first days in Pune

1/9/2023

Travel, like many intense experiences, is completely absorbing in the moment. The waiting, the uncertainty about timing, negotiating security gates, airports, etc. Then afterwards in retrospect the moments merge into a simple block: air transit from Detroit via Amsterdam to Mumbai, then by car to Pune. I have mental snapshots of watching a small child explore the aisles of the huge airplane, and of a pale, drained woman who seemed to speak an Arabic language resting her feet while her equally exhausted husband went away with a despairing expression to try to find tea in the Amsterdam airport. All the glimpses don't string into a narrative but somehow merge into a palimpsest of memories and images from various periods. 

That feeling of layering reassures me, but also disorients when the overlays don't match up. Every moment there is the awareness of Lee's absence, and worse, how each experience plasters over the old, covering the memories of his presence.

But anyway we three arrived safe and sound in a very smoggy Pune, and checked into a pleasant lodge right in the middle of things on Fergusson College road. Jaye and Jeff had their first taste of the acrid air and the busy noisy rush of traffic.  We had happy reunions (for me) and meeting (for J&J) of two dear American friends who helped with the logistics of phones, transit and a few other details. The first day in a new place, even the smallest success felt exhilarating: successfully finding and using an ATM, buying bottled water and a few basics; successfully getting the telephones working (my US phone relying on the hotspot created by my Indian phone using the borrowed sim card), participating in calls to arrange things in Lee's village. 

Among the many first impressions from J&J, traffic seems most salient: the way vehicles slide past each other with inches to spare; the way they use every strip of asphalt with no regard to lanes; the way drivers negotiate space with each other at speed and while on terribly maintained surfaces where obstacles of all sorts might crop up at any moment. It is exhilarating or overwhelming depending on one's energy stores.

Pune is booming into the post-covid economy, and I have not kept up. Jaye and Jeff used their travel and tech skills to master Pune's geography, use Uber to request auto-rickshaws and so on. I was impressed, and realized that almost every time I opened my mouth it was to say how things used to be or to offer knowledge that was somewhere from 3 to 30 years out of date, but in any case not reliable any more.  I've been slowed by assumptions and attitudes from a period that is now gone; the pre-phone pre-ATM era. It's hard to take in how easy things have become.  On the other hand, it is still extremely difficult to cross the street.

Eventually I may get around to posting photos here.

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