chances are if u are white n female n in india, unless yr name happens to be sonia gandhi, you are not generally considered respectable. let me preface this by saying of course there are respectful individuals, people who will avert their eyes instead of leering, pass on by instead of lurking, be helpful instead of oh i don't know trying to enact their filthy imaginings on some fantasy that they project upon your body... but never have i been in a place where just walking down the street has been so painful profoundly uncomfortable even terrifying. and in the long run probably deeply traumatic. where an indian man (shopkeeper) will openly say to white girl, women of your type, of your ethnicity, are not respectable, in trying to sell her a black shawl that he says will lend her a little more respectability. and laughs when she protests, the laugh that means that they do not listen and think they already know it all because they saw a bunch of white girls in kabhi alvida naa kehna grinding with abhishek and amitabh or i don't know what western movies, where they have misinterpreted the occasional miniskirts and one-night stands into broad ideas on the promiscuity and immediate availability of western women. most white women i have met here have had men openly masturbate in public while fixating on them--this has happened to me more than once. in front of people, once on a public bus in front of at least ten or fifteen people including a couple little old ladies. most have also been grabbed at, stalked, insulted, assailed with pornographic come-ons, and been generally treated as the most absolute of sex objects.
for instance, today. i go to dance class in a bustling neighborhood called bhawanipore, and everyone in that neighborhood knows and respects my teachers, and since i go there every day, most of them know me. i don't normally have problems in this area other than weird looks. today tho as the cha-wallah was unlocking the door for me to the dance school a man slipped in behind us, expectantly. i was confused, who is this guy, does he have some business with this tea-seller or with the dance academy, what is going on? the cha-wallah turned around and started shouting at him in bengali, what are you doing here who are you leave! and the guy silently remained still, no explanation, giving a look between me and the other guy with an expression that said, come on, man, i know whats going on here, i'm staying to get a piece of this. i know what white women are for. cha-wallah grabbed him and literally pulled him out as i went into the dance school and set about pulling the tabla into place for my lesson. i was alone in the house. it was all quiet. but then i heard a creak in the gate's hinges, and a shadow fell across the doorway--the man was back again, looking around and at me with that same expectant look, wondering it seemedwhen the prostitute would begin her business, when the show would begin. lord knows what exactly he was expecting to see in progress. i went up to him shouting, who are you get out what are u doing. these shouts bounced off of him like they were nothing. he didn't need to justify himself. the situation explained itself. at least in his messed-up mind. he demanded to know what i was doing there, kept looking into the corners of the room as if there was hidden there something, some filth that he could find. then cha-wallah came and dragged him out again, i had to lock the door from inside to keep him away. it was over. a few people outside laughed.
not much happened. it was all in his looks, in his presence, in his self-righteous invasion of my space. dance class for me is the one place in all of kolkata where i feel protected, surrounded by people that respect me. in my teacher's eyes i am sweet and innocent and respectable. her classroom is full of love, deeper than in any other classroom i have been in. it is uncomparable to anything i have ever experienced. like her main disciple says, she is an angel fallen from heaven, my teacher. this place is like a home. to have that man violate that space with his filth and his fucking fantasies... it just shook me to the core in some way i cannot explain. those eyes, that presence, that shadow falling on the floor where i go to forget all this world outside...
i know this is a sticky entry, i am sorry for the jumbled-up-ness.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
rabindra sarobar, south kolkata
the lake hides behind walls, buildings, busy streets, and even once inside the compound it hides behind crowds of folk out for their morning walks, breathing exercises, laughing yoga clubs. here you find an old man with eyes and mouth covered, breathing with true concentration; there, a circle of men swinging their arms behind their backs and clapping in almost-perfect unison; yonder, two young lovers out early, holding hands on the lake’s edge under the early morning shade of a dusty tree. a blooming tree drops its fragrant blossoms onto the concrete as well as a large pile of trash—a beauty wasted. piles of unknown organic waste scattered here and there on the footpath, pecked at by crows. sleeping dogs. strange dark growths in the pond can be seen, there, under the lilypads. every so often there is an unidentifiable bird, along with the crows. it is beautiful, a pale grey with a long beak for the fishes and long elegant legs. a man runs by you panting. you glance into the lake, there are insects skating on the surface. you cannot spot the fish, but you know they are there hiding somewhere... maybe under the strange dark growths. the rowing club in their incredible modern-age contraptions (can these even really be called boats anymore??) seem to glide over the water. people turn to stare at the newly-formed female rowing team, but lose interest after a while. they are all absorbed in their little exercises, regimes, pelvis-rolling sessions. the one out of place, with no set regimen, i leave wishing that the beauty that seems so very much on the verge in this place, reaching out from under the dirt and strange growths, could be brought somehow by someone into a bloom...
