Happy Journey! Pune and Kopergaon

Last week I went to Pune to visit some family. I stayed with my mom's cousin, Sunil Mama, and his family and got to see my cousins that I hadn't seen in 9 or 10 years! Got to see some nightlife and grab some drinks (quite a luxury for me now). Pune is definitely somewhere I can live, it has all the conveniences of a modern metropolis w/o without the major congestion and traffic. I told Sunita Mami I'd come live there if she found me a job!

I went to Kopergaon Sun - Wed to visit Dada Baba (mom's dad). He threw me a dinner party for my graduation so I got to see tons more family from his side, aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews. I was afraid he was going to make me give a speech but he didn't, he just basically introduced me, said that I finished my PhD, working in Calcutta, told everyone about my stipend (I'm not sure how that's relevant but somehow indicates my level of success?) and also said something like "She has no plans for marriage so who knows when we'll see her again or get to celebrate with her" haha so it was nice he said that up front so I didn't have to deal with those questions. He then did "satkar", its basically giving me flowers and a shawl, as an official introduction and welcoming. He also did this to 8 other people so the attention wasn't all on me, he also embarrassed my cousin by telling everyone about her marriage/love story (which was quite scandalous for the small town I'm sure), so that was HILARIOUS. I don't think he realizes how funny he is. He is still so active for his age. His memory is very good, he didn't even write down all the details of my introduction or anyone else's introduction. It was cool to spend time with him, and it would be interesting to pick his brain about all the stuff he knows, esp. about agriculture and science.

Back in Pune, I got to see some tourist sights like the Pateleshwar Temple and Saras Bag. The Pateleshwar Temple is an old rock cut cave temple from the 8th Century right in the middle of the city! Well the city limits grew around it, but how cool is that, to have an ancient temple down the street from your house?

After seeing all those people after all this time, I was definitely tired of answering questions like "So what are you doing in Calcutta", "Why did you come to India? Aren't the facilities and schools better in the US?", "When are you going to get married?", "Are you going to marry an Indian or non-Indian", "What do you like better, India or America", "Oh are you dieting?", "Eat some more food". Basically the same questions from 50 different people, it gets tiring after a while!