sorry, it's been forever...

Erin and I are in Darjeeling, where it is freaking cold! Well I guess it's only like 40 something degrees, but people leave the windows open like it is the middle of summer. Most buildings are without heat and a hot shower is a things to come across. In Pelling we had to order hot water by the buckets, only available in the morning or before dark in the evening (5pm)...so we opted not to shower at all...at least we stayed moderately warm.

Anyways, Tomorrow we are planning to get up around 330AM to catch a jeep out to Tiger Hill, about 11km from Darjeeling town....to watch the sun come up over the mountains. It's been a bit foggy/cloudy, today we didn't have a very clear view but on our drive in Kanjengdzonga (I have no Idea how to spell it) was clear as crystal. It was seriously unreal, almost like a backdrop of a movie set or something. It's the third highest peak in the world and a pretty holy place to the people of Darjeeling and Sikkim. From Tiger Hill we are supposed to get an incredible view of the Himalayas. I guess Mount Everest is even supposed to be a speck on the horizon..so we're hoping for clear skies...

Sikkim was an amazing place. It was so relaxing after four months of Kolkata, we were in dear need of a break from the city life. It was quite, clean, and the freshest air I think I may have ever breathed, it is just a really chill place. People were friendly and unintrusive, and we had heavy blankets and a great hot shower in our hotel in Gangtok, the capital of the state of Sikkim. Apparently Sikkim is the capital of Eco-tourism, I am not sure exactly what that means, but stores are prohibited from giving out plastic bags and there were signs all over warning of serious fines and even jail time for dumping. It's almost like a different world from the streets of Kolkata.

We met up with a friend Dan (another IPSL Student) in Gangtok, after our overnight train out of Kolkata. We were actual;ly sitting at a cafe, hanging out and drinking some tea when he came up an put his hand on my back. It was great to see him, and we were a bit worried we weren't going to find each other, but it worked out spectacularly...I guess that's traveling in Sikkim for you. The three of us hiked up a hill together just above Gangtok town. An approximate 6100ft hill, to a little viewstation called Ganesh Tok. It was abit cloudy, but the mountains (the Khangendzonga massif) seemed to be trying to poke its head out, so we were able to see a few peaks. After some soul and body warming momos (dumplings with a spicy garlic sauce) and tea we walked through a zoo/park area with red padas, snow leopards and I think my favorite a Himalayan black bear, who looked like he was doing yoga. We walked around a corner and he was just sitting, looking up at us holdinmg his feet out in front of him by his paws. He had small round ears and a white stripe around his neck, which made him look almost like he was wearing a necklace. It was a pretty hilarious sight. I don't think I've ever seen an animal sit in a similar fashion...

So we hoped on a share jeep after two days in Gangtok (share jeep with about nine other people) for a five hour drive to Pelling, just a little south west of Gangtok, still within the state of Sikkim. Pelling was also I think, at about an elevation of some 6000 or so feet. It was a much smaller town that Gangtok, but beautiful as can be. Our first day was cloud covered, but the next day was clear as could be, and the Khandjegzonga range was out like a monster staring us in the face. It was massive! We took a hike out of Pelling to Khechopalri Lake, a wishing lake neighboring a Buddhist monastery. We didn't make it all the way there, but hitched a ride on a jeep carrying twelve others only a few kilometers from the actual lake. We had hiked down from Pelling to a river, crossed on a crazy ricketey bridge, and were only about 8km from the lake, but they offered a ride and we gladly accepted after the four some hours we had already been walking. The lake was pristine as could be and surrounded on almost all sides with a sea of Tibetan prayer flags. Aparently from the Buddhist story the birds living around the lake remove all the leaves from its surface. We reached it just as the sun was beginning to set, and a group of monks came to the little walkway leading the lake edge, for a short cerimony. They lit a bunch of incense and started chanting, it was really beautiful...

Darjeeling is wonderful, lots of other tourists, but it's nice to talk with them about their travels and hear about tricks and all that is going on elsewhere. Erin is headed back to Kolkata and then home on Saturday and I am headed on to Kathmandu, Nepal. I'll be meeting up with three other friends from IPSL there, I've heard only the best about Kathmandu and Nepal so far. It's great to be done with the IPSL program, relaxing and yet stressing in a whole new way. Things are really wonderful here, don't really know if they could be much better. Got lots to bring back...
love to all.

more to come soon of course...

We're all safe and sound here in Kolkata...Mumbai is a long way away. Things seem to be going fairly normaly here, although security is definitely heightened, we are staying close to home and avoiding crowded and touristy places.

The IPSL program is almost over, meaning an end to classes and the relief of turning in our assignments, and never having to worry about them again. Although it is a bit stressful with what has been happening on the other side of the country we are still enjoying ourselves, keeping an eye on the news, travel warnings and information from the US Consulate.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We made a pumpkin pie from a whole pumpkin..it was pretty amazing!

Much more to come soon...it's been a while...

Tuesday September 30th, 2008 - Kolkata

In preparation for the Pujas next week, we had a class on Hindu Goddesses and Goddess worship within India. Durga, to whom the Pujas, this next week long festival is dedicated, is a form of the Mother Goddess of Hinduism. She is worshipped particularly in Kolkata and the Durga Puja festivities, we are told, in this city are unlike anything anywhere else in India.

