bklyn nyc

almost two months have passed since i arrived home. all the holidays passing in a whirlwind, the uncertainties and fears and excitements of facing old faces, the forgotten vastness of this city that i could spend my whole life walking and wondering about, the madness and confusion and intensity of american politics up close, the uncertainty of weather with t-shirts one day and long underwear the next, the necessary dreariness of a 9 to 5 and being caught up in the confines of a world of desks, files and artificial light, all a mess in my head.

only a few days until i leave it again, fly off to london and morocco, almost in spite of myself again traveling when part of me wants to sit here with this and sort it all out. who are these people? what are these places? having lived here almost my whole life it feels somehow silly to be faced with all these questions. don't i know my own home? don't i know my own friends?

but then i cannot help but take this opportunity, run off to unknown places while i still can, even if it means taking chances with things being the same when i come home again. this is the time, to be crazy and unstable and confused and unbalanced--i will live to achieve security and stability another day.

watching the mists and mountains

some mornings you wake up to the mists, hugging close around the buildings, close around the mountainside, reducing all beyond this 10 yd circumference to conjecture, all hidden behind a veil of thick swirling white. i can hear the temple but i cannot see it, i can smell the trees but they are still beyond this block... tibetan flags shiver and horses stand garlanded in bells on the path. you hear these bells tinkling from somewhere beyond this veil, the whisper of voices, calling, and the whirr of car engines struggling against the steep incline.

other mornings up the hill you can walk back behind the school to look out on the mountains. beyond my forest of evergreen trees tall and straight as ship-masts standing out of the steep mountainside, beyond the green hills cut and cleaved, like roots thick gnarled and old of trees whose trunks whose bodies have long been cut away, beyond these when the mist finally rises you see them, those mountains of ice coming out of the clouds like some half-magical confection, ridges points pricks and long faces of white and gray. immense and impossible.

these october days by morning i wake up to a crystal clear sky, a vivid blue. every day there they are, the himalayas. i sit there an hour every day just trying to take the idea in. i don't know why it seems so impossible, unimaginable, uncomprehendable. why i have this obsessive need to trace their lines into my mind.

then by night in the mists and dimming late the mountains fade into the sky like a soft watercolor in blues and grayed purples. and to the west the sun setting, across the mists reds and oranges like a sea on fire.

kochi 20-22 august 07

on arriving back in kochi we settled down for a good rest in our “heritage home” guest house, all light with wooden ceilings wooden doors marble floors and a courtyard that we could look out onto from where we sat outside our room. the perfect spot to sit about reading of a long lazy hot afternoon. and perfect for the main appeal of fort kochi. cuz i don’t think anything much ever happens in fort kochi; there are these quiet homes and there are these quiet tea shops, these quiet streets lined by old buildings... a gentle little place to finish up a tiring trip across south india.

so these last few days floated by, us eating our appams and curries and steamcakes and mashed bananas, sipping endless pots of tea and fresh lime sodas, supping beyond our means at the fancy restaurants, walking the streets past old portuguese trading houses and old village-style homes with their sloping tiled roofs, standing by the sea to take in the air and watch the choreographed collection of fish from the chinese nets, taking ferry rides across to get lost in the hustle bustle of ernakulam or to wander up towards sunset at cherai beach, watching the birds hopping about in the garden from the table outside our bedroom.

there were a few more specific attractions of course, aside from the calm and peace of just existing in the midst of all this. the dutch palace down towards jewtown was absolutely beautiful. a lot seemed to be closed off, but it was still full of murals of the mahabharata and krishna lila and other such subjects all with weird shaped women that looked most like men, and lovely wooden carved ceilings. there was also a gallery of portraits of the various rulers of kochi and some odd palanquins and head dresses and swords to fill up a bit more space.

there was also the synagogue over in jewtown. very airy and nice to just sit and take a bit of rest in, with a floor done in blue and white tiles from china, crystal chandeliers and gold pulpit, and lots and lots of glass lamps in many colors. there was a balcony upstairs for the lady folks. but outside of this, there was very little to indicate the community that had once settled here. instead, the streets around the synagogue seemed to be the place for some reason that all the sellers of kashmiri shawls and various antiques gathered, crowding the streets and calling after you to take just a look with frustrating persistence.

kochi was like a breather and a buffer between the running-around and ambition of our trip, and the inevitable return to kolkata. we lazed and lay around and breathed deep. and then when our time was up, we gathered ourselves and our things into a new suitcase, the troublesome tiresome red suitcase that had weighed us down finally having finally broken apart on the way back from alleppey, hopped onto the first autorickshaw that gave us a fair(ish) price, and set off out of the city, out to the airport, to catch our flight back north.

alleppey 18-19 aug 07

almost immediately after arriving in alleppey, after only a brief rest and a quick meal, we hopped on another bus a bit further down the coast to see the krishnapuram palace museum. located down some random dirt roads off of the highway was this beautiful serene building made of wood, two stories tall, organized around four courtyards, with a red tiled roof and some gardens situated about it. i am not sure whose palace it was back in the day, but now it is uninhabited, rather haphazardly turned into a museum. so the attractive interior, that i would have liked to look at just by itself, thronged with naga statues, swords, some strange geological models of something or other... there were tho some interesting samples of murals taken from various temples in the area, as well as some originals to the house itself still visible on the walls, including one huge one of ganesh, vivid and fresh and full of color and action. the house itself tho was the best part, so light and airy and simple in line and open, totally reminding me of japanese architecture. the wood it was all constructed out of was rich and dark and lovely.

the visit was somewhat marred by the presence of two indian guys who attached themselves to our tour mostly it seemed to get more ample opportunities to stare at us. but other than this it was all good, and definitely worthwhile to get a sense of keralan architecture which can get a little muddled in all the throwing together of traditional methods and newer ones, which is i guess maybe just a reflection of the use of just whatever is at hand whether it be mud wood cement or corrugated iron.

after this we got ourselves back to alleppey again by local bus and set out to walk a little along the canals toward the sea, hoping to get a chance to see some old buildings, take in the peaceful calm of that part of town. all these old warehouses etc from back when alleppey was an important port, elegant and simple and intact. if only somehow there were the resources to restore all of these and turn it into a heritage area, it could be such a worthwhile project. but as it was most of the area seemed deserted and out-of-use and irrelevant to the main action, which took place back in the mess of downtown near the bus station in the typical crush of commercial enterprises that you see in any indian city/town.

we struck the sea around time for sunset, sat breathing in the salty air and watched the sky changing, all the people on the beach flying kites, talking, eating, and one gang of youths playing soccer with one very small blond child. soon the crowds began to disperse and so we left also, stopping to sit and sip some drinks at the raheem residency, a lavish heritage hotel right on the beach, since we couldn’t afford the meals but still wanted a look into the interior. and did some foreigner watching, a few groups of which straggled in looking not so classy and really kinda trashy in the context of this fancy schmancy hotel. especially memorable was a group of three french folk who wandered in in disarray, barefoot, in fact, with the one woman among them wearing only a short kameez whose hem grazed her mid-thigh, nothing to be seen underneath but the bareness of her legs! this was quite a shock. only a little later we left, averting our eyes and sighing, what must they think of us?

the following day was our trip into the backwaters, in its most economic form that didn’t involve being on a motorized ferry full of thirty, forty people. just us two, two boatmen, and a canoe, a canopy sheltering us two who sat in the middle lounging for five hours as these two men labored away with their oars. we could almost immediately see the appeal of the backwaters especially to the tourist types. because aside from the beauty of all the various passages of water and our quiet engine-less movement thru them, there was also the life of the people playing out on the banks to watch:

a crowd of chickens running round a lady on stone steps at the water’s edge washing her metal pots, men squatted by the water grimly brushing teeth or rubbing soap into bare chests, folks fishing, ladies slapping dirt out of clothing against the stone of the steps, a marriage in progress at some newly-erected pavilion, the smoke and smell of puja with its attendant crowd of people and raspy music at a canal-side mandir, men up the trees to gather down the coconuts for toddy, men floating down parallel to us selling fish from nearer to the beach, a shady (aka sketchy) canal-side corrugated iron liquor shop decked with communist posters selling coconut beer (toddy) fresh and lovely despite the number of lungi-clad men staring at the funny foreigners, a baby screaming while mommy washes it, a glimpse of rice paddies over the banks, laundry out to hang, rare birds in air and in water, leaves floating, houses and huts built down to the very edge of the water, pink water lilies poking upwards, low hanging trees casting shade and shadow onto the water, baby canals splitting off here and there in every direction, ancient-looking canoes moored to the shore, rusty red tin, hung tarpaulin and tiled roofs, chickens running along the shore, ducks waddling along behind them, the regular noise of oars dipping into the water, the quiet of an early sunday morning...


all the small rituals of daily life played out against a super-scenic and stage-like backdrop. only occasionally interrupted by the roar of the motorboat. i can only imagine the excitement for someone fresh to the scene, to be able to observe from such a close vantage point at such a leisurely pace these kind of typical village scenes. and in such cool and quiet (at least for us under the canopy)... left both me and schmabil hungering for a week floating about on a houseboat. i suppose tho that can wait for wealthier times...

the next day we left early, by crowded bus, for our final stop (and at that a repeat one), kochi.

passing thru kochi 17 august 07

suffice to say the night ride from kodai to kochi was miserable misery. feeling ill and crunched up in what they claimed as a semi-luxury coach i spent the night semi-delirious jerking in and out of light sleeps to the sound of honking horns as we passed over rough roads, thru eery forests. of course schmabil slept thru it all, that lazy lugschmug who maybe only an overturning or crash could shake out of slumber.

