a video clip from calcutta

we found these guys in a market in calcutta. i offered to help them....but they refused. good thing, because i didn't train to do the fancy centipede steps at the end......the rest, no problem!

a few indian observations

first a few pictures from around town...

a boy using a saree tied to a fence as a hammock.

seller at jama masjid.

little street-side shrine.

....work is too crazy that im not going to go into it now...but soon i will write all about it....and all the issues it brings up, if you are interested....

for now...some delhi delights:

-last Saturday was Diwali. Diwali is the festival of lights, the day of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, the biggest celebration of the year in Delhi. the idea is that if you decorate your house bright enough, and if you leave Lakshmi a nice clean space with candles and flowers and things like that, then she will bring you wealth for the year to come. and to celebrate everyone in Delhi gets new things on Diwali: new clothes, new shoes, new sweets and new school supplies, everything new. somehow it feels a bit like christmas. houses are decorated like crazy with lights everywhere. people have a big holiday spirit with smiling faces and new shoes to match. and instead of leaving milk, cookies, and carrots for santa and the reindeer, they leave candles and a clean house. ooooohhhh...but the reality is so different. last night, on the cumulation of one week's preparation for Diwali, the city went crazy. what was nice and cozy "christmas" turned into a complete warzone. EVERYONE EVERYWHERE was putting of fireworks and lighting sparklers and exploding (figurative) bombs. the festival of lights became the festival of fire....walking down the street you had to dodge 5 year olds setting off rockets. even in the safety of your own balcony, you had to duck and cover any time a blackmarket firework exploded too low, right at the level of your face. and even with all the doors closed and all the windows closed you can still feel the constant boom boom boom in your chest.....

-no one at home would know this, but no one here can forget it: Delhi is the site of the 2011 Commonwealth Games. last time i checked there were 350 days left until they started. that means 350 days to expand the metro system times ten, 350 days to repave every road and every sidewalk, 350 days to build an entire stadium complex, 350 days to train every greedy rickshaw walla to use the meter when transporting people, 350 days to get rid of all beggars and all slums (nevermind relocating them somewhere more productive than prison). i personally believe it to be impossible (but incredible india is capable of many things)...but i have seen very definite efforts to get everything going. for example: the other day in the newspaper there was an article (front page) about how to make delhites less rude. the advice included things like: no honking your car horn when you're stuck in traffic (or any time actually) because when there are one million people on the road a horn won't make people go any faster, no spitting paan on the street because it leaves behind stains like shit, no burping in public because the rest of the world doesn't see it as a compliment to your stomach workings, and no pissing on the street because that is what bathrooms are for. what the article neglected to mention was "no scratching your balls in public"...its a very big problem, but maybe too explicit for the indian public.

-so until the commonwealth games come and the metro extends to the south (where i live), i am taking the bus to and from work. the bus in india is an experience in itself; it starts not to matter where you are coming from or where you are going, the important thing is the journey. like everything and everywhere else in this country there are one million people packed into a space for 10. there are arms hanging out of doors and heads hanging out of windows. people sitting and standing on top of each other, three people to a seat and one hundred to the aisle. the bus never stops at any designated stop but just slows down enough for people to jump on (on top of each other ) and jump off (and hope not to twist and ankle in the process). but actually what looks like chaos (as anything in india) has a system. there is a driver. he has two helpers to collect tickets. one sits in the back of the bus and one in the front. the one in the front jumps off as the bus slows down at a "stop" to make sure people are getting on and off, the one in the back puts his fist out the window and bangs like crazy on the side of the bus shouting the route in such a fast rhythm that only he understands. when the bus can again pick up speed the first ticket collector jumps back on and hits a few coins against metal and a signal for the driver to move his ass.

its one particular bus that taught me the routine. number 445, leaving from main bazar paharganj and dropping me just at the end of amar colony, about a 20 min walk to my house. the driver is a cute old man who is always happy to have me on board and drops me just at the end of the street. the number one ticket collector has an indian mustache and big smile. after the first ride he recognized me and knew exactly where i would get off. last time riding he even gave me a handful each of popcorn and peanuts from the roadside stall as we were waiting for the bus to start the journey, and he gave me a 3 rupee discount. the second ticket collector i dont know....but this bus has an additional member of the team.....a little midget who sits right behind the driver and doesn't do much except pretend to fight with people and get made fun of (in a friendly way) by the rest of his team. sometimes if he is feeling really brave he will attempt to call out the bus route at every stop in his squeaky 5-year old girl voice, but its rare. every trip is like a party on 445. the driver has an array of food and chai laid out on the dash board, at every stoplight he sits back and has a drink or a snack. the number one ticket collector also jumps out at every light and buys a cigarette or a drink or a packet of paan, walking around casually until the bus takes off again. and the midget in the background, yelling and raising his fists for a fight, with a smile on his face.

