Sept 20 - A Mid-Morning Picture Stroll

It's my first free morning after venturing out each day since arriving to forage, hunt & gather the needs for the day...so took advantage of the open time, before sitting down at the computer, to stroll to the end of the block, where the new construction stops & green vistas start. Ended up being gone for over an hour, covering less than half a km, stopping for many photos & enjoying a 20 minute conversation with a new acquaintance - a stay-at-home mother of a ten month old who's former math teacher, raising her son & opening a woman's clothing shop out of the front of her home, less than 20 feet from my complex! She spoke wonderful English - we laughed as her wonderful Bengali dry sense of humor pinpointed within a few quick sentences the difficulty of dieting after giving birth! I assured her I wasn't afraid of the cow who greeted me at the exit gate & then taught me the protocol for encountering a cow...yes, I could touch it, yes, it was ok to photograph it if it was without an owner or not decorated for a celebration, no, I couldn't feed it or try to direct it in anyway. All seemed like things I could easily agree!







Construction...we felt the 6.8 Himalaya quake in Kol Sunday night...my second reminder I'm not living on the Midwest continental plate of stable bedrock. Footings are poured early in the morning, just at dawn, as cement mixers run 24/7 for major sites & complexes such as these are small, individual contractor projects. The rest of the concrete - for floors, walls - is mixed onsite, with two or three people screening large piles of sand & gravel to the correct weight & a brigade of men carrying it & binding agents in pans on their head up bamboo ladders to the floor being created. Not at all sure just what the bamboo supports do...surely they do not hold up the roof of the next level alone! Watching them work confirms the building would roll with the undulating quake for only so long...a fact that's just a part of life here. A small shrine, where the workers pray each morning, is erected on the ground floor.










Finished projects are whitewashed then painted in hues from subdued to quite bright! My friend, Sarmistha, laughs each time she greets me into her home - each of the residents could select the color of the portion of the external walls they "owned", so her house is a patchwork of the most mismated colors! My complex, as well as most here, have formed associations, or societies, which vote on the color schemes, internal amenities, etc. Our onsite coordinator for the society is a teacher who I've spoken with a couple of times & who offered her mobile number should I need anything. Wonderful folk, most....my downstairs neighbor speaks no English & seems less than thrilled to have a brash American plop into his midst! The name of the complexes are unique, too...I'm not even sure what mine translates into...several have English names including "Eden Twins", "Sweet Home" & "Points East".








Have I mentioned the thick clay you see folks digging out along roadsides & even the edges of the airport tarmac - Kolkata is built on thousands of years of thick silt from the river Houghly's journey to the Bay of Bengal. It creates immense, heavy work for the men to move with broad bladed, hand held hoes. One unexpected outcome of living in India? I'm not the only one who has a short stride, so someone has come before me, through the puddles, leaving temporary bridges which recede in need pending the last night's rain!






A school bus was delivering kindergardeners home from school...the driver slowed down, allowing me to step quickly past a deep puddle to keep me from being splashed. I nodded & smiled at his gesture. He then stopped the bus all together & gestured I take a picture of the children! How could I resist? They pulled up closer & stopped so I could show them the photo, then were lifted down the steep bus steps, held hands & headed off to their homes. A very sweet encounter!









Pre-Puja events began on Sunday night, with families gathering for dinner & kite flying! I've yet to determine, even with internet searches before departing, the full meaning of Puja...know now that I'm here, though, that it's as big as Carnival! Huge structures, funded through neighborhood consortiums, are forming all over the city, including directly in view out my bedroom window. Teams of men rotate through the construction - not sure if they are people from the area or hired to build the edifice. Our puja site is funded through the "Madurdaha Recreation Center" across from our complex...Mr. Sakar told me that some of the neighborhoods spend 1 lakh, or 100,000 rupees to earn bragging rights for their celebration; food is handed out 24/7 to anyone who enters & he assured me I would be welcomed with open arms even if I wasn't Hindu. Families spend much more preparing - he said his wife has spent just under 75,000 INR so far & they still have to buy the liquor for the event...they will host over 150+ business connections, family & friends during the four days! (There are other Puja ripples...Nandini was adamant that there would be no reason to even check with a tailor about making me some additional sawar sets for day-to-day wear until after the Puja, which runs from October 2-6 - they simply have not enough hours in the day to finish the work they've already contracted to do! Finding the dress shop so close to my home became even more enticing - it sells higher end ready wear than the department stores, plus few carry clothes for women my size - both weight & height! The owner said that the "margins" of the dress could be extended to add inches should I need them...after Puja tailors will able to take new bookings & I'll hopefully be able to afford a few more outfits, though the five I have are working through the laundry rotation quite well.)