we got into kochi round six thirty in the morning, and caught an auto to fort kochi. and once at our ‘homely homestay’ we collapsed for a few hours there on the bed... after which we showered and newly spic and span we went out for breakfast at the kashi art cafe just nearby. where we sipped our filter coffee and nibbled on our banana cake and leafed thru the newspaper, all quite reviving and reorienting after the nightmare of the night. the place was beautifully designed/landscaped, sprawling, everything perfectly placed for a cunning picturesque type of effect, all these little nooks and cozy crannies hidden away around corners. a gallery space leading in to a series of rooms n courtyards where people overwhelmingly foreign sat at tables, benches, all much like us sipping and nibbling and idling away the morning.

then what? a wander around the various churches, the residential areas, and finally over to jewtown. there was santa cruz basilica, striking white and grand, inside on the wall and ceiling paintings from back in the day by some painter brought over from europe. there was also st. francis church where vasco da gama had been buried before the body was shifted elsewhere. but that visit was for only a moment, it was simple, almost nothing there sides a few old tombstones. after the beauty and richness of santa cruz basilica, it was really nothing.

then there was the indo-portuguese museum, a well-kept and really interesting (for real!) collection of relics of kochi’s colonial history, including wood figurines of various holy folk, paintings on panels, tabernacles, glittering monstrances, more... we were given a personal tour by the over-eager ticket seller who (we knew there had to be a catch!) took us into the gift store and guilted us into buying some random perfume...

then off we went down the road to jewtown, meaning to see the synagogue there that turned out to be closed. it was still a scenic old way, all these trade houses, ware houses, some dilapadated more and some less, some in ruins and some in use. we stopped at some french place called caza maria to sip on fresh lime sodas, it was a beautiful place the walls in a rich royal blue and accents of various kinds, paintings, trompe-l’oeil painted on over the blue, and candelabras.

and then, the grand culmination to a day that was quick wearing me out, the obligatory tourist-y attendance at one of the all too numerous kathakali shows crowding fort kochi. schmabil made me do it. cuz really, kathakali bores me to death. we got there in time to see a full hour of the actor-dancers doing their makeup, elaborate and bold, all this color alone probably the reason why the kathakali is the face of kerala tourism. kathakali is meant to be some seven hours long, each performance, but even this shortened one hour version left my brain screaming. cuz kathakali is on the opposite end of the spectrum from (my beloved, beautiful, forever fascinating) kathak; in kathakali the actor-dancer spends ten times the amount of time and does twenty times more complicated movements than necessary to communicate his message—in fact, i think he spends so much time per word, per phrase, that for me the greater meaning is lost in a burst of impatience, on my side. compared to kathak, which is so human, natural, easily comprehensible to even the completely uninitiated, kathakali is just needlessly confusing repetitive drawn out and obscure. not to mention the creepy painful-looking and excessive facial expressions/eye movements, stylized and extreme. i can admire the effort, the training, the specificity but i just cannot appreciate the product for any other reason, it doesn’t do anything for me. tho schmabil loved it. so i guess maybe for some folks, different strokes.

after that tho i was really completely done for the night. after some random bad dinner at some random junky hotel we got home... and the next morning, after a pleasant breakfast at a place called old courtyard, surprisingly enough located in a vast old courtyard with tables set out around its edges and a scattering of potted plants, we gathered ourselves and our big red suitcase together and set off for allepey and the backwaters.

kodaikanal, 12-16 august 07

the bus tugged n lugged its way up the soft hill at a hopeless crawl with its burden of peoples n luggages, slow and steady and really rather maddening to us poor passengers still queasy and slightly ill. but still, even in our weakened state, and in our annoyed even anguished anticipation, we could not help but still feel this excitement, as we drew away from the plains and into the hills, coming around curves to views of terraced farming forests and mists thickening at the limits of our vision, obscuring the beyond. i could feel my heart becoming lighter as the air cooled, as if i was entering some fantasy world, leaving all the stresses and worries of the real world, the strains of our travels, behind. and so finally it was with relief that we made it into kodai, and disembarked into a rush of touts and the crowd of traffic.

we got out of that crunch and down a bit of hill and to our hotel (“snooze inn”) and collapsed onto our beds. and we proceeded for the next few days to spend the bulk of our time devouring western n tibetan food like half-starved crazies, sleeping have into the day bundled up thick in blankets and occasionally between naps n foodfests sneaking out of the rush of central kodai down this or that quiet residential street where all the houses looked like cozy country cottages and all the gardens positively british.

we did make an attempt at the trekking thing, most likely a bit of a mistake considering our condition, and frustratingly along with us were a crowd of energetic yet angsty francophone teenagers (one of whom asserted that she would rather die than have her photo taken with the rest of the group, as she moved towards the edge of the precipice as if to drive her point home) to make us feel pathetic and inferior, especially at first. the walk was uneven and rough, lots of ups and downs on slippery paths with loose stones and soil so really kinda stressful especially considering we had to make at least some efforts to keep up with all those ‘youngsters’ and so not fall pathetically, shamefully far behind. my inability to deal with steep downhills was definitely a problem here; when faced with such situations i froze in my tracks, and looked around for the nearest branch/body to cling onto. but we made it thru to the end... at which point, once we arrived back at our hotel, i could feel the exhaustion, the full physical cost, of this little adventure descend upon me. i managed it to the israeli-run cafe a bit away for a snack, but soon’s i got back i was down and out, no hope for any activity for the rest of the day and the majority of the next one.

which might have been good timing at least cuz it was that night itself that the huge festival for ‘la salette’ (a figure of a crowned virgin mary kept in a nearby church) and so kodai was descended in a cacophony of bangs and shouts and the blare of music out of speakers strung along the street from top to bottom of the hill. kodai was not really at this time in a condition to be wandered about, tho i guess really sleep did not come to quick either in the midst of all this. as outside the crowds paraded their idol about in a halo of neon lights, i tossed n turned and sighed the night away, clutching at my quilt for comfort... it wasn’t until three or four that finally quiet, and sleep, came.

the next two days we went back to our lounging over-indulging ways, sleeping late into mornings and eating away the afternoons. frequenting most that israeli cafe, always so pleasant except those moments when invaded by students of the super-prestigious american-founded boarding school in town, all loud and over-styled over-done and absolutely selfish and obnoxious like only the self-entitled self-absorbed rich teenager can be. but no matter, there were still the foods there, which we still enjoyed to the utmost and so mmmmed away much time over.

and in this way before we knew it we found ourselves on our last day, the days having spun by in a haze, and with a good bit of trepidation we set off on our overnight trip to kochi, starting out in some rusty old contraption with some obnoxious spanish girls and a bundle of stinky potatoes underfoot.

madurai, 11 august 07

after another classic breakfast of idly and pongal and an early checkout, achieved only after some serious wrangling with the guy at the desk on the subject of improperly imposed luxury taxes, we caught our bus out of trichy. after a quiet and sleepy ride, we finally got in to madurai. the hotel was the cheapest yet, and simple, but with a view from the roof over into the meenakshi temple complex. we went wandering about madurai: poked our heads into unsigned offices and peeked around corners in search of the tourism office (never found), ate a miserable lunch (never trust l.p. guide food recs ugh somebody here so got paid off), sat about in our hotel room (so hot, what to do?).

finally, motivated by our early planned departure the next morning, we set out for the therumalai nayak palace, a ruin really, a twenty minute walk away. what was left tho left me wishing i could have seen the original, this one remaining hall such a huge impressive hulk, putting me in mind of an opera house or somesuch thing, great white pillars and grand archways and all done up in (what at least looked like) stucco work. tourists, mostly probably in madurai for the meenakshi temple, sat around on the stairs and milled about vaguely under the vaults...

we saw a museum dedicated to gandhi, off on the other side of the city. it was fine. it featured the blood stained loincloth gandhi had been wearing at the time of his assassination. and endless other memorabilia and pictures and informations that involved too much text and attention at that point of the day.

and round towards evening time we made it back to the temple. a similar sort of thing to ranganathaswamy temple in trichy, but that it was better preserved, smaller, and had some absolutely incredible stone carving. the best part was the room of a thousand pillars, which they called a museum and charged an entrance fee for. which was totally worth it, because it was lined with these pillars that were bursting out into life, what might have been simple ordinary supports of stone transformed into gods, mythical creatures, each one unique and elaborate and dynamic. we wandered among these, and finally out into the proper temple itself, amidst all the mess and movement of pujas going on, following the streams of people. across from the entrance to where the most holy of the shrines was (blocked to non-hindus), there was far below a tank dug and full of water, with a man-sized gold lotus ornamenting it. we walked around this, walked behind all the commotion into the lesser temples where a few straggling pilgrims also wandered, and then left, back to our hotel.

the next morning after a night of some rumbly tummy time among certain of our party, we collected ourselves as best we could and left madurai before the sun was full in the sky. i think we were ready for something different. no more of these dusty tamil nadu cities, and no more idly n pongal, at least for a little while. on to the cool of the hill station, the clean of the air, the calm of the forest. on, to kodaikanal.

trichy n tanjore, 9-10 aug 07

departing pondicherry by bus we broke off from the coast for the first time and set off into inland tamil nadu. mostly empty, lots of agriculture, it seemed, tho few folk in evidence, also tons of highway construction and isolated engineering colleges springing out unexpected shiny and grand out of this grassland, that grazing ground... for a long time the landscape was flat, many dried-up riverbeds, dust flying into the open windows onto our faces and into our hair. but as we approached trichy there came up these sharp dramatic little hills covered in green, there came waters. and so crossing the river we came into trichy, set to winding down the whole long sprawl of it to its southernmost tip, where lay the bus station.