Our professor for this class began by talking about how Goddess worship originated in Hinduism. She went on to describe some goddess worship ceremonies and certain practices and traditions in which some people participate to worship and show respect for various Hindu Goddesses. Although she started off quite seriously and seemed to be talking earnestly, as she went on she began to break out into quiet laughter at the end of all her sentences. It was the strangest experience…because as she began to laugh with her deep-bellied silent giggle, she started to make the rest of us laugh. And we couldn’t even figure out what it was that was so funny, what it was that she was laughing at. She could have been laughing at us perhaps for some reason, or maybe it was the material she was teaching for some odd reason. We just couldn’t figure it out, and pretty soon we were all breaking out into nervous, confused, and sometimes hysterical laughter in the middle of our cramped class because she kept giggling and having to stop after every few sentences…Good thing we only had two classes with her…

Today was also Rosh Hashanah - Le Shannah Tovah

Dan, Seth (the only two guys here on IPSL), and I skipped out on service this morning to go and check out Kolkata’s Jewish Synagogues, and to see if we couldn’t find a few of the supposed 50 some Jews still living in the city with whom to celebrate the Jewish New Year. And we did find some, a few at least…We took the metro from Kalighat Station just about fifteen minutes from our house all the way up past Park Street (city center area), to the Central Metro Station which is just north of an area called BBD Bagh, where many of the British lived during colonization and where West Bengal’s current government headquarters are located. We found our way (quite miraculously – as many streets are unmarked and wind this way and that) to Canning Street also sometimes/once called Jewish Synagogue Street I believe, home to Kolkata’s oldest Synagogue, the Maghen (or Moghen or Magen) David Synagogue. The gated entrance was crammed between the stalls of a market lining the street outside and although there was a man who let us in, the doors leading inside the Temple were locked. From what it seemed the gatekeeper was trying to tell us we needed to get someone’s permission to go inside. Luckily there was another foreigner outside the gate who had followed us inside, a man named Cliff who had been in India for a while for his work. And he showed us to BethEl, where Rosh Hashanah services were being held.

We were really in a whole new area of Kolkata. The streets seemed to be even more packed than usual, cramped so much that it was tough for even one car to squeeze its way through all that was happening on foot. I don’t think I have seen equal loads to some that men were pulling in their bicycle carts and carrying on their heads on these streets…stacks of fifty or more shoe boxes held together by a cloth sack balanced upon a small cloth cushion and stabilizer atop one head, a huge coffee-table sized basket full of fish, fruit, or street snacks atop another’s head, carts so full of building material and bamboo rods that it took three men pushing to get it to move on the flat section of the road, and I could go on…there were also what seemed to be a number of mosques in this area, and many women bore covered heads and men small white skull caps. We later found out that it is a predominantly Muslim area of the city, and that the two Synagogues in the area are kept entirely by Muslim men.

Both Synagogues were absolutely beautiful. Maghen David looked almost like a church from the outside, painted in yellow and red with a huge squire like structure on one end. The entry doors were huge and the covered entryway looked as if it had been designed for carriages to pull right up into, dropping their passengers off just in front of the entrance steps. BethEl, which was located on a smaller side street called Pollack Street, had a larger more open entryway whose gates also open up into a market only slightly less packed than at the other Synagogue. There were seven people sitting together on the benches and chairs off to one side of the very open and spacious interior of BethEL. The monstrous front doors were wide open and the tens of windows lining both the lower and upper levels of the Temple were open as well, letting the sun shine in from all sides and the noise from the streets outside add a slightly different type of music to the gathering.

Four of the seven people at services were native Indians or Kolkatans, yet each and everyone with whom we talked, told us that they came from outside of India. It seemed that if even they had been born in India along with their parents and perhaps grandparents, they still did not totally identified as Indian. Their identities seemed to rest more upon where their Jewish ancestors had come from…Pakistan, Afghanistan…
One of the two ‘Indian’ men, who were both well into their sixties, named Mordechai told us a little bit about the Synagogue and the Jewish community in Kolkata. He explained how there were once thousands of Jew in Kolkata, but how that number had now dwindled down to only around fifty or so. His children, along with many other Kolkatan Jews as of recently have moved to other places in India, Israel and the US, leaving only a small group of older men and women to make up Kolkata’s Jewish population. The man leading services turned out to be (a) Nachoum, an eighth generation Kolkatan Jew who runs a very popular and one of the only Jewish bakeries left in Kolkata – Nachoum’s. Even as an eighth generation Kolkatan, he identified himself as a Jew of Middle Eastern origin. His bakery is in the Center of New Market, a huge shopping center near Park Street (said to be one of the largest shopping centers in Asia). It’s mostly run by Indian men any more though, as most of his family has either died or moved out of the city.