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Location:Kol, WB

Sept 19 - Elusive Tape & Other Trevails

It would be fantastic to understand the whys behind the realities...no time, though, when I'm with locals, networking, catching up, to ask the first grade level questions such as:

• Why is masking tape impossible to find? Yes...I went to a stationer, yes, they had five kinds of tape, and yes, they had heard of masking tape....just had no idea where to find it. Which leads one to wonder...are the walls in my flat a rarity? Western-style plaster, with paint? Do you not waste paper by creating items which are specifically temporary, needing only the use of masking's uniquely sticky skill set for just a few days?

• The new SRK - Shah Ru Kahn, my favorite Bollywood star - movie looks fantastic! An Ironman redo...debuts during Diwali. Super! Let me buy my ticket & arrange a movie night with friends!....but when's Diwali? Three people asked provided wide ranging responses - November to mid-December. Does it last that whole time? Even more importantly, is not knowing a sign of sheer ignorance, OR perfectly logical, since there's a Bengali calendar & the western calendar simultaneously used for all auspicious occasions, with a government officer surveying the astrological & Bengali equivalency of feng-shui before pronouncing the official compromise date...would be so nice to know if I'm blundering or legitimately confused. (The West Bengalese are incredibly proud people - they identify much more with the Bengal portion of their lives than Indian; functioning, therefore, with two calendars, about ten to 12 days off, & several hundred years between the two, seems perfectly natural...why dismiss millennia of history for just over 60 years of timeline since Indian Independence. Needless to say - it's tough to follow as a newcomer!)

• Kolkata is world renowned for their monsoons...& I can say first hand that when it rains it really pours & the season is ebbing now, so the storms I've experienced are mild compared to the deluge they call August! Wonder why, with so little fresh water for so many, don't they have public cisterns everywhere? There are large storage units on the apartment complex roof - at least two per six families. Maybe the cycle of replenishment requires run-off? Nearly everything 2 km or more outside of the main city is permeable, so there's plenty of space to capture, recycle, all that falls.

• How do the cows know where to go? They wander...I see the same ones from day to day...do they have territory like the dogs patrolling their block, protecting the areas where city dwellers put out rice on newspaper for them to eat? There are domesticated cows, too, both in the neighborhood & somewhere, presumably, in mass quantities, providing milk for delivery, paneer, curd (yogurt) for 13 million people. Do the "wild" cows, for lack of a better term because they are about as docile as a lazy dog, ever interact with those owned & utilized by families? It's such a fascinating part of the culture...religion on hooves; spiritualism literally embodied, moving through society. Saw only two cows in downtown this time, plus a flock of sheep being moved to greener pastures on the Maidan. Cows pass here daily in the neighborhood, with one bull, a russet horn tipped upside down on the left, bellowing each day along the main, paved road, exactly at 5:10! You can hear him from a kilometer away, then, sure enough, right at 5:10, he strolls past the complex! Maybe gathering in his harem of calfs & heifers for the night? So many questions...

(Thank goodness for ipad's long living battery - the generator is on for the first time since I moved in...Kolkata's also infamous for brown-black-outs...another thing no one admits, though it's understandable to shun conversations about something so completely out of your hands.)



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Location:Kol, WB

Sept 18 - Capturing a Day

Roosters, mynah birds, finches & crows call out to the day @ 4:45, just as the sun breaks the horizon, smokey grey & light blues ebbing into the sky. (I thought the crows sounded so very close...found one creating a nest this morning...wonder if they were recently evicted from a neighboring tree by a resident I saw poking & prodding with a long bamboo pole yesterday?)

Women preparing for the tasks of the day provide a daily alarm clock...metal dinner ware clanking as they wash dishes on their stoop...closer to the water canisters that have collected rain during the night. I live in a mixed neighborhood of old & new...property boundaries from rice paddy ownership delineate ancient from modern - chickens & a large sow stroll the street next to my set of six flats forming Saila Nibas complex. Small, contemporary homes are nestled amongst the taller complexes & clay/wattle homes. There's a particularly beautiful small home I can see from the room where the shrine & meditation space resides...I have it on my list to visit, hoping the residents speak enough English to understand how much of a visual oasis their home represents in the noise & clutter of a bustling Kol neighborhood.

I open the house each morning, the windows widely to the day since there are no screens on them, turn on the fans, & as instructed by Mr. Sakar, "air out the house from the night's thickness", lighting incense on both ends of the flat & letting the sun pour in...it's cool enough to do this now...come April such a habit will mean letting in heat with the freshness.

Conversations around the public water pump, half a block away, with equally as public Bengali music piped to the masses starts @ 6 a.m...children bounce across the street to take a quick "bath", a bucket shower used by many, even for those who have standard "geysers" or shower heads installed, giggling as their parents scoop them up to get ready for school & women carry tall water containers on their heads back to their homes.