trichy was a buzzing little town, and as we rattled in covered in the dust of our travels we passed busy bazars and shopping streets aplenty, before turning into the bus stand way to one end of town, far from the action but close to the hotels. ashby’s hotel, so highly recommended on the basis of some kind of colonial charm (tho we saw nothing of it), felt mostly like a run-down motel, our room yellowing, our bathtub and showerhead malfunctioning, and a musty smell in the discolored curtains. outside on the terrace empty kingfisher bottles were idling on the cracked glass of the tables, and in the lobby a drunken scotsman solicited the hotel staff’s help in his search for some nameless fat french lady. behind the concierge’s desk was a padlocked iron door emblazoned in red with the word “BAR”.

well, there was at least the saving grace of the t.v. in the midst of this sad situation. schmabil, excited at the prospect of catching up on his precious hindi soaps, set right at it almost immediately upon arrival, begging me to not change the channel when i threatened with the remote. i sighed and sat down to my ginger milk tea, and we both rested ourselves an hour from the bumps and jumps and jolts of the ride inland. him with his quality television, me with my heavy dose (a full thermos!) of sugar and caffeine.

after which, stopping only to devour down a meal at a south indian place by the bus stand, we set in to see the sights of trichy. first stop was a dargah, in front of which we were caught in a rush of children who wanted their picture taken. only schmabil was actually allowed in, being a man, so i sat outside among the womenfolk and answered all the questions that the descendents of the man enshrined within asked of me. from where i sit it all looked glittering and gorgeous in green and gold.

from there we walked down to the lourdes cathedral, modeled after the famous one of france... inside the sexes were separated women to the left and men to the right; there were no pews but a bare floor where people sat cross-legged and said their prayers. i had never seen such a format in a church, so it was all unexpected to me. some kind of prayer tape was on repeat, rattling out in a cloud of static thru speakers, in tamil or in latin i couldn’t tell.

from there we climbed up the hill temple, thru cool rock tunnels past old carvings; no hindus allowed beyond a certain point so frustrated at our stolen and brief glimpses of gorgeous colors painted across the ceiling within and all kinds of sculptures, we went on, climbed to the top of the hill and looked out over the city, musty and dusty, lights shining orange thru the thick air as the sunset came on... we scrambled back down and hopped a bus and were back to ashby before we knew it. and after dinner watched tamil music videos into the night...

the next morning we set off to tanjore, with its world heritage site temple as well as a palace... and the temple was incredible. in the early morning light it shone warm, its unpainted red-gold sandstone basking, a lovely, rich color, so sweet in the sunlight. a huge nandi was front and center upon entering, while innumerable other nandis lined the outer enclosing wall. in the back were the hundred and eight lingams as well as some beautiful mural paintings of hindu religious images. the towers towered above us defying our camera lenses as we wandered around the neat and clean grounds.

happy we left and walked into the town proper to get to the palace, a confusing carved up incoherent thing, some four museums some random opened-up spaces one nice painted-up hall and numerous displays of silverware piles of coins unlabeled portraits junk old pottery headdresses all manner of randomness really. tho there were some rather nice statues, carvings, manuscripts... we left grateful to be done, a little confused and definitely overwhelmed by volume of objects, and the lack of organization/differentiation between what was worth displaying what wasn’t.

back in trichy we went to see one more attraction, a bit outside of the city. a temple complex called ranganathaswamy temple, and dedicated to the sleeping vishnu. huge, sprawling, all busy and all over the place, pujas going on here and there, some people resting against pillars, others wandering around... all these smaller temples within the larger complex, most not so incredible but fun to wander around. a couple of beautiful things, some old murals hidden away up some steep staircase including one lovely rendering of that sleeping vishnu, some impressive pillars carved into the shape of rearing horses supporting a pavilion where the real horses were really living...

afterwards we walked on back through the same series of grand gates thru which we had entered, a path lined by shops fruit juice stands restaurants all a mess of people and commerce. eventually got back to the bus station, bought loads of fresh fruit for dinner at a produce shop that left me impressed with its organization and proper appearance, comparisons quickly coming to mind with the tangle of vendors on a kolkata street, hemmed in by cracked concrete and exhaust fumes, nudged into the scene like an afterthought.

and so had a peaceful restful evening of guava and grapes sitting on our beds watching reruns of good old american sitcoms half-asleep after an exhausting day. early to bed, for it was on to madurai the next day.

pondicherry, 5-8 aug 07

pondicherry was i think just what we needed at that time, after a rough start in chennai and mahabalipuram. white town all cool and serene and painted up and down the streets in a clean white, broad avenues and beautiful houses, set on the sea. a place to just be, wander some pretty streets, see some pretty churches, hide away for a few hours in this cafe or that under the whirr of fans overlooking a courtyard strewn with potted plants, breathing. dawns fading into lazy mornings into sleepy noontimes into slow afternoons into soft sunsets...

true, not much to see exactly, a few churches simple n elegant, a rambly botanical gardens, the streets of white town, the seaside with its piles of stones boulders guarding against the rough sea, a scattering of hindu temples with their classic domes crowded with brightly-painted statues... but still, atmospheric and calming for a frazzled schmemma and schmabil...

our first night we spent in a place called the ajantha guest house, right out there by the sea and promenade. there we managed to create a bit of drama and disapproval, i think it is safe to say. first by giving the guy who carried our suitcase up the stairs a measly ten rupees (he gaped at us in disgust and marched out of the room in indignation), then by creating a scene with the manager, claiming we had a reservation there and a printout that showed rates for the room at half of what this guy was asking for, only to discover the online reservation thing had been a total hoax, the ajantha guest house that we had booked at was in fact called something completely different, no relation, not even nearby. after that embarrassment we tried to keep a low profile, and planned to get out of that place (a bit too costly for us anyway) soon’s we could. so the next morning after breakfast we got ourselves together, ready to set out for the ashram-affiliated guest house across town, on the canal that was the dividing line tween white town and everything else. porter dude again brought our luggage down the stairs and schmabil doubled his previous tip, pressing a twenty into the outstretched hand. in response this guy gave us the ugliest face and went over to the manager and waved the twenty in his face, shouting something in tamil before giving us one more angry backward glance and storming out.

what a relief to find our new accomodations, half the price, lovely, and with an elevator. no porter problems here. maybe lacking the terrace looking out on to the sea, but clean, large, airy. with a courtyard full of mostly potted but a few planted plants... rather like the mission back in kolkata.

the next few days floated by, sitting in satsanga restaurant drinking the best coffee i’d had in i don’t even know how long a year maybe just letting our minds wander sighing and talking tough to the cutest puppy who kept coming by and putting his pointy head soft against my leg and looking up hoping and so sweet, this puppy had his game down for sure, and i gave him a firm talking to, no human food for puppies! schmabil messed with the camera while i wrote and we both teared thru more than a couple crepes, more than one basket of brown bread... one afternoon into evening in a gorgeous hotel the dupleix sipping fruity champagne cocktails (and in schmabil’s case a cucumber martini, which at least he liked, weirdo) our planned brief stop for a drink turning into hours, talking about i don’t know what, the world, the future, lotsa nonsense there too, then moving into the courtyard to leaf thru old fashion/travel magazines and giggle, before again back into the dining room for a fancyschmancy dinner, all of this of course way beyond our means but after this it would be 20 rupee thalis and 7 rupee idlis all day and all night so we let ourselves be a little ridiculous... brick oven pizza n fresh lime sodas at au feu de bois cozy and rustic and especially so in the sudden downpour outside... tho was freaked out after a certain point that at most of these restaurants the bill was invariably given to me, what do they think, that schmabil was some kind of kept person? weirded weirded out.

but yes there were other things beside endless food and coffee and wine, and all of our walks, there was a sad little museum, some peeks into the aurobindo ashram, and then there was a trip out of town to a beach, our autowallah was mean and dropped us off at some random point at the seashore claiming it to be serenity beach and us having no proof either way we got out paid him and walked only to discover fishermen’s boats and nets, determined however to find a proper beach we walked on thru the scorching sand til we reached some small set-up, a sun-shelter and a clean-ish beach, peopled by some unexpected foreigners in bikinis along with a couple dudes in lungis. an interesting pairing of beachgoers. we sat there under the shelter with them reading, before schmabil decided it was time to play in the water, which was fun til it caught us unawares and soaked me up to my waist...

i shouldn’t skip tho the whole ashram thing, seeing as the aurobindo people are rumoured to own half of pondicherry and really were a subtle but ubiquitous presence. an order founded by a bengali former freedom fighter sri aurobindo and built largely by his chosen partner, a frenchwoman with a penchant for the most bizarre headresses to be worn over the end of her sari which she pulled over the top of her head, termed only ‘the mother’. pondicherry is the location of aurobindo ashram’s headquarters, as well as the place where sri aurobindo himself is buried. it is all pretty low-key, it seemed; we visited the ashram to eat one meal and it was just room after room and quiet folk overwhelmingly indian shoveling thru bowls of the blandest food, and at the sight of sri aurobindo’s burial it was also rather quiet, the faithful and the only interested alike silently passing through... maybe the main action of the ashram is at their city auroville some ten kilometers or something outside of pondicherry, where thousands of foreign ashramites along with thousands of native ones live together...

