Pune pronounced Poona
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
46
65
Trip End
Jun 20, 2009
Pune,
Maharashtra,
India
Saturday, January 24, 2009
We got to the platform in good time only to realise it had moved to another, of course, and got on board this very, very long train (maybe 25 plus carriages). We'd book Air Con 1st Class and as we settled down I was reminded of the terms 1st class we had experienced in Eastern Europe and now already with our Executive Deluxe Room in Mumbai. Interesting concept 1st class when the best is someone else's basic and the basic is someone else's unimagined form of decrepit. But to pay 3.50 for a 4 hour journey is not to be sniffed at. As Dean says we're back on budget now and if that means 1st class travel, Indian style, all the way then who am I to complain?!
The journey was unexpectedly beautiful and took us through some expansive landscapes that were peppered with large hills and valleys and the odd tree here and there. The colours in India are fabulous and even from the strangely tinted window of the train it all looked sublime. We arrived in Pune (Poona) and found lots of eager auto rickshaw guys happy to take us to hotels in town (autos are like tuk tuks, but not, but the same really!). I'm not sure why, but in the blistering sun we decided to walk to the place we'd read up on, we never made it. I think it's the heat and the sights, noises and general differences that can disorientate you really quickly here. The place was supposed to be a 5 minute walk but we gave up and got a cab anyhow...So to The Ritz Hotel please Jamal and don't spare the horses. No seriously that was the name of the place we ended up in...not quite like the one in London.
Pune is supposed to be a testament to the "New India" that is emerging from the old ways. It has the biggest middle class of a city this size anywhere in Southern India and a healthy IT sector with lots of workers bringing home more money than their parents could have dreamed of 15 years ago. We did catch site of this new phenomena in parts - at the Cinema watching Slumdog Millionaire (amazing film go watch it!), in the bar area of town (listening to a live Jazz band whilst eating Iranian kebab) and at the shopping mall (lots of giggling teenagers in jeans and the latest mobile phone, with lots of shopping underway). We could have been in any buzzing city of the UK at times like these but when you venture into the real India things are very different.
The number of people just lying on the streets needs to be seen to be believed in these big cities. Family homes reduced to a patch on the pavement with a rough blanket for protection from the sun. I could reel off a number of aspects of poverty here but it just won't transfer the intensity of it. It is horrible and it is sad but when it's everywhere you go how do you deal with it? Lots of people ask for money and point to their mouths, others put their babies in your face or pull on your arm. As in other places we've been I don't want to have an opinion on this or to find a solution for it. They have to find that for themselves for their own dignity and self respect and for the others that come after them.
We were happy to spend a few days here immersing ourselves in newly found Indian ways before heading North on a very early bus to Aurangabad.