The distinct blast of a conch shell horn announces 6:30 each morning & 6:30 pm, right after nightfall. If you haven't heard it before it can have a strident tone like the horns that became so rampant during the last World Cup, but in the hands of someone with skill it has multiple simultaneous tones that weave in and out as breathe diminishes....i already know this will be something to miss once I return to Minnesota....it's a anciently iconic way to begin a day.

Vendors of all kinds begin by 7 a.m. They hawk their wares with loud cries of a carnival barker, often ending in a phrase which strikes me as "Best in Kolkata - guaranteed!", each with his own cadence & timber, alerting those who want his wares or services to step to the street...the pumpkin vendor & fresh bread bicycle trolley driver calls are already recognizable without seeing them for me...fresh vegetables, water, ice cream, fabric goods - rugs, comforters, sheets & sari material -shoe repair, bicycle repair, barbering services complete with a portable seat, pots & pans, clay dishware, ready wear shirts, newspapers, rice, grains, sweet desserts & even a flat bed of assorted, tall, blooming house plants in intricately colored pots have all been carried or wheeled under my balcony! Some, like the individual sales items pumpkin, rice & grain, are carried on the head, in large, woven baskets three feet across. Multiple items - veggies, bread, desserts - are either bicycle pulled on a flat bed cart or pushed in a carrier like you'd see at a zoo or New York street corner.

Car horns alerting pedestrians to beware begin to squawk around 8:30, as the complex residents roll out from under the flats in their cars & taxis stream towards the city in long lines over bumpy dirt roads, soon to be paved, it's been promised, once the building along each new road is completed.

Stores open between 10:30 & 11:00 a.m....cooking meals for the freezer has monopolized my first few mornings, taking advantage of the coolness in the small kitchen, which really heats up once gas stove top is lit. It's simply too hot to cook dinner @ the standard American dinner time - in fact most Bengalis eat lunch after the hottest part of the day - around 4 pm - & then don't eat dinner until 10:30 pm, once night as truly cooled.

There's thankfully a very well stocked grocer nearby - about a 15 minute walk - so that's perfect! It will be my primary shopping spot, with a weekly jaunt to a new location planned by taxi as I get better & better @ directing non-English speaking taxi drivers back to my home!

A trip to shop at the nearest larger mall takes 30 minutes roundtrip, with hailing a taxi & time to check your bag at each store. (Most stores larger than street vendors have metal detectors & a door guard at each entrance. This caused a bit of anxiety during our first visit until we realized it's often a function of employing people & demonstrating you can afford a metal detector vs. a requirement for safety. Indians are very conscious of terrorism, though, both external following the Mumbai bombing in 2007 & internal as factions struggle to maintain legitimacy in a political structure they feel is becoming far too consolidated in Delhi versus recognizing the long held tribal & class distinctions of the past. The reality, then, is that most public locations require you to walk through a metal detector each time you enter, i.e. there's only one way to enter a store or mall or hotel...which is confusing for those of us used to strolling in dozens of doors! You also have to leave your purchases from other stores - not your purse, though - at the main door...& I always sound the alarm since my purse is made for travel, with wires embedded into the straps to keep it from being easily cut off should someone wish to steal it that way. I've yet, though, to be stopped...they nod their head & smile, motioning me forward with no concern. Bengalis are stopped though, so unsure if guards are deferring as a sense of respect to me as an older, female American or utilizing some form of racial profiling when they stop the locals.)

Children return from school starting around 3 pm, just as I'm shutting down the computer for my main meal of the day. Yoga & meditation end my "work" day, with some reading to relax.

Commuter horns break through the relative quiet again around 6:30, as the sun goes down...families stroll, eat dinner on their rooftops, play games in the streets & unwind until 11 or so, when the night closes in, lights go out, & quiet, as light rain each night dripping off palm leaves to the window sill, lulls all to sleep.



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Location:Kolkata, West Bengal

Sept. 17 - Temptation

Having a mobile phone is so damn wonderful...& so damn tempting...a call to the US one-tenth of the price it was yesterday for me, true, but four five minute calls - HA - you're right, I can't make five minute calls - two ten minute calls costs the same as two weeks worth of cab fare to the American Center, which with each passing day, becomes a brighter beacon of wifi-dom!



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Sept. 17 - Balcony Views - Saila Nibas Complex

Hi -
I haven't shared my creative writing with many of you reading this blog...I'll post a poem or two...and welcome feedback/critique! (Especially from my writer friends who are reading this...we can create a writer's group miles apart!)

Balcony Views - Saila Nibas Complex

A painter's bamboo scaffolding,
splattered in whitewash,
canary yellows and melons,
tangerines and
robin egg blues of the apartments
its supported,
mushrooming from rice paddies
at the edge of Kolkata.