we did get a chance to attend some film screening that was supposed to give more information, be a set of short doucumentary films on the mother and the aurobindo ashram. half of the films seemed rather less strong on the informational side of things, and to amount ultimately to a kind of audio-visual puja. the first especially, fade-ins and fade-outs of flower upon flower, in fields, in solo close-ups, interspersed with images of the mother, music of her own composition playing in the background. in fact, this film was termed an ‘offering’. other films followed, a couple attempting to impart some amount of information perhaps but the sound track was so scratchy it was hopeless... the worst was the final in the series, which was a loop of the same exact footage of the mother giving blessings to the masses, five minutes long, shown four or five times in a row, it was moments like these when we wondered if one had to be on drugs to appreciate this (the films were after all done up in psychedelic colors and produced in the early 70s) or else truly be swept up in some devotional fervor, truly believing this lady (who seemed really a little crazy) was god (as she claimed to be, at moments).

altho the aurobindo thing was interesting, and i wished we could have gotten out there to auroville and all that, the overwhelming impression i was left taking with me of pondicherry was mostly that of the colonial city, not of some spiritual center. its cafes all charming and open and airy, all these cutesy-wutesy boutiques with their soaps and incense, blouses and scarves and broad-legged pants in light south indian cotton... all the eeriness and all the guilty pleasure of a city still half colonial, from what we saw.

we were surprised and somewhat weirded out in fact by the dominance of french folk, it felt almost as if in these old colonial ‘white town’ areas that most of the people on the street were non-indian, and in restaurants it was as if the empire had never ended, tables occupied by foreigners gregarious over glasses of wine or pots of good (praise the lord!) coffee, barely a brown face to be seen but for the occasional except of course for the servers, chefs, guards, etc. it really struck us in the boutiques of the town, they were all over... for instance the place casablanca, whose tagline was ‘the world is yours’ (eek!). it felt like some kind of ex-pat pottery barn cum anne taylor or somesuch thing, full of classy cunning home furnishings, here and there a touch of the indian, along with fine leather bags, designer jewelry, stylish clothing for the westerner finding his/herself in these tropical climes—an exquisite balance found in these wares between environmental conditions and cultural imperatives (of both cultures, the indian, to be modest, the french, to be stylish). this seemed to be a store for the ex-pat yearning perhaps here and there for the touch of the exotic, but basically not willing to compromise on anything fundamental to their sense of aesthetics and/or lifestyle. for their fine, manicured lives, all the luxury of india without any of the dirt, without the cheap stitching and fall-apart fabric.

an interesting place, and we stayed longer than i thought we would. but finally one day we decided it was time, to the relief of our bank accounts and consciences but with a bit of wistfulness in our hearts, at leaving the comfort and calm that we had found there. we had other cities to get to, trichy, tanjore, madurai, so we bundled up our things and set off for central tamil nadu.

out of delhi, up into the hills

i left delhi at daybreak, lurching out of my room with my excess baggage and trundling it all down onto the sidewalk and out of the complex, a bulging bag under either arm and my suitcase trailing grumbly unhappily behind me. it was all still half dark so i didn’t even notice pascal-ma’am out there on the bench until i was almost right on top of her.

caught off guard i open up with an awkward and confused, ‘oh, hello, i didn’t see you! good morning.’ to which she gives me such a look, and, cutting to the chase, says, ‘where are you going?’ feeling a little criminal, caught in the act, although i had totally cleared leaving today with her the evening before, i say simply, tho a little embarassed, ‘dehra dun.’ she nods, thoughtfully, her brow slightly furrowed, perhaps trying to figure out how dehra dun might fit into my whole kathak back-story. then she starts, ‘well...’ taking an awkward pause of looking, before she culminates with the classic indian (unless americans say this all the time and i have been missing it?) all-purpose expression of good wishes, ‘best of luck.’ she gives a matronly nod of her head, and i am dismissed.

i had always been nervous of pascal-ma’am, always looking, watching, sometimes there being a little half smile there at what really you don’t know, but mostly some unreadable blank. her coming out like this to see me off, or at least to watch me as i lugged all this weight on past her, wobbly and all, caught me by surprise. this display of that kind of feeling of maternal responsibility to her charges. it left me almost getting prematurely nostalgic and sad at parting this working women’s hostel.

then i called back to myself the memories of all the sloppy platters of dal and potatoes day after day, the big slippery cockroaches hidden in corners, the bread and butter breakfasts. thus cutting my nostalgia to size, i gave one last smile and a ‘thank you so much!’ over my shoulder, and was outta there.

outside of the gate on a big empty bhagwan das road there was not an auto in sight, and only the distant sound of long-haul trucks and maybe a few buses with the blueline out perhaps for an early killing. i was about to start cursing myself for not calling a cab and thinking an auto could be managed, when out of the distance appeared the light of a single vehicle, coming towards me from the blackness of mandi house. i squinted and scrunched my eyes to look into the glare, and to my excitement there it was, an empty auto prowling the empty streets. i stopped it, laughed at the bloated price offered me, told the auto-walla what price it was going to be (no argument, tho i imagine not so much from his intimidation so much as my just wanting to get out of there and so giving him a totally generous/fair price) and with his help piled all my junk in. and we were off. we flew past men asleep in their autos, autos in line for gas, a few other vehicles but mostly the streets were empty and before i knew it we had reached new delhi station. seeing my wheeled luggage most of the coolies kept silent and curled their lips as i went by. another lost job.

i was way early, i watched a couple other shatabdis come and go before mine came, the 6 50 to dehra dun. with a little help from the guy sitting next to me, solicited in my baby hindi, i got my suitcase aloft and sat down proud in my aisle seat. it was an uneventful ride for the most part, altho there was the issue of the cockroaches. i had noticed a couple coming in but thought it only cuz back there were the cooking areas. but then i saw them in the coach itself. first crawling up the walls, then crawling up some man’s chair and then quite suddenly right in front of me upon my newspaper. the rest of the ride, all six hours of it, i spent either peeking around to make sure none had come to crawl on me or else telling myself pointedly not to look, focus on newspaper, focus on music playing in my headphones, focus on scenery flying by outside. i had never seen roaches on trains before, the numbers of them were so confusing, especially considering these shatabdis are expensive and at least supposedly of a higher class, fully air-conditioned as they are with free meals free newspapers and free water... but anyway. you did not find me touching my lunch that is for sure.

at length we arrived in dehra dun, and successfully i made it out, and down the congested path to the government-operated taxi stand. just as i was loading myself into my ambassador of choice, i saw standing right there another foreigner girl, and as our eyes met we asked the simultaneous question that came to mind: landour? i told her to pile in to, much more simple than me cuz she came lightly luggaged only. suzanne from holland, here for a month, with a week doing the hindi study thing in landour. our driver was mercifully safe and conservative, honked at always by those behind him who would rather have him making dashing passes of other vehicles around sharp turns into the blind beyond.

it only took an hour to get to landour, curling up around the hills, bouncing down the narrow cobble-y streets. my guest house is at the bottom end of landour, called northern store. except that its actual name seems to be terrace cottage guest house, at least on all official documents. i am sure they have all the good reasons. it is a family home with i think only four rooms available, tho i am the only guest at the moment. the room is big, homey i suppose, with a cozy rug over the poured concrete floor an enormous bed a lounge-y chair for reading, a fireplace, a painting of a couple of terrier dogs and a cute little paper indian flag by the door. there is a door to a room with a broken sink hanging off of the wall, and a tap for running water and a bucket, as well as some old abandoned furniture and a full length free-standing mirror. out the door from there around the corner is the toilet, kind of an outhouse really, and then a huge tub of water with a baby bucket to make use of (no flush, just water thrown into it afterwards). this tub is so old and rusted and the whole thing so rough hewn and ramshackle that it really does give that funny feeling of some other century... when they delivered to me my first morning a hand-formed metal bucket of boiling water with which to take my bath it reminded of some scene from the little house series.

so mostly the place seems nice, a little musty (a fact the proprieter denied when i asked when someone would be in to do some dusting, but proven by my resurgent asthma since i have been spending time in this room) but cozy. i was surprised to find a dead mouse in the room with the watertap, in one of the abandoned cupboards there, but the fact that there was nothing live, and it seemed nothing had been there to munch on the creature’s remains somehow made me feel better about the whole thing.

after this i went to see the layout of landour, and most importantly, to figure out where the school was and find myself a meal. it was a serious steep climb for twenty minutes fore i reached char dukan (‘four shops’) but reach i did, and sat down for some food. then i wandered some more uphill, found the school, and sat for a while out by it, looking down the steep incline at the mist breathing in curls and swirls all slow between the tall and slender trees that shot up from seemingly impossible footholds on the hillside.

finally after some time i started to get chilly, and decided it was time to go back down to my little home. i descended again thru the layers of mist past the drama of the trees and sudden steep slope, my path curling down it safely to my place. where after dinner i curled up in my comfy chair by the (nonfunctional) fireplace to read myself into sleepiness...

evening, a.i.w.c. working women's hostel

the lightning of an approaching shower begins to spark and scatter thru the pink-orange sky. in this dusky darkening day warden-ma’am pascal ma’am is sitting out on the bench in front of the houses taking in the air, as the wind sweeps the fallen deep pink flowers before it out from under their tree on to the asphalt in front of me. three girls in knee-length dresses, age ten tops, are jumping up and down before pascal-ma’am and singing a folk song, dancing off-beat off-coordination arms everywhere and feet shaky as pascal-ma’am nods on and a grey tabby cat lets out a yawn from where he sits lazily in his corner under the tree.

i settle my things back into my room with a thud, i make an attempt to neaten up, fail, sit back down at my desk to study, trying to bend my mind into some kind of compliance, to push myself thru these pages of mein versus meine, mujhe, mere, lists of verbs tenses and constructions. my brain i think to myself has been cooked by a long day under the sun, it is no use, i will have to face the tutor’s wrath (and even worse, my own shame) tomorrow. just as i go to lay my copy down i hear a rustle followed by a roar followed by the running of water.

