Classes

Oh the perpetual problem of blogging about this experience - there’s so much to tell, but no words to tell it! I don’t even know how to begin to describe the experience in terms that will make it even partially come alive for anyone who hasn’t experienced it.

Anyway... now that I’ve made that point, I’ll try and talk a bit about the start of classes. Yesterday we only did Marathi, and today we started our Contemporary India class. We’ll be doing Marathi every day, and the CI class Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m really stoked about the topics covered in CI: class, caste, gender, language, politics, poverty, education, etc. This country is SO complicated and multi-facetted. Our prof said it today, and I’ve definitely seen it through experience: anything you say about India is true, and not true. It’s the land of opposites and extremes. It makes every turn interesting and exciting, but also hard to understand. Nothing can be put in a box here. There are no generalities that can be made, because they are so right yet so wrong in so many ways. It will be interesting to see how things work once we start getting more in depth into the different subjects, and hopefully are able to put a few puzzle pieces together. Tuesdays we’ll be having class with a soc/anthro professor, and Thursdays with a Poli-Sci prof. Monday and Wednesday I’m assuming we’ll have our elective class (Environmental Perspectives for me) a long with Marathi. Add on the research project, and it’s starting to look a bit overwhelming!

Marathi is TONS of fun, but pretty difficult. The script is beautiful. Every letter has it’s own sound, and can only be pronounced one way, so once you know it it makes a lot of sense. Phonetically spelling the words is kind of tricky, ‘cause it doesn’t look like what you’d expect. I think that once I know enough to start speaking a little in everyday conversation, I’ll start to pick it up a lot faster. And hopefully be able to relate it to Hindi and learn some of that as well!

Yesterday I made friends with some of the students from the French class that is taught in the classroom above us. They were a lot of fun, and thought it was pretty funny that I’m learning Marathi. I think they were surprised that I went over to talk to them, ‘cause all the other US students were sitting in a group a ways off. Everyone shared their food with me and offered to help me with my Marathi (yay!). Priyanka (one of my new friends :p), Izzy and I all went out for coffee at a really nice Barista on RC Road and talked for hours about Bollywood stars, Indian and [USo]American culture, places to visit around Pune, and where we should travel. Her mom is a travel agent, so she said she can help us figure out where to go and stay and stuff - it’s going to be super helpful I’m sure. I think I’m going to try and go to her house for Dīpāvali (Marathi: दिवाळी), the festival of lights coming up in September. Everyone dresses in traditional clothing, make tons of sweets and other food, and party the night away. It’s HUGE in Pune, ‘cause it started here. During British rule it was illegal for people to congregate because they were planning the revolution, so festivals were a way to get everyone together. As a result, there are a TON of them now.

Some of the best colleges in the country are in Pune. Priyanka goes to one of them, and says there are quite a few foreign students there. She has a lot of friends, Indian and foreign, that I look forward to meeting at some point. I’ll probably be connecting with some professors once I start my research as well. I'm falling in love with this country so quickly. I don't know if I'm ever going to want to leave! I am starting to think about looking for an internship through J-term; extend my stay by a month or so. We'll see. For now I’ve got to go study and get to bed! It’s early mornings and jam-packed days from here on out.