Field Visit to Pune, Aurangabad, and Dhule: Mar 31 to Apr 5

Note: I am will not have internet access from April 23 – May 5 as I am going to Kolhapur for a Vipassana meditation course. I am a couple weeks behind on my blog but will update it when I return to Mumbai. Now back to the regularly scheduled post...

I woke up early in the morning on Friday, March 31 to travel to Pune. I traveled with Anameka, a fellow CTARA student at IIT Bombay who also had some project work in Pune. As usual, we took the local train to Thane, the nearest station where the Mumbai Pune Intercity Superfast Express stops. The female voice that announces stops and trains over the intercom is common to all stations—the accent and word choice is enjoyable. In the name of this train, the emphasis on “Superfast” is great. My favorite is when the voice says “Please mind the gap between the footboard and the platform while alighting from the train.” I think I have only ever heard the word “alighting” said by those who speak UK English. Listening to these announcements sometimes remind me of when I was in London in 2014. The first Underground train I got on was the “Picadilly line to Cockfoster,” as the loudspeaker informed me. When I heard these words, I knew I could be nowhere but London.

Last time I rode to Pune, I rode in 2^nd Sitting class where I was assigned a seat on a bench next to the window. It was great until the sun began beating through the window. This time, we rode in AC Chair Class. It must have been 50 degrees (F) inside the compartment—and this is the only time I chose not to bring a jacket on my field visit. I spent a decent amount of time at the open door of the train soaking in the early morning sun to warm up, holding on as I watched the beautiful scenery rush by, dry shades of yellow and brown stretching through the valleys to the horizon. Upon arriving in Pune, Professor Sardeshpande picked me up and we went to visit a small spice roasting enterprise and a manufacturer who is building a test setup for my project. At the spice roaster’s place, I tried some jaggery that melted in my mouth. On impulse, I bought a 1kg package to bring back to the US. This unrefined sugar is much healthier than white sugar and I plan to try baking some cookies with it when I return home. It is common here in many sweets. In between our two meetings, we had a delicious lunch at Professor Sardeshpande’s home cooked by his wife. The lunch included a cashew sabzi, salad with some masala from the spice roaster we visited, dal, and green mango juice. The cashew sabzi was especially flavorful and spicy (I had three servings). I have never had a cashew dish that good in a restaurant.

In the evening, I took an AC Shiv Neri bus (government bus) to Aurangabad. It was one of the more expensive forms of travel I have taken so far in India, about 110 Rupees per hour of travel. The 6-hour drive was fairly uneventful. Our bathroom stop halfway through the drive was at a place that looked a lot like Family Fun Center or Chuckee Cheese’s (what I imagine this is; I have never been there) for kids up to about age 12. It looked very out of place on the Indian highway. There are some great things that the US has that India does not, but I would not say that this type of venue is necessarily one of them. Neither is McDonalds, which is quickly establishing itself at rest stops along the Indian highways I have traveled. In the US, food generally tastes the same across the country. In India, food at two places one block apart can taste wildly different. Why should there have to be one solution for everyone? What is wrong with different? India is following the US in terms of establishing chains—whether it is for better or for worse remains to be seen.

Upon arrival in Aurangabad at 12:30am, there was some confusion about where the MIT College guest house, my staying arrangements for the weekend, was located. Shilpa had already reached the guest house, having come from Mumbai earlier in the evening. My auto driver took me to MIT College, where I asked some guards about the location of the guest house. It took four guards and two students who happened to be going by on a motor bike to determine the location of the guest house. The guest house is in an area called “Kasliwal Marvel,” but I thought it was “Kasliwal Marble,” so when I Googled this, I found a lot of marble shops about 1km down the road and knew this was not right. I fell asleep quickly in the air-conditioned room with the comforter up to my neck. It is amazing how much of a difference AC makes; in my hostel on campus at IIT, I have taken only cold showers and have never used my blankets since the start of March.

On April Fool’s Day, which does not appear to be a common day for pranks in India, Shilpa and I visited a turmeric processing plant in Aurangabad. This plant is similarly designed to the plant in Kolhapur, but is facing different issues than that plant was facing. We took a survey of the operations at the plant to make note of issues that should not go wrong in the new plant being installed in Waigaon village. It was an exhausting day after a short night of sleep, so we bought some Maggi for dinner. Maggi is the Indian equivalent of Top Ramen, complete with a masala flavor packet. The MIT guest house bungalow we were staying in did not have a stove, so Shilpa went next door to the guest house bungalow where six Bhutanese students are living for the semester while they work at MIT College. The Bhutanese exchange students offered me some chicken that they had cooked, and I accepted. The chicken was cooked with chilis in a brown sauce and it was the spiciest food I have ever had in India. My nose was running, my eyes were watering, my face was flushed, and I was sweating. By the time I started eating the chicken and peppers, I only had a little bit of Maggi left on my plate to cut the spice, and this made it all the more intense. It took many minutes for my mouth to be okay again.

