Wed. June 20th 2012 “Settling down in Pune”

I left Vietnam on Sunday the 17th at 5 pm and my relatives, two cousins, an uncle and my aunt accompanied me to the airport. I felt sad leaving them but I also felt relieved that I was going back to India to study Sanskrit. I haven’t studied Sanskrit for close to three weeks now and I am somewhat dying to devote a lot of my time to it. I think that it is also a good thing that my friendship with Neel came to an end because that leaves me a lot of freedom. I don’t have to confine myself to Neel’s schedule and I don’t have to travel with him down to south India, that would have taken way too much time out of Sanskrit and it would have been another diversion. So in many ways, I am thankful that I have cleared my priorities.

last day and pic w/ mom

the statue of Thich Quang Duc whose self-immolation in 1963 in the intersection of Saigon brought world-wide attention to the persecution of Buddhists during the Diem's regime.

one of my uncle. I think he is the third brother.

 This second time around in India, I’m having a lot of mixed feelings about the country. Clearly the honey-moon phase that I was in a year ago is over. There are things about it that I absolutely hate, and it is only my love for Sanskrit that stops me from buying an early flight home. The first three weeks of my vacation was emotionally draining. Neel was really the only reason why I wanted to come back to Pune. He, however, has proven to be unreliable and in Vietnam, I learned a lot about myself that was also hard to take in. But I definitely want to come back next year to Vietnam to see my relatives, hang out with my mom, and enjoy the incredible food in my hometown. I would say that the food alone is a good enough reason to go to the country. 

Personally, I did not want to live in Pune because of my experience last year. Pune is a pretty over-crowded city of five million plus people and like all cities in India, it is dirty, overcrowded, and noisy. I wanted more peace and quiet and I had Bodhgaya in mind. But the problem with Bodhgaya is that the heat would surely kill me; the average temperature is about 35C. Yesterday when I was in an auto-rickshaw to go to Vinaya’s house I felt really sad having to live with so much noise. Really anyone who ever thinks about wanting to travel in India, you need an IPOD, there’s no question about it.

I share a flat with 4 guys: all of them work in the IT industry with the exception of our cook who lives with us and is from Bihar, a really poor and corrupted state in India (although my roommates tell me that it’s getting a lot better in the last five years because of the current state prime minister). All of my roommates
have to commute one hour just to get to there office. A bus actually picks them up and drops them at the office but personally I don’t care much for the commute that they have to take everyday. All of them work at pretty strange hours too. Abhik and Rahul don’t need to leave until noon, and Abhik gets back after 11 pm. Sunil is the only one who works and comes back at a reasonable hour--around 7 or 8. Even Kranti Toradmal, Jyoti’s daughter, don’t go to work until 2 pm and don’t get back until 1 am.

our 18 year old cook from Bihar. Like all low-caste he works like hell. Here he just got up from his afternoon nap. HAHA

The apartment is slowly becoming a little more livable. When I came in on Monday morning, it was filthy beyond belief--it’s actually always like that when Vikas lived here so you can see how happy I was to find out that he was in London for work. The next time I come to India, most of these guys will be married and I will definitely have to move on. Jyoti insisted that I take an apartment somewhere close to her family, but I declined because I wanted to live with my roommates. But what that means is that my commute is really a bitch. I live 10 km from Vinaya and from her house to Jyoti is another 5 km. From Jyoti’s place to my place is 12 km. So what that means is that I will be spending about $300/month on autorickshaw alone, which is fine. The family was shocked to know how much my commute is but really there is no way around it. Personally, I think it’s fine, it’s not like I am spending a ton of money traveling. Despite my commute, I still think that I am in my budget of about $2000 for the entire two months that I have left in India.

I feel much better now that I have figured out my schedule and what I want to do when I’m here. There are friends here and Jyoti’s family that I can rely on. Vinaya has proven to be an incredible instructor and I still need to help her get a computer and get her skype so that I can have classes with her when I come back to the US. Things are beginning to look better. I’m having so much fun studying Meghadoot with my teacher and knowing that I am paying a fraction of the cost to receive an education that any American-Sanskrit scholars would envy.

I usually get up at about 6:30, review the Sanskrit materials from yesterday at about 7:30 which takes about an hour and a half, watch Bollywood music for two hours while I follow up on the news and then prepare to go to Vinaya at about 11. Since dehydration is always an issue here in India, I really try to keep myself cool by wetting my head scarf and making sure that I drink at least one coconut a day. All of this goes a long way in keeping me healthy, but even then the heat, noise, over-crowdedness, pollution can really get to me. When class with Vinaya is over at 1, I now have the option of either going to Jyoti’s for lunch or buying lunch at a restaurant...lately however I have been going there because I really like her family’s company. This Saturday her daughters are planning to show me around Pune...definitely looking forward to that. I usually want another class with Vinaya in the evening around 5:30-6 pm. So that means I have about 2 hours to study Sanskrit at Tilak Maharashtra University. I think I come home about 7:30, have dinner, relax, and then go to bed about 11 only to repeat the schedule again. Even though I am not really going anywhere and seeing anything new, the freedom that I have here right now is priceless. The freedom to study and enjoy life! 

I drink a coconut from this man everyday before I go to Vinaya.

mangoes are one of the redeeming qualities of India. I'm going to try and eat at least 4 a day before the season is over. I bought all these mangoes for $2.50. They are very tasty and much better than any of the mangoes in America.