in morning, south kolkata
today started fresh at 6 am with the cool breeze blowing. morning is the beautiful time, the one part of the day when all feels new and alive, the green looks green the air descends coolly into my room from the open veranda and there in my room i feel a little bit inside waken up, that part that shuts off in the face of the stickiness and grime and hot air that define my bodily existence all other times of day.
fresh from a squat-shower beneath a faucet, silence only broken by the occasional bus trundling by outside my window. for one moment, in the caress of this light breeze, i forget i am not the only person in this city, in this place and time. it is only us.
soon enough the sun will break through the early morning mists, heat driving away the cool, and peoples cars buses autorickshaws will be a scatter through the streets with all their fumes noises grunts, shops will open again out to the street and hawkers will spread their wares on the walk. but i dont think of this—
it is incredible, the quality of moments of peace to widen out into an infinity with no end in imagination.
fresh from a squat-shower beneath a faucet, silence only broken by the occasional bus trundling by outside my window. for one moment, in the caress of this light breeze, i forget i am not the only person in this city, in this place and time. it is only us.
soon enough the sun will break through the early morning mists, heat driving away the cool, and peoples cars buses autorickshaws will be a scatter through the streets with all their fumes noises grunts, shops will open again out to the street and hawkers will spread their wares on the walk. but i dont think of this—
it is incredible, the quality of moments of peace to widen out into an infinity with no end in imagination.
welcome to kolkata
(a post for people who keep asking me what its like)
maybe what hits you first is the plumes of smoke rising from the underbellies of trucks, buses, and autorickshaws, the oft-crumbling sidewalks inhabited by fruit-sellers, pan-wallahs, tea stalls surrounded by low benches and stools, cobblers, beggars, cucumber and guava sellers, their produce kept in large shallow baskets, knife ready to cut them open and sprinkle on black salt or masala before they are wrapped in newspaper and handed to you, men bathing out in the open under the public water pumps, men selling green coconuts wielding the curved blades of their trade, phuchka-wallahs with their towers of crisp-fried shells, their potatoes spices and tamarind water, flower-sellers in the midst of assembling their creations, butchers of chickens with baskets of live prey no ice with which to preserve their kill and a menacing blade spattered in blood and gore, and hawkers hawkers hawkers—of bags of bedspreads of clothing of cheapo jewelry of tupperware of mugs bowls plates cups of knives digestives string soap nail polish books almost anything that can be sold..... and as if this crowd on the sidewalk weren’t enough, then there are the people that live there that can be found in evenings and hot afternoons stretched out with nothing but a worn bit of fabric to cover them... maybe this is what you see, along with a rushing hurly burly mess of traffic, ramshackle buses, squat toilets, poor public sanitation, men pissing in public, babies of the lower classes toddling around the street butt-naked, amputees, strange skin conditions, crowds crowds crowds... and an endless assault of color smell noise heat humidity everything rushing down on you the poor helpless witless disoriented and overwhelmed...
but then maybe what hits you first is that it isn’t as bad as they told you. you have not gone into shock, you are not necessarily so overwhelmed, you did not die of unknown illnesses after those mysterious fried you-don’t-know-whats off the street, you have not been run over, you have not been robbed, your throat has not been slit and you thrown out of a speeding taxi onto the asphalt to just lie there like discarded baggage like that guy you heard about earlier this year—you heard it had something to do with the drugs, but still, who wants to think of such things?—and really you are doing pretty ok, even learning to like the streetlife, and if not liking the traffic at least you have learned to cross the street competently, not letting the fear overwhelm you. you have even experienced those precious moments of quiet, the sundays when traffic slows, the early mornings in the cool of a green park, the bandhs, those political strikes that intermittently hit kolkata, when all shops are shut up, companies closed, public transportation unavailable, and the kids take to the streets with their cricket bats and balls, nary a menacing car or truck to be seen...