A father's bike,
shiny black,
daughter on front,
son on side,
crisp, pink school uniform shirts
and pale cream bobby socks, starched lace,
sing-songing about the day to come
in the beautiful Bangla of Kol
through muddy lanes,
soon after sunrise,
their long journey to school begins.

A woman's sari,
crimson, wrapped quickly in dawn's grey
evening dishes,
set beside the door, wait to be washed.
Her husband bathes,
tucked behind a clay wall,
fingers through damp hair
smiling at her as she works.

The morning's dew,
invisible,
resists landing, determined to stay aloft
linking the world,
droplet by droplet
connecting traditions with
telecom lines
transecting power and
poverty
lubricating the transition from
isolation to integration,
celebration
vibrant, complex
West Bengal


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Location:Kolkata, West Bengal

Sept 16 - More Good News!

More good news - I have an Indian mobile which is much less costly to use locally - two cents US to text a friend here & about 20 cents per minute to call US vs. $2.00 per minute with Verizon. I think it's free for me to receive texts...so that's a swell way to send neat news from home...& receiving calls is also free!

My mobile number is - 896112005

To call from the US add five numbers...or at least I'm quite certain that's the correct step. First 011 - which gets you out of US & "into" India - then 91 - which funnels further to Kolkata. The "89" at the beginning of my number means it's a mobile number...those in Kolkata just dial my actual telephone number which is 6112-0015! Quite confusing as I look at the long string of numbers when dialing a friend...guess having 1.4 billion people desiring to reach out to connect creates algorithmic challenge unlike what we have to face in US, no matter how many people carry cell phones.

Watch emails for my address soon...we're working out a few items - like internet in the apartment & a washing machine - then we'll sign on the dotted line for final lease & I can call this my Kolkata home. (There's another flat near here I can use as a fall back, so not worried about lodging anymore...just working through what seems to be fairly standard back & forth on lease details.)



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Location:Kolkata, West Bengal

Sept 28 - Good Luck? Bad Luck?

Have you heard of the Asian parable where a farmer has several events happen - like his son breaking his leg, but then is unable to leave to fight in the war - always responds with "Good luck, bad luck - who knows?" Well, I've lived it the past ten days since moving into the flat. Though several people have tried to help me the part of town I'm living in, i.e. BRAND NEW, being constructed as I type, has made internet access very difficult to find or create. AND, since I was waiting at the house for a person to come by to test the next hopeful solution, I wasn't able to taxi down to the American Center to upload blogs, email....So, I'm learning that what my friends told me is true for their neighborhood, "wifi won't be a problem" & the Kolkata wifi-pocket map app I downloaded is accurate, the best choice for a flat for me is in the one zone that was most challenging! Bad luck, huh?

Not exactly....I've missed connecting with everyone, to be sure. Yet, time truly only for writing, walking, braving new adventures - like hailing a rickshaw and settling on a price all on my own - have been important steps for me. There's no way around the fact that I am far from home, living alone for the first time in my life....a true break was hard, but healthy. I climbed into bed last night after walking home from tea at a friends house who lives less than a street away, smiled and owned for the first time - "I live in India". Quite a statement. Just silly, frumpy me...living in India. I am extraordinarily grateful.


(I love, too, the irony of moving 7000 miles from home to link people via the internet with no immediate internet access....it's been quite enlightening to hear from Indians across several disciplines - restaurant servers, policy, education, cable executives, college students- how America is viewed as internet obsessed. Indians view the internet in a different way than we do...not as a panacea to solve all, but as a tool for solving technical issues...less creative, less networking. I'd not have heard their perspective so early in the process had I been able to hop right into the project from day one....it'll be important to listen for that filter as I start to build GlobalConnext from the ground up...plus being disconnected has provided time to read, write, think about the project in a whole new way - at least how to modify it for schools who can't access wifi!)

There are backlogged blogs I'll start to post today & then over the next few days...my first stop today is the second largest Vodafone store in Asia where my tech friends have assured me they have a gizmo that'll form a tidy wifi bubble from my flat...wish me luck!



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Location:Kolkata, West Bengal

Sept. 16 - Much to share...missing easily accessible internet uplink location!

Well...HELLO! I don't have internet connections at my new flat...so, for now, I'll only be online/uploading twice a week at most. Hope ten posts at one time doesn't get confusing or seem overwhelming to follow....can't think of another solution for now, except to guess that new news will occur less often as I'm not so new at being Kolkatan!(I tried buying a "stick" that plugs into the computer for internet anywhere but it doesn't work with the ipad - draws too much voltage...either because it's Indian, utilizing their current system, or simply demands too much from the ipad battery which cannot be charged while the internet device is plugged in...can't remember the last time I was without internet for 24 hours, much less 72...even the tornado didn't keep us disconnected since we had smart phones...such luxuries.)