The three other people attending services that morning were also foreigners, all from the US. So with our arrival, us foreigners outnumbered the Kolkatans six to four. We must have showed up pretty far into the service, because it only went on for about another forty-five minutes or so after we arrived. All of it was in Hebrew, straight from the prayer book and I couldn’t really identify any of it even the few songs were completely different from anything any of us seemed to be familiar with. Dan and Seth were handed yarmulkes as we walked in and we were passed small prayer books as we sat down with the rest of the group, but there weren’t quiet enough to go around. So I sat and listened and looked around at the insides of the Temple…

It was really spectacular! Because the windows were open, little birds had found their way inside and were chirping away behind the ceiling beams as Mordechai went on in prayer. Although we were sitting a bit far off from the bema and some of us had our backs to it, as we were set up in a circle facing each other, it certainly stood out. Set off from the rest of the Sanctuary with a small intricate metal gate and the usual higher step up, there were four or five some door-like fixtures covered with dark silky curtains covered in Hebrew prayers and beautiful embroidered designs. The ceiling over the bema went up into a high archway and there were candles and lanterns hanging from high up. It was painted in a dark blue with soft golden stars here and there. I’m assuming that there were Torah scrolls behind the doorways, but I am not sure as there was no Torah reading during the service and the doors were shut and locked tightly. Some of the windows were large flower shaped blue and red stained glass and the second floor was a balcony like level where the women must once have sat through services looking out over the same ornate metal balcony rail which marked off the bema. The middle of the ground floor also had a large stand from where the Rabi must have given sermons and lead services when the congregation was a bit larger. It was all a mix of Indian and Jewish décor, as well as perhaps some colonial European designs too.

We brought a few apples and a jar of honey to share after services had finished. And we all stayed and talked for a while, and eventually found our way back over to Maghen David Synagogue and took a look around with the other three Americans. It was only a little after ten in the morning by that time and so the six of us decided to find some bread and make Tishlich…for the Ganges was not too far off.

And so we had Tishlich on the banks of the Ganges with Rs 3 for each of the two tiny loaves of bread we bought on the way to the ghats. There were already some thirty people at the waters edge when we arrived washing and playing in what seemed like their daily routines in the dark water among the trash and flowers and other things (offerings) they were throwing into the river. There was a speaker blasting one of the local radio channels and we stood towards one side of a ramp that lead into the water, looking out at Howrah and the ferries shuttling people across for only a few rupees per ride. There was a strong smell of feces, mixed with rotting food and we cast our sins into the Ganga making sure not to slip into the water nor step too far backwards into the mounds of excrement and insect covered, rotting debris…but it was darn moving all the same. We even said a short prayer and finished off the last bit of apples and honey…

Sunday September 21, 2008

Shantiniketan was amazing! It’s already been a full week since we’ve been back in Kolkata, and Durga Puja is only about another two weeks away, things are hopping. Shantiniketan was like a retreat it was so calming and reviving. It’s a pretty rural area, but compared to Kolkata I guess that isn’t saying much. I think the air was one of the most noticeably drastic changes, and the blue skies and quiet roads were really something else after having gotten so used to living in the city. There were rice paddies all over the place turning the landscape into literally a sea of green dotted with color by palms, livestock, and the bright clothing of people tending to the grains. We went out to visit one of Arnab’s friends, Sharuk who owns a farm just outside the main village of Shantiniketan, in a smaller village area called Nanoor. Sharuk is another professor that I guess helps plan a lot of this trip. Along the way out to his farm, people had scattered rice over the road in little patches out to dry (so not only were we swerving to avoid the people and animals on the roads this time, but also various patches of grains – almost cooking from the heat of the asphalt). Sharuk gave us a short tour of his farm, complete with a small fish stocked pond, acres of rice paddies, and other small patches of eggplant, ochre, cucumbers, squash, and even the beginnings of papaya trees. We also visited Sharuk’s house which was just down the road from his farm, where there were cows everywhere and where the houses, whose walls were covered in the dung pies that are used for fuel. Cows, goats, and groups of children also occupied the spaces between each house, which were most often walled off with a gate or small opening out to the narrow road. Sharuk house was one of the most colorful we’ve seen yet, Bright pink on the outside and orange, yellow purple, blue and green which all blended together on the inside. His parents and wife provided us with copious amounts of samosas (or Bengali sheenaraas) and huge, fist-sized, pure curd/milk sweets, and let us lounge in a sitting area on cozy couches; it was the ultimate experience of Indian hospitality.

Another very interesting place that we visited not far outside Shantiniketan was a small Kali Temple. It was a small place but one of great importance in Hinduism. This Kali temple is the place where the thigh of the Mother Goddess fell after her body was torn to pieces from her husband Shiva’s dance of destruction. The story goes something like this…Long, long ago, the Mother Goddess Sati fell in love with God Siva (Shiva) who was know to be a rather lazy god, the great smoker of grass he is sometimes called. Sati’s father was very disappointed in his daughter’s marriage, disapproving greatly of this character Siva. And so he threw a party to which he did not invite either Sati or her new husband Siva. But Sati was determined to win over her father and so she went to the party, only to find him telling terrible stories of her and her husband. Distraught with shame and sorrow because of her father’s words, Sati kills herself. When Siva comes to find that his bride has committed suicide, he becomes the great Siva, God of destruction and begins to dance his terrible dance of destruction. Lifting his bride over his head, he tramples and stomps all over the earth killing others in his path and wreaking total havoc. And so it is god Vishnu who interferes in order to stop Siva the Destroyer and save the earth from total destruction. Vishnu throws a special blade, which cuts into the Mother Goddess, Sati’s body cutting it into 51 different pieces which each fall onto different locations of the earth (India). And so it is in the water of a small pond at this Kali Temple, just outside Shantiniketan that a piece of Sati’s thigh fell, when Vishnu stopped Siva’s great dance of destruction and saved the earth from complete destruction.

