Voluntary Fun

Pune, India

In this blog: roaming the countryside, volunteering with Asha Kiran, and a birthday with a difference.

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This follows on from the last blog, where I was in the city of Pune (poo-na) doing a couple of weeks of volunteering with a charity called Asha Kiran.

Sunday 26th January

Dam beside one of the villages I passed through

I'd hired a scooter for the weekend to explore the area around Pune, and having not seen a lot of countryside recently, headed out of town. I stopped briefly on the way at the fairly low key Aga Khan Palace to have a quick look, which in later years was used to imprison Gandhi and his chums - he spent a lot of time in prison for civil disobedience over the years. A few miles later I was out of the city, and into the countryside - sometimes scrubby, and sometimes irrigated with many small farms growing crops and vegetables. It was great to be free from the city, and away from people, noise and chaos for a change. However the downside to being remote was when I realised the scooter was very low on fuel. After a bit of freewheeling and crossing my fingers, I eventually made it to civilisation and breathed a sigh of relief.

The contrast of India - some people living in
makeshift tents, others next door in comfortable flats

I cruised around a couple of small rural villages, where people lived in concrete homes surrounded by makeshift fences and tracks. It was basic, but not the bleak poverty I've seen in parts of many cities. I continued on, stopping to see kids playing cricket on wasteland, and farm labourers living in makeshift bamboo and tarpaulin tents beside the roads. Hearing loud music, I stopped outside what turned out to be a wedding, and upon them seeing me, was ushered into the car park by a group of locals who were getting ready to do the disco for it. I only went into the car park though, not the wedding itself. Rather than just a table with some equipment as you'd normally expect, they actually drive straight into the outdoor venues ready to go with a purpose built disco bus, clad across the front with huge powerful speakers and a DJ inside. Just awesome.

Commonwealth War Graves

Pune was surrounded by various military camps wherever I went, and it turned out to be the largest base that the British Raj had established during their rule of India. India now has a huge military budget, and the camps all seemed to reflect this, being well established and professional. Coming back into the city, I spotted a very well tended area, which turned out to be a Commonwealth War Graveyard. It was very similar to those I'd seen in Normandy when I cycled through six months before, with identical lines of pale sandstone headstones set amongst perfectly manicured grass, commemorating mostly British soldiers who fell in India during the world wars. An unexpected sight for sure. 

Monday 27th

Manish Stroff, director of Asha Kiran

Back to work, sort of. It was week two of volunteering with Asha Kiran (see previous blog for details), and upon arriving at the office I learnt my task for the week. Amongst other projects, Asha Kiran run a community centre in one of the slums surrounding the city, and the director of the charity - Manish - had tasked me with creating the syllabus and all course material for a three-month basic computer course they were soon to be holding. The idea being that these disadvantaged folks would then be able to use their new found skills in their own business, or to help get a job. Whilst I'd initially envisaged my time volunteering to be hands-on in the projects, I soon realised that it didn't matter how I helped, as long as I helped. 

Millions of people across the globe learn how to use a computer, and because of that, initially I was sure I'd be able to just download and adapt a free course that someone else had done, but it turned out not to be that simple. The circumstances were also a little special as well making it trickier, in that the students could be aged anywhere from 8-80, and some of them might only recently be partly literate - the literacy rate in India is only 74%. I got to work and spent the day deciding what I thought they should learn, and started gathering bits of freely available material from across the web.

Tuesday 28th

More of the same, working on the computer course all day. At lunchtime, the five guys in the office all gather round a desk to chat or read the paper. Everyone brings a tiffin lunch - a set of three stacking stainless steel containers, containing different foods such as chapattis (flatbread), curried cauliflower, curried mixed veg, and daal (a type on lentil soup), and shares it round with each other which I thought was nice.

That evening I took advantage of the fantastic cinema nearby again and went to see 'Mandela' which had just come out (though I understand came out in the UK six weeks before). It was a fantastic film, and it was obvious Nelson Mandela had a big heart and gave so much to his country, though had a more chequered early background than I realised. A fantastic, noble guy. 

Wednesday 29th

Great breakfast again in a great local cafe next door to where I was staying, where all the local students and young office workers eat. I had the typical local breakfast of an onion and tomato omelette with toast, followed by an uttappa, which is a kind of Indian savoury pancake with tomato and onion mixed, in served with a spicy dip. Spicy food for breakfast almost seems normal now!

Another day of working on the computer course.

Thursday 30th January

It was the day of my 31st birthday, and I decided to take the day off just because I could. Despite it being completely at odds with the volunteering work I'd been doing, I thought I'd be a bit self-indulgent for the day and loosen the purse strings a little, as well as doing what I love best. So I hired a bike.

