what changes in Pune (Jan 9 - 13)

I've been stuck, trying to get going on an entry about Pune. Background information is readily available from wikipedia and all. Tourism sites for Pune surprise me, though: I barely recognize the city they present, because the focus is on historical buildings or hilly outskirts photographed to look much more lush and green than they are. None of that fits my personal geography of the city. I don't think I've ever gone to Sinhagad. For me, the main points of reference are the areas around Fergusson College and Prabhat Road including Deccan Gymkhana, and the Peths of the oldest central part. The sketches by Harshad Arole get across the feel of the mix of structures in the old part of town: http://www.urbansketchers.org/2017/10/meet-correspondent-harshad-arole-pune.html But Arole doesn't capture the air pollution (horrendous) or any of the massive new developments. Increasingly, old complexes even in the Deccan Gymkhana area are being taken down and replaced with outsized cement and glass palaces. Beyond the central areas, the expansion of the city both upwards and outwards astounds me. But you don't want to hear about new metro lines and high-rise bedroom communities popping up in what were humble farmsteads, and I don't want to think about it too much, either.

For me, Pune is above all a soundscape, and that is difficult to transmit. There is the background rumble of machinery (AC, sometimes generators), then the oceanic ebb and flow of traffic, which includes the bass rumbles of busses and trucks, throb of motorbikes, whir and grind of three-wheelers, smaller bikes and motor scooters. Over that thrum and throb there are the syncopated chimes, honks and whining buzz of vehicle horns. I miss the wheezing yorp-a-yorp of the old hand-squeezed horns and the even deeper bellows of the old bus horns, but those seem to be gone. I don't miss the horrible digital tunes that autos used to play when backing up, like US ice cream trucks - I wouldn't even mind if someone went to jail for inventing them. Some birds are also audible, or at least, the few that have not been driven off by air pollution. These include pigeons, crows, parakeets, sometimes a bulbul; if you walk over Lakdi bridge, you can hear the twitter of Black Kites; but the sound that instantly evokes India for me is the Koel (google will give you videos of their whooping cuckoo call), which carries well over the traffic.

Traffic is a constant topic of conversation, as in: ...so we were late; ...so we don't go out after dark; ...so we couldn't get from A to B. People who remember 1970s Pune speak nostalgically of cycling along tree-lined lanes. I have noticed only a dozen or so cyclists since arriving four days ago. A few were evidently extremely poor people, slogging along any way they could; in the Fergusson College area I saw older clerks likely following the same commute they'd done for years as the city changed around them; on Karve road we passed a relatively young worker pedaling resolutely alongside the throng of traffic with his pick and spade fastened neatly to the back rack. Then in an outer ring development I actually saw two guys in athletic outfits working their sporty hybrid bikes up a steep hill while drenched in exhaust fumes, brushing their elbows against passing busses.

Aside from the malignant growth of cement block highrises, the biggest change I've noticed in Pune since my last visit (2012) is the clean sidewalks. Apparently the city cracked down. Crossing over on Lakdi bridge used to be a chore because one had to tiptoe among pavement dwellers, children presenting strings of jasmine for coins, outright beggars, and a few people too mad or distraught even to beg. They are all gone. Gone too are the hawkers spreading out arrays of used books, old watch straps or whatever they could salvage. The city cleaned them all away. On Lakdi bridge only one mad man with wild eyes and filthy hair remained, and even he was pretending to sit up on a bench. The city has long employed people to sweep sidewalks and street gutters with stick brooms, but now in a public/private initiative, some of them do this with walkalong vacuum street sweepers and there is an app where city dwellers can request litter cleanup. This goes along with a years-long public promotion campaign and some heavy-handed policing (fines for spitting, urinating and littering, child beggars collected and rehabilitated, etc.). I have mixed feelings. The clean sidewalks are nice. But I wonder where all the destitute people have ended up.

Some things have not changed, and among them, I'm happy to say, is the food at an old "Irani" eating place called Good Luck. It was a favorite of intellectuals and academics for decades. For many years, when high-caste people avoided eating out anywhere and particularly avoided places that served meat, Good Luck was a place for rebels, poets and beatniks (along with people who just liked tea and buttered rolls). Women weren't made welcome there until mid-century, and even when I first went there in the 1990s, I was only comfortable in the so-designated "family" area. In the last decade, though, the place has become wildly popular and is now filled with college students of all genders. As far as I can tell, though, the food is still good.

Because we've been spending almost every waking hour of our time in Pune traveling around to visit with friends, I have not been able to follow up with the question most active on my mind, which is the fate of bookstores and libraries around the city. Perhaps there will be time for this in the coming months, but now we must pack up and head out to the countryside.

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