In India

I made it back to FC (Fuergeson College) road. See the north-west corner of the map. Fuergeson College, suprisinigly (or not) looks like a western college, it's even got some old british brickwork. I then made it up to Jangali Maharaj road...no streetsigns there either.

I asked a guy on a motorcycle"Kya Jangali Maharj?" ( Jangali Maharaj Is?").

He replies in a perfect british accent"Are you trying to learn Hindi?"

"uh...some, did'nt know how much english you'd get"

This has been my experience, not everyone in India speaks english. The people you do business with do, the shopkeepers do, the restaurants do. The guy who drives the rickshaw does'nt, the security guards don't.
So yes, I was on JM road ( which almost sounds like 'Jame' when the locals say it).

Again, that 'somehing's missing' feeling hit me. There's the:

• Nike store
• United colors of Benneton.
• Pizza Hut.
• Cell phone stores by the dozen.
• McDonalds ( for god's sake... for 90% of these people it's sacreligeous to eat beef, what the hell is that doing here? )
  ...but....where the heck is the
  
• Sidewalk?
• Crosswalk?
• Pharmacy?

It seems everyone stops building at thier property line, so there are nice finished stairs going up to the store. Then, large tree roots and rocks on the 'sidewalk' ( or no sidewalk at all, just dust and gravel). Forget smoking, the dust is enough to choke you.
I spent the better part of the afternoon in Sambhaji park, where the local botanical society was having a display. Very soothing. The park is nice, large palm trees, green grass, shade. It overlooks one of the local rivers , in the middle of all the park is a tank captured from a war with Pakistan in 1970-something, interesting.

Being introduced to Pune through Ganeshkind road is a bit like being introduced to New York on the side of the Jersey turnpike. My colleauge had walked around with me on Friday night, and showed me some of the major streets. This was an important exercise because there are no street signs, and you have to be able to tell the rickshaw guy at least a major street, if not explicitley how to get there.

So I ventured out on Saturday to "the good fruit stand", aside from getting acrosss Ganeshkind (an activity that requires three hail marys, and a daunting game of follow the locals). I found thefruit stand and got some oranges. Aparently to make it even kilogram they added a few to what I wanted.

"One kilo oranges, sir?"
"I guess, how many is that?" ( for some reason I am no good with weights and measures of food stuffs)
(confused look) "Um....one kilo sir."
"okay, that's cool, hook me up"
(confused look)
"Yes, I'd like one kilo, please."

See, you have to talk like a proper english person to be understood.

In the afternoon I walked around Pune University campus, which is fairly nice. But the noon-time heat wil bake your brain (all week I'd been in the office, so I had'nt really noticed).
I imagined David Attenborough (BBC Nautre shows) narrating my little trek

"In the dry season creatures will walk for miles to find any source of water"

I found the univerisity lounge thing and had a drink...not much going on there on a Saturday afternoon. Then I retreated back to my apartment to avoid the heat.

You could live in an apartment in New York for years and no one would come to your door. Not so here. When I arrived home last Tuesday ( day 2 in India), things in the apartment were not as I had left them, they were (gasp) cleaner.

And there were two water cooler sized bottles of water. I assumed that the cleaning person the HR guy had told me about had been in.
Then the bell rang ( this shocked me as I barely knew where my apartement was ).
Two gentelemn came for "the bottles". I asked them if they knew how the other bottles had gotten here, they looked confused.
"Okay this morning ...zero bottles, now two bottles (pointing), did you bring them?"
"no....we take bottles"
Dipping into my rudimentary Hindi lessons notebook I came up with:
"Kya tumko ye chahiye?" ("What you this want?-->Do you want this?( again pointing))

Note on Hindi:My hindi grammer is rather awful, and my accecnt is even worse. My colleauge pointed out he thinks I said 'cahiye' (to say) rather than 'chahiye' (to want). And when he says the same sentence there's a melody to the words, where I'm banging out notes with one finger on the piano.

All my sentences are accomanied by a good bit of pantomime as well.
To them it still probably sounded like:
"Can I chowder those clams for you?"
and they looked very confused.

"no ...two more" (pointing at the water in them),
"okay you want empties, but there are no more...".

It turned out these were the water delivery men for the building,since the tap water is not for drinking, they deliver everyone 40L of water a week. I expect to see them again soon.

Not an hour went by before someone else stopped by. This guy I understood (which turned out to be a mixed blessing).
"Hello I am here for the laundry"
"Oh well that's good, did the company send you?" (confusion on his face)
"No company...I am doing the laundry"
"What's your name? who sent you here? how did you know to come to this apartment?"
What followed was

• his name ("Bharat")
• what it means ( it's the word for India)..
• other famous people with that name...his brother's names....
• why his father had chosen each of those names...
  (At this point I lit a cigarette and sat down, while my guest started drawing a map of where he was from ,and how to get there....and continued talking.)
  (deep breath)....
• his relationship with the man on the 5th floor, who would vouch for his reputation ( because he had been doing his laundry for close to twelve years now).

He said he'd be back Friday, and again on Sunday. I was concerned that I had just sent three shirts to lord knows where in India.

The next day, I asked HR if they knew the gentlemen ( which they didn't). But this is apparently an occupation over here, door-to-door lauhdry guy. To my great relief , he did return on Sunday, and I explained the situation to him.

"Sir, I will come back Tuesday for more."

"I'm sorry but you don't have to come anymore the company's taken care of it"

He seemed unsatified with this answer, he told me if I never needed anything to call him.

He was quite friendly , and honestly , my shirts have never looked better.