It’s been just a little over a week that I have arrived in Pune and surprisingly it took me around five days to really get over my “jet lag.” I’m still getting up a little too early more than I would like to even though I usually go to bed by 10. Since I don’t have any pressing traveling plans this time around in Pune, I feel very free.
Vinaya with the help of some her of friends found me a very nice apartment which is about 10 minute walk from her place to mine. It is a lot quieter than her place. The apartment for three months rent cost me 33,000 rupees which is close to $600. And because India is truly a dusty country (I don’t know why), every morning when I get up around 6, I spend a good half-hour to an hour doing my laundry, sweeping, and mopping my place with an old dhoti that I have. It’s a good routine and I’ve been doing for a week now. Afterwards, I would have two alfonso mangoes and two bananas before I leave my place for Vinaya’s with my stuff, drop it off at her place, and go off for a swim at an Olympic size pool from 8:30am-10:30am. The pool is actually freaking awesome--outdoor, clean, and dirt cheap. I only pay 850 rupees for a monthly membership which is ~$15. The pool is actually quite clean now that I think about it even though at first I thought it was dirty, the visibility under water, however, is no more than five feet--not sure why that is so. My only pet peeve about swimming there is that from 8:30-9am it can get somewhat crowded and with no lane regulation, hitting people while swimming is a pretty common occurrence. But it really dies down from 9am-10:30 when kids go off to school and other people go off to work and so I have pretty much most of the pool all to myself. Time to learn how to do the butterfly stroke and be good at it during this two months that I will be swimming there.
After my swim, I head home to take a shower, eat another mango or so, and then head to Vinaya’s place again for a simple home-made but delicious lunch that she prepared in the morning before she go off on her morning walk. We generally have lunch at around 12:45. And since I was still too tired to do anything the first five days in Pune I rested after lunch. Vinaya also helped me sign up for a yoga class that is close to where she lives and I started a class on Friday evening from 7:15-8pm. The class will be Monday thru Friday in the evening. She also found me a philosophy teacher who I will probably take lessons from three to four times a week. I still want to learn Pali but unfortunately the teacher who was supposed to teach me is reluctant to because in the summer she is affiliated to this organization called AIIS (American Institute for Indian Studies) where scholars, and PhD students from America come to India for a period of three months to study Sanskrit or other Indian studies intensively. Vinaya on the other hand is reluctant to find me other teachers because she said that she doesn’t want people whose interest is only to make money from me which is true. I wouldn’t want any teachers whose intention is to cheat me. I’ve already had one the first time I traveled to India and I wouldn’t want to make that mistake again. However, I already told Vinaya that I will not wait three months for this Pali teacher to finish teaching at AIIS before she gets time to teach me. Living in India taught me NEVER to wait for anything. If I want something to be done I need to demand for it immediately otherwise nothing will ever get done. It’s just the way how Indians do things--of course it’s not very professional but what can you do. Vinaya knows that it would be a very big financial loss for this teacher if she loses me as a student because like Vinaya, this teacher doesn’t have a regular university position and so she has to depend on teaching privately. And Vinaya insists that this is the ONLY teacher that I should have for Pali because of her sincerity and knowledge.
I still need to figure out what I will be doing in the afternoon since I generally have that time free. In the eveing, Vinaya and her brother Amod do not eat dinner so I usually have to order a take out at some random restaurants. I need to find out more good places to eat since the dinner that I had yesterday was pretty crappy. Only in the morning am I really busy when I have to clean the apartment and go off for a swim. Otherwise life has been really good, eating good home-cook meals at Vinaya’s place and sometimes being invited to eat at other people’s house. That’s the one thing that I cherish the most, home cooked food, it is almost always better than the food found in restaurants.
No comments:
Post a Comment