After a stop at the office, to use the internet to open my birthday messages and Skype a friend, I pedaled south exploring another part of Pune city. I stopped at the racecourse, a legacy of the Raj era, as there appeared to be a race meet but it turned out to just be a load of locals gathered round a big screen gambling on a race in Delhi. A little further on I turned down a side street into a quiet residential area, and came across some farmers who were herding big flocks of sheep along the road; an unexpected sight given both that there was no fields and I'd seen very few sheep in India so far. Just as I started to ride away again a local, stood there with his two sons who had just finished school, started talking to me in broken English, and after a few minutes he decided to kindly invite me into his home - this seems to be becoming a regular habit. I thought 'why not?', and we walked down a short dirt track to his house which it soon became apparent was on the edge of a small slum. 

I was led inside his house, a hut made from wood and corrugated iron, and whilst being careful not to reveal it, I was quietly pretty shocked. The family of four lived in just one room, which was no bigger than the average British bathroom. There was a set of shelves, a plate rack on the wall, a pile of assorted stuff and a kind of trough-come-wash area. It was all kept clean and tidy, but was no toilet, and they all slept together on a fairly thin stuffed mattress which they rolled out every night. This was poverty. Despite him having a job in security and his wife being a housekeeper for someone, he explained they were very poor and this was all they could afford, at a rent of £20 (2000 rupees) per month. Despite all this, he was extremely hospitable and sent his son to the shop, returning with a bottle of 7UP for me to drink. We chatted for twenty minutes or so, before conversation ran a bit dry and I thanked him and said goodbye. I wanted to give them something, and it didn't look like the boys had much in the way of books, so I gave them the book I was reading, 'What Young India Wants'. This family has virtually nothing but still wanted to share a tiny bit of it, a heartwarming experience.

My birthday summed up

After a nice lunch at India's version of Starbucks - Cafe Coffee Day - I continued cycling, past some tower blocks and a large slum, before coming across a local cricket match in progress with a big crowd lining the oval, so stopped and watched for half an hour. A few miles later I found myself in one of the many large and modern IT parks that dot the city. In the centre of it I was amused to find a nice  green city park which despite being deserted, had Hindi music pumping out through speakers on all the lampposts. Finally back to the upmarket Koregaon Park area where I was staying, I went to the ninth-story rooftop bar of a very smart 5* hotel nearby, and had a beer whilst sat beside the infinity pool in the fading light of dusk, followed by a massage nearby. A brilliant nearby jazz bar was the perfect end to the day, having a huge portion of tandoori chicken pieces whilst watching a brilliant live jazz band. I was surprised though to find I couldn't have a beer, as it transpired it was a 'dry day' for the anniversary of Gandhi's death. They sneaked a vodka into my lemonade anyway! It was of course a little sad not to be able to celebrate the day with family or friends but that of course couldn't be helped, but was still a truly diverse day of poverty and luxury all-in-one that I'll remember for a long time.

Friday 31st

Seasons mall - one of the many in
well developed Pune

It was my final day with Asha Kiran. Having had a few days stuck in the office I took up the chance to visit one of the crèches again. Rajesh took us on his motorbike across town to Cerise, the crèche I'd visited the week before which had a farm next door. On the way we passed many modern IT parks, huge malls, the offices of international companies such as IBM and Microsoft, and top international hotels such as Hyatt and Westin, and even a Premier Inn. Pune is one of India's big outsourcing hubs, where American and European countries get Indians to do skilled rolls such as programming and accountancy at around a quarter of the cost, and consequently is a pretty developed place because of it. Trade and commerce is more effective at lifting people out of poverty than charity, as I've heard said many times recently.

Daft but fun slapping game at Cerise crèche

Teaching anything to young kids of a wide range of ages who don't speak English, turned out last time to be a little tricky. This time at the crèche, I was armed with some ideas for games to play with the kids from my sister, a primary school teacher, and the teacher encouraged me to go for it. I started with a bit of Simon says, followed by a game where you make a rhythm by slapping against different limbs. They really seemed to enjoy a daft game where I got them to run from one side of the room to the other, whilst making the sounds and actions of different animals. It was a fun morning, something I never expected to be doing on this trip, and the kids were buzzing when we left.

Back at the office I finished the slum computer course I'd been working on, and gave Manish all the photos of the projects I'd taken so they can use them for publicity. 

