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…