i go to my window. all people have vanished, the pink the orange has vanished into black, rain is coming down in the near-darkness, and the grey tabby is hiding mournfully under the benches. the flowers are being swept away into the gutters. scorching day has settled into rainy night. i stand outside and breath in and out, i stick my hands out from under the shelter i have taken to feel the rain. and then (good girl) i go inside wash my face and go to open up my book again. gaya, gayi, gaye, gayin, khaya, khayi, khaye, khayin, piya, piyi... the rain pattering away outside.

wandering among the tombs

i set out early, but already the scorch of the sun was setting in. i walked down these almost empty new delhi avenues, towards humayun’s tomb, the stream of traffic on my right, the blank high walls surrounding various very important (or so it seemed) offices and institutes of various kinds on my left. my map said it would be simple, a straight shot down zakir hussain marg, but somewhere in the middle of that i got lost in the maze below some gargantuan flyover, a tangle of roads going off in so many directions i became dizzy... a few trial and error turns and much frustration and suspicious speculating on (angrily) why this city is made for cars not people later, i made it.

humayun’s tomb, isa khan’s tomb, barber’s tomb, a whole mess of mausoleums. humayun’s tomb itself is set in the midst of recently restored gardens, grass and trees set out on a kind of grid run thru by narrow marble-lined passageways of running water punctuated by pools and fountains. raised on a platform in the center of these gardens, humayun’s tomb rises up all majestic and grand, clothed in pink and white marble. climbing up the steep stairs into it, i circled the outside, peering in thru its many jalis (stone-carved screens) til i got to the opening. inside it was simple and spare, a huge space, still grand of course but with few details, empty of any kind of fancy decorations... in the middle stood the cenotaph itself. and in the many side-rooms, more of them, cenotaph after cenotaph, appearing mostly in clusters, lined up, with inscriptions in arabic (unless it was urdu or persian?) calligraphy

i wandered from there to the other tombs in the compound, more cenotaphs, more jalis, variations on style of domes, shape, decoration... none comparable to humayun’s tomb in striking-ness. really, most of the other ones were crumbling apart. of the whole complex, i think it is the external view of humayun’s tomb that is the best part...

i left, crossing the street and with a turn, following the signpost, found myself thrown into the sudden congestion and crowding of these back lanes full of butchers bread-friers and really i am not sure what else, was trying to avoid stepping into some pools of goat blood running to onto the sidewalk and avoid the eyes of the people all around me and looking. after stopping to ask one paan-walla i find the lane leading to hazrat nizamuddin aulia dargah, the shrine and burial site of the renowned sufi saint nizam-ud-din. other famous individuals are also buried there, or in the immediate vicinity, among them mirza ghalib and amir khusro. the attention of sellers of various prayer paraphernalia is almost too much to bear, so i rush along the narrow lane leading into the dargah at a heated pace, past all the “hello ma’ams” and “please, pleases”...

thru a jalis i try to look into amir khusro’s tomb, i see only a bunch of men in pale-toned salwar kameez sitting beside some kind of entrance, on the white marble floor. i move on to the shrine itself, glittering and rainbow and gorgeous (no photos allowed), a trio of qawwals sitting out front below a colorful canopy singing their songs, amidst a small group of men mostly, around the sides of the shrine were crowds of women, not allowed into the interior (only men, please) praying as best as they could at the distance... i would have liked to stay longer, but the attention of too many eyes made me feel too awkward and out-of-place so after a brief circle of the shrine itself, and a moment of listening to the music, i left, out past all the beseeching voices of the flower and sweet sellers, back out to the main road. next stop, lodi gardens.

i think really lodi gardens was the first thing that really got me interested in delhi, the first time i came here. my first day in delhi, after a lunch at the cafeteria at habitat center with another fulbrighter, i was left with an empty afternoon to occupy. having been confined only to my defense colony hotel room for the last day i was hungry to see something, anything... and lodi gardens was right down the road. i didn’t know what i was expecting, but the sight of these peaceful open spaces with well-groomed grass, palm trees, and unexplained old ruins scattered about the grounds was a revelation to an eye used to the uninspired gardens and parks of kolkata, with their tacky shrubbery and kangaroos waste bins. this time i came armed with a map and a book, telling me where and what these crumbling old tombs were. washed out by the forces of nature and the passage of time, thick with bird droppings, these tombs felt their age... some beautiful stone-carving, some odd tiles left here and there, pigeons perched on ledges and flying above you circling below the dome...

after this, home, water, a ten minute nap. then, wireless cafe, lunch with molly and another fulbrighter from the good old days in kolkata. and then four more hours of addiction... two pots of coffee, two booked plane tickets, numerous emails and newspaper articles and innumerable checkings of facebook later i packed up my computer and caught the first rickshaw home, at the very onset of sunset.

dilli days dilli daze

my days have been floating by, wandering around ancient ruins, breezing round the curves of new delhi streets in autos, brief forays into the alleyways up by chandni chowk looking for the remains of shahjahanabad amidst the warehouses and small-time businesses, milling around malls and other shopping strips in front of restaurants like t.g.i.f. bennigan’s ruby tuesdays etc shops like levi’s united colors of benetton reebok marks and spencer’s etc in a cloud of confusion at all this familiar foreign-ness all at once, sitting around in cafes with wireless in a disturbing state of excitement drinking away pots of tea as i rediscover the lures of internet addiction, spending over my budget on the all-too-numerous all-too-tempting fancy schmancy restaurants that seem to call to me from every corner...

napping away scorching afternoons in my cave (aka sad little room in a working woman’s hostel)... going mad from another meal of dal and potatos same’s they served the day before and every day before that... nervous under the gaze of our ever-watching warden pascal-ma’am who i thinked liked me until i appeared outside in something sleeveless, .... checking the corners for giant cockroaches like the waddling one i saw in that other room they tried to move me into last week...

only a few days left here before i run off up into the hills for a month of study for real, hindi/urdu up in landour. two weeks in delhi, n i still can’t figure out what to make of it. all the open space in south delhi, and the alienation of this elitist weird bubble, all the cram and crunch of north, all these far reaching enclaves and colonies, all this (exciting) ancient and (usually not so much exciting except sometimes hmm in a i-have-not-been-home-in-a-year-and-really-need-it kind of way) new, it all feels funny somehow. it is leaving me curious to know more, but yeah, hmm. i have a feeling that in the end i would not be comfortable or happy with all the segregation of rich and poor, all the posh-ness and hip-ness and gated-ness of the world populated by the privileged on one side and then the rest on the other, and neither place feeling really like it has a place for me...

but then, two weeks is nothing. to know a city? i will have to come back i think, if only to get to know it good n proper. you listening, schmabil?

mamallapuram aka mahabalipuram, 4 n 5 august 07

we sped down the coast on our crusty old public bus out of chennai, flying over the smooth coast road past beach resorts before these walled enclosures gave way to open land, fields and trees and beyond them, from time to time, glimpses of blue-gray sea cool and hazy and distant, the wind blowing up into the bus smelling like green and saltwater.



took a turn-off past some blackened shacks on a road deep in mud from recent rain, came out onto mamallapuram’s east raja street. we offloaded onto the street and by autorickshaw got to our hotel, center, hippie-town. crusty hippies wandered about, along with clueless khaki-clad kids with wide eyes, tender mouths, guides clasped to their chests like shields.




sitting up in the hotel cafe, a gaunt man in a lungi garlanded with beads recounts his story as he cradles a puffy-eyed baby on his lap, the mother sitting across peaceful with wild long hair and baggy clothing. he has been ill, there have been visa issues, but ok, he’s been on the road who knows how long now, where in fact he met this girl and they became travel-partners, where to go they don’t know, maybe continue floating, baby added, really i worried for this baby. the woman takes the baby and lifts up her shirt to reveal her lack of undergarments and begins nursing where everyone can see, schmabil n i avert our eyes, father talks a good bit of all the coughing-up of blood and hospitalizations with a couple of sympathetic brits in short shorts, who seem to have had their own share of maximum-strength antibiotic injections or what have you, one begins to wonder why these people persist in staying on, why they all dont just go home.



with relief we depart that cafe, get out into the town to see the famous rock carvings. fine, not bowling-over impressive, pleasant to ramble around tho... the most impressive piece arjuna’s penance, a multitude of figures carved across a single wall, but ruined by would-be guides and postcard sellers that followed you all the way up and down all around, making enjoyment impossible... kids squatting down and relieving themselves in the park, dealers approaching us with offers of drugs on multiple occasions, dirty looks, overpriced tickets to all these attractions, finally we retreated into some french-run cafe, fresh lime sodas and cool away from the sun and dust and people. confusedly trying to figure out why the travel guide had said that this was the kind of place you could lose track of time in, failing to mention the shady dealings and ashram-dropouts or whatever who seemed really to be on their last legs ill and faded-out and lost...



the one thing about mamallapuram was the sea. rough and dark, we watched from a pile of stones sitting the crowds hanging about the edges of the sea, not venturing deeper than maybe a a foot or so in, mostly fully clothed except for a few boys who stripped down to their underwear, people in blue jeans or salwar kameez or sari getting soaked from top to bottom as the waves surprised them where they stood or as they pulled each other down laughing into the surf.



but sea or no sea, we decided it was time to move on, we had had enough, so a day early we left mamallapuram. early at a busstop on sunday, us and a jumble of other foreigners, across from a ramshackle church from which clanged and clattered out the joyful noise of its worshippers shouting out their songs, the clamour of tinny cymbals and the rough thumps on drums, interrupted only briefly here and there for a short sermon, perhaps some prayers, continuing the whole forty five minutes that we waited for our bus...which finally did come, crowded, we squeezed us and our monstrous large suitcase in and held on tight, as the bus took off, leaving musty old mamallapuram behind in a cloud of dust...