or maybe what strikes you first is how even in kolkata, which everyone had described to you as backward and falling apart, has its modern amenities. you discover that no matter what they told you, no, the entire city is not sunk in time, in hopelessness, in poverty and in disrepair. there are escapes from the viscerally-assaulting rush that can be kolkata, into that other kolkata, into starbucks-lookalikes with their cappuccinos and blueberry muffins, air conditioned malls where you can ride the escalators to your heart’s content, stadium-seating multiplexes that show the occasional hollywood films, fancy schmancy hotels and restaurants that could very well be home—or at least the version of home that wealthy folk live—but where the bill still probably comes to something affordable, so long as you can convince yourself to think in dollars, not rupees. places like forum mall, city centre (salt lake), and park street—crowded with western brands, the likes of KFC or mcdonalds or nike or what have you, along with the fanciest home-grown brands—seem like a separate world from the rush and crush of gariahat junction or new market.
like any other place in the world, kolkata is a jumble, not something that i could sum up in a few breezy lines, all brochure-like. it is an assembly of so many different pieces, different people, places, experiences, emotions... reacting to a question about how it is like living here will be all about how i am feeling that day, that hour, that minute. cuz there are days when nothing can touch me i am so on top of everything and everything is going right, days when it is all about getting through it, functioning as best as i can and not letting whatever small daily frustrations there are there agitating at my mind get to me, others when all i can think of is how i want to go hide in the comfort of a westernized and air-conditioned movie theatre or cafe. and then there are those other days when i cannot be consoled and cry my lonely foreigner self to sleep in my monastic, solitary room.
a mix, of things i love and things i could do without... some things i cannot bear and others i just don’t know what to do with.
i find the clearest image of where i am in the faces of all the people i have met, encountered, interacted with. my loving teacher who makes my heart melt with only her mischievous smile. the dadas at the place where i stay with their teasing and concerns about if i have eaten enough and determined proffering of ever-more sweets, bananas, and bowls of yogurt. the bengali tutor who quotes to me the words of rabindranath tagore on the equality of all humankind and of all their faiths and who won’t let me get away without tea and a heaping plate of maggi noodles. the man i haggle with for jewelry who cannot get enough of my ridiculous bengali and finally laughing at my determination gives a price much less than his original outrageous demands but that i am sure is still twice too much. the guardman who gives suspicious looks as i pass in and out of the gate where i live. the other guardman who is so excited to find someone to practice english with that he practically leaps up from his stool when he wishes me a good morning. the staring staring staring eyes i encounter almost everywhere i go, from leering men, from suspicious womenfolk, from curious children, from skeptical cool kids in blue jeans or whatever looking at me in my indianized dress wondering whats with that girl why isnt she wearing blue jeans like us is she weird or a crazed hippie or from iskcon or what, looks from people trying to catch my eye or stare me down or figure me out or imagine how i would look out of the clothes—cuz (much to my surprise at first, i had been so innocent and ignorant) certain men here seem to mostly identify white skin on female bodies with promiscuity and pornography, a fact reflected in their looks words and actions as well as in the self-defensive walk i have adopted unwillingly, staring at the ground body narrowed hunched crunched with my arms up in front to warn off the world.
life swings between these highs and lows, from friendliness genuine hospitality and love to sketchiness awkwardness embarrassment and even fear. i would be lying if i said the bad days were rare, that i don’t end up feeling crazy and angry and out-of-place more often than i can easily deal with. but on the worst of such days, i just try to think of my dance teachers, my bengali teachers, my classmates, and all the other little people in my life that protect me and make it worth it. cuz this is definitely no easy place to live, especially for a woman like me, all white-skinned young female unaccompanied and conspicuously not-belonging. but at the same time... i could not wish for a better educational experience, not only for what i learn in the classroom, but also what i learn in the hostel, on the street, and everywhere else i wander to.