Shantiniketan is/was also home to one of India’s, or more particularly West Bengal’s, most famous and well renowned authors, also poet, and artist; Rabindranath Tagore. We visited a place called Amar Kutir on the first day of our trip, a cooperative, emporium type shop put up in part by Tagore’s father, in an area called Sriniketan. Back in the early 1800’s, Shantiniketan had been a retreat like place for Tagore’s father, and he later helped develop a rural reconstruction project in Sriniketan. He had come from a very rich landlord family in Kolkata, and had discovered the area around Shantiniketan in his adolescence as a peaceful place away from home. This rural reconstruction project helped many of the local people of Shantiniketan and Sriniketan to develop more sustainable life skills and vocations and also to revive aspects of their culture that had begun to die out in the presence of colonialism. There were tons of things to buy in Amar Kutir, beautifully dyed and embroidered materials and pieces of clothing, all sorts of jewelry, bags, books, and trinkets all made by local people and particular to the Shantiniketan area. I got a chance to talk with some of the men and women working in the shop. They wondered where we were coming from and we spoke a bit about our respective homes. They told us how lucky we were to be able to travel so far…I have to say that I cannot agree more with that sentiment.

Rabidranath Tagore also set up a university in Shantiniketan. Beginning with only around five students and a similar number of teachers it now has about 7000 students and 700 professors. It’s called the Visva Bharati or the World University, and most classes are focused on art and or cultural studies, with tons of language programs and studies in all sorts of different art. The campus was huge; it included even a primary school, and neighbored a museum and bookstore of Tagore’s works. There was also a compound exhibiting the five some houses in which Rabindranath and his family had lived. I’m not exactly sure why he had so many homes, or why they had all been set up so closely together on the same few acres of space, but each was uniquely different from the rest. One was a smaller pastel yellow house built out of mud (later reinforced with concrete), another, a wide one storey with windows on all sides so that air could flow right through and sun flood right in. A third seemed to go on forever with rooms attached one to another on what seemed to be all sides imaginable/possible, and there were even more….

Arcs of red earth around the bases of trees, distinguished the outdoor classrooms of Visva Bharati, where professors could sit on a higher stone seat, while students faced them from the ground under the shade of a tree. Part of Tagore’s whole philosophy about education was that it was best to be learning outside in the fresh air (learning from and surrounded by nature) rather than shut up in some room (especially in a place as beautiful, serene, and refreshing as Shantiniketan). It really was a campus unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, most of the buildings were a soft yellow color built of rough stone, all surrounded by trees, flowers, and birds. There were banyans so incredibly wide whose branches hung down as if they were in constant reach of the ground. There were sculptures and mosaics on some of the outside walls to various building and in other open areas along footpaths. Of course there were dorm like buildings, called hostels, and quite a few people riding their bikes around. But the roads/paths were not paved and although there were flowers and beautiful trees and the greenest fields and patches of grass, the whole place had a somewhat wild look/feel to it. It was certainly different from the perfectly square trimmed fields and bushes, and geometrically designed flowerbeds that make up so many university campuses back home. The buildings, classrooms and other structures just seemed to blend right in with their natural surroundings, not excluding the troupes of cows and goats roaming wherever they seemed to please.

We could walk from our hotel to the university campus, and although the sun was even stronger than back in Kolkata, and we felt not only drenched after a few minutes but also burnt to a crisp. But apart from the insufferable heat, Shantiniketan felt truly like a natural paradise (and it only took a few drops of rain to cool things off to a perfect temperature), the blue sky, fresh air, laid back and quite atmosphere gave it an oasis-like air. Little tea shops and souvenir type shops with all kinds of beautifully embroidered and colorfully died clothing lined the streets. There were small restaurants and little marts with a variety of foods and bath supplies, just like back in the city, but there were also a number of shops selling house supplies. There was a stand just outside our hotel where men were carving doors, and just about a block further down the road was a store selling sinks and bathroom/kitchen furnishings…and we noticed tons more on our drives around town.

One morning we visited a ‘tribal’ village, just outside the main city of Shantiniketan. All mud buildings, some with woven straw roofs others patched together with pieces of metal and tarp. There were a few people out and bunches of goats, cows, pigs and birds, small ponds and stream flowed through and it was quite beautiful. But it took us only a matter of minutes to drive through this small village and get set back on our way to visit another part of the countryside. It felt pretty strange looking into peoples homes and lives from the insides of our huge jeep, speeding through their village, in one side and right back out through another. Arnab explained to us that many of the people living in this village and others like it had been forced to find jobs outside, in Shantiniketan and further out, even in Kolkata. He told us about how although originally these people spoke a language of their own, it has been slowly dying out as people have been forced to find different sources of livelihood outside of their own villages and homes.