I moved into a wonderful flat on Thursday afternoon, with the landlord, Mr. Sakar, wife, and sister-in-law staying over in the spare bedroom before traveling back to their home city 200 km from Kol...then, much to my surprise, they offered to take me to the mall to get my mobile phone set up & help navigate a larger shopping trip to stock up house hold items like storage for freezing left overs & bedsheets...it was very kind.

The flat is a pre-college purchase for a friend of a friend who has a daughter in class 11 who plans to attend college in Kolkata. He, Mr. Sakar, has stayed here for seven or eight days during travels to Kol....otherwise it's brand new! (Which has pros & cons - it's kind of a bachelor pad since he didn't cook or do more than sleep here...big leather, oversized furniture, very modern & Western...great, but do miss the charm of so many of the friend's flats I've visited, imbued with the two or three hundred years their homes have been lived in, loved.)

A virtual tour - from the roof down...

























Laundry is hung on the roof each day - especially large items like bedsheets. The flat is at the edge of a large track of new construction & development, so the view east is open fields. Looking towards town you can see the largest high-rises in Kolkata...quite controversial at over 20 stories high.

Each flat in my complex has double locks, along with a locked gate at night at the main entrance. This extensive system serves several purposes besides security, announcing basic wealth, while also being quite mundane - it's everywhere - just like the wrought iron which covers most windows...chicken or egg, I suppose...no one tries to break in, so a low crime rate, because it's impossible to break in!

(I am posting pics in a hurry...will come back to post more when I have more time....only 45 min online due to traffic....gotta get this worked out soon!)

















My flat, #202, is one of six family flats in the complex. The maid, Anita (Oeneetah), & her son, Raju, live here as well, she in a one room area on the main floor & he in a larger space in the basement. Negotiating the need for a maid was a non-starter. Each of my friends & the landlord said it was simply something I must do. Period. They patiently explained to me that Kolkata has more pollution & household issues which arise if you don't clean your house daily from top to bottom...I acquiesced, not wanting to be the cause of some cumulative damage! She is paid 700 INR per month, or $14.67 USD. For that I could've had her do all the laundry, wash the dishes (which Indians with servants just set on the counter all day waiting to be washed) & sweep/wash the 1500 sq ft of white marble floors. (Most floors are either stone or dirt here...wood decomposes within months with the heat & humidity.)

The flat is more space than I require, & more than I'd been lead to believe I may need to budget. That said, it holds amenities I would've had to pay to have handled in other ways at the lesser cost flat, including a generator, AC, a water filtration system, plus three other residents who speak fluent English should I get in a jam. It'll be especially convenient when others visit, with extra space to spread out...even if AC is in one room it moves through the house quite well, cooling the spare bedroom enough to be comfortable. (Yes, anyone is welcome to visit!) There are three bedrooms - one which is designated for the household shrine & intended to keep empty, with the exception, by permission, to do yoga/meditation there - with a large common area, two bathrooms (only one with a hot water heater), a balcony & kitchen. Internet is promised tomorrow...trying to not get too hopeful!

Sept 15 - First Groceries

A wise friend, as I fretted about the steep rise in the cost of items since visiting a year ago (Indian inflation sets new records each quarter & closing near 10%) astutely surmised that some things would be more than I thought I'd spend, some things would be less. I thought of him tonight as my kind landlord & two sisters, who traveled in to meet me, help me settle, took me to the nearest grocery store, Spencer's - a long time Kolkatan mainstay since 1836! It feels so good to know I'll be able to cook fresh food tomorrow, know what I'm eating, no matter how much I love Indian cuisine... here's what 2749 INR, or $57.91 USD buys at the local Spencer's Grocer:

1 straw broom for the daily maid to sweep the house before she washes the marble floors by hand...more on the maid later...I've been tisk-tisked about not wanting one..."It's what is done here" & "there's more pollution so keeping a house nice is much different than America"...
Steam iron for clothes - this was a big chunk of my total, with the iron priced @ 895 INR...without it my total would've been $42.14 USD
cutting board
dishwashing soap
12 rolls of toilet paper
large box of laundry soap
2 kg dried garbonzo beans
1 kg black beans
1 kg navy beans
2 cartons plain yogurt
1 kg butter
marsala spices
black peppercorn
1 kg salt
a loaf of brown bread - a true gift! Most eat a heavier version of Wonder bread...a famous tea house, Flurry's, proper British during Colonial times & tourist spot now, has a deli type glass counter @ the market with fresh bread daily!
okra
tomatoes
carrots
watermelon
bananas
onions
mushrooms
two liters of fruit juice, orange & litchi twist!
small jar of Sanka (the search for whole coffee beans continues...)
large bag of tea


Milk, in half liter bags, is delivered daily, every other day or weekly to my door, with tallies made with each delivery on a card we both sign, billed on the last day of each month. Newspapers are also brought to the flat, though I postponed it until we figure out if I'll have a TV. (There are several English newspapers in Kol...my friends have explained that it's difficult to get an unbiased opinion of events by only reading one...we laughed that it's just like in the US)

All in all a good first day!

