Encounters with the F word I left behind in Durshet,* but insisted on crawling back

The past week has been heavy. Last Sunday I came back from a weekend in Hyderabad, another IT hub located in Andrha Pradesh. The two days Amy, HGM, and I spend there were a much needed break from Pune. Among the glowing-white marble carvings of the Birla temple and the naked foundations of Goldkonda Fort, the honeymoon feelings of the first couple of days playfully tugged at me. India was apologizing for soaking my lungs in tar and willfully dissolving my patience. Either that, or it was doing a damn good job at behaving for once. Pune, like a rebel limb, has so far remained reticent. It welcomed us back in a minivan whose door kept snapping open like the mouth of a petulant child.

Now roughly a month into the program, I can say with absolute conviction that Pune is consistently and aggressively confusing. Visually, it is a disjointed collection of outdated infrastructure and poor city planing. Psychologically, it is just as incongruent. Simple errands, such as getting toilet paper or going to the post-office, are highly time-consuming. There is also little flexibility: making suggestions is usually either irrelevant, impossible, or detrimental. Pune will be Pune, even if you ask it nicely to behave for a moment. Granted, coming straight from D.C., the challenges of living here were going to be [word here not currently available in English vocabulary. In Spanish: bien hijo de puta]. Yet they have not so much snuck up on me as they have pugnaciously stared me down.

So yes, unsurprisingly studying abroad in India does not mean being enveloped in rich spices so much as it does drifting along in a thick haze of smog and, here comes the f-word, frustration. On the other hand, reaching the outer bounds of my sanity so frequently seems to have actually extended their length. So that just as I think I am going stepping off some mental cliff, I find myself taking another step forward instead.

Overall, the trying inconsistencies make this place inexplicably alluring as if by investing more, it gets harder to pull away. And the fascination only grows. 

On that note, here are a couple of tokens from the past week:

The Charminar

Mecca Masjid, the Largest Mosque in Hyderabad. No women are allowed inside!

Bangle Shopping in Laad Bazaar!

Golkonda Fort

Biryani, a Hyderabadi Specialty, at Paradise

 Pictures From the Final Day of the Ganapati Festival:

Ganapati Idol

Rangoli, Sand Art on the Road

Third of the Five Main Ganapatis

Ribbon of the Procession Winding its Way Through the Crowds

Flag Dancers

Perspective

Dol Groups

In the Ebullient Throng

Watching the Massive Procession from Afar

*Frustrated, and all of its colorful derivatives