maybe what hits you first is the plumes of smoke rising from the underbellies of trucks, buses, and autorickshaws, the oft-crumbling sidewalks inhabited by fruit-sellers, pan-wallahs, tea stalls surrounded by low benches and stools, cobblers, beggars, cucumber and guava sellers, their produce kept in large shallow baskets, knife ready to cut them open and sprinkle on black salt or masala before they are wrapped in newspaper and handed to you, men bathing out in the open under the public water pumps, men selling green coconuts wielding the curved blades of their trade, phuchka-wallahs with their towers of crisp-fried shells, their potatoes spices and tamarind water, flower-sellers in the midst of assembling their creations, butchers of chickens with baskets of live prey no ice with which to preserve their kill and a menacing blade spattered in blood and gore, and hawkers hawkers hawkers—of bags of bedspreads of clothing of cheapo jewelry of tupperware of mugs bowls plates cups of knives digestives string soap nail polish books almost anything that can be sold..... and as if this crowd on the sidewalk weren’t enough, then there are the people that live there that can be found in evenings and hot afternoons stretched out with nothing but a worn bit of fabric to cover them... maybe this is what you see, along with a rushing hurly burly mess of traffic, ramshackle buses, squat toilets, poor public sanitation, men pissing in public, babies of the lower classes toddling around the street butt-naked, amputees, strange skin conditions, crowds crowds crowds... and an endless assault of color smell noise heat humidity everything rushing down on you the poor helpless witless disoriented and overwhelmed...
but then maybe what hits you first is that it isn’t as bad as they told you. you have not gone into shock, you are not necessarily so overwhelmed, you did not die of unknown illnesses after those mysterious fried you-don’t-know-whats off the street, you have not been run over, you have not been robbed, your throat has not been slit and you thrown out of a speeding taxi onto the asphalt to just lie there like discarded baggage like that guy you heard about earlier this year—you heard it had something to do with the drugs, but still, who wants to think of such things?—and really you are doing pretty ok, even learning to like the streetlife, and if not liking the traffic at least you have learned to cross the street competently, not letting the fear overwhelm you. you have even experienced those precious moments of quiet, the sundays when traffic slows, the early mornings in the cool of a green park, the bandhs, those political strikes that intermittently hit kolkata, when all shops are shut up, companies closed, public transportation unavailable, and the kids take to the streets with their cricket bats and balls, nary a menacing car or truck to be seen...
or maybe what strikes you first is how even in kolkata, which everyone had described to you as backward and falling apart, has its modern amenities. you discover that no matter what they told you, no, the entire city is not sunk in time, in hopelessness, in poverty and in disrepair. there are escapes from the viscerally-assaulting rush that can be kolkata, into that other kolkata, into starbucks-lookalikes with their cappuccinos and blueberry muffins, air conditioned malls where you can ride the escalators to your heart’s content, stadium-seating multiplexes that show the occasional hollywood films, fancy schmancy hotels and restaurants that could very well be home—or at least the version of home that wealthy folk live—but where the bill still probably comes to something affordable, so long as you can convince yourself to think in dollars, not rupees. places like forum mall, city centre (salt lake), and park street—crowded with western brands, the likes of KFC or mcdonalds or nike or what have you, along with the fanciest home-grown brands—seem like a separate world from the rush and crush of gariahat junction or new market.
like any other place in the world, kolkata is a jumble, not something that i could sum up in a few breezy lines, all brochure-like. it is an assembly of so many different pieces, different people, places, experiences, emotions... reacting to a question about how it is like living here will be all about how i am feeling that day, that hour, that minute. cuz there are days when nothing can touch me i am so on top of everything and everything is going right, days when it is all about getting through it, functioning as best as i can and not letting whatever small daily frustrations there are there agitating at my mind get to me, others when all i can think of is how i want to go hide in the comfort of a westernized and air-conditioned movie theatre or cafe. and then there are those other days when i cannot be consoled and cry my lonely foreigner self to sleep in my monastic, solitary room.
a mix, of things i love and things i could do without... some things i cannot bear and others i just don’t know what to do with.
