Day 12, Pune [Saturday 15th December 2007]
Previous day: Day 11, Pune [Friday 14th December 2007]
Next day: Day 13, Pune [Sunday 16th December 2007]
Get woken up at 8am by the sound of a Wurlitzer organ. I wander outside to find out what's going on, and it turns out to be the backing track for a wedding band, decked out in marching band uniform, giving it their all over at the station. They're hooked up to a couple of loudspeakers, which explains how they managed to wake us up over the road. They all stand in a circle, about 12 of them, and in the middle two young boys, naked from the waist up, engage in some dancing that is half limbo, half body popping.
At the station we try to sort out a ticket to Goa. We have a stereotypical discussion with the clerk concerning which Indian Railways ticket quota she is or isn't allowed to sell us tickets from, which stations we can or can't book tickets to etc etc. It all feels so inevitable and cliched. In the end we pay for two tickets but get put on a waiting list. The clerk tell us we then have to go and talk to the Divisional Reservations Manager and fill out a form requesting the tickets which we have just paid for. We ten have to hope that by some bureaucratic miracle we get the tickets we want. Except we can't do it today, as today is Saturday, so the Divisional Reservations Manager isn't here!
We get a rickshaw to Nehru Stadium where after poking around a bit we manage to find two men in a tiny upstairs office having a chat. They tell us the Ravi Shankar concert is a sellout. "House full."
We go to the "Energy Park" across the road. They've got exhibits and working examples of solar/hydro/biomass power. We meet some enthusiastic school kids and ask them about Indian School's Kalmadi High School and Bhojwani Academy. They've heard of them, but that's all they know.
For lunch I have Kashmiri Pulav, which is sweet, with apples and raisins in it. It comes on a plate in the shape of a heart. Kate gets spicy panner bhaji, even though they recommend she has it mild. For desert we share a mango mastani - a milkshake containing milk, ice cream, kelly, raisins, cashews and wafers. It's completely over the top, and reminiscent of something you might get in an English curry house and laugh at. It is 100% good.
We go to the Empress Botanical Gardens, which are a lifeless couple of acres of dusty, sparse woodland. Lots of couples are loitering and engaging in seemingly illicit canoodling. We do a quick circuit and head back to Saras Bagh Gardens, a superior bit of greenery with a lake in the middle hosting a Ganesh temple on an island at it's centre. We get approached by a couple of guys who ask if they can sit with us for a while. They're law students, and we tell them what we like about Pune. They ask us about London and England, and say they have heard of Barclay's Bank. While we're chatting, three or four other people sit down and join in, or just listen.
At about 6pm we walk back to Nehru Stadium to see if we can pick up any returns for the Ravi Shankar gig. There's a table selling meditation books, and next to it stands a man holding an envelope. We ask him and, yes, he has two spare tickets! They're Rs. 500 each, and we buy them from him.
The concet takes place inside a Ganesh Kala Krida Manch, a hall seating, at a guess, about 5000 people. Ravi Shankar is excellent, and his daughter Anoushka is outstanding. She gets several spontaneous bursts of appreciative applause as she plays speedy, supple runs on the sitar.
I adore the sound of the sitar. It's sound is unique, and essentially Indian. I read in one of the papers that a sitar raga should reflect everything about when and where it was written - the time of day, the weather, the atmosphere, the season, the surroundings. The instrument is so flexible. At times it sounds dreamy and bucolic - listen to many scenes in the Satyajit Ray classic Pather Panchali, played by Shankar himself - at other times it is frenetic, jerky and hectic, like a speeding, careering cab ride in Mumbai.
The father and daughter duo play for two and a quarter hours, sometimes extremely competitively, riffing back and forth and egging each other on to greater heights. Then they disappear offstage silently.
For dinner we over order again, and far too close to bedtime too. It's 11pm and we have in front if us green peas masala, kitchadi kadi, veg kholapur, soup and rotis. Again they advised Kate to have something mild, but when she tells them she likes spicy food they serve her up rocket fuel! Hot stuff!
Today we spent Rs. 2008
Next day: Day 13, Pune [Sunday 16th December 2007]
Previous day: Day 11, Pune [Friday 14th December 2007]