chennai, 2 and 3 august 07

we arrived in chennai at noontime; the slow ride thru knotted traffic past billboards for the latest movies in tamil hindi and english as well as for political purposes of some kind or another, boasting towering and terrifying images of sonia gandhi, jayalalitha, others... at length arriving at our hotel hidden down some side street in triplicane. quiet and airy and simple if smudgy and flaking and rough around the edges, tho the presence of a film crew throughout the bottom floor, overflowing from the courtyard, wires snaking out around a tumble of tables and chairs, meant that at night as they shot some seedy cabaret scene we would awake listening to loud tamil voices and bangs, cracks, stompings down the length of the hallway.

whatever the disturbance of these doings in the hotel, it was a welcome refuge from the city, which from what i could tell seemed mostly made for cars, walking almost impossible. the only real nice walk we had was down the edge of the beach, past all the thatched huts of fisherman, past the huddle of their boats on the beach, past women pounding away at their laundry, past fish spread out on the pavement to dry in the sun.

what else? a dance-drama about manipur with dancing and incredible staging, all the time each moment looking like a picture, at the music academy with roopa, tapas at a too-cool-to-be-true restaurant down the street afterwards... our first south indian thalis, yumyum... the supposed resting place of st. thomas in a modern, brightly lit, antiseptic and marble-lined crypt... the most adamant auto-rickshaw-wallahs i have ever encountered, insulted and in fact closed by any attempt at bargaining down to a fair price...

other than this, there some temples, some churches, some malls, some museums, all were fine and nice but i felt like i didn’t know how to make it all coherent, i couldn’t draw connections and figure out what chennai was really. maybe partially because it isn’t a walking city, things felt like they didn’t coalesce into something i could see as unique or even really identifiable in some way as being chennai rather than being some other city. maybe it is a city that takes more time to know. maybe its the kind city that hides away in people’s homes, and other un-public places. or maybe we were just missing something.

in the midst of all this dust and congestion tho we didn’t feel much like sticking around to wait for chennai’s heart n soul to reveal itself, so we set off ahead of schedule for mamallapuram aka mahabalipuram, down the coast.

slow sunday: my first day in delhi

sailing around and down wide boulevards
past greenery crumbling monuments
govt buildings residential enclaves
quiet
curves
a long morning running into afternoon
from mexican omelettes into pots of tea
curled up in the corner of a cafe/gallery
where the man next to me orders his starbucks cappucino
with a face like he had just come into heaven

crazy schmemma

just back in kolkata for last few days, insane and off-balance after a few weeks of wandering around the south with schmabil and only a few days away from being off to delhi... once i organize my thoughts i swear i will post bout all of this. until then.....

many days, out of order

we rattle down landsdowne in the half-empty minibus, me n kaju kazue, evening time. i have just finished telling kaju about how i know i have been here too long cuz every ten seconds i turn my head and think i see something of home. she laughs and cannot believe it, seeing my world in this musty crusty rusty dusty place? when before us something magical appears, a street draped in christmas lights, lined in christmas trees (ok ok a couple of palm trees too), all lit up and shining in the midst of dreary nighttime. i gasp. ‘it is christmas in july!’ kaju laughs and says ‘uh huh’ doubtfully but amused. she says, ‘it is some puja’, peering down the street for a glimpse of the idol, the pandal, that somewhere beyond all the lights must be there. but i say, ‘christmas puja!’ kaju laughs at me and thinks i am crazy. christmas in kolkata, in the midst of summer. i don’t care. i like to think of it this way. and anyway, why worry about the judgment of a girl with a name like kaju, anyway?

one of those afternoons, everything has gone wrong. time wasted by a succession of people, nothing produced, all attempts at achieving anything whatsoever failed. walking down the street, and there is one of these men staring, walking ahead of me turning back every two steps to look at what was there behind him. he finally stops and takes a position to watch me walking by. i think, fuck this why am i putting up with this guy? it was a bad day, i couldn’t help myself. i burst out at him in angry bengali, ‘what? what you looking at? why are you looking at me?’ ... on his face is surprise followed by a look as if i had just given him the most wonderful of compliments. ‘oh!’ he said responding to the language and not the message or mood it had conveyed, a big smile on his face, ‘you know bengali!’ his hand is clasped to his chest. i am at a loss for words. i throw up my hands. I stomp off, his shining eyes trailing behind.

dance one sad sunday morning—unsuccessful. s-di shouts, goru goru! moo moo! holding her index fingers up to her forehead like horns, at one girl who hasn’t got a clue as to the difference between right and left. another girl tries to get through her spins by throwing her body counterclockwise and attempting to use her arms like paddles, flapping through the unhelpful air. even the costume of these poor girls is unfortunate, one in a semi-transparent sheer white poncho-thing with a red fringe over a skirt, another in something strappy and black and really in my eyes inappropriate for such a small girl. i am dodging bad dancing and poor fashion, right and left. even the tabla players seem to have forgotten their fingers from one another. but from outside there is a nice breeze and a burst of rainfall here and there, banishing the scorching sun. the rain has come again, everyone is happy and laughing as the girls keep on with their flapping.

he is a pig. he sits there behind the tabla, picking at his teeth for five minutes with a toothpick, showing off his blubbery mouth. he is useless. he demands tea, ‘cha! cha!’ of the dancers who ignore him or tell him to wait for the dance teacher, he will get his tea in some time. but he is determined. ‘cha! cha!’ eventually teacher arrives, and so does tea; he keeps the pot close by him and drinks it all down as fast as he can, offering none to anyone else present. he rubs his enormous hideous belly and stares at me lasciviously. he tries out his english on me and i look away, try to answer only the necessary. he belches. when he finally gets around to playing tabla he is miserable never gets nothing right, yells at the dancers for getting it wrong when he himself has no idea. he complains about the time, that he is being paid for, that we don’t start on time, but then when we start he refuses to play properly. as nostalgic as i am getting about this city that i am so soon to leave behind me (at least for a couple years), there are some things i will be glad glad glad to leave behind.

locked in, breaking out

some things get you from the first day. you step off the plane and are assailed by the heat, the humidity. you step out of the airport and are surrounded by this one and that one offering to help you with you don’t know what, you ride away in yr taxi over broken roads into congested kolkata coughing at the inhalation of all this poisoned air and entirely disoriented. these are the kinds of things that get you first.

then there are the things that build. stares u can shrug off at first, but then later drive you to inappropriate explosions of anger against the nearest but not so necessarily most grievous offender. or the delays that first u absorb patiently. thinking, this is a way of life, different, a lesson. which it is oh totally without a doubt in the world. i have definitely learned important things from such trials.

but there is the question of how long a person should go on learning something. some things take a day to learn, some take a life. and after nine months of such things i begin to think that as good as it is for me to chill out and learn take the punches as they come, to roll with it, i cannot help but feel like something is being drained away from me. time. slipping off, stolen away, disappeared; my life (at least this year of it) swallowed up in some hazy confusion of time and place, some eternal waiting and wondering what is to happen.

and so you get to feeling trapped. in these commitments, in this program of study, in all the appointments that take their time to materialize, if they are to materialize at all. in all this traveling and dead time, all this staring into space, all this anticipation with no action. but what to do? this is what it is, this is my deal, this is what i have gotten myself into, this is my project.

then one day s-di the dance teacher never shows up. you wait and you wait and you wait in the dance school, drift under the furious fans, make an attempt or two at reviewing the material you are learning. but as you pass the one hour mark something angry inside starts to build, where is she? why is this always the way this ends up? why am i here? what am i doing? am i crazy stupid something to be doing this? what was i thinking, coming at all? i should leave, i shouldn’t wait and let even more time be pulled away from me. get out of this dance school, even get out of kolkata. i dont need this, i dont need this, i dont need this. i never needed this. why do i even bother? why am i kept here? why do i feel so obligated? why do i feel so trapped? i am the master of my own destiny. i can desert this place any time i want to. i will. this is it, i have taken enough. i am out. i am through. kolkata, i have had enough of you.

at which point, after roughly removing my poor bells from my ankles, tossing them into the cupboard, i make to sweep out the front door only to discover the gate padlocked from the outside. this very literal manifestation of my emotions, this symbol made concrete, is just a little too much. i break. i burst into tears. i wail, i hit my fists against my thighs, i feel set to burst. i pound on the gate, to no answer. i pound harder and harder and finally with a big kick that sets the gate resounding i get someone’s attention, outside. i don’t even ask who did it. i just get out of there, out out out. my mind in a chaos of thinking.

a nice boy at breakfast, a native kolkatan studying at shantiniketan, hears from me that i am thinking of leaving the city, that as much as i like kolkata even love, i just feel it is enough, it is time to leave. he says, ah, this is your first time in india. i say no, no it is not. he says, oh, your second then? i am annoyed. at the time i cannot think of why, tho his implication that i am some silly newbie who just needs to get over it is enough to insult my pride.

but really, this is one of those moments when you recognize your limits. cuz really, i am never going to be ok with the harassment that i face all the time on the streets of kolkata, these assaults on my respectability, on my feelings, on my body and on my sense of self. i will never be ok with always being seen as a foreigner first and foremost by the great majority of people. i will never be comfortable with having to hide all these parts of myself, my opinions my politics my personal life, for fear of offense. i will never feel happy having to wear these strange clothings to protect myself (as much as is possible) from being judged and poorly treated. never before did i realize how much it really does matter to me, how much it really does make a difference, to have power over my own appearance, to be able to wear blue jeans and t shirts and whatever else, how i literally come at certain moments to feel caged or even lost within the indian-style garments that i have taken to hiding myself away in. and as time goes on, i can’t help but feel more and more frustrated by my inability to dress as i like. it is another example of me frustrated, hidden away, suppressed, and afraid. the environment and the fear of judgment or adverse reaction leading me to the salwar kameez, and then this partial refuge, protection, in itself leaving me feeling silenced and trapped.

