Monday, Jan 11

The streets of Pune seem like they couldn't hold another thing. Dogs are everywhere, no one's pet, eating out of the trash piles that burn unattended on the street and they're left alone for the most part, untroubling to the masses and untroubled by them. Goats and, less often, pigs, wander wherever they choose, eating out of a rare dumpster. Cows are slow and lazy, seeming to know that they have free run of the country; they lie in the middle of the road (an absolute DEATH wish for any other creature, including humans) and people steer around them and no one seems bothered.
The roads are lined with vendors selling shoes, veggies, coconut milk, groceries, fruit (most of which we don't dare eat). The first floor of most of the buildings is an open-air shop of some kind. The buildings are shoved in tightly next to each other, hardly even a small alleyway separating them for blocks, but the number of deserted buildings and abandoned building projects amazes. Hollow concrete buildings frames are more plentiful than one would ever guess considering the sheer masses of humanity here - and the number of them who live on the street. Occasionally you will see a family camped out in the shell of a never-finished apartment complex, usually with no more than an open air staircase and a ceiling to call home.
The litter on the streets is shocking. Everyone throws trash on the ground wherever they happen to be when a given thing turns from useful to undesirable. Everyone litters. Everyone. Plastic bottles, candy wrappers, banana peels, newspapers, etc. The conscientious burn their trash - including the plastic - and that smell of smoldering plastic will always be associated with India in our minds. We often carry handkerchiefs to cover our noses and mouths, since the smells can be horrific and overpowering. The girls use their dupatas (scarves).
The streets here in Pune are also full of rubble. The kind you would have seen in post WWII Berlin, maybe - shattered glass, building fragments broken piles of concrete - it all combines to give a war-torn and dilapidated appearance beneath the huge trees, so carefully preserved even in the city, beneath the bustling people, behind the droves of motorcycles and hordes of animals.
It is against this dismal backdrop that you will see one of the loveliest sights - the stunning women of India. Part of their beauty is certainly their clothing - bright colors, that in America we reserve for babies' toys and children's things, are preferred to the bleak greys and blacks that seems to make up the Western wardrobe. All the women have long hair and eyeliner is even common on little babies. Covered from their necks, down past their ankles, they swish along the dirty streets in colors that are wide awake; just another of India's fascinating and baffling contrasts.