Having left India by the time of writing this, I can honestly say that a weekend visit to Pune (pronounced “POO-nay”) was among the most meaningful experiences of my entire adventure. Pune has the least amount of tourist attractions when compared to my other destinations, but was the city that pulled me to India the most. The reason for this was that at my prior full time job, I worked extensively with a team of software developers based in Pune, and through years of daily, 7AM Skype calls, was able to build genuine relationships with a group of people on the other side of the planet. These teammates of mine had always teased me about coming to visit them in India, as they watched me take one Europe trip after another, and I always told them I hoped to be able to visit them one day. Even though we were no longer teammates, I was excited to fulfill what had essentially become a promise to them.
I imagine that most readers haven’t heard of Pune. Located on the western coast, in the state of Maharashtra, it is one of the biggest industrial and higher education hubs in all of India. Pune has been filling up in recent years with young professionals, leaving their hometowns to take positions in information technology, engineering, or to study at some of the country’s most reputable institutions. Pretty much everyone I met in Pune that wasn’t a local business owner was a transplant. And while my hostel was pretty full, there were hardly any international travelers, mostly young Indian university grads, in need of a bed at night while they spent their days in interviews for grad schools or for full time jobs.
I flew to Pune from Jodhpur, via a connection in Delhi. On my journey to Pune, I spent the entire flight talking with an Indian man seated next to me named Sanjay, who was headed home to Pune after a work trip to Delhi. For the entire flight we talked; first about the impressions from my first two weeks in India, and then deeper into Indian culture, society, and the things that set it apart from every other country. We talked about our personal and familial backgrounds, political and religious beliefs, and much more. As a rule, Indians do not restrict themselves from venturing into sensitive territory when interacting with a new acquaintance. They don’t have the same boundaries of personal privacy that we have in the U.S., so in a conversation with an Indian, you might quickly find yourself discussing things you wouldn’t go into with strangers back home. But they do this out of genuine care and concern, so it almost always leads to a more meaningful conversation than one about the weather, or other inconsequential topics that we categorize as “small talk” in the West. There were a few times where I experienced this unique understanding of personal privacy in a different way. For example, on more than one occasion where I had been sitting at a restaurant, quietly writing in my journal, an employees would come by without invitation, and proceed to shove their face into my business and read the words I had just written. Although it’s hard to say if that’s an Indian thing, or if I just had shitty luck when it came to service.
It was fascinating to learn more about Sanjay’s life in Pune. I learned that in Sanjay’s field of work, chemical engineering, the industry standard is a 6-day work week. With Sunday being the extent of their weekend, Sanjay and his colleagues are regularly putting in 60-70 hour weeks, which I found to be a common theme when talking with Indians in other industries. Sanjay is 15 years older than me, and has a wife and two kids. His marriage had been arranged by his parents, and he very much anticipates that his children will follow in that tradition. Sanjay told me that about 90% of marriages in India are arranged, with the term of the minority being deemed as “love marriage”. But he also said that the increasing western cultural influence on the younger generation has caused love marriages to become more popular. He also told me that arranged marriages almost never happen between families of differing religion or social caste. While the caste system is not as influential in Indian society as it used to be, it is still present in many ways, especially in politics. For example, the Indian government has banned discrimination on basis of caste, but has placed job quotas in some industries to help members of the lower castes. When talking with foreigners, politics is a topic that always leads to a discussion of Mr. Trump in some way or another, and during our conversation, Sanjay changed direction and asked what the general opinion was in the U.S. towards India’s prime minister. I had to confess to him that I didn’t know the name of India’s prime minister, and shared my doubt that really anyone else in at least my social circle knew his name either. I explained to him that the general trend in the U.S. is that we focus so much on our own emotionally charged politics, that we rarely follow the happenings outside of our own borders. I’ve always found it so fascinating every time I’ve left the country, that foreigners are following American politics closer than most Americans do themselves. Our country is being closely watched by the eyes of the world, while we’re completely oblivious to it.
Here on this flight to an unfamiliar city, it was so comforting, the feeling that I had made a friend out of a stranger who at first seemed so foreign and different from me. And then there we were, sharing photos of our family members, taking selfies, and exchanging contact info so we could stay in touch. It’s one of my favorite things about travel: the humanity of it - learning how to relate to and find common ground with those that upon first glance seem different from you in every possible way. We eventually arrived at the terminal in Pune, and parted ways. About two weeks later, Sanjay reached out to me via text message, to check in and see where I was and how I was doing. The kindness of the gesture was so incredibly moving- having a stranger I met on an airplane on the other side of the world think of me, and take the time to reach out.