Sept. 15 - Platitudes! & Placards!

It's impossible to ignore the public interjections and exclamations as you zip by - both Delhi & Kolkata have "Post No Bills" stenciled prominently on public buildings, which, surprising, seems to be followed & respected. (You'd think they would want to plaster their names & networks whenever possible to help them stand out in such tight quarters.) The state, though, must be immune to such requirements, so a taxi ride anywhere gives a visitor a short primer on the most demanding issues of the day:

"Plant a tree this monsoon!"
"Say no to plastic bags - carry jute or cloth"
"Use power wisely - it costs" (Could be quite a revealing statement, considering the current public examination of corruption...I believe it was meant to be part of a Go Green Delhi campaign.)
"Work in Place for a Better Tomorrow" (painted across an empty work zone of an overpass being erected through downtown Kolkata)

Sept 15 - Time to settle

Crickets & katydids & slow Bengali songs floating from a fuzzy radio are new Kolkata sounds tonight as I look out my second story window & settle into my flat 5 km from downtown...a world away.

Sept. 13, 2011- Theater of Tagore

My mid-afternoon was a true joy as a guest of the Calcutta International School drama department as they preformed their play inspired by a work of Rabindranth Tagore, the first Indian to be awarded a Nobel Prize for literature & the most beloved West Bengali sage from pre-Independance days, whose 150th birthday celebration has been a year long observance countrywide. The contest, the All India Inter School Drama Festival 2011, sponsored by the British Council and presented by the University of London theater department, is a nationwide search for the best secondary play, with 48 schools from around the country flying in to complete. The plays are in immaculate English...so incredibly impressive for 9th-12th graders.

The West Bengali welcoming spirit continues for someone who is so obviously a stranger. I was ushered into the theater without a formal pass, introduced to the coordinator since my friends had not yet arrived from the International school...he was a delightful young many who had performed to a second place finish last year - he stopped by during the performance to be sure that the diction was precise enough, & accent not too deep, to see if I was understanding the Tagore connections..it was very sweet. Then two young men from Mumbai engaged me in a conversation about why I was visiting & later a group of students, from the Ganga International School, along with their teacher, gave me a gift they brought to share with the one person they felt would most appreciate it, filled with writings by each student, along with a copy of their newsletter & an invitation to spend the day at their school when I am back Delhi; the teacher said, after asking my birth date, that she was a water source, too, as a Scorpion, & that both she & the girls had sensed I was someone for whom the number three would be relevant & three was their school's lucky number...they just gave the small head sideways nod of affirmation common in Indian body language, smiling, not at all surprised, when I said three had always been my favorite number. Such is the kind of meetings you have in India!








Mumbai play - they used only students for props, such as here, where they were the foot and head board of a bed...




A more traditional rendition of a Tagore West Bengali myth where a king wants to keep dust off his feet & a wise man from the streets invents shoes!




Nandini in first chair, her director smiling next and play director for Calcutta International, Piali, in a conference before the heading to the green room.







CIS play held song & dance...





The main character, a college freshman, trying to convince his parents to pursue archeology & the supernatural/spiritualism instead of engineering.




His ultimate murder by a spirit of a famous Tagorian character who was locked in the spirit world, denied passage to see her loved ones because of unfinished life work.

Unbeknownst to Nandini, the director of her building, Dr. Das, had accepted invitations to a post-contest shindig sponsored by the British Council, to be held at the most prestigious place in town, the Bengal Club, a private club begun in 1834, with a waiting list to enter years long, re-affirming its pedigree each fall when it allows only a handful of people to join.


A wonderful, student-centered, connected, day was followed by short work on wifi at the American Center, then hurrying home to put on the best Western clothing I could find...I didn't pack anything too fancy!...& poof, there I was, back in time, tall back chairs circled in a parlor setting, in a stunning dining room purposefully set with people we didn't know, with snacks & beverages served by men in starched white uniforms & tall black wrapped turbans. Networking was the main purpose, so the British Council director, coordinator outreach director, three UK British Council representatives & at least five or six theater directors or Arts leaders heard about my purpose for my journey and goals for the GlobalConnext program! Thankfully I'd brought business cards & am learning to hone the mission statement to something manageable. Three other school leaders from Kol were there, along with the teacher coordinator from Mumbai, so those schools are all interested, too.






Piali, the director, Dr. Das, CIS director, & my friend, Nandini, who is English department chair & helped students edit the a very mature script! (As you can see, I'm taller than 75% of all Bengali women, much wider!...they are so petite!, & though there seem to be many more tall Bengali men - I've seen several over 6', I see at least a third of them eye to eye.)

