My alarm went off for lunchtime, six hours after my flight landed in Pune, India. Next I ate the hotel buffet for lunch and sampled two plate fulls of Indian food – taking pictures of everything with the labels to remember what I was eating. Everything was delicious. Now I understood why people at home say our Indian restaurant is not real Indian food. It is not.
I stopped by my hotel gift shop, bought an Indian Pashmina and a new “wedding ring” because I left my real one at home (I often do when I travel). And I headed out to see Pune’s Old City.
Before my trip, I scheduled a walking tour of the old city of Pune for that afternoon. Walking around a new city is a great way to pass the day of jet leg until it’s bedtime. I wanted to learn the history of the city. And I once yoga classes started, there would not be much time for site seeing.
Since I was traveling alone in a new place, I arranged for a hotel driver to take me to the start of the walking tour – at Shaniwarwada in the Old City, where I met my guide, Dhruva. It was a wise move because I was not prepared to manage the crowds on the streets solo. It’s also not the best choice for a woman to be on busy streets alone in India. I never felt unsafe. Because of the culture, you do not see many Indian women out alone. They are usually in pairs.
The driver communicated a plan with my tour guide where to pick me up after the tour. We all exchanged What’s App numbers and the driver stayed in the neighborhood waiting to take me back to the hotel when my jet-lagged overstimulated self had experienced my max for the day.
Dhruva had a female friend join the tour and it was just the three of us. The young woman was a university student and grew up in the Old City. She was lovely. In addition to seeing monuments, temples and historical buildings, we walked through street markets and food vendors. As we sat on plastic stools on the side walk sipping small glass cups of coffee, I learned instant coffee is the norm in India. And learned to order South Indian Filter coffee, when at more modern coffee shops.
There are not many public parks or green spaces in Pune and that day a school came to visit Shaniwarwada. Swarms of children came and stood next to me, staring with curiosity, as if they had never seen a white foreigner before. I was a window to a different world to them.
The city felt wildly chaotic with traffic, auto-rickshaws zooming about the non- touristy streets, beeping non-stop, on the streets mostly populated by socializing men while women and children stuck together closer to home. Dhruva did a great job making me feel safe and comfortable.
We went into several historic temples in the old town that local residents still frequent. We past old buildings and palaces that didn’t stand out as being tour worthy today, but were rich in history and stories from the Maratha Empire.
The Kasba Peth Ganpati Temple stood out to me – it is a 400 year old temple with a local vibe, featuring the religious character of the city and helps appreciate the city’s origins.
Everything in the Old City was old, and unpolished with layers of pollution dust. Crossing the busy streets of beeping rickshaws and swerving motor bikes was a really throwing myself into the chaos of India literally hours after I arrived for the very first time. The guide and his friend’s eyes got very big when I said it was my first time in India and I had just arrived. It was all new and different but I felt reasonably comfortable, even though I stood out as a foreigner.
The street shops were like markets I had never seen before – one was for used text books, one for copy paper, one of kitchen towels and water bottles, one for fabric, next to another popped up tent selling only shoes. Between visits to temples my senses were filled with local smells of incense, street food, sewage, spices and the sounds of India.
In Pune, I was drawn to the beautiful Ganesh statues and locals praying to them. These public ideals became a platform for unity and nationalism during India’s peaceful fight for independence.
When India was fighting for independence from British rule, Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. During his great hungry strike people in Pune prayed to Ganesh to remove obstacles for Gandhi and the fight for freedom.
I learned more about this at the Bhausaheb Rangari Bhavan Museum, which includes a historical account of the first recognized public Ganesha idol installed in Pune in 1892. Along with the wooden chariot still used to today during annual Ganesh Chaturthi festivals in Pune.
Everything left me wanting to understand more about Indian culture – the good and the harsh realities. I had been studying yoga seriously for ten years and I was in the mecca of where it all began.
Pune is not a tourist town. People were curious about me as a foreigner but I didn’t mind. It was part of my experience. I took it all in and was immediately drawn to the good in people who pray on street corners, share street food, and chat over small cups of coffee sitting on small plastic stools next to the busy the streets. We walked for 3 hours, as the guide stopped places and passionately shared the history of his city. And yes I ate street food. Bravely.
We saw not-well preserved but still standing sites important to Pune’s history. Like Nana Wada, built in 1780. It was constructed by Nana Phadnavis, a prominent minister of the Maratha Empire, during the Peshwa era.
Dhruva was full of passion and knowledge about his city, but eventually, I asked to end the tour because once the sun started to set. I had a 8 pm jet leg massage booked at the hotel. It was the perfect reprieve after my introduction to lively the streets of Pune, India. And right before I finally slept through the night on Indian Central Time.
I officially checked India off my country list. In my next post, I’ll detail my moving visit to the Aga Khan Palace.
