Taj Blue Diamond Pune

So, I'm cheating slightly. I"m backdating. I arrived here in Pune around Oct 26th and started shooting the next day. We shot most of the movie in a private house in an area called the Sindh Colony. Stayed at the Taj Blue Diamond in Pune. Pune is a fairly large and rapidly growing city about 3-4 hours from Bombay. Not a whole lot of interesting cultural stuff to see. There is an ashram here that is quite famous/notorious - I can't even remember the name but everyone seems to have heard of it. ...

OK, well, not exactly freezing, but Pune is significantly cooler than Delhi. We jumped right into action after our short plane ride south, taking a bus to Aga Khan Palace where Gandhi and his wife Kasturba were imprisoned after Gandhi had begun the Quit India movement in 1942 (civil disobedience movement for independence from Britain). During her imprisonment there Kasturba passed away, apparently with her head on Gandhi's lap. I have included a picture of our tour guide here because she was ...

Today we visited children in an orphanage, a school, and a shelter throughout Pune and its surrounding rural area. The orphanage, called Save Our Schools (SOS) village, is divided into 20 small cottages (10 children and one "mother" to each cottage). The campus is beautiful and very well maintained- the place felt more like a refuge than an orphanage even though the furnishings were sparse. It seems like the children we met were extremely lucky to be there. As of right now I can't get my pict...

Yesterday was a blast! Hopefully I'll have my pics from yesterday and the day before loaded soon- the computers here are making it difficult/impossible. By the way, as I’m writing this the lights just went out for a minute- this happens regularly for 30-60 second at a time. On my first day here I thought it was odd that Indians just ignored the outages, but now I do the same. I heard it’s an Asia thing.

Anyway, we visited the Bhaja Rockcut caves showcasing Budddhist archite...

During our pre-departure orientation in Madison the university folks told us we'd end up learning more about ourselves during this seminar than about Indian culture. For my part I have realized in just a week and a half that I’m entirely dependent on the computer and internet access. At this hotel there are two somewhat unreliable computers for all the guests to share, and service is a bit pricey. By the way, the people in our group who brought their own computers pay just as much for t...

Hello all! I arrived at Pune yesterday --our fifth city. Again, I'm surprised at how different it is! It is near some mountains and is much cooler here. The city is goregous. Very green and wonderful. It's also a very modern city and is the home of many colleges. Lots of young people. It's home to many of the call centers we're so familar with --you know when you call your credit card company and someone from India answers the phone. As a result a lot of people of disposable income. Lots of s...

Today we almost... Played golf at the Pune Golf Club. The hotel booked us a tee time, we show up, and the course is beautiful. It would have been like playing golf in a rain forest. We paid our green fees (a lot of money), hired a caddy (which was required), rented clubs, bought balls, bought tees...everyone was so nice, and so helpful. As we're walking to hole 1 with our caddies a man comes running (literally) from nowhere and is yelling at us in Hindi. We had no idea what was going on. He w...

PUNE TOUR pune city | pune diary | pune map | history This is my guide to living in Pune, this was the place where I lived the longest while I was in india and so I will tend to include a great deal of information about the place. Pune falls in Maharashtra state and is 3 hours from mumbai if u take the new express way. Pune does not have an international airport, only a domestic airport in Lohegaon . If you want to get here from Bombay, you can opt for a number of transportation methods like ...

Well, finally destined for India. Nagpur is in the central Maharashtra province of India, famed for its oranges. My arrival in Nagpur was 'delayed' somewhat by my decision to traipse from Wigan to Cardiff on Sunday 26th for the Carling Cup Final mauling. Hussey had kindly sorted out a twin room at the exotically titled Hotel Blue Diamond in Central Nagpur...absolute shithole - 140 roops a night - and riddled with bedbugs, but hey who cares when a new Test series is about to start. The usual c...