Before I knew it, it was 8pm and the end of my two week volunteering placement. Whilst it had started off a bit slow, it ended up being an interesting, fun and rewarding experience. I was impressed by the efficient bare-bones basis that Asha Kiran worked on, with nothing wasted and favours pulled in wherever possible from local companies. It's sad in many ways that it exists in the first place though - these NGOs/charities are only there because the Indian government is so corrupt, and not able to fund proper infrastructure themselves, whilst many politicians and government workers live comfortable, if not lavish lifestyles on the back of it.

Leaving the office, Manish said to me 'want to drink a beer?', indicating a quick thank you drink, and he told his wife he'd be home in an hour. Four hours, five beers and a meal later we finished up! He even insistented on paying for it all personally. He's a very interesting guy, very aware and open about India's problems, and fascinating to talk with. He told me stories about the problems of child labour which he works to help stop; still a big problem throughout the country. It seems that clothing sweat shops aren't much of a problem now as the government cracked down hard, but other industries still are. I was shocked to hear that fire crackers for example are usually made by children because they have small and dexterous fingers, but is also a very deadly and hidden-away industry.

1st and 2nd Feb

It was the weekend - a concept that I'd long since forgotten existed - every day is the weekend when you travel. But after a busy couple of weeks, I fancied a quiet couple of days, which in truth hardly justify writing about - just listening to some podcasts, going for a couple of walks, some reading and writing, and a trip to the cinema.

Late Sunday night it was time to leave Pune, and I reflected on my two weeks there. Helping other people is supposedly to be an entirely selfless process, but I tend to agree with the notion that altruism can never be entirely selfless. No matter how much many people believe that helping people purely benefits the other party, the reward of satisfaction also benefits the giver as well. For me personally that was true - it was satisfying that people have benefited from my time, even if in a tiny way, but also good to have a couple of more normal and settled weeks for a change.

Disco bus - great idea!

Heading back from work

Farmers at work

Slumdog Billionaire

Mumbai, India

In this blog: I see what the British left behind, visit the slums of Mumbai, and see the most expensive house in the world.

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6 months on the road... the route so far. Large map here

So first of all, a brief side note in that my arrival in Mumbai marked six months on the road. I'd like to say it's been awful, terrible, the worst experience of my life. But obviously I can't. I'm thoroughly enjoying the amazing experiences, unique sights and various wonderful people I meet, all often at unexpected moments. Sure, occasionally it feels a bit pointless, and making every decision on your own can be a bit draining, but it's all character building. I've learnt a lot about the countries and places I've been to, as well as assorted history I probably should have learnt at school, and have a broader understanding of the rights and wrongs of the world. And it goes without saying it's been a lot of fun! India itself has been a surprise as well; much more tolerable than expected, and full of excitement, chaos, and life. In fact the two months I expected to spend here have long come and gone, and I'll be here at least another month.

It's been a rollercoaster - but a good one - lots of excitement with the odd moment of feeling sick.

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I'd been a bit apprehensive about visiting Mumbai, but it took a while to actually realise this until I realise I'd been putting off visiting. I wanted to go but at the same time I didn't, I guess I had preconceptions that it was a huge overcrowded city, gridlocked, full of slums, dirty, noisy and unpleasant. In fact, it had elements of all of the above, but is overwhelmingly a modern, clean and developed metropolis and the source of half of India's tax income thanks to being the finance centre. In fact it turned out to be quite an endearing place, and I ended up quite liking it.

I arrived in the city mid-morning on a sleeper bus though can't say I was able to sleep a lot, and experienced straight-off the gridlock I'd heard about. Like Manhattan, a lot of the city is built on a peninsula, with too many people and cars in too small an area, and also like Manhatten were the hundreds of skyscrapers present, often surprisingly modern. Contrasting with this, the mass slums in various areas were also very apparent. It struck me straight away I was about to experience a very different India. 

The commuter trains at a quieter time of day

It was a lovely warm morning thanks to being much further south, and with the bus stopping far uptown, I took the urban train further south to the affluent Colaba district, witnessing packed commuter trains travelling with people hanging out of the wide doors that are left open all the time, a striking sight that took me back to Slumdog Millionaire which was filmed here. Partly thanks to people falling out said doors, Mumbai rail is the most dangerous in the world with a shocking 2,700 people dying every year - nearly ten every day. Property prices, and therefore accommodation prices are high in Mumbai, so once in the Colaba area I ended up taking a tiny windowless room on a fifth floor backstreet building, which sounds grim but was actually very clean and tidy so I didn't mind too much. Except for the urinal blocks they liked to put in the communal bathroom sinks to keep them fresh, which made me want to vomit every time I brushed my teeth. What a strange idea.