The next day, Sumit arrived in the morning from Mumbai. The three of us went to Jalgaon village for the day, the village where Shilpa and Sumit spent 9 weeks last summer for their CTARA summer field stay. We hired a car for the day to take us to the village and back (about 100km round trip) after learning that the 8:00am train in the direction of the village was two hours delayed. The residents of the village were all very excited to see Sumit and Shilpa again. They welcomed us into their homes, offering water, sweet lime juice tea, fruit, and vegetables fresh from their farms. We spent the day touring the village and interacting with the. I have heard much from Sumit and Shilpa about their village stay; it was great to meet the people and see the places from their stories. When we went to the day care, I was told to put two drops (and only two drops) of a small bottle in a toddler lying on the table’s mouth. After I followed instructions, I asked what the liquid was, and learned I had just administered my first polio vaccine. Shilpa, Sumit, and the Sarpanch (elected village leader) took their turns with other kids. The one-year-old child I gave a vaccine to was the least squirmy when lying on the table. He must have either been in a good mood or not sure what to think of a person with skin the color of mine.

We ate lunch at the house where Sumit stayed during the field stay, inhabited by Akka, a woman in her late 40’s, and her mother. She cooked us a generous lunch of dal bati, bhindi, rice, and papad. Dal bati is eaten not with rice, but instead with a baked loaf which is subsequently crumbled so that it can be mixed with dal. As I lay down after lunch to rest, Akka asked me—through a translator of course—questions about my visit to India: why I came to India, why I like it here even though the people are poor. Then the sweetest line of the day came: Akka said “There were Mughals, then there were Britishers, and now one of them is in my house, enjoying my food. I am happy.” Hearing this made me emotional. I am incredibly grateful for the gratuity that the villagers in Jalgaon expressed toward me, an outsider to their community. They have very little, but they do not hesitate to give all of what they do have to their guests. After visiting Jalgaon village, I am even more excited for my village stay later in May in Sangrun, near the city of Pune. There is much more to write about the village, but due to my blog writing deficit, I must cut the description short here.

My final day in Aurangabad consisted of a visit to the spice roasting factory I have previously visited, a meeting with the principal of MIT College, and dinner with the Bhutanese exchange students. Of the Bhutanese students here, one is a boy that stays in the same guest house that I was in and the other six are girls who together share the other bungalow. The dinner they cooked was great; my favorite dish was a spicy white curry with potatoes. I also got to try their special chili sauce made with small dried fish, carried all the way from Bhutan. I did not want to leave their company but eventually had to return to my bungalow to sleep and prepare for an early morning bus ride.

The next morning I rode to the bus station on the back of the guest house keeper’s motorcycle. It was the first time I have felt the wind through my beard. I asked at the enquiry desk which bus was going to Dhule, and got the response of “that one, go fast” as the man at the desk pointed to a bus pulling away from the station. I ran up to the moving vehicle and banged on the door, at which point I was told to stand back for a few seconds as the bus finished its reverse maneuver. I waved goodbye to Sachin, the MIT guest house keeper, and a random woman between he and I waved back at me. When the ticket collector came to my seat, I had learned my lesson and said I was going to “Dhule Dhule.” They understood me on the first try this time. We took a slightly different and bumpier route this time than my bus had in February. I have for the last month been shifting my daily exercise to 10,000 steps a day due to the heat, and I was happy to see that 30 minutes on the bus gave me 7,247 steps. Almost done with my daily goal without even moving. I flew out of my seat on multiple occasions while holding onto the seat in front of me. I was afraid my head was going to hit the ceiling, so I held on tighter.

The ride was only 3.5 hours, so I arrived well before lunch. Near the bus station I bought an NFL Vintage Collection Colts hat for 50 Rupees. I had a great two days in Dhule, working with a manufacturer there and staying with his family in their home. His wife again cooked many excellent meals for me and I got a lot of time to interact with their kids, playing badminton in the street outside their house, moving aside whenever a motor bike came down the road. It was the first time I have played badminton with a birdie made of real feathers rather than plastic.

My train ride back to Mumbai in third AC class was pleasant except for the incredibly loud snoring of two passengers near me. Luckily, the sound of the moving train drowns out most of the noise. I put in my headphones to cover the rest and had a few hours of sleep before the train arrived back in Mumbai.