I took an Uber from the airport to my hostel, Bombay Backpackers. I was relieved to find Pune to be so clean for its size, though it was a bit warm for what I’m used to. Even in winter, the day temps were well into the 90’s. Being further south, but still in west-central India, Pune felt much more tropical - palm and coconut trees everywhere, and so much more vegetation growing throughout the city compared to the desert cities of Rajasthan. Bombay Backpackers wasn’t the most comfortable, but was clean enough to get by. I rented a towel, and had a shower after arriving that evening. In the closet-sized bathrooms, they had what was called an “instant hot water geyser”, which was an upgrade from some of the places I had stayed in North India, which had mini hot water heaters in each bathroom, which would take anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour to warm up water. Although halfway through the shower, the power to the building went out, so I was suddenly showering in a pitch-black closet. Relishing in the novelty of the situation, I extended my arm out through the shades of the open window next to me and felt the warm, night air in the noisy alleyway outside the hostel. Soon after, the water temperature started to drop, so I finished up, and fumbled my way in the dark back to my dorm to get a light.
My room was occupied by a number of other young Indian men, me being the only foreigner. Everyone was incredibly friendly, and introduced themselves to me right away. One of the gents I met that first night, who was in Pune for job interviews, went by the name of Chet. When he asked me where I was from within the States, I answered with “Iowa,” which usually returns a blank expression of clear unrecognition when mentioned without some geographical context, but Chet’s reaction returned a different facial expression, like he was searching his memory for some lost fragment. It turns out that Chet’s parents had lived in the Iowan city of Fairfield for a time, studying at the Maharishi University there. I was pretty taken aback to have found someone on the other side of the globe with a direct, familial connection to my relatively obscure home state. After getting settled in and acquainted with everyone in my dorm, I spent some time writing, and then checked in with Hemant, one of my former co-workers I had been in contact with to prepare for meeting the next day.
The next morning was Saturday, and Hemant was swinging by the hostel to pick me up, and show me around Pune a bit before meeting the rest of the group for lunch. It was the most surreal thing, meeting Hemant in person for the first time, as we had known each other for years, but only had communicated through the virtual channel of Skype - so really I was only acquainted with his voice, and the photo of his face used as his profile picture/avatar. I recognized the face from that photo as he pulled up in his compact SUV, and we exchanged smiles and shook hands for the first time. It had been six months since I left my post at Principal Financial Group, and he actually had left the company just a couple of weeks before me, so both had quite a lot of life changes to catch up on as we drove around his city, in the heat of the Maharashtrian winter. We soon met the rest of the group at a restaurant called Barbecue Nation, a buffet-style establishment that they take most of their western visitors to. Besides Hemant, three of my former teammates were able to meet that day: Ruchi - whom I had been able to meet when she visited Des Moines for work back in 2016; as well as Pravin, the Pune team leader, who I had also met in Des Moines previously; and Shrey, whom I was meeting for the first time, and who was the only bachelor on the team other than myself.
We sat around two small tables, each with a small charcoal-burning stove over which were laid skewers of chicken, mutton, vegetables, paneer (cottage cheese cubes), and even pineapple, with plates of roti, and other side dishes brought to us, almost like a family style dinner. Eager to try each new item laid out before us, and curiously asking my friends what each of these things were as I ate, I had almost completely filled myself up before realizing that these were just the appetizers. Next, we left the table to find main courses, with Shrey leading me to a barbecue counter where we ordered rabbit, duck, and fried fish. Hemant took me to a more traditional Indian food side of the restaurant, where I filled a plate with biryani with fish curry. As we ate, I shared with the group my reactions to visiting India, what had shocked me the most, and what my favorite experiences were so far. Pravin summed up my feelings pretty well when he acknowledged that India is a country of great contradiction - with between extreme poverty and extreme wealth existing only inches away from each other in many situations. I was also very curious to hear from Ruchi and Pravin more about their biggest challenges when visiting the US for the first time. I had remembered that Ruchi’s visit was during February, so while she got to see snow for the first time, she struggled with the bitter cold, not having owned a jacket suitable for the Iowa brand of winter, one of our teammates had given her one to keep warm. She said that Midwestern food was another one of her biggest challenges. Being Jain (which I talked about briefly in my last post), and unable to eat most of the food that we eat regularly in the states, she could only eat the food that she had packed with her for the duration of her two week visit. Pravin said he had similar struggles with the food as well - taking him a while to adjust to the very different seasonings we use, and finding that while Indian food was pretty authentic in the states, it seemed much too expensive there.