all these tensions, provoking shame and discomfort and anger, twisting away at my mind, and no way to deal with them, no way to come clean to the people around me. walking away from dance class, i hit upon it, that for my own peace of mind, even sanity, i cannot stay. my brain needs a break. so, i will make my escape.

ballygunge, late afternoon

rain thru soft sunlight
shone thru the gold-struck greens of
palms and potted ferns

an empty residential lane curved and curled off into silence and separation, rain falling like a mist, a transparent curtain drawn between the tumble jumble of the city and this house of solitude and seclusion. thunder rumbles in the distance, the birds cheep and chirp and chatter. in the gentle pitter patter of this place there is no talk. the fan above whirrs and sends a spin and a shiver through the air. empty tea cups sit on the corners of tables haphazardly while shoes lie at the entrance in a neat row be they leather plastic open closed disintegrating or shiny like a happy puppy’s nose. this gravel driveway, these big old metal gates, this place out of sight. this hideaway, peace and quiet hidden down a few lanes, a few anonymous streets.

it’s like i’m always saying, you spend so much time with the ugly, you forget and are surprised to be reminded about just how beautiful bengal can be...

kolkata quiet

after that first bombast of water and dark, lightning that ruptured the sky into pieces, violent fissures opening up in the dark of clouds, we have entered into some kind of period of uncertain calm. the sky has become unsettled, a canvas across which blues grays and whites drift, roving and ranging about like lost sheep. there is none of this intensity, none of the fireworks of those earlier rains. there is blue peeping thru white-grays and pale grays sweeping into blue, the scorching of an unbridled sun through a clear sky and the sudden cold of an unexpected and almost unnoticed rain shower only coming to leave, a momentary mood of this temperamental sky. the cool and the hot always in flux, the air in mute ripples of transition over a city alternately damp and arid.

nighttime

the phone is silent
and so are the streets
overhead, the fan is furious
my mind works itself into knots
the spaces across
oceans, forests, mountains, deserts—
at such distances
in such silences
fears expand like madmen

holy place? shocking scam-o-rama?

kalighat temple. notorious for its bloody goat sacrifices and cramming crowds, i had been avoiding it for a while. but yesterday i finally got around to visiting this most important of kolkata temples, the supposed basis for kolkata’s name (of course, no one really knows for sure). it’s just down a lane off of s.p. mukherjee road, lined by stalls selling all the typical wares one might wish for, outside of a temple. in particular, flowers, coconuts, sweets, other paraphernalia of prayer. me and laura went on in, to the narrow footpath between many more of these stalls, and emerged before the temple. small but pretty from what could be seen, mostly because of the painted tiles that covered a good bit of the exterior, in soft natural hues. we are debating whether to join the line winding out of the entrance when we are approached by a brahmin, who offers us a tour which includes the perk of skipping this line altogether. i am not sure, i have heard enough bad about these priests and their schemes to rip off foreigners. but then, a guide is better than no guide, and laura seemed willing, so we went for it.

he pulled us around the line of people waiting to the entrance, going up a narrow second stair case, squeezing in past all the eager visitors. inside, more tiles, a narrow passageway only really, with a few steps up to a low gate over which kali herself could be seen, offerings left, priests talked to. the squishing and squashing at this point were so much, i scarcely got a moment to look at the figure, black stone with red eyes, bigger than i had imagined from all the reproductions i had seen round town (where it is as ubiquitous as images of ramakrishna, vivekananda, and sarada devi, the holy trinity of the ramakrishna mission). no opportunity to dilly dally, i could not compete with the fervence and ferocity of the crowd pressed up against the gate, and so i came out and the priest led us down the steps onto the mud spattered floor outside.

from here we were led to a pavilion where prayers and offerings were made, coconuts sacrificed there within that space and animals, goats, just outside of it. a goat had just been beheaded, blood was everywhere out there, and its body was still moving a little, a jerk wrenching through its body every couple seconds. it was one of those cute little ones, the black ones with the delicate feet, prone to trotting about the scenery in rural bengal. of course i couldn’t look, focusing instead on the people who sat there, with their offerings and their prayers, so calm after all the jostling and jockeying for space inside.

and now came the fun part. this guy, i mean priest, led us out of the temple and down the lane from which we entered, past all these stalls selling their wares, and beggar women with their hands up and and reaching, out to a pool of water meant for cleaning before puja (prayer). and here, one by one (they would not let us do it together), this priest had us do puja randomly to a statue of shiva, right there by the pool. no one else was praying there. there were only a bunch of boys jumping about naked in the water. this was no place of prayer. then, he demanded money, hundreds of rupees, from each of us. of course, he separated us first so that there could be no consultation or anything. i had no money with me anyway, i hadn’t thought we’d get one of these guys, so laura paid for both of us. five hundred. we had been talking earlier about how one hundred should definitely be enough, but laura later said, "i couldn’t say no to a priest!"
i was too in shock and confused to even put up a fight to all this anyway. i kept thinking, did this just happen? did he just make a joke and a mockery out of his own religion to cheat some foreigners? i mean, i have heard stories about the corruption of hindu priests, but going to the extent of inventing entire ceremonies for the sole purpose of fleecing the ignorant? i couldn’t believe it, to see someone treating their own religion this way, not to mention while other co-religionists looked on. did this not offend hindus? it sure offended me.

and when i went home, i discovered numerous other foreigners at the mission had had the same experience, been put through the same rigmarole. it wasn’t just me being the sucker, it was all of us. the same silly shiva statue as bathers look on, the same separation of people to prevent communication or conferencing, everything. slowly my anger melted away into plain incredulity at the ridiculousness of the thing. me and a friend laughed that all these lifetimes of good behavior that have added up to make him a proud brahmin, he is just wasting them away. and if i know my hinduism (which i don’t at all but i like to think he will get this punishment) i think it is pretty well assured he will be born next as an insect. a creepy crawly smushy one. hmph!

sunny days

today i wake up to coolness and quiet, the air soft in its undulations over a greened garden. all so sweet. just as storming and flooding spelled out a bad day in the offing, this perfect peacefulness sets me thinking all optimistic and sunny. on the horizon if only i could see it, must be looming all kinds of good, i think, deep breathing and letting loose the tangle of my hair to be ruffled and fluttered about in the breeze.

morning is tea and newspapers and mangoes out overlooking the garden. the tea cart rattles around from room to room, a man crouches on his haunches as he sweeps the floor outside the room with a rough hand-broom, and in the garden an old couple takes a turn around the flowers. since i had arrived, on fridays (fresh linen day) i had sometimes come back to my bed made mysteriously for me, not just a pile of sheets left waiting on a bare mattress like it was for the other long-term residents. i had wondered at this, worried that it was that one dada with the looks that made me nervous. but today i found out the identity of the bed-maker—one of the older of the dadas, soft-faced and white-haired with crinkles at the corner of his eyes. i catch him at it on the way back from breakfast. he doesn’t say a word, just finishes up my bed cheerfully and tips his head to me, smiling, good day. a little kindness that needs no explanation.

at 9 30, i am supposed to leave for class. but in a panic i am unready, i have been too engrossed in my books, my hair is unbrushed my clothing unironed and all the stuff i need is scattered to the four corners of my room. in a tumble i pull it all together, i get out the door. i am running late, by fifteen minutes. and as if by magic the moment i arrive at the bus stop i see my bus is arriving too, the conductor waving for me to get on. my bus never comes when i need it. ever ever ever. i scramble on and the vehicle sweeps off towards my destination.

in dance class chordi is teaching a bol that is all floating and gentleness, all the little graces, the softnesses and curves of the moments, the delicate adjustments of angles and speed. and today also i do not bungle it all up, somehow i fumble n fudge my way thru it not half so bad. i leave feeling, for once in a long while, that i am actually really moving forward in this, in a way i can feel, not just muddling and bumbling about in it. there is a reminder in this bol of the reasons i am here, the reasons that i am always getting confused about or forgetting. one of those bols that makes you remember again why u fell in love with this art, why you came all this way crossing such great spaces leaving so many people you love behind for the life of strange loneliness in the face of crowds, unexpected companions, and occasional friendships.

on the way home i am reminded of one of my favorite kolkata courtesies. often i find myself expecting a certain lack of the courtesies towards strangers (the inadvertent pessimist i swear!) in my daily observations on these buses of the way people can be so ruthless about getting seats, or even a good corner, the way the pregnant and the elderly are made to stand cuz people won’t bother to give up their own seats for a stranger. there have been moments when i have felt enraged to see women bearing little babies in their arms, precariously standing and swinging with the bus that can toss as bad as a small boat in any storm, being left to manage as best she can while the entire bus just sits there staring at her predicament, mute and even worse action-less spectators. but then there are those other moments, moments when my hope for the human race is revived. for instance, i am always carrying around these huge heavy bags of clothing and water bottles for dance class, and whenever i get on a crowded bus a seated person will reach out and offer to hold it for me, so that i might stand more comfortably. i don’t think i have ever seen this custom in the USA. maybe there is something about private property, people not wanting others to touch their shit or whatever. maybe it is just a difference that exists for its own sake, that refuses an easy explanation. but anyway, today not on one not on two but on three separate occassions my burdens were lifted out of my hands by seated strangers. i was taken care of, and with two arms free, i could properly get my grip. so as the bus sailed over the potholes and between other perils-on-wheels, i could be carefree, swift and secure and flying on to my destinations.