We also drove by ‘resort home’ and gated community type neighborhoods under construction/going up all over the outskirts of Shantiniketan. Homes where rich city folks most likely have their holiday/country homes. I’m not sure what that meant for the general village of Shantiniketan, but it was definitely a sight to see white concrete multiplex housing developments fenced off on their own, with hoards of rickshaw men lined up waiting outside for a customer to pull into town. There seemed to be tons of these little developments lining the outskirts of the main town, no wonder we had seen so many of those home furnishing shops. It was almost like being back in the US, where housing developments, with identical box shaped homes seem to plague some cities and their neighborhoods.

One evening we were taken to another neighboring village of Shantiniketan, where, we were told a group of people called the Bauls live. The Bauls, Arnab explained were once a sort of castaway group of artists, known for being a bit too politically liberal and socially looked down upon. Now they are a very respected group of musicians and artists, distinguished in their saffron attire, that live around the Shantiniketan area. We were all pretty confused when two Indian men joined our jeep ride from the hotel and another man and women hopped in just shortly after that. The man and woman were both dressed in bright orange sari and kurta and we later found out that these four were the Bauls who would be playing for us. When they joined our jeep, we weren’t sure who they were, and although they were all carrying bags that looked suspiciously like they contained instruments, we weren’t sure if they were simply hitching a ride or if they were the Bauls we were supposedly going to see (as we were under the impression that the Bauls were from the village to which we were headed). And because our Bengali is slightly ridiculous and we weren’t sure if they spoke English we simply exchanged silent greetings and waited in the confusion that seems to ever linger over us, in hopes that Arnab might explain or that we might find some sign to illuminate what it was that was going on. It was quite a hilarious situation, as we also had to pass through what Arnab told us was a ‘robbers forest,’ in order to get to this other village. And although Arnab had assured us that there was nothing to worry about, he explained to us that Sharuk, who accompanied us, was terrified of this particular forest/section of the road and would get very anxious during this portion of the trip. In fact Arnab had told us that in years past that the students who had shared a car with Sharuk had been hushed into a nervous silence during that portion of the drive. Luckily we were riding with both Sharuk and Arnab, who was able to keep his friend cool throughout the ride.

We also made a pit stop along the way for an Indian specialty called pan. As Arnab, Sharuk and our drivers had just come from a “particularly delicious meal” they decided to grab some of this after-meal treat that is supposed to curb hunger and give the palate a clean and refreshed feeling. It’s a triangular wrap of sorts, made with beetle leaf, and filled sometimes with tobacco among other bits of chutney, nuts, spices and sauce. It can be sweet or spicy, and it’s just for chewing. You see people spitting it out all over the place, in red juicy gobs that splatter the streets and sidewalks. But as Arnab said, after I asked him if it was something for eating, “only those with little tact spit it out….”

When we arrived at the village where we were to hear these famous Bauls, we walked around a bit and got a good look at the sky and surrounding greenery. It was late afternoon, so the sky was a beautiful color and it was just about to rain so the wind was blowing and the air was nice and cool. We were led to a small patio type, covered area so as to escape the rain. But we were followed by a small group of men who had been in the area when we arrived. The Bauls, whom we had by now realized were the four people we had driven with, began to set up their instruments and we kind of just hung out for a bit while they put together their instruments and set up to play. What we began to realize was that the small group of men who had followed us to this roofed off area was growing and growing by the second, and that there were people even lining up behind us on the road to stare at what we were up to. Our group became larger and larger and more rowdy by the minute. We were all totally confused…yet again. We couldn’t figure out if these men were local people who had come to hear and participate in the Baul’s performance, or if they were coming to get a look at what these strange foreigners (we) were doing in their city. They kept crowding around us and blurting out bits of English, and some of them were yelling things, dancing and singing all while the Bauls were warming up. Arnab, Sharuk, and the Bauls became progressively more aggravated by the growing mob and after the rain had stopped succeeded in getting many of them to leave. Arnab explained to us later that most of these men had come from a cremation ceremony at a crematorium not far from the village, and had been very drunk, and not particularly the nicest of people. It was, not for the first time in one day, a pretty awkward situation. We didn’t really know what to make of the mass of men surrounding our group, not wanting to be rude to anyone, yet feeling at the same time a bit uneasy about all the attention we were attracting and the commotion that was ensuing.

So that set a bit of a weird feel for the Bauls performance (not that it wasn’t already a bit awkward having picked them up to come play for us at this village far out from where all of us appeared to be staying). But they sang and played some wonderful music, and the sunset as they played, lighting up the sky with some of the most brilliant colors I’ve ever seen…

September 8th, 2008 – Kolkata

With a trip to Belure, not far outside Kolkata yesterday morning and a shopping spree with our host sister and mother in the afternoon, I think yesterday was possibly one of the longest and most extreme of days yet. Belure is a district of Howrah, Kolkata’s neighboring city, just northwest across the Houghly River. The drive to Belure from our houses in the southern part of the city took us all the way through the city to some of the northern most districts and then across to Howrah. North Kolkata is actually where the original city of Kolkata began and apparently during colonization it is where the larger Indian population resided while the Europeans lived just south, where Park Street and Loreto College are located. The southern part of the city where our host families live is a relatively new part of the city, and Arnab told us that the Tagore-Gandhi Institute where we take most of our other classes (Bengal, etc.) was one of the first buildings to go up in the area.

