Sept. 24 - Balcony Invite

There's a very kind family that lives across the street from my building - our verandas face each other. We've smiled back & forth & chatted when their class five daughter is home to translate. I commented this morning, as we both sat sipping tea 30 feet apart from each other & two stories up, that there sure was a lot of hustle & bustle at their complex. Enough said - an invite was immediately delivered to join them for a "small" housewarming, at noon. How delightful!




Chairs & buffet table arriving for party...

Noon arrived & I strolled across to their flat...with workers swarming around a huge buffet table, a field kitchen created behind a screen which should've been my first hint that the West Bengali definition of small differed quite a bit from ours. I was the first to arrive & was seated in the living room. Family members who spoke English stopped by to learn more about me, & I them, until 1:00 pm when the other guests started to arrive.

Many social functions include performances; we had a short, extraordinarily gifted concert from one of the cousins who is a professional traditional Bengali singer & the daughter danced to Enrique, her FAV!

Rangoli...floor decor to welcome guests....

Then, tah-dah - I was one of the guests of honor, standing, greeting, being fawned over again & again as folks arrived...well over 200! No one but the most elderly, i.e respected, could sit with me in the living room, with folks stopping by to talk, standing, of course.


Yet, it still hadn't quite sunk in...working through the language barriers, trying to remember names...lots was happening quickly...so it took me being asked twice "Are you ready to eat?" to realize that all the women of the house were waiting for me to go downstairs to the buffet before they'd start a plate! Such a dunce!

Wow - what a buffet! Salad, rice, dal, Bengali mustard fish, fried eggplant, mutton, Marsala aloo (potato), chutney, Bengali curd & sweets


As you may have noticed....Bengalis dont always smile in pictures....we were laughing, she turned towards the camera....

I ended up staying over three hours...talked to their college age son "in American" & promised to spend a night playing games while we chat when he's home next so he can hear as much US English as possible. One of the many sister-in-laws handed me her mobile number, , asking me to please remember them & should I find it in my means, call to help their son learn English "properly", though bilingual Bengalis speak much more proper English than I. It was such a break from the solitude & I learned so much.


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Location:Kol, WB

Sept. 23 - In the Air

It took nearly three weeks but I finally experienced "thick air". I was out walking after one of the two or three rains which last about 30 minutes, spaced evenly throughout the day. It gets considerably cooler as it rains, but as the moisture is reabsorbed into the air, I noticed how dense the flat would feel...hadn't been out in it, though, until this morning. All of a sudden, just standing there at the edge of the road - not even walking - my brain yelled out, "Hey, you can't breathe!" Sure enough, breathing had become a conscious effort. Thankfully the next internal scream was, "You're in Kolkata, this happens....take small breathes, relax." It worked! Within a breath or two I'd acclimated & ten minutes later the air just lightened up. Cannot imagine what 122 heat index will feel like in late June. Am considering leaving India two weeks early to avoid July all together...my friends concur. We'll see how much I accomplish over the next four months.



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Sept. 23 - Parental Discretion Advised?

Parental Discretion Advised?

Care to share your opinion? Work's begun in earnest on the international collaboration project I'm here to create, GlobalConnext, & there's a question I'm pondering. Unintentional language mistakes or quirky twists to a phrase are inevitable during cultural exchanges. I'm wondering whether to broach the subject directly in the teaching materials for educators, inkle @ the topic with kids, or have it grow organically from posts or queries from individual students as they begin to connect.
Some examples:
-Hotel menu (I've also seen it on restaurant marquees)



-New Delhi TV show about pets - "Heavy Petting"
-On dozens of signs, bus advertisements - "Cum" - it's used like Bar AND (cum) Restaurant

There's also a few that aren't quite as directly sexual, but they could be confusing for a student to grasp the intent of the English used vs. the literal:

A restaurant called "The Bohemian - Where food does a cabaret on your senses!"
Street vendors - "Pulpy Grape Juice"
A book store (their quotations) - " 'Good Time' Reading/ 'Good Time' Art

Opinions?



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Location:Kol, WB

Sept. 22 - Practical People

I admire the people of West Bengal for many things; the past month has added "practicality" to the growing list of admirable characteristics! There are examples everywhere - from macro society issues to small, individual touch points in your home.