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I went for a stroll round the local area, which was cleaner, much less chaotic and generally more 'normal' than I've been used to of late - one of the most obvious differences being that there were actually pavements to walk on. Oh the little things. I reached the waterfront and saw the Arabian Sea for the first time, a refreshing feeling when you've not seen the sea for a good couple of months. A shoeless child of about seven followed me along the waterfront begging for money, the most persistent I've yet encountered - but as mentioned before it's not wise to give to them, cruel as it sounds, as it encourages dependency on begging, and often the money goes straight to discretly-hidden gang leaders instead of the kids anyway I understand. I passed India gate, an arched monument built by the British long ago, and beside this, the luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel where the devastating Mumbai terrorist attacks happened in 2008. I stopped nearby and tried a Kulfi Falooda - a desert of a soft dough with almonds and cherry, drizzled in pomegranate seeds and milk, pretty nice. 

British colonial architecture - the high court

Mumbai, or Bombay as it was then, was very important to the British back in the day and consequently retains a lot of relics from the Raj era. I walked to the district known as Fort, passing cricket pitches, grand museums and art galleries, the university, cathedral, fountains, parks, and the old city hall. All of these were crafted from local stone in a hybrid of British and Indian styles, but looked unmistakably British in origin. 

That night I met up with Shaun, an Australian who I'd been hanging around with a month or so before in the North Indian town of Rishikesh. We'd got on well and stayed in touch, and fortunately our travelling plans coincided in Mumbai, and so began a few evenings of beer and banter, starting at Leopolds, a place I discovered the next day was one of the other locations of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, oh joy. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place though, or so I hoped. Shaun is a long-term traveller of about eighteen months, and supports himself by doing copywriting for businesses and websites based back in Oz - he can work anywhere in the world as long as he has an internet connection, a dream job some would say.

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Thursday 16th Jan

Victoria station

The next day I took one of the old and characterful Mumbai cabs uptown, and set off around another part of the city. There were more relics of the British Raj - the rather grand Victoria Station which was more like a cathedral inside, some government buildings, the Central Post Office, and Crawford market. The latter was huge, and the speciality here seemed to be pet shops, where cages were stuffed often uncomfortably full of rats, mice, pigeons, cats, dogs, gerbils and brightly coloured birds. Not all together I must add, though that would be quite exciting to see. 

Further up the peninsula, I stopped as I walked past a university which was having some sort of games afternoon, and smiled whilst watching them do a tug-of-war competition in, of course a very Indian way. I spent the rest of the late afternoon at Chowpatty beach. It was a surprisingly impressive clean and pleasant stretch of sand, bang in the heart of the city, and was the perfect place to be in the late afternoon sun. Women sat on the sand in saaris and burkas, whilst chai-wallahs walked by carrying kettles continuously chanting 'chai, chai, chai' to the obviously tea-starved public. Not even tea-mad England has a cuppa on the beach.

Chowpatty beach

Mumbai is the home of Bollywood - the Indian film industry, and so there's cinemas everywhere. That evening, with not much nightlife going on locally, me and Shaun went to see Grudge Match, starring Robert de Niro and Sly Stallone, which in fact was American. The first surprise was to find that when you ordered food beforehand, they delivered it to your seat during the film. A great touch. The next was having to stand, along with the rest of the audience at the start, for the Indian National anthem which I decided wouldn't win any awards for catchiness. The cinema itself was fantastic, with a quality of picture and comfort of seat better than anything at home. Interestingly, despite being an American film with the dialogue in English, which many middle and upper-class Indians speak as a first language, it was also subtitled... in English! I guess some find the American accent unclear. Half-way through, the film abruptly stopped, and it was soon apparent it was for an interval. So old-school, I love it. It's funny how something as simple as going to the cinema can be so subtly so different in another country.

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Friday 17th January

Mumbai is sadly associated all over the world with it's slums, and the British-Indian movie Slumdog Mlllionaire gave us all an insight into what they were like. However, like many movies this portrayal was a little skewed as I've since found out. 

Dharavi Slum from the railway station

About half the population of Mumbai live on just 6% of the land in such slums, and Dharavi, filming location of said movie, is the largest. In fact it's the second largest slum in Asia. When I first heard a while back that companies do tours of the slums for tourists, I thought it sounded pretty low - turning people's misery into an almost circus-freak-show type attraction. When I looked deeper though, I learnt the company doing the tours aimed to build awareness of the reality of the conditions, gave eighty percent of the profits to community initiatives in the slum, and don't allow photography. It then sounded a bit more dignified and respectful, so inteagued, I decided to go along on one of the tours of Dharavi.

