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.