not every bus is a party though. usually, on any normal day, there is no problem.....but tricky indian men always mess things up. if nothing else the bus experience has given me a sense of women solidarity, even in delhi! as i mentioned before in calcutta there was big strength in women, because it was durga puja but also in general. women had rights to half of the bus and men were happy to give up seats regardless of whether it was a ladies seat or not. delhi too has ladies seats, but not so much because ladies requested them in a protest for equality and fierceness but because they pleaded for them to separate themselves from the mischievous men. the technique is to maneuver your way towards the window of a ladies seat, that way you know that the person beside you is also going to be a lady (and you have the breeze in your face). the aisle seat is risky....because you are seated, and the men in the aisle are standing...and with just a little bit of trickiness, a man's you-know-what ends up resting just on your shoulder. the man can blame the bouncy bus...or the man can pretend to be falling asleep standing up...or the man can be blatantly disgusting.....but there it is....a ahhhhem on your shoulder. if the bus is incredibly crowded, like usual, there isn't too much you can do. you could make a scene, but anyways there wouldn't be anywhere for the man to move to. but as soon as the bus empties out....mildly tell him "bhaiya toda piche jao"....and when he doesn't move a little bit backwards like requested hope that the auntie behind you in all her fierceness will tell him off in such a way that eventually the whole bus is involved and the man is embarrassed beyond words and you and auntie can share a common smile because you know how indian men are.

another bus technique for winning aunties is to offer your ladies seat to an indian woman older and more frail than yourself. upon exiting the bus she will pat your head and shoulders and give you big blessings, silently or outloud, and walk away super grateful to you for giving her 5 minutes of rest on the bus. and you will walk away blessed by an auntie.....

-and...last thing for you....there are a few new novelties being sold at the traffic signals around delhi. one is the claw like head scratcher that starts out looking like brain probes and expands around your scalp to massage it. i never thought anyone would buy such a thing...but actually i see too many indians walking around with them new in the box. its the new fashion. and the other new fashion (apparently) is fake mustaches and beards. ...and i guess people do buy them...because there is one now present in our flat.

scenes from the (newest) city i love

so i realize that by now, every new city that i go to becomes my new favorite city. i know that....but this time its true! (i also know that everytime i claim that...whoops) but oh! calcutta! ...the india that ive always imagined...the india ive always pictured in my head....kind people, warm smiles, happy faces, delicious food, bright colors, crazy streets...everything that you could ask for.

so francesco and i decided sort of last minute to head to calcutta for holidays. he got off work the last few days of september and i didn't start work until the 5th october, so we had about a week to kill. we took an overnight train (17 hours total for about $20 each) and got lucky enough to get a cabin with two super sweet families, each with two children, a husband and wife. they shared all their food with us, and us with the children and by the end of the 17 hours we had become "auntie" and "uncle" (not necessarily a hard thing to accomplish in india, but a compliment nonetheless). the best was that first thing in the morning, as soon as i stirred, one of the fathers asked me if i wanted tea or coffee. i told him in a little while. and his response was...."oh yes, first toilet." hahaha...its a big indian tradition...they really dont understand life any other way. first thing you do every single day is use the bathroom. and everyone knows it.

we stayed in a relatively nice hotel, for a really good price. they were just finishing construction on it...so we had about one light bulb and a trillion empty wires leading no where. but it was in a great location. we didn't do too many things specifically except to roam around the city aimlessly. in the end it turned out to be the best. we stumbled upon little alleys filled with people outside washing clothes and feeding children and playing games and smiling with their whole faces. the children were super happy and would run up to us REQUESTING pictures...and want nothing in return! somehow, being used to delhi, we were so shocked and surprised by this simple sharing that we too were grinning in a big way. then the kids would go get their parents and grandparents and soon we would have pictures of the whole street. the only bad experience we had was in chinatown, where we were taking pictures of children, and two rascal boys decided to follow us afterwards and throw stones at us!

we also stumbled upon the best markets ever

....one market of glass bangles, tied in bunches of all different colors and sizes and designs. one market of all sorts of stationary and office supplies in bulk....clip boards and notebooks and pens and paper and paintbrushes....francesco and i ended up buying two sets of paintbrushes (one of which for his brother who stays in Italy...?), two notebooks, a clipboard, a small slate chalkboard (for what?), and a packet of receipts (just for the heck of it). there was also a whole street....of BANDS! boys dressed up in fancy uniforms of all colors, with ropes hanging every direction, dirt smeared everywhere even though they are supposed to look nice.

since it was the biggest festival of the year in calcutta (DURGA PUJA), these bands were for hire to march down the street playing music in a procession to the river, where each neighborhood, after 5 days of ritual prayers, would immerse their version of DURGA into the hoogely river (a branch of the ganga).

