terrible of me to prefer to go somewhere for a beer?” Triveni happily agreed and we went to a place called “Hippie at Heart” where we had appetizers and dinner, with her husband eventually joining us. (You can always click on photos if you want to see them bigger.)

Here are a few more street scenes: Me in a rickshaw (common transport when I am not walking); note the monkey god Hanuman hanging in the window in photo 2; school bus packed with kids; and common sights of small roadside shrines.

Today I met with some of the college faculty at Fergusson College, then went to check out an airbnb listing as a possible place to live (I’m still looking at several options), then met up with a longtime friend Minal who helped us years ago with Malvika’s adoption. I’ve been eating so much food, I skipped a big dinner and had a mushroom-curry-pita left over from last night, plus a fresh guava from Minal (that I forgot to get a picture of.) In case you doubt my food consumption, take a look at these photos of my BREAKFAST this morning!! A full buffet of all sorts of foods, savory and sweet, plus a specially-made masala dosa!