-There are large boards erected in several points of the city for the daily news to be posted. It's so neat to walk past a crowd in the morning rush who've stopped to sip their chai from the nearby cart & catch up on the news.
-Large, white Bengali government vehicle motored the side streets of the neighborhood with a speaker system calling out Puja information so that everyone who doesn't have electricity or a tv could be included in upcoming events.
-They take the first "R" of the reject, reuse, repair, recycle consumer mantra to heart. Boxes are often decorated so that you don't have to buy extra paper to give them as gifts & even if the gifts aren't boxed I've seen many Puja items handed to folks in the store bag it was purchased from...what's the sense of buying paper if it's just going to be thrown away?
-Each electrical outlet has individual switches so that current is dead to that area unless you request it...it's hard to remember at first, when we're so used to instant electricity...I'd plug in my ipad only to wake up in the morning with it still nearly out of battery power.
-Mobile phones get in the act, too. They alert their user when the battery is fully charged & request they be unplugged from the outlet to save energy!






-Life's basic inventions are used to their premium. Umbrella's make great portable shade, most containers are repurposed vs. buying new &, as I've mentioned, many appliances we take for granted - dryers, multiple kitchen gizmos - are non-existent...the wind on a roof can dry a set of sheets in about 20 minutes, faster than an energy-draining dryer!



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Location:Kol, WB

Sept. 22 - Welcome!

I've learned from a few random notes that this blog is being shared & even read by a folks who plan to travel to Kolkata. What an unexpected, fun, outcome! Thanks to those who take time from their busy schedules to keep up with my journey!



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Location:Kol, WB

Sept. 21 - Cow Grandma

She awakes before dawn, three generations flowing past as she hangs threadbare, white saris along a high line embedded in the mortar of her wattle-walled home.
Her son departs first, cows in tow, hop-scotching them through blocks of green, checkered between modern apartments the cows may enter, venerated, but never he.
Her eldest grandson pauses each morning, touching her feet, to honor,
Namaste, good day
before rolling up khakis to the knee and hailing a city-bound rickshaw.
Great grandchildren close the daily procession, speaking quietly before slipping lunch pails around their necks and worn satchels atop pragmatically oversized uniforms, gaining two year's wear out of an expensive school requirement,
emerald & marigold plaid shirts, proudly creased, defy the thick air.

What has she experienced as Kolkata encroached into her world of rice paddies and conch shell horns heralding the coming of day, passing into night?

The stillness of daybreak provides calm, comfort, from the frantic demands of the day, the whirlwind of activity as she launders and washes and scrubs, perpetually removing what life dirties, her day a litany of dust, scrawled
across her floors, her family, her face.

Solace finds her, tucked into brief moments - a neighbor child crashes into her arms, wrapping himself, naked, in her matriarchal protection, refusing to cross the mud road towards his mother's cross words, hoping to delay dressing, the school bus arrival, pushing the weekend boundaries by minutes.

Later, as dusk falls, her son's call to return the cows goes unanswered. We search, he through puddles, I two stories above, then a glimpse of white...

My balcony vantage point invades the privacy she found, between two buildings, in solitude, cleaning herself in dark water. The sari slips off her shoulder easily, she exhales, coolness splashing, rewrapping, more loosely, as the night's breeze
ripples the thin veil of cotton. She heard her son's demand but sits quietly,
heifer and calf in view,
focusing instead on a collection of leaves, plucking, two, three
folding, bending, tucking, forming a corsage she twists between thin fingers,
smiling as layers multiply, a tight center,
patterned, fluted edges expertly aligned to form the outer row.
Finished, the treasure rests in her lap as she brushes a wisp of hair from her face.

She deserves to wear it, so many years this day repeated, worn on frail body, stooped spine. She deserves to wear it, a respite, light, before her son, drawing nearer, pulls her back to the reality of nightly chores. I long for her to nestle the newness of it behind her ear, to help her stand stronger, taller, to see into the spaces the future holds, beyond the cattle, the fabric, the rain, always rain.

Bellowing, the mother cow answers the herder's request, revealing Grandmother's sanctuary to all. She floats the corsage at pond's edge,
sending it flitting, glittering with her toe as she stands,
gathers the calf's tether, turns towards home.



I wonder her age...








Pounding in the heifer tether with an available brick.

Location:Kol, WB

October 2 - Connected!

Thanks to a small 3G router I can now create a wi-fi bubble anywhere in India, on a bus, in an airport, strolling down the street should I so choose. Science fiction in reality. Skype worked in real time for voice and instant messaging, though still not sure how much of my designated data plan I will use in a work session...today's item to learn!

Hope all are well!









Vodafone 3G router...just a bit larger than my mobile...

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Location:Kol, WB