the first night we were there, we got to spend the evening with the family of one of francesco's coworkers from delhi. they took us to their neighborhoods "pandal" which are very impressive structures set up all over calcutta, with a frame of

bamboo and fabric stretched very tight around it, so in the end there is a temple in the middle of the street that looks like a real concrete structure, but is easily dissembled. inside each is a huge representation of durga, one of the hindu gods that in an alternate form is kali. the idols are made from the clay of the river. on the fifth day of the festival the idols are put into the back of a tata truck and paraded to the river and thrown in, in a symbol of the cycle of life; she comes from the river and goes back into it. the shocking thing about the whole process was that after the idols were floating out into the river, children would dive in and retrieve the extra

scraps of metal and gold garnishes and fabrics that decorated the idol and sell them to the people watching.

essentially though the festival is for women, which is super cool considering the male-domination of indian society. the second to the last day all the

women gather at the kali temple. they pay their respects to kali, the evil version of durga, and smear vermillion, a red powder, all over each other's faces, first on the part of their hair, and then on their cheeks. they put the same marks on the statue of the goddess. of course, being the token white girl, everyone was more than eager to spread vermillion on me, and i ended up completely, 100% covered in red, not only my face but my whole upper body. it wasn't until afterwards that i found out that to enter and participate i was supposed to be married...who

ops. but it was an awesome display of women solidarity and confidence, all these women in one place, fierce and powerful.

otherwise...calcutta has the best food (you all knew that was coming, i can't experience a city without experiencing its food!) - seafood everyday - shrimp curry and fish curry as well as the usual chicken and mutton and vegetables. we ate (of course) at all the best restaurants of calcutta, and we were shocked at how reasonably priced and unpretentious they are. we started formulating a theory, because such a thing would never happen in delhi. here the rich people like to prove their richness in the most obnoxious ways possible - having the shiniest car and nicest clothes and paying extremely too much to eat in restaurants that are completely kitsch and over the top. our theory is that what we dont like about delhi, and india by extention (but also all the things that we love about india) - the tackiness and kitschness and loudness and over-the-top-ness - is from the punjabis, the rich sikhs that come from the northwest, because they are known to like to showoff their wealth. and delhi is full of punjabis. whereas in calcutta we found that people prefer to show off their intellect as proof of their success. we found so many people just happy to share a conversation with us, and with a much greater sense of the world than ignorant delhites have. they seemed really aware of what was happening not only out of their own city, but out of india as a country, in the whole globe. and everyone walks around in super thick, super magnified plastic frame glasses, even the beggars, so its like a city of poor intellectuals stuck in the 30s.

we had a few meals at the india coffee house, a faded old building hidden in a maze of a book market, in the middle of a collection of universities. inside (every time we went!) were whole tables of professors chatting about important matters (we assumed it was important, and we assumed they were professors, it could have been just bored old people discussing how crap the coffee was), but it made for a very inspiring and stimulating environment. francesco and i planned a revolution of the world over 3 cups of coffee and toast and butter.

we did a few other things, little things here and there, always overwhelmed and fascinated by calcutta and its people. here are a few more pictures at least....

these are both (above and below) from the flower market, right next to the river, right in the middle of a slum. these people sit here all day and sell in bulk the garlands that the rest of the city resells to devotees going to the temple.

another shocking and entertaining accidental find! it took all of these men to lift this package (of what?!) and then four of them to carry it on their heads wherever it was going. they waddled away in unison like little ducks....i offered to help but they didn't let me....good thing.

a calcutta taxi, fully decorated and painted. we travelled a lot by taxi, they all use the meter...the formula is to multiple the meter by two and then add two cents. i have no idea why....but it still is cheaper than traveling around delhi. we also used the buses (all wooden), the tram, the metro, but not the rickshaws (because unlike the cycle rickshaws in delhi which have men cycling you around on a seat on the back, these rickshaws were just pulled by the men - a bit chinese emperor inspired)

one of the normal rickshaws, not the ones pulled on foot, but super decorated...

i tried paan for the first time - the chewing tobacco-type substance that everyone in india seems to chew and spit out everywhere, staining the whole country with a brownish-red spit. it was disgusting. i spit it out before i was finished chewing....and of course i was wearing white shorts and it got all over them. i need to work on my projection.

these were just two random children...with a nice bright blue background.

juice stalls! fresh squeezed fruit juice...any type. francesco got mango (the best) and i got mixed.

commit no nuisance

painting...

...and shaving

thats all. i apologize it took soo long to update. i got back to delhi and got caught up in the craziness that is having a new job in an organization that lacks organization! the first week was incredibly overwhelming, as well as frustrating and hopeless. but i have confidence that it will get better....

ill keep you posted.