The night was especially celebratory because Nandini's school, Calcutta International, was named as one of the seven finalists! I'll be in Delhi on the 10th, preparing to leave for Sweden, so I'll be able to be part of the home team cheer squad, plus the Mumbai students who befriended me also won....it was a delightful night, including a buffet of Bengali national dish, the bekket fish in a dijon sauce, au gratin vegetables, paneer masala, lasagna, breads galore, raita, hot, sweet & spicy fresh cabbage & pepper salad, dal, rice, almond soufflé & a cake they all knew as "mudpie", which looked like a layered flour-less torte. QUITE the evening!




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Location:Kalimandir Theater, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Sept. 11-12, 2011 - Streets & Sidewalks

A noon Sunday walk & the streets were nearly bare, allowing me to capture a rare sight - an example of Kolkata sidewalks without the vendors & customers filling the space.



The traffic is globally notorious in India, Kol & Mumbai in particular...& there's no doubt that a ride in the ubiquitous yellow Ambassador cabs is an experience like no other!

It's on the sidewalks that one truly is pulled into the joys, sorrows, of daily life for most. You can find anything on the sidewalks of Kolkata. In my week of walking I've seen:
• service vendors - cobblers, horse & buggy rides, shoe shine, an opportunity to weigh yourself on a bathroom scale, mobile phone charging, clothing repair, motorcycle repair, barbers cutting hair or shaving men in the morning, sitting on a crate, with customers facing them on another crate, garbage sorters who have many tasks, including one woman who was pulling apart wet, dark grey cardboard looking 4" x 6" squares, laying them in the sun to dry, presumably to be recycled into more cardboard, & a man, squatting, sorting through a huge pile of receipts, each gathered into equal piles, rubber banded, then re-stacked again, ten bindered stacks together, to be tied with a course, thick twine. He was working through about half the sack, with neatly sorted stacks of ten rubber bands in one pile, twine bound together in skeins the size of his fist, and paper, paper everywhere. Brick makers are in a continual state of plying their craft, usually right in the middle of the sidewalk, utilizing every bit of clay then can find...digging out under the cobblestones put down decades ago, dredging out the grey clay with large hoes, filling the space with sand, replacing the cobblestones & carrying the clay down the block, or several blocks where a production line is formed of mixing clay with sand or grit, patting the mixture into molds, spread out in the sun, then others tapping out the finished bricks, stacked in tall stacks half the width of the already congested sidewalk.
• food vendors - breads & main courses, served on tin plates lined with banana leaves, chai, rose water, fresh fruit (papaya, bananas, watermelon, star fruit, a fruit we don't have that is green on the outside & like firm, white kiwi in the inside), fresh lemon and lime juice, freshly squeezed cane sugar juice, peeled cucumbers with salt, freshly roasting peanuts, snacks (mostly puri, a mixture of puffed bites, mixed with marsala spices & oil, tossed in a bowl & served in the day's newspapers, expertly folded into a cone with a tightly sealed bottom), fresh vegetables, fresh meats (very fresh, i.e, pick out your chicken to be butchered), fresh papaya or coconut drinks, w/ large machetes sitting at the ready to chisel off the top so a straw can be inserted, making a natural cup!, ice cream carts, filtered water carts, rice or bean in bulk
• merchandise vendors - a man who writes your name on rice to thread onto a necklace, jewelry, knick-knacks, basic cloth items like hankies, socks & t-shirts, shoes, mobile phone & computer screen covers, electrical plugs, etc., books, magazines, music CDs, postcards, maps, tobacco, small household items such as spoons, tea filters & linens, old coins & collectables
• even saw GreenPeace workers taking a survey & trying to get folks to donate, just like they do in NE and Uptown!

Many vendors, & all food stands, have more than one employee, with the youngest apprentices squatting on their haunches peeling stacks of potatoes or onions taller than they are. Add customers, cords stretched to hold up the tarps which form temporary roofs when it rains, puddles folks are trying to avoid after the rain burst, a block adopted stray dog, men playing cards between work shifts, clusters of folks gathered to chat over chai, stacks of building materials for the bamboo scaffolding & metal work going on constantly in some portions of the city as it grows into the malay & soon there's barely an aisle for one strand of pedestrians in each direction!

