Always Interraceting

    My kitchen balcony is so full of character it deserves its own blog post.  Fourth floor looking down, and the strolling people below are lit by the glow of small restaurants: an ice cream shop I long to visit to buy a Cad-B, an Indian chocolate milkshake, and the samosa place (word on the street says it's the best in the city) on the ground floor.  Through the gaps in the blossoming Shirish tree reaching almost to my balcony and stretching up to the fifth floor, I can see our neighbors, our friends my host mom calls out to in Marathi in the morning, preparing dinner.  Just a block away Dnyanprabodhini rises like a multistoried cake, topped with traditional architectural icing and sugared arches like the Taj Mahal.  It's 7 o'clock and the pavement is lined with scooters, the vehicles of the young men and women who patron my street, the food hub of Pune.

    Every so often as dusk falls, a single motorcycle goes weaving through people unnecessarily quickly, unabashedly  showing off.  From the ground he looks like he's going to injure a pedestrian but from up here, it's quaint.

    Exotic sights pass along from time to time.  Sounds send me running to the terrace--the steady beating of the drums carried by the young beggar women to announce their grand arrival, food plates balanced on heads.  They, like all, stop at the coffee shop for an afternoon refreshment.  Another day loud cracking noises are slapped from the ground outside.  It's the young man looking for money as he self-flagellates with a thick, 6 foot whip.  My host brother Tanmay points to his scarless back.  "It's a scam," he says.  "He's just whipping the ground".  He's right: from above, his tricks are obvious.

    But for all my love of the darkening street, the couples strolling and students chatting with Cad-B in hand, I belong looking down at the scene, not in it.  When I emerge from my van carrying my backpack each day, it's clear I don't belong.  Suddenly there's a string across two signs, seemingly meant to clothesline me.  A backhoe threatens me as it backs into the construction site adjacent to my building, where migrant workers set their toddlers to watch as they build, mainly by hand.  But most often, I get confused stares from the young customers, curious to see the American student.

    So I watch from the balcony, like a plaintive Juliette.  Oh romantic street, wherefore art though in India?  Deny my nationality and refuse my German last name, or if thou will not, at least give me a samosa.

    I come back into the kitchen and decide that samosas can wait, it's time for dinner.  After all, this is a romance of culture and taste, not a tragedy.