Belure is home to the International Headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, which is a religious order/society, sort of a branch off of Hinduism, that provides education and many other social services to people all around the world. It even has many temples and branches in the US. The Ramakrishna mission grounds in Belure were enormous. We visited a smaller museum that explained a bit more about the whole movement, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, as well as their followers and philosophies. It was filled with pictures and various objects such as letters and articles of clothing that people from the mission had used throughout their lives as well as miniature-like replicas of their houses (rooms), and places of worship and study. There were also several temples neighboring the museum and gardens which all bordered the banks of the Ganges (or the Houghly river, a branch of the Ganga). I got a chance to sit on the stone ledge bordering the river at the edges of the mission’s grounds/gardens. There were tons of people out, sitting, chatting, and picnicking here. A section of the bank led down a few steps to the rivers edge where there were some thirty or so people bathing and swimming in the coffee brown water. I sat for a while and watched a lumpy whitish colored carcass of some large animal float by, being pecked at by the gang of crows using it as a boat/island rest stop. Across the river was a large factory of some sort, smoke stacks clear of fumes, it being Sunday morning. There were several boats out too, some smaller skinny canoe like row boats, one man on a flat boat pushing himself along with a long pole, and larger motor power boats that looked like they were ferrying people across the river from Kolkata to the dock about a hundred feet down from where I was sitting, just past the swimming/bathing area. I hadn’t noticed that the river was omitting a rather particular smell until I had gotten up to walk around a bit more…

With the drive from Belure back home being about an hour long, and the chaotic driving being the way it is here, we were all completely spent by the time we got back. After lunch and a short nap though, it was off to the mall with our host family, for it was one of the last sale days before the October Puja festivals and apparently (as our host sister explained) we are supposed to wear new clothing on specific days of the Pujas. It being the last day of the sale SouthCity, one of Kolkata’s many malls about 15 minutes drive from our house was packed. We visited Shoppers Stop, a Nordstrom like department store, where we were required to check our bags, all except for our wallets, and where the unnaturally bright lighting, along with a policy in which you have to pay for an item before actually being able to hold onto it makes it seem impossible for shop lifting to ever occur. (After choosing an item to purchase, you have to find someone working nearby who can write you a slip including all of the item info, bring this slip to one of the few cash registers around, pay for the item, then return to the person who wrote you the slip, show them the receipt…then and only then can you actually successfully purchase something). We also visited a Target-like grocery store on the basement level of the mall, that had everything from clothing and jewelry to a small food court and fish market, peanut butter and camembert cheese, as well as fresh coconuts and any/all types of dal you could ever imagine. It was kind of a shock to be in such a western-like, and sterile environment after our trip from the morning, kind of uncomfortable actually.

We had actually visited this same mall with our host sister only a few days back. She had just finished a round of the many exams she has to take this year (kind of like the benchmarks only the results will tell her which high school she can attend next year) and so we all went to take a break and see one of the new Bollywood movies out in theaters. Rock On, it was called and although it didn’t have quite as much singing and dancing as our first Bollywood experience, this three hour movie was quite epic. It followed the story of a group of friends who had all been part of a rock band in their early twenties. And it included everything from the breakup of this rock band, whose lead singer consequently became an insensitive and detached but successful businessman. It followed the desperate situation of the second guitarist whose wife had dreamed of becoming a designer but who got stuck running the family fish business while he continued to dream of being a famous guitarist and not actually do much of anything. The keyboard player was diagnosed with a brain tumor and the drummer became somewhat of an alcoholic. But the band after some miraculous sequence became friends again, got back together and after a whole slew of other events won some contest and became famous again…it was quite the story. (And our host sister loved it of course, it had a happy ending and out of necessity, great rock music).

On Thursday we’re going to a small village called Shanteniketan, to visit the home of Rabindranath Tagore who was a very famous Bengali author, poet and artist. It’s a few hours north of Kolkata and there is a university along with many other relics of Tagore’s life. We have service and classes everyday up until that point (Thursday), and with our days off being Thursday and Sunday (which have and will continue to be filled with extra classes and day trips for the rest of the month), it doesn’t feel like we get much of a break.

I continue to be fascinated by this city though, it seems as if there is so much going on that even a lifetime in Kolkata would be only a small picture of all that happens here. Sometimes the air seems so filled with pollution that you’re eyes hurt after driving around as it’s way too hot to keep the car windows shut because most cars just either don’t have AC or it’s too costly to use as much as would be desirable. The bright blue city buses blow out black smoke that is just about window level of the neighboring cars and although the auto-rickshaws are a bit lower to the ground than these jammed-packed charging machines, they blow out almost just as much of those black diesel fumes. The sky is always grey with smog by the time the afternoon is coming to an end, and while mornings can be nice and sunny, the sun literally beats down on you. And if the sun isn’t out it’s either raining or it’s almost dark as night in warning of an upcoming downpour. Dilapidated buildings that must have once been so bright and colorful with arches and all sorts of different architectural designs stand next to beams of bamboo scaffoldings for new buildings under construction (where men haul piles of bricks, cement and other building materials on their heads up and down half constructed staircases). There are new, bright buildings, with glass window walls covered over with adds that must be filled with snazzy offices or some kind of other goods shop. The streets are lined with pockets of colorful markets filled with any and every fruit and vegetable that seems imaginable. There are tea and snack vendors on almost every street corner among clothing and trinket booths that stand just below billboards, construction projects and outside electronic shops and office buildings. And as tea is served in tiny palm sized ceramic cups that are thrown on the ground after use, the tea stands are forever surrounded by shards of these cups that make a great crackling sound when stepped on. There are specks of garbage everywhere, but in the mornings some people sweep debris into the gutters or scoop piles into carts that they either leave sitting on the side or roll to a nearby dumpsite. And while sometimes it seems as if the garbage is endless, it also seems as if things are reused more often and that the waste of one person is easily turned into the sustenance of another. There are water pumps on the curb of every other block or so and whether they are working or broken they serve as bathing stations as well as dish and garment washing centers no matter the hour of the day. At times it’s just exhausting to walk even a block, there is so much to take in.