There are sad vignettes, too, as you move from place to place, though many fewer than when I first visited in 2007. I walked around a woman laying on a thin reed mat in the middle of the cobblestone sidewalk, a dark headed boy of three or four, using her thigh as a pillow, bent to contort with her shape to maximize the mat's surface area. Then, curled around her shoulder, the mother's arm crescent wrapped around her, a naked girl of maybe 18 months, small hands tucked into her mother's head scarf, using it as a thin pillow. Between the three barely a bit of the mat showed - all three were sound asleep, though a shower had just passed, & the cacophony of Kol traffic was in full, blaring blast of rush hour. Workmen were repairing the lighting of a sign feet from them, adding a ladder obstacle people had to navigate around, forcing them so very near to the small zone of protection she'd tried to create. I'd not seen this poignant an example of poverty directly downtown during my 2010 visit, hoping the gradual transformation from Communism to Socialism to Independent party this fall was eliminating the lowest level of living for Kolkatan citizens.



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Sept. 9, 2011 - The SP Quest (Part ২ Dui (Two)) & Other RAoK

After my hot, dense Kol street experience searching for safety pins, I plopped down into the Maharaja and eyed the glass shelves in the bar. A peg, shot, of Grey Goose is 150 INR ($2.50 USD). I gave purchasing one long consideration before deciding that no matter how nice a small sip would be not being able to count on ice being made from mineral water would mean that my peg would be at room temperature - & that wasn't such a refreshing idea! (In hindsight it was just as well - by mid-day on the 10th I had realized how little I was hydrating compared to my needs, so was glad I'd bypassed the dehydrating shot the day before.)

Soda may be my savior for now..."Thumbs Up!" cola was the only cold refreshment they had to offer. It was sweet! My own flat will be wonderful for many things - most of all, after only half a day of strolling the city, is my own fridge to lower temps to US grade cold.

The server I spoke with in the morning accepted my apologies for blowing into the quiet, posh restaurant like a Banshee, dropping into a seat & asking for anything cold! He so kindly said, "The heat and noise can make one hyper & to calm oneself is a challenge this time of the year." How very astute and unduly patient with me he was, the crazy lady from the Minnesota, who tromps around with unusually grey hair (most Indian women of means dye their hair their entire life) curly and wild in the humidity, who surprises everyone with even her muted tone, still speaking so very loudly by Indian standards (and US, I know :-), who doesn't recognize, & therefore does not honor, the class or level of the employees, saying "hi" to all, much to the consternation of those in higher levels...in short...no matter how much I try to comport & conform, I seem to still stand out. The sweltering, meandering, safety pin quest was shared with the three other servers who greeted me, one young man interjecting, "Yes, mum, in India the small most certainly always become the large", with affirming nods by all. The main server asked me to stay a moment when I was done with my light lunch of raita & fresh fruit...glancing at the dining room boss & lowering his voice, he whispered that he'd sent an underling to find safety pins for me. I nearly broke into tears! I ordered another soda to run cover for him & within a few moments a small packet of pins was set at my side with a quick slip of the hand & no eye contact. As I paid for my meal I thanked him & tried to add extra to pay for the pins & effort. He simply said, "Please, no, it's ours to you." Held back tears just long enough to make it to my stairwell...such magnificent people.





I'll add other Random Acts of Kindness to the comment section...I know there will be more...West Bengali's are wonderful!



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Location:Kolkata, West Bengal, India

The Maidan & vibrant green

Spent yesterday on the streets, strolling into new areas & revisiting the Victoria Memorial near the very beginning of the Maidan, before the heat simply about did me in! I'd not had lunch...you pass dozens of restaurants, hundreds of street stalls, surrounding you in smells...with the 110+º heat index, my sawar was truly soaked through the back...couldn't talk myself into venturing into new dining territory, with no recommendations from friends, &, more importantly, no promise of AC! So my room, cool as I knew it would be, was my only goal. I've not been that hot or weary in a very long time - after only just walking for two hours! Water is never truly cold coming out of the shower, so I used only the cold side, standing for a very long time, slowly getting back to a normal sense of self.

Time in the memorial gardens was worth it though! Couples use the space as a bit of private time in a culture where formal dating, holding hand in public & anything near kissing is not viewed well, leaving the gardens feeling hushed, secretive, adding to the grand view of Queen Victoria gazing over the grounds. It truly is a wonderful sense, making you feel like you're back in the Victorian days of protocol and grandeur.



















The plant in the foreground is something I've seen sold in stores as indoor plants called croton. It was pruned like a topiary ball, growing taller than I, under the shade of one of the huge, locust like trees which fill larger public areas. Their leaves are close together, providing a completely shaded space, where no grass can grow, at least ten degrees cooler than being in the sun.



Another locust tree which shades the courtyard leading to my guest house. It's completely private, with large gilded wrought iron fences, & a minimum of three guards sitting at the pedestrian entrance gate & auto gate. There are also guards posted @ three spots in the courtyard, leaving guests feeling there are more than enough eyes gazing out for strangers. (I'm not sure how much they would confront someone if they decided to actually try to barge into the guest house and flats attached!)

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Location:Sept. 12, 2011 - Kolkata, West Bengal, India