On the half-hour train journey there, I was surprised to see an Indian ladyboy (news to me) poncing around the carriage making strange sounds, then touching people on the shoulder and demanding money, followed by supposedly 'cursing' them if they didn't oblige. Fortunately I was out of range, but it was a peculiar sight to witness. Our tour group arrived at the station right beside the slum, and the thirty-odd people split into groups of seven. Our guide was a local chap and was very good at what he does. He was keen to emphasise that the aforementioned movie portrayed and exaggerated the bad sides of the slum, without pointing out the good sides. Good sides I thought? He led us into the nearest area, where the main business is recycling. All sorts of stuff is recycled, and is mostly done painstainingly and dangerously by hand. Plastic, paint tins, and drugs containers, all ripped apart manually without any safety equipment, and processed by cleaning out, burning off, dousing in chemicals etc, before putting through small electric-powered shredders and crushers, made in the slum. Some of the waste is from India, and some from abroad I understand. After all, those container ships bringing shiny goods from India to Europe can't go back empty, so why not pass our waste onto more desperate and less safety conscious people to deal with eh? The sad way the world works unfortunately, and we're all part of that chain whether we like it or not. You have to admire their ingenuity in making money from nothing, but the conditions these people were working in were pretty dismal. They seem to be tolerated out of a combination of desperation, and the lack of knowing the real consequences, earning each of them between £1.50 - £2 a day (150 - 200 rupees).

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Further on we came across some sewing workshops, where groups of about ten men sat in neatly laid out rooms making shirts. To be fair they looked reasonably content and the conditions didn't appear too bad. A lot was for the local Indian market, though the guide said some items were for Lee Cooper, via a middle man of course. The way that game often works. The surprise was that far from the local population wallowing round in piles of dirt and faeces, the paths round the slum were mostly concreted, everyone had a legal electric and water supply (I say legal - people used to tap in and steal it), there was a market, shoe shops, pharmacy, restaurant, hotel and butchers. We continued into this maze, past a guy being given a cut-throat shave whilst sat on a barrel, then some kids playing on the ground with medical waste. 

We were led into the very densely packed residential area, down very dark and narrow paths past houses, ducking below sagging overhead cables, and being careful not to get lost. The houses were almost all brick-built rather than tin shacks, and families mostly lived in single room homes about the same size as the average bathroom at home. Whilst it was obviously a completely inadequate standard of living in this day and age, at least they appeared to live with at least some dignity. The government are slowly doing something about it, bulldozing some areas and rehousing people in tower blocks, though not nearly fast enough. We continued on, looking in a small leather processing factory, watching women making pappadums on baskets laid on the street, kids playing cricket on the edge of a rubbish tip, and a very dirty looking river. We stopped at a community centre and saw the projects the charity was funding and organising which were all very positive.

It was a fascinating tour, though the whole way round I felt as if we shouldn't be there. We were obviously just generally interested, but it felt like they saw us as the rich people looking down our noses. That said, everyone was either friendly or indifferent towards us, so maybe this is just my imagination. Instead of coming away feeling a sense of despair, I saw a real sense of community, people working hard to better themselves, better sanitation than I imagined, and a good basic level of infrastructure. Yes, it all looks a bit inhumane to an outsider, but if you don't know any different do you see it as bad, or just normal?

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Antilla - a house in the shape of a tower block

Once the tour had finished, I left the group and in a complete contrast to what I'd just seen, caught the commuter train a few miles south, and walked to a very posh part of town to see Antilla. Worth over US $1bn, Antilla is the most expensive private residence in the world, and owned by the richest man in India. It's hard to believe the two areas I'd visited that day are so close, but such is the diversity of India. Built in 2009, it's been controversial ever since completion, with some saying it's an icon of the city and an inspiration for people to work hard and dream big - 'look what you could achieve'. Others say it's disgusting, and completely insensitive to build such a place when so many people live in such squalid conditions, and I tend to agree with the latter. The easterly windows even look out over Dharavi slum just a few miles away. The whole area was a surprising contrast to the previous two months of India, with Mercs, Golfs, Skodas, Hondas and Beemers cruising around, big posh houses and trees overhanging tidy streets, and I really questioned if I was still in the same country. 

Mumbai was a happening place, so more tales follow in a day or two. 

The chaos around Crawford market. The guy with the basket is a freelance delivery man, India's version of FedEx maybe?

Traditional Mumbai taxis

Crawford market

Pull!