i find the clearest image of where i am in the faces of all the people i have met, encountered, interacted with. my loving teacher who makes my heart melt with only her mischievous smile. the dadas at the place where i stay with their teasing and concerns about if i have eaten enough and determined proffering of ever-more sweets, bananas, and bowls of yogurt. the bengali tutor who quotes to me the words of rabindranath tagore on the equality of all humankind and of all their faiths and who won’t let me get away without tea and a heaping plate of maggi noodles. the man i haggle with for jewelry who cannot get enough of my ridiculous bengali and finally laughing at my determination gives a price much less than his original outrageous demands but that i am sure is still twice too much. the guardman who gives suspicious looks as i pass in and out of the gate where i live. the other guardman who is so excited to find someone to practice english with that he practically leaps up from his stool when he wishes me a good morning. the staring staring staring eyes i encounter almost everywhere i go, from leering men, from suspicious womenfolk, from curious children, from skeptical cool kids in blue jeans or whatever looking at me in my indianized dress wondering whats with that girl why isnt she wearing blue jeans like us is she weird or a crazed hippie or from iskcon or what, looks from people trying to catch my eye or stare me down or figure me out or imagine how i would look out of the clothes—cuz (much to my surprise at first, i had been so innocent and ignorant) certain men here seem to mostly identify white skin on female bodies with promiscuity and pornography, a fact reflected in their looks words and actions as well as in the self-defensive walk i have adopted unwillingly, staring at the ground body narrowed hunched crunched with my arms up in front to warn off the world.
life swings between these highs and lows, from friendliness genuine hospitality and love to sketchiness awkwardness embarrassment and even fear. i would be lying if i said the bad days were rare, that i don’t end up feeling crazy and angry and out-of-place more often than i can easily deal with. but on the worst of such days, i just try to think of my dance teachers, my bengali teachers, my classmates, and all the other little people in my life that protect me and make it worth it. cuz this is definitely no easy place to live, especially for a woman like me, all white-skinned young female unaccompanied and conspicuously not-belonging. but at the same time... i could not wish for a better educational experience, not only for what i learn in the classroom, but also what i learn in the hostel, on the street, and everywhere else i wander to.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
a sleepy day
weather: overcast.
headlines: moldy-oldy cricketers get bumped off the team for a few matches. abhishek-aishwarya bollywood glamour power couple wedding happens, but reporters only seem to be able to report on the movement of volvo buses outside of the residence in bombay, somehow they fill half the front page with this anyway.
but anyway.
an exhausted day. clouds. sore feet, paining muscles, heavy head. one of those, it should have been an off day but then life is madness and just says no, schmemma schmalba, get up, get your act together, get your ass down to dance class. i am not so sure how successful i was dancing half asleep, with all parts of legs and feet malfunctioning. at least i gave my dance teacher a chance to laugh at me. at least during one of the 45-minute chai breaks (praise the lord!) me and andy jo* were inspired by one of those moments of a bengali student breaking into song mid-conversation to try and find american songs we had in common--much to teacher's amusement. we weren't so successful. and decided that this was probably a place where we could not compete. the only songs i know straight through from beginning to end are probably off of salt'n'pepa's '93 cd "very necessary". not so appropriate to dance class.
*andy jo's true name has been altered to protect her anonymity. andy jo studies with me at my dance school, stays with me in south kolkata, comes around with me to all the cafes and performances, makes me fruit salad, ties pink ribbons into my hair, lets me eat all the cashews in the fried rice, and refers to me as the wife even tho in a few weeks she'll be ditching me for the states and for some boy, as if! talk about loyalty.
headlines: moldy-oldy cricketers get bumped off the team for a few matches. abhishek-aishwarya bollywood glamour power couple wedding happens, but reporters only seem to be able to report on the movement of volvo buses outside of the residence in bombay, somehow they fill half the front page with this anyway.
but anyway.
an exhausted day. clouds. sore feet, paining muscles, heavy head. one of those, it should have been an off day but then life is madness and just says no, schmemma schmalba, get up, get your act together, get your ass down to dance class. i am not so sure how successful i was dancing half asleep, with all parts of legs and feet malfunctioning. at least i gave my dance teacher a chance to laugh at me. at least during one of the 45-minute chai breaks (praise the lord!) me and andy jo* were inspired by one of those moments of a bengali student breaking into song mid-conversation to try and find american songs we had in common--much to teacher's amusement. we weren't so successful. and decided that this was probably a place where we could not compete. the only songs i know straight through from beginning to end are probably off of salt'n'pepa's '93 cd "very necessary". not so appropriate to dance class.