Thursday August 28th 2008 – Kolkata

It’s been quite an exhausting week. This is really our first full week of service and classes, after almost a full month of being here…it almost feels like the first week all over again, getting used to the schedule and rhythm of everything. We usually have Thursdays off, but we had a class this morning at the Tagore Gandhi Institute for cultural learning and service (TGI), where all of our IPSL classes are held. It’s a pretty sweet little building just down the road from our house. All eleven of us pile into this tiny room almost everyday for our classes on Indian religions, culture and Bengali language. It’s so hot and tiny that I am almost completely drenched in sweat by the time our two-hour classes are over with, but it’s interesting stuff all the same. We’ve been going through the major religions of India, discussing (more listening to lectures really) on Hinduism and Brahmanism, Jainism, Buddhism and today Sikhism. We are supposed to have our class on Ethics, Leadership and Morality at Loreto College tomorrow, but many of the Catholic schools and organizations are going on a sort of strike tomorrow because of some recent violence against a Catholic school in Orissa.

And we’ve still been trying to explore the city bit by bit. There is are two parks very near our house, and one has a small lake and stadium where people go to jog and walk in the mornings before it gets too hot and sunny. It’s sill really hot, humid and sunny at 5:30 AM, so we haven’t been able to make much use of it yet, hopefully when it cools down it will be nice to run around a little. So mostly we’ve been checking out good places to go shopping…and we’ve found that there seems to be a never-ending amount of them. We’ve seen Sudder Street, where most of the tourists and a lot of the volunteers working at missionaries of charity stay…and buy things. Right off of Sudder Street is an indoor type market called New Market full of all kinds of shops and people. Even before we entered the building where New Market is located people were ushering us inside telling us to come to their shops, offering us deals on various items, asking us what we were looking for. It didn’t stop there. For the entire hour we looked around, vendors and salesmen were following us around trying to get us to come to their shops and to buy all sorts of different things. It felt impossible to breathe let alone look at a shirt or necklace or pair of earrings. Even just a glance in the direction of an item hanging from a window would grant a call from the nearest shop owner or salesman. Even when we told people that we didn’t need help, that we really just wanted to look around and find things on our own they continued to follow us around trying to make sales offers or point us in some direction they thought we should go. I think we learned not to go to New Market with anymore than two people unless you’re actually looking for a whole lot of attention.

Buying biscuits and tea from street vendors is something I think that will never get old. There must be a man on every corner who is boiling a hot kettle of tea and has an assortment of different biscuits that he’ll pick for you out of glass jars. There are all sorts of markets along the streets too, as well as vendors selling hot vegetable and egg rolls, sweet shops with all kinds of different Indian cookie type treats and more. There is a market not far from our house, Lake Market where people sell vegetables, fruits, nuts, flowers and various household necessities (water bottles and clothespins) by candle light every night after seven when the sun has gone down. The nearest metro station is right in the middle of this market. We take can catch it there at Kalighat and take it to Park Street station where we can get to Loreto College as well as an array of nice restaurants, shopping mall type places and other larger main stores. There’s a Bose store and a music store called music world, as well as a huge dessert and cake restaurant type place called Flurries that our host family raves about.

We can’t stop hearing about the upcoming Pujas. They actually don’t happen for another six weeks or so, the middle of October, but apparently they’re THE time to be in Kolkata. We’ve even seen a few places where people are constructing stage like buildings for the fairs and parades that happen when they begin. Our host sister todl us that we will get sarees and all kinds of new clothes for the festivities, go out to dinner. She said it is like a week long party.....I can't wait!

Wednesday August 20, 2008 - Kolkata

This past weekend we took a trip to Orissa, the state/province just south of West Bengal, visiting Puri, Konark, and Bhubaneswar....

We returned to Kolkata at about 4:30 AM this morning after departing from Bhubaneswar at about 8 PM on Tuesday night. After leaving Kolkata this past Saturday night (the 16th), we spent the night on a train, arriving in Puri the next morning around 7 AM. We were then driven from Puri to Konark, along the country roads lining the East Indian coast looking out over the Bay of Bengal. We got to Konark after about an hour of bumpy winding roads, with all sorts of maneuvering in order to avoid hitting the many cows, goats, bicycles and people lining the roads. Konark was a pretty small place; full of arts and craft stands as well as booth after booth of vendors selling coconuts and various sweets and snacks. There were cows, goats and dogs all over the place (they really ruled the roads, much more so than any of the cars, bikes, auto-rickshaws, motos and people).

