Toot goes the Rickshaw

Perpetual sounds of honking provides rhythm to flying dusts, launched into the air by the grazing of car tyres, autorickshaws, worn-out bikes, motorcars and pedestrians against the unpaved roads. Honking, roars of engines, and roadside chatters form a cacophony that greets the outsider every she goes. Stretches of shops, schools, offices, houses lined along the roads, looking run-down and unkempt, paint peeling off the walls and fading with its day-long exposure to the sun, thick with dusts. Slums lie along parts of the road, little rows of tiny huts inhabited by sari-clad mothers with babies, and dusty children sitting on the footpath, giving a wave to the visitor who stares curiously at them, forgetting all forms of civilised manners, wondering if she is seeing herself a feature of what the media and the world have always addressed about India - street children. She waves back. Not far ahead billboards, vivid advertisements, fancy modern shopping malls, hotels, multinational petrol kiosks flash their newness. Uniformed security guards unproficient in giving directions (in English, to be fair) stands outside buildings and malls, sophisticated ladies walk confidently about in expensive-looking sunglasses, clad in traditional dresses. Next to her, autorickshaws drive about in frenzy, snaking through Toyotas and lorris, honking at whatever objects that get in their way; while bicyclists pedal right next to them, leisurely in their own pace .

In smaller streets, cows stroll lazily by the roads, oblivious to the irritated motorists trying to squeeze past one another in narrow streets; little feral goats frolic about, scavenging by the roadside stalls, nibbling on food strewn on the ground, infested with flies, as well as finding food in little plants inbetween cracks of the shop walls. Right next to the road workers stand by the food shop, feasting on delicious-looking Indian food while their eyes dart about the scene around them, which at the moment rests curiously on the two fairer-skinned foreigners finding their ways around the uneven pavement, carefully trying to avoid stepping on cow dung, litters and spits dotted along the way. In main streets students in uniforms walk abreast on their way to school (or back?), girls in pigtails, blue chiffons and dark blue pinafores, knee-high socks; boys playing by the roadside, stopping while the two odd-looking yellow skinned ladies walk past them. Sellers push their carts at the side of the traffic, displaying their wares: clothes, fruits, older ladies walk in saris, carrying baskets of vegetables; occasionally the sidewalk is obstructed by a roadside stall, selling snacks that looks delightfully appetising to the foreign looker, but too afraid for her fragile stomach.

Three hours southwest of Mumbai, the cultural capital of Maharashtra, 'Oxford of the East'. This is Pune for me and my mom's first couple of days. A city nonchalant about its run-down, dusty state, and chaotic traffic, but proud of itself. Roadside litters, skinny stray dogs with swollen suckling nipples, dirty beggars, unscrupulous rickshaw drivers...

Unsightly it may be, poverty it may suggest, developing country it may exemplify. But we see poor only when we are used to the rich, we feel unsightly and uncivilised because we are too used to beauty and order. But if we don't and judgements don't exist, perhaps these does not matter. Perhaps these can be charm in its own right. As long as people are content and have no self-judgement of their own state as we interpret, life is interesting and fascinating.

Kacang putih (mixed nuts)...ah! The good old days in primary school

Cycle Society...the neighbourhood where I live

Our flat on the 2nd floor

The autorickshaw

kacang putih!!! Oh, those were the days in primary school