As lunch came to a close, we exchanged gifts - the team sending me off with several thoughtful items from a place called the Bombay Store: a pack of elephant keychains of different colors, a magnet with the Taj Mahal on it, and a wooden carving of a person playing a traditional Indian instrument, nodding to my passion for music. I had brought them a number of items from Raygun (Des Moines based printing and design company known for poking fun at basically everything about midwestern life) all Des Moines themed. We then grabbed a photo outside the restaurant, and exchanged well wishes before parting ways, with Hemant taking me for some more touring of Pune. We first went to an ancient Hindu temple that was carved underground into solid stone, where we talked a lot about Hinduism, and our personal religious beliefs. Being a devout Hindu, Hemant had a wealth of knowledge to share about the ancient religion, and tried his best to explain to me how it was possible for 33 million gods to exist together in Hinduism. To this point, I had mostly been exposed to Muslim culture, as Northern India had the strongest presence and influence of the Mughals, and this was my first step outside of that region of the nation. After leaving the temple, Hemant brought me to his home to relax over a cup of chai, and to meet his wife and 18 month old daughter. We watched cricket and chatted for a while before Hemant dropped me off back at the hostel that evening.
Almost as if on cue, I received a call from Shrey shortly after returning to the hostel - he was wondering what I was planning to do for my Saturday evening in Pune, and offered to come pick me up later and show me the nightlife. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on the back of Shrey’s motorcycle as we flew through the streets, soon to be submerged in a sea of light, sound, and life that was the city’s entertainment district. Seeing mostly scooters and bikes around us aside from the frequent tuk-tuk, Shrey explained to me that bikes are the norm and necessity, whereas cars/sedans are considered luxury. We stopped first at a bar called Shisha, which was very lavish, with an almost tropical atmosphere: skylights, indoor trees, ambient music, low-hanging light fixtures, ornate hookahs on display (as “shisha” is a reference to hookah), and intricate quilts hanging from the walls. We sat at a table at a sort of window-bed. These beds, almost extensions of the typical western “booth”, allowed you to lounge back further and stretch out your legs, so you felt like royalty as servers brought drinks and food to the small table at the entrance to the bed. These were all laid out around the perimeter of the place, with regular tables situated in the middle. We both had a couple of Irish style red ales, served with some fries, and began to learn much more about each other than we had as co-workers. I learned that Shrey practiced photography as well, and that he was at that point the only Indian man that I know who is pursuing a love marriage. He referred to his partner, Tanvi, not as a girlfriend, but as a “love interest”. I thought this was the greatest thing, and I’m going to steal it. They are still in the process of getting their parents’ approval, but are very hopeful that they will soon be able to start planning a wedding. Even though I had technically just met Shrey that day, it was like I had been talking to an old friend, and I was feeling incredibly excited for him and Tanvi as they pursued a marriage that goes against their traditional way of life. As we were seated at a window, we could hear a band playing at a nearby club, and as soon as they started playing “Time” by Pink Floyd, we settled the bill to head over and enjoy some live music. The waiters made us aware that the following night would be “belly dancing night” at Shisha, so we joked to each other that we’d have to come back the following night as we headed to the next bar.
We got to High Spirits, an outdoor club and music venue sitting under a canopy of illuminated trees, and spent the rest of the evening taking turns buying rounds, and enjoying covers of everything from the Beatles to Coldplay. With bar close nearing us (most close at midnight in India), we split a pizza after the band finished, and decided to call it a night as opposed to finding a late-night club. Shrey then dropped me off back at Bombay backpackers, and we said our goodbyes, not knowing we’d have a chance meeting the next night.
Four of my former co-workers from Principal: Ruchi, Shrey, Hemant, Pravin (left to right).
Palm trees were everywhere in Pune. This was taken outside of Hemant’s flat
Sanjay took a selfie of us during our flight from Delhi to Pune
One of the few stray cats I saw in India - outside the Hindu temple Hemant took me to. While cats were hard to find, stray dogs were everywhere.
