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


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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!