A night off?
Manoj and I had the night off. It’s not often that that happens. In fact, we were so convinced something was going to come up. I’m shocked I’m home. I didn’t wake up to go running this morning because of the class trip. I shall wake up tomorrow morning though; I’m happy to call tonight an early night. We were supposed to take the kids to a fair. We picked them up from their community and it took them a while. Ishwar wasn’t there. Both of us were a bit upset. Ganesh came out with his hair done and wearing a nice shirt. He’s one who will always wear the same shirt and look presentable, but of course, not as presentable and put together as Ishwar. Chapel couldn’t make it. His older brother who we’d never met replaced him. Avinash was ready and tried to usher everyone together. Sabu, the boy with the face of a 25 year old joined him. Five of them stuffed in the back seat of the car. We engaged in small talk, they gave directions, we passed by where the fair was supposed to be, it wasn’t there. We drove them back to the Chinese food place where some of them work. The idea came to me to bring them on the city tour on Saturday morning. It’s a week long event that an organization is putting together. There’s a “nature walk” but it’s really a walk of the city area. It’s supposed to show sustainable architecture. It might be nice for them. We said it might be boring, but they might be really interested in it too; who knows?
I took advantage of the free time and came back to read my book – who knew I ever had time. After a little bit we decided to go out in search of a café to get a coffee and read or write or chat. We walked for a while. There doesn’t really exist a place to just relax and drink a cup of coffee. There are coffee joints, they’re nice if you want to sit and chat with friends, smoke hookah, “go out,” but not for our purposes. We kept saying we’d try somewhere else, but that somewhere else ended up being home. It’s nice. I have a night off.
This morning’s trip was nice. The kids from one center saw a lake that’s in the middle of the city. Barely anyone knows about it. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s in a pretty sorry state. There’s trash lining the small lake. We saw a large dead turtle, bellied up. The two guest speakers basically said that it’s not good and there’s nothing we can really do about it. They had to fight to even keep the space that they kept; it used to be bigger. They commented on the unfortunate state of bird migration. Apparently hawks used to travel through and congregate in Pune. All that’s here now are Kites; they’re scavengers. It does seem a bit sad. The park also has really odd hours. The teacher said that it was a good thing; I can’t help but think that if more people knew about it, if it were regulated, and people were educated there, what if they actually became more conscious.
What if Pune, or cities in India in general had trashcans on the street and a garbage department? What if people just saw a dustbin and walked a few meters to deposit their trash? I want to think that it’s so simple.
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