published from bodhgaya, 18th April
Geeta et Jay vivent dans une maison de taille moyenne au sud ouest de Pune. Ils ont un terrain dans un quartier où les immeubles de plus de deux étages sont interdits. Vivant dans une impasse, le trafic est presque inexistant et la tranquillité règne. Ils ont un manguier, deux cocotiers et beaucoup d’oiseaux venant boire au petit abreuvoir que Jay rempli consciencieusement chaque matin. Les écureuils ne s’en plaignent pas non plus !
Ils sont tous les deux à la retraite même si Jay travaille quand bon lui semble sur un petit appareil utilisé pour souder dont il vend régulièrement quelques exemplaires à son ancien employeur, le géant Tata. Il a conçut le dispositif lui même comme beaucoup d’autres objets ingénieux.
I realise now that people being the protagonists of this post will appreciate to read it in English, so I may be breaking the rules but I’ll change language right in the middle of this post.
The following days were also eventful with music playing, saree trying and a even table tennis game! Jay showed us his very fine painting of landscapes and sceneries. He also did presentation of the journey he did on his bike across Europe last summer with his friend from childhood. Can you imagine, two 60 years old Indian cyclists on the road France, Germany, Hungary for 90 days.
They had planned their exact route and where they would sleep. They never missed a stage!
Funny story is that they followed for a long time the eurovelo 6 road from St Nazarre to Budapest. This road passes very close (200m) to my sister’s house in Besancon. They passed there on the 4th of July. That day I was in my sister’s house! So we had been 200m from each other 9 months ago, 8000km away from where we are meeting now in Pune.
Geeta is also retired from her government job and has always been dedicated to other people: her children, her parents, Jay’s parents.
Now they are all gone and she can spend time doing what she loves: music and especially the harmonium- of which we had a little concerto… She was really impressed that we kept on insisting for helping in the kitchen. She was so open minded that she did let us and the four of us formed a perfect cooking team!
Before arriving to Pune, another Warmshowers member had offered to host us,not in his house but in a flat he rented on his job site, in the mountains nearby. It happened to be that he is good friend of Jay’s family!
He took us to his job place for one night. He is an architect and has been working for 6 years on a colossal project aiming at building an utopian city in the wild mountains 50km away from Pune. Originally the big boss of the building company, Lavasa, wanted companies to move there and employees to have a perfect life, walking to work, playing on the lake, walking in the forest…
The project is facing financial and juridical issues ( they are invading a huge wildlife area and people that gave permissions before are now in trouble). However capitalism is such that it is slowly going where the money is: sell flat as secondary home to rich people in Mumbai. This means no children in the school, no companies and a town empty maybe 90% of the time.
Shantish seemed, with reasons, a bit doubtful. He is such a bright mind and it was very stimulating to talk about all these topics with him.
In the morning we went for a walk away away on a trail (designed by Lavasa) with a precious view on the wild landscape. According to the complete Lavasa plan, houses and buildings will be all around the lake. We definitely agreed with Jay that it was best for it to stop sooner than later.
Dharma bums on bikes 