*andy jo's true name has been altered to protect her anonymity. andy jo studies with me at my dance school, stays with me in south kolkata, comes around with me to all the cafes and performances, makes me fruit salad, ties pink ribbons into my hair, lets me eat all the cashews in the fried rice, and refers to me as the wife even tho in a few weeks she'll be ditching me for the states and for some boy, as if! talk about loyalty.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
my deal
right now... spending a year in india on a fulbright grant, based in kolkata aka calcutta, studying dance, researching dance, learning bengali, and doing my best to learn hindi also in this anti-hindi town. i just finished getting my BA last year so this is an added year of education, of postponing choosing what to do with myself for the rest of this life, and so, of course, also of confusion. vascillating between things.
but what i am doing here is really exciting--the dance form is kathak, a classical north indian dance form that is unique from other classical indian dance forms in that it represents a fusion of hindu and islamic culture that emerged out of the mughal courts. it is fast. there are spins. pirouettes. footwork that will set your feet on fire if not the stage. intricate, mind-boggling, but also playful rythyms. and hands that move through space with incredible softness and grace, delineating directions, circles, lines, figure-eights, hands that make arcs in the air. eyes that tell stories. a dance that is all elegance, grace, delicacy.
so, i am spending most of my time trying to get a handle on all these beauty, struggling at it every day at dance school. when i'm not doing this, i am visiting other dance schools to do observations for the whole research thing, wandering the city in search of the perfect cafe, studying bangla as best i can, going to language class, washing my laundry in a bucket in my bathroom (no, no washing machines, and the washerman that comes already wore out half my clothing the last time i was here in only four months... i trust my own hands better), reading the telegraph to get the news on the latest bollywood or to a lesser extent hollywood gossip, reading, trying to get sounds out of my tabla (the drums that accompany kathak... trying to learn trying trying), taking walks in the quieter areas, listening to hindi language tapes, shopping for fruit and vegetables because everyone seems to love to feed me a diet of bread rice potatoes noodles sweets and eggs and so i sort of start wondering where my health will be going, napping when it is too exhausting, rehydrating with endless liters of water, and daydreaming.
so there is a lot. and what with all the tea breaks the days pass fast. i'm sure before i know it it will be all over.
but what i am doing here is really exciting--the dance form is kathak, a classical north indian dance form that is unique from other classical indian dance forms in that it represents a fusion of hindu and islamic culture that emerged out of the mughal courts. it is fast. there are spins. pirouettes. footwork that will set your feet on fire if not the stage. intricate, mind-boggling, but also playful rythyms. and hands that move through space with incredible softness and grace, delineating directions, circles, lines, figure-eights, hands that make arcs in the air. eyes that tell stories. a dance that is all elegance, grace, delicacy.
so, i am spending most of my time trying to get a handle on all these beauty, struggling at it every day at dance school. when i'm not doing this, i am visiting other dance schools to do observations for the whole research thing, wandering the city in search of the perfect cafe, studying bangla as best i can, going to language class, washing my laundry in a bucket in my bathroom (no, no washing machines, and the washerman that comes already wore out half my clothing the last time i was here in only four months... i trust my own hands better), reading the telegraph to get the news on the latest bollywood or to a lesser extent hollywood gossip, reading, trying to get sounds out of my tabla (the drums that accompany kathak... trying to learn trying trying), taking walks in the quieter areas, listening to hindi language tapes, shopping for fruit and vegetables because everyone seems to love to feed me a diet of bread rice potatoes noodles sweets and eggs and so i sort of start wondering where my health will be going, napping when it is too exhausting, rehydrating with endless liters of water, and daydreaming.
so there is a lot. and what with all the tea breaks the days pass fast. i'm sure before i know it it will be all over.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
blog created!
not so exciting maybe but yeah! i will get to posting things abt all my stuff soon enough. things about stuff, yeah.
i'll be using this blog mostly to write abt india, where i am staying right now... all thoughts and experiences as well as concrete information abt the place, specifically kolkata tho duh if i travel around that will get here too.
but for now, i out!
i'll be using this blog mostly to write abt india, where i am staying right now... all thoughts and experiences as well as concrete information abt the place, specifically kolkata tho duh if i travel around that will get here too.
but for now, i out!
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