although there is a foreboding cockroach in the hall outside of my room, on its back and waving its legs in the air frantically, i try not to take that as another one of nature’s foreshadowings. i’ve had too sweet a day to declare it all over yet. i know it is only a matter of time before kolkata is again getting to me in its little ways, in its little peculiarities n subtle pressures. but until then, i will enjoy these moments for all they are worth.

rainy drainy day

it had been pouring the evening before, raining softly thru the night, and now at six am the rain had stopped for a moment, and above us the clouds were knitted so tight and dark that it looked like doom had come. it was still, shushed, and outside cars trucks drove thru black. then there was a clatter and a snap and in a moment the whole of heaven’s water was tumbling down on us below. the thunder rumbled and shouted and shrieked, lightning flashed thru the firmament, and down here in the streets of kolkata water began to run out of places to go.

i don’t know much about rainwater drainage systems but what followed seemed like it might just be a prime example of such a system’s failure. it started with a puddle here, a puddle there. and soon half the streets outside my window were foot-deep in water. in the courtyard beyond my door the lawn and the flower-beds were all submerged, a little sea under the benevolent gaze of swami vivekananda, who stood at the far corner of the garden looking purposeful with his arms crossed. in other parts of the city it was worse—entire roads below water, water up to the waist, or even the shoulders. men on rashbehari avenue wading thru it best as they could, the swirling dark and dirty waters of these kolkata streets lapping around their ankles, calves, thighs. buses splashing on thru it all as best as they could, while women looked hopelessly around themselves like caged puppies for a way off of what little islands of concrete and mud they had taken refuge on. the hand-drawn rickshaws were doing good business off of such ladies, that favorite rainy season mode of transport.

in my room i debated. flooding had hemmed in the ramakrishna mission, where i stay, on all sides. i was on an island. should i go to dance class? at least make the attempt? should i join the men outside pulling up their pants to their knees as they walked thru waterlogged streets? was the whole thing hopeless? should i just give up? after much battling with my inner guilty laziness (or maybe, instinct? prescience?) and my sense of responsibility, against my own better judgment, i decided to go. with so little time i shouldn’t be taking any and all excuses to skip classes. and anyway, if this was to be how rainy season went then i better get used to it. right?

i set off, and reached the bus stop with only a little bit of trouble. there, people huddled under the makeshift shelters as buses coasted thru the water, sending up waves in our direction. between the sidewalk and the un-submerged street was five or six feet of puddle. buses would either stop on the far side of the puddle, and wait as the passengers forded these murky expanses, or else would swerve right thru the water up close to the sidewalk, splashing half of the people waiting there. three times my bus came, and as i ran out towards it, my salwar pants hiked up to my knees and a crowd of concerned passerbys staring at my pale and unshaven legs, three times my bus passed me by, without even a bit of reduction in speed. the conductor of the last one just looked out of the bus at my frantic figure like i was some creature he could not recognize, place, something with no relation to his life, his job, his universe. i was crazy and almost in tears, spattered in mud and rainwater and lord knows what kinds of filth, when finally a bus stopped and i clawed into it, clawed my way into a seat, and clasped my bags to my chest. it had only took an hour, but finally i was on my way to dance class.

looking out the window i got a mini-tour of rain-logged kolkata, the patches of open street, the floods that consumed entire major throughways like rashbehari avenue and j nehru road, submerged sidewalks, soaked and spattered pedestrians. the bus wheeled on thru all this like a ship at sea, stopping for nothing and no one, the water under its wheels thrown upwards into the sky, as well as a little bit into the window and onto me. despite all the water in the way, it was the fastest trip (minus waiting time) i had ever made from home to dance school. and so i arrived bedraggled and forty five minutes late.

but of course, i should have known. the dance school was empty. and i had to wait another forty five minutes until people started showing up. pishi was mysteriously missing, and chordi came in her stead. ok, i thought, yes now maybe some dancing will be happening? but no, there would be no dancing today. instead, for an hour and a half one of the ladies that had come, an unsatisfied housewife, made a litany of her complaints against her husband. he does not appreciate me. he has no romance. when we go to the cinema he pretends that he is not there with me. and when i start crying at his cringing at my touch he starts asking me what is wrong have i become ill? i ask him what is this relationship and he says oh but you are my best friend. friend?! where is friendship here? what do you give me? i do and i do and i do for you, i am like a maid even tho i am also a working woman, not even a housewife. and what do you do? you bring some money, and then that is it. friend!

she went on like this in her unusually fast-paced and rough bengali, like a dam had been released and her whole inner world was pouring out for the first time in years. maybe it was, i had a feeling she did not have many other willing listeners to her woes. but chordi and kajal listened attentively to the soliloquy, chordi interrupting only to complain about husbands being unappreciative and leaving all of the troubles of the house to their wives—here me n america got honorable mention for our fifty-fifty (well, sort of except maybe probably not really) ways. and when this lady had a moment alone with me she started telling me also that story i have heard too many times, about the in-laws forbidding her dance after marriage, even tho her precondition to finding a match had been that the family was willing to allow her to continue. she said, i turned down many matches because they said they would not allow the daughter in law to dance. but his family said it was ok, no problem. then a year into marriage they put an end to it, telling me now, i would be a mother. that was twenty years ago, and i have only this year begun dancing again. this reminded me of another (married) girl’s comment, that it is only after we have become gray and ugly that they again let us out, for dancing. it is only then that we get our freedom.

for the first half hour or so all this talk was interesting... as well as a good practice for my bengali. but soon soon my eyes began to glaze over, i began to look from moment to moment at my watch, i started wondering what was this i was doing with my day? thinking back to how i had almost decided not to come, how i had made myself get into that salwar kameez, plait that hair, get out the door, out into the street with all its puddles and mud. here i was three hours later, sitting, just sitting, this woman rattling on and on and on and nothing to do but pick at the fried starchy snack that they had bought but that parched my throat and really, was not at all appetizing. why are the constantly feeding me things like chips, bhujia, biscuits? why won’t they let me say no?

i was on the verge of crying, really, for the second time that day as i sat there thinking about how my day was slowly being taken from me, when chordi said to me, you are thinking about something? you are looking over there all this time, why? part of me just wanted snap under all these emotions and frustrations and let out the anger, that they kept me here doing nothing taking my time from me when they knew i don’t know bengali well enough to understand what was going on and don’t they see this as disrespectful to just keep me there like that useless and mute? but no, i know such responses are not possible, i smoothed my nerves, i was like ummm yeah i have to leave i actually have an appointment at the american center. i let them believe that i had been absorbed in thought by the fears and anticipations of this meeting, and made my escape. it was done raining, but water was still in the streets. determined to make something of my day, i set off uptown for the british council, having with me a pile of books to return there.

but, water! i had scarcely gone a couple minutes when i was having to walk out in the road itself for all the waterlogging and mud. i tried going down elgin road, but it was reduced to a lake. turning back up chowringhee i found the same there, it was impassable. frustrated but determined, i got a cab, and directed it to camac street, where stands the british council. all to no use, as camac street was under water road and sidewalk both. we drove thru street after street of waist-deep water, spraying outward from the taxi like a fan. i was not ready to go home, i was angry about taking so much effort to get to a place that was unreachable, so i went to park street, safe zone, where i knew it could never be too waterlogged. the people there are just to fancy to allow such things, to suffer wet trousers. i hid up inside oxford bookstore, drinking darjeeling tea and reading silly little intro books about religion and watching the other customers especially the funny foreigners with their puffy patchy pants and watching watching the pools of water the rivers and rivulets in the street for signs of them receding.

two hours later i was ready to give it another try. i would make at least one success in this day! the streets were still flooded to the brim but some sidewalks were walkable, and soon i arrived across from the british council, only the stretch of river that was once a street between us. it was too late to give up, and when there was a lull in traffic i set off under the amused gaze of a number of rickshaw-wallahs. i pulled my salwar again above my knees and took the plunge. most of it was ok going. but towards the middle suddenly i stepped into a pothole and was above my knee in the mucky water, soaking thru and thru much of my salwar and also my sad little kameez that i had forgotten to pull up also. i scrambled out across and up onto the sidewalk, tugging down my clothing so that i was at least fully covered if not properly clean and dry. i had arrived. and the british council was open! (my lingering fear that i was making all this effort to get to a place that would be shut down because of the rains, relieved) there i took a shiver-y shivering refuge in their air-conditioned and clean cafe, with a pile of new books and ginger tea. i dried off, and from a distance u couldn’t see the mud splatters on my top. i looked pretty good, really, considering my odyssey.

getting home was another nightmare, buses flying past and crammed full, and then i had more problems at the internet cafe, which was really that straw that broke the camel’s back. the service was slow, expensive, and even after half an hour of trying the computers would not recognize the existence of my thumb drive that i had only come there at all to transfer information from. any other day maybe i would have taken this, dealt with it, been ok waiting another day to find a properly working computer. not today, not after hours of useless sitting and waiting, not after getting soaked and dirtied and exhausted with running about in circles. it was all i could do to not turn on this internet guy and savage him in my sad but mostly understandable bengali in front of the other customers. i restricted myself to a recommendation that he think about replacing his USB connectors, and got out of there. i gave in. today was failures, and only the single success of finally reaching the british council, even if that took hours. i felt like a mad person somehow and decided i should have known from the look of that rain that today was not a day to go out. all this effort and so little reward. i hurried on home, desperate to avert any further frustrations because i knew i just might snap and scream.

back in the safety of the mission i comforted myself with milky tea and the first season of desperate housewives, into the early hours of morning. resolving to know better than to mess ever again with waterlogged kolkata.