Field Visit: Aurangabad and Dhule: Feb 13 to 18

I spent most of Monday the 13^th preparing for my upcoming week of field visits. My train, the Devgiri Express, was to leave at around 9:30pm that night. I had lunch with Shilpa at her hostel—she has told me many times about how much better the roti is in her hostel because it is handmade. In my hostel’s mess, the roti is made by a machine. The roti in her hostel is definitely much better than in my hostel, but both pale in comparison to some I have had outside campus. I want to try making roti when I get back to the states sometime when I cook Indian food—it looks pretty simple and it always tastes good.

I ate dinner with Saikrishna in his hostel before heading out to the train station. Both times I have eaten a normal dinner at his hostel, they have had a delicious spicy paneer dish (my hostel rarely serves paneer, unfortunately). He is tired of paneer, but I love it. After dinner, we took the local train to Thane station, where we would get on the Devgiri Express. I slept on the top bunk in the train and got a five great hours of sleep before we reached Aurangabad.

We visited the spice factory in Aurangabad on Tuesday to take some measurements of energy consumption during various roasting processes at the factory. We were productive and ended the day around 4:00pm. Sai and I then went to the Bibi Ka Maqbara, the “mini Taj.” This monument looks strikingly similar to the Taj Mahal and was built just decades after the masterpiece in Agra. It costs 200 Rupees for foreigners to enter, and 15 Rupees for Indians to enter. The mausoleum was beautiful and the gardens were calm; there were some couples walking around (a popular place for a Valentine’s Day date) but it was not too crowded. Before we left, we sat on the steps for a few minutes and watched the people walk by. One guy came up behind me with his two-year-old, put his kid’s arm on my shoulder, and pulled out his phone. He tried for many seconds to get the kid to smile, but he just stared with a blank face in the direction of the camera the whole time. It was hilarious—either he had no idea what was going on, or was completely indifferent to standing next to me and having his picture. It was hilarious, and Sai and I cracked up as soon as the guy walked away, saying “thanks” after collecting his kid. This kid was so cute, I wished I had a picture of the moment as well. Next time I will ask whoever is with me to take a picture on my phone as well.

On Tuesday we again went to the spice factory to take some more energy data. We again had a productive day and finished in the afternoon. Afterward, the manager of the plant took us to their outlet store and gave us each a bag of goodies to take back to campus: mango pickles, sweet lime pickles, ketchup, soan papdi, chikki, and chatpat masala. I will bring the chatpat to the mess and start using it on my food—it is a delicious mixture of onions, garlic, ginger, salt, chili, and many more spices. I am also going to try and find a place to buy this type of masala in the states because I think it can easily make almost any dish better, like a more flavorful version of crushed red pepper. We returned to campus, where we met Vinay Chawla, Professor Sardeshpande’s friend that we met during our last visit to Aurangabad. He has made many improvements to his shipping container home in the last few weeks. If I have time during a subsequent visit to Aurangabad, I would love to spend a day with Vinay at the farms and working on his house because he is a knowledgeable person who is excited to teach others through hands-on work. I also want to visit the caves near Aurangabad on a future visit—I will have to plan in a few extra days, it seems.

On Wednesday, I got up early to take a government bus to Dhule, my next destination. I got to the bus station at 7:00 and was told that the next bus to Dhule leaves at 7:30. When it arrived, I piled on with everyone else. I was of course the only foreigner on the bus. It was not especially crowded, so there were enough seats for everyone. The scenery was beautiful, layered mountains with flat tops. Some of the landscape was reminiscent of what I saw in Iceland last summer. On some of the sharper turns, I looked down the cliff’s edge and saw colorful trucks at the base of the cliffs. It was all I could do not to wonder about how often the vehicles tip over the edge as we sped down the mountain. I have ridden on many dangerous roads like this before, but have never seen evidence of crashes before.

About two hours into the journey, the bus stopped on the side of the road for no apparent reason. Many minutes went by as the driver attempted to start the engine again. Many people got out to mill about outside and take a bathroom break. It was soon clear that we would not be moving anytime soon. Another government bus on the same route drove by, and there was a mad rush to the door. About half of our busload got onto the other bus, then it shut its doors and continued on, leaving the rest of us on the side of the road next to the broken-down bus. It looked like there was still lots of standing room, but it left anyways. There was no order or logic to who got to get on the other bus—entrance was only decided based on timing. I milled about in the shade for a few minutes, and I was just starting to figure out how I would entertain myself for what could be many hours when the driver got the engine started again. We were on our way again.

About thirty minutes later, we stopped in a city called Chalisgaon. I thought we were just stopping for a bathroom break, but I stayed put because we only had another hour to travel, or so I thought. It was clear that this was not just a rest stop when I was the only one left on the bus. Apparently this was a transfer point, and the bus I had been on was not going any further than this city. No one had told me that I would need to transfer when I got on the bus in Aurangabad or when I bought my ticket. During the twenty-minute wait for the next bus, I tried to pull out my journal to write, because I did not feel like reading my book. Everyone was staring at me already, but the staring was intensified when I began to write. One man was leaning over my shoulder—he could speak a bit of English and I do know if he could read it, but he was watching me write just the same. I quickly put away my journal and decided to just stand and wait for the next bus. The bus to Dhule was hot and crowded. I stood for the approximately 90-minute ride and was very relieved when we finally reached Dhule. I bought an apple from a woman with a blanket of produce when we arrived at the station just before 1:00pm.

In Dhule, I met a fabricator named Rahul that Professor Sardeshpande has worked closely with to build many solar concentrators in the past. He was gracious enough to host me at his home during my stay in Dhule. On the work front, we were productive in discussing my project and starting to build the first prototype. I am excited to continue working with Rahul in the coming weeks because he is always in a good mood and smiling. His family is similarly very welcoming. I ate multiple meals at their house, all of which were delicious. I watched his wife cook a couple of the dishes and wrote down as much as I could about the recipe so that I can try and recreate them when I return to the US. She was initially confused about why I wanted to write down notes about her cooking, but I explained that it was delicious and I wanted to try and recreate it. We went out for some local ice cream after our dinner on Thursday night, and I had a lasse with ice cream, called “sangam.” This word means “where two rivers meet,” and the ice cream treat is named for this melding of creamy flavors.

During my time in Dhule, I went on my second, third, fourth…and seventh motorcycle rides! After riding a few times, I can see why people like the experience so much. You have the feeling of wind in your face that you get from a bicycle and the thrill of acceleration of a sports car. Over two days in Dhule, I saw thousands of motorcycles and not a single helmet. There is a similar percentage of helmet use on motorbikes in Mumbai.

I returned to Mumbai on the train in 3AC class. It always feels so luxurious compared to sleeper class—blankets and a pillow are provided and the temperature is controlled reasonably well. I arrived at 4:30 at Thane, took the local train to Kanjurmarg, and took a rickshaw back to my hostel. The rickshaw ride was the fastest I have ever been on—maybe this is how everyone drives in India when there are few cars on the road early in the morning.

I will be on campus for the coming week and am looking forward to getting a little time to relax and recover from the busy week of traveling.

On an unrelated note, if anyone is looking for a music recommendation, Sufjan Stevens’ album “Age of Adz” has been my music of choice while writing my last few blog posts. Thanks to Luke for introducing me to Sufjan Stevens. If you only have time to listen to one Sufjan song, listen to “Chicago” from the album “Illinoise.”