First Impressions (Home, Sweet Pune)

Hey everyone! Salutations (“Namaste”) from India, my home base for the next four months. Specifically, I’m studying at Fergusson College in a city called Pune, which is about a two-hour bus ride southeast of Mumbai. The city itself is what I imagine would exist if New York were dropped squarely into a tropical jungle. There are so many cars and people that I can hardly see straight and enough curbside venders to rival even Canal Street. The only two observable rules of the road amount to “don’t hit anything (or anyone!)” and “don’t get hit.” Needless to say, crossing the street is a repeated adventure that depends entirely on a fluid understanding of traffic laws. And yet, in the midst of this metropolis’s bustle, disordered greenery bursts the city at its seams. Unfathomably lush trees, ivy, grasses, and flowers seem everywhere—no, really, everywhere. I still cannot seem to wrap my head around this bizarre fusion of urban and rural landscapes.

The other students on my program and I landed in Mumbai just last Sunday night. We spent our first three days at a retreat center in Durshet for what seemed like the longest orientation of our lives. If our directors had forced us to sit through one more Q&A about Pune without actually taking us there, every single one of us would have mutinied and some even started walking to the city. Okay, to be fair, it wasn’t all bad. Because we’re in the beginning of monsoon season, the weather is cool and drizzly—perfect for either curling up with a cup of chai to watch a Bollywood film (okay, two!) or playing a pre-dinner soccer match in the mud. Also, we took a short morning hike up the small mountain across from the retreat center… straight into the jungle… straight through a tiny Indian village with mud streets and goats. The only indications that we hadn’t somehow slipped back into the B.C. era appeared in the presence of two motorcycles, several mounted satellite dishes, and a “Bon Jovi (Have a Nice Day)” t-shirt hanging out to dry. Equally as amazing, upon this backdrop exclusively comprised of browns and greens, women of the village moved about in vivid pink, yellow, blue, and purple hued saris—balancing multiple metallic jars filled with water on their heads. They were all so strong and beautiful.

I also held a baby goat. Heck freaking yes. :)

The ride into Pune was astounding. It is so odd for me to feel foreign to any green space… I have always felt so peaceful, so at home, in these places. This country (like my dearly loved mountains of western North Carolina) is impossibly green. But Appalachia does not have the trunks or palms of coconut trees, nor gigantically wide banana leaves. North Carolina doesn’t have rice paddies. Or crooked-horned cows roaming along the road. Or monkeys. The mountains are not so steep, nor covered with plummeting waterfalls. The landscape’s wet rocks are grey—almost black. And the rest is green, impossibly green.

But now we are here, in Pune. Finally. After the nightmare of trying to convince my bank that I was in fact in India, that I had already told them that I’d be here, that my ATM card had been denied, that I did mind being put on hold for eight minutes while being charged international telephone rates, and that, yes, high maintenance me, I would need to have access to money sometime in the next four months (oh. my. gosh.), we got a tour of the college campus.

{Side Note: Did you know that Gandhi studied at Fergusson College? Freaking Gandhi. This semester was such a good idea.}

Finally, we arrived at our host homes. I am living with three other students from my program (named Erin, Devin, and Lilly) in a young women’s hostel full of Indian students, artists, and musicians. Oh, and the woman who manages the whole thing is a boss. On top of managing seventeen girls’ living spaces, she plays violin professionally… and teaches classes in violin, dance, classical Indian vocals, yoga, and rangoli—like Indian sand art, but intricate, vibrant, and jaw-droppingly gorgeous… and is a single mom with a twelve-year-old son. This Indian woman stands about four foot eight with personality like a firecracker and a smile that melted our four hearts instantly as she chatted to us over chai. Her name is Swapna. I’ve already decided she is going to be my guru while I’m here. Now I just need to let her know at yoga tomorrow morning.

With love, from India,

Jeannie