Goodbye Jamboree!

Last day of Pune and it is now a race to the finish to see how much we can cram in before our car leaves the airport in the evening. After last nights fiasco wherein a certain party almost missed his flight despite leaving 5 hours early, we are now leaving SIX hours early, and completely cutting around Mumbai city, instead going through the Dharavi, (the Mumbai slum, one of the largest slums in all of Asia, has its own GDP, worth a read up at least.)

An eternity of eating pineapples and pomegranate seeds is not enough.

January 26th is Indian Republic Day, think the 4th of July but a LOT more austere, and heartfelt, and allmmooost religious. V serious holiday. Can also buy every conceivable shape of waveable item to wave in the pattern of Indian flag.

We then went to an art show, wherein I once again failed to document anything substantial, then paid a visit to one of Pune’s oldest temples, currently under reconstruction.

Shot from temple

FUN STORY: we ate lunch at a restaurant called Maratha Samrat, which sounded remarkably like Martha Stuart. At this restaurant I imbibed in a glorious mutton thali. See above. I then rolled myself out.

Another shot from the temple

Yo if you’re here you already know what it is. What do we do after eating? Do we hit the court? Naw B it’s all about that sari blouse life. Stretchy, starchy, satin, cotton, crepe, chiffon, georgette, gotta catch em all.

Pieces of me

Show me the lie.

And with that, the curtains slid close on my time in Pune. I cried a single tear as we left my new favourite place, and then we took the MF scariest car ride for 4 hours (no seat belts obvs) through the middle of pitch black don’t even ask me nowhere, to get to Mumbai’s airport, (Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport say it loud say it proud), zig-zagging through the Dharavi and sitting in traffic that was sometimes marred by bovines. We got to an airport so large, shiny, and nice that it really did mentally confuse me as to why all apparent money available had to be spent on an airport and none could be spent on anyone living on the streets and or Dharavi. This is to be continued.

One late night connection to Kolkata would take us to da muthaland, (be still my heart), Dhaka……….