Our hotel in Konark was about a 45-minute walk from the beach, so we walked past most of the stands on one of the three main village roads, past the entrance to the famous sun temple and down a road lined with beautiful green palms and other trees that hung over the road like canopies…to the sand and muddy water. It was so beautiful. The waves at the beach were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Definitely some of the biggest and most treacherous looking seas I have ever been near. Of course we weren’t allowed to swim (unless us women had full body suit swim wear) because of the intensely strong undercurrent. We’d been told about all kinds of horror stories about people getting swept away, but there were still a few younger men out riding the waves not too far off the shore. We even saw some boats, fishermen on long canoe type boats that looked like they would be swallowed up at any moment.

It was a bit hard to walk around Konark though. We were forever being bombarded by people wanting to take our photographs or sneaking a ‘snap’ from their cell phones. And vendors would not leave us alone, it was impossible to walk down the street without being followed by someone trying to sell us something or else being called out to; ‘hallo Madame,’ ‘please come look,’ along with all sorts of other lines to get us to buy things from their trinket filled booths. Even when we went to visit the sun temple and were walking around with a tour guide, one woman came and stood amongst us as her husband took a picture, right in the middle of our guide’s speech. Sometimes it felt like we were getting more attention than the sun temple itself, a famous world heritage site designated by UNESCO.

It was an amazing temple, built in the mid-13th century. Konark is famous for this temple and the beautiful sunlight that it gets being so close to the sea. Our guide knew all about the carvings lining its surface and even explained the entire construction process. That which remained of the original structure was over 30 meters tall; around 90 feet, and our guide told us that it had originally stood at over 40 meters. That’s enormous! He explained how they had, had to construct one level at a time, covering it with sand as they went in order to build the next, using elephants to pull and push the stone up the sand to the proper position. One of the carvings on the temple showed this process, it’s unbelievable! He also pointed out many of the erotic carvings lining the outside walls. Some of the carvings were miniature pieces at the base of the structure, but some higher up were almost life sized. And there were so many different scenes; whole sequences portraying monogamy, polygamy, and androgyny, it was pretty interesting.

Apart from it being a somewhat exhausting experience just to stand and walk around, the temple was quite a sight. The temple structure was spread out into three separate buildings, a smaller structure in the front serving for a dance hall, the largest structure in the center for prayer or sort of holding/reception chamber for devotees, and a second smaller building in the back where the Surya (sun god) deity was kept. The center structure was designed like a chariot, with twelve wheels on each side, each around nine feet in diameter. The number of wheels were said to correspond with different increments of time, twenty-four wheels in total and twenty-four hours in the day. There were also seven giant stone-carved horses (seven days of the week) pulling the chariot, only two of which were still partially intact.

Another famous Temple in Orissa (the state/province just south of West Bengal) is in Puri. We didn’t get to stop and see any of this city though, only passed through on our way to Konark. But it is home to a sister like Temple to Konark’s sun temple. Puri’s Temple is even larger than Konark's and it is dedicated to the god Jagannath, god of dance. It is called the white pagoda, whereas Konark’s sun temple is referred to as the black pagoda. Our host family told us a lot about the Jagannath temple, non-Hindus are actually not allowed inside, but it must be a pretty amazing site. I guess the temple employs some 6,000 men and a Kitchen filled with 400 cooks serves almost 20,000 people everyday. I guess it is one of the largest kitchens in the world.

We tried to catch the sunrise on our last morning in Konark, got up at 4 AM in order to try and get to the beach on time. Although we ended up getting to the beach a bit too late to see the early rays, the sky was pretty cloudy and we wouldn’t have been able to see much of the sunrise. It was still a pretty gorgeous morning though and so we sat for a while, mesmerized by the ocean trying to wake ourselves up a bit more. We ended up talking with an older man who had been hanging out as well, Baba Punda as he introduced himself. He even invited us to have tea in his ashram not far from the beach, and so the seven of us who had gone to see the sun followed and chatted with him for a while. He had a cozy little stone gazebo-like ashram that looked out onto the water and so we sat on mats and sipped tea while he told us about all sorts of different visitors whom had crossed his path. He had a whole list of names memorized, probably over forty some odd that had stayed at his ashram, along with a book filled with notes from people all over the world.

On our way back to Kolkata we stopped to see a Buddhist temple called the peace pagoda just outside of Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Orissa. It was consecrated by King Ashoka centuries ago. He was known as a very violent and war-fareing king, but one day after an especially bloody battle on the Orissan planes, he had a change of heart and converted to Buddhism and a completely nonviolent lifestyle. This temple sits on a hill that over looks the plains where Ashoka’s famous battle is said to have taken place. I don’t think I have seen green like the green that covers these fields.

We also visited some ancient Jain caves just outside of Bhubaneswar. The Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves from the 1st century BC. I was expecting a few holes in a big hill with monkeys hanging around (Arnab our advisor sort of person told us that they had been taken over by monkeys). But they were incredible, there were tons of different caves, and each was an entire chamber carved into the stone surface of a towering hill. Some were giant open spaces like the rooms of houses and others seemed just big enough for someone to sleep inside. There were different architectural designs to some of them as well (pillars and different shaped archways…) and they were all covered with ornate carvings of animals, people and other figures and images.