Procrastination

School is officially underway, all my classes have been chosen and my schedule finalized after one month of dabbling into several of the social science programs here at the University. Because each department creates their own timetable, it was difficult to find a schedule without conflicts. I tried courses in Sociology, Women's Studies, Politics, and Economics, finally settling on two politics and one economics course. I really wanted to take the women's studies course on Gender & Development, but it wasn't meant to be. Now that I actually have some work to do, I feel like procrastinating by writing about a bunch of random thoughts rather than doing some readings, so here are a few random highlights from the last few weeks:

1) Because of school finally starting, I am choosing to write this post instead of doing reading for my Agricultural economics class, which has the first test in a few short weeks. This course was the one I was most excited about, especially from the perspective here in India as there is so much happening on the food justice and food production front here. The whole biotechnology debate and its effect on farmers is also an issue I am extremely interested in, and some of my favourite academic articles on the topic have come from India. Classes however so far have been disappointing. Interaction is low, and structure is lacking. However, the friends I have met in class, especially in economics, have been extremely friendly and tons of fun chat and hang out with, and has been one of the highlights for me so far at school.

2) Last night was Janmashtami in India, which is a Hindu festival here in India celebrating Krishna's birthday. India is an amazing country, there is always so much happening, the streets are always bustling with activity, festivals happening almost every week. The festival last night was really neat. The main event of the festival is a team of local participants called Govinda's that form a human period to reach a clay pot filled with buttermilk about 30 feet in the air and to break it. I am going to try and post a video of this on facebook, the energy in the crown was amazing and the excitement before the clay pot was broken was electrifying. These pots are placed all over the city in Pune, and also in cities all over the country, however we chose to visit the event in Deccan, an area near our flat.  On the first attempt one of the member reached the top, but as he was going to wind up to hit the target, he lost his balance and came crashing down 20 or 30 feet. Luckily he was okay, and within two minutes was back up and breaking the clay releasing the milk on the Govinda's and the entire pyramid. The pictures don't give the actual event enough justice, so I uploaded a video below.

3) I am loving the food here. I already fear the day of returning back home and being without the flavour explosions that are part of almost every meal here. It is amazing having at minimum 20-30 choices of veg food here at each meal, compared to the often one or two token items on the menu for vegetarians in Canada. I plan at somepoint to write down every one of my favourite dishes and hopefully try to make them before I leave.

4) I really am enjoying living near the University. Not only is there amazing food on the street corner, but there is so much green space around, something I wasn't expecting to be living near here in Pune. Within twenty minutes from the flat you can have a view of the entire city from the nearby hill behind our building. I took my first hike up the surrounding hills which was great. The highlight was finding at the top of the hill some sort of iron scaffolding with stairs to the top of it. After cautiously making our way up and realizing it was not going to fall over and we wouldn't fall to our death, we had an amazing view of the city.

A view of the main area of the festival in Deccan

Attempt #1

View from the hill behind our flat