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After briefly back in Calcutta Sam and I set off to the Sunderbons.

We made no planning.

Known in Bangla as Beautiful Jungle (lit: sunder = beautiful and bon = trees/forest/jungle). The sunderbans are a vast expanse of mangrove forests, wide and narrows cross cutting waterways, and are home to a dwindling number of infamous man eating tigers. It’s a vast swamp.

It’s a beautiful swamp, and away from Calcutta, is unpolluted serenity. That’s largely because half of the Indian side of the Sunderbans—Bangladesh owns the other side—are strictly off limits to humans. You can try to glimpse that serenity, as we did, by visiting the other half that people are allowed to visit.

We made it to the Sunderbans from Calcutta by way of the Baghajatin train station outside our apartment to Canning, the end of the line. Canning is clearly a town that’s seen better days. I’ve been told its harbor, which the British once made as a contingency plan should the Calcutta harbor become unusable, has itself largely silted up drying most of the trade with it.

We crammed into Tata Magic carrying 20 people to Godhkhali to catch a boat. Fortunately we were met by a two man crew of Ramzan and Moni who piloted a rather nice houseboat and negotiated what appears was a fair price of Rs. 7000 for a full  1 night 2 day package, but strikes me as exorbitant.

We didn’t do much the first day but traipse around a town at the edge of the Sunderban called Gosaba. It is always interesting to be the foreigner, the bideshi, the outsider in a world that even though I know some conversational Bangla, remains difficult to understand. I’ve come to the realization that no matter what I do, and no matter how much people will excited and willing to invite me into their family, I will always remain an outsider and a curiosity in India. People will form stereotypes about me based on my skin, and second based on the first question I am always asked, “Where am I from?”

Another strange thing I’ve recently become aware of is that I am frequently asked questions or told statements in the negative, accusative or assumptive. Such as, “Why didn’t you take that bus?” “America doesn’t have poverty” “What about your permission to get copies?”

It’s not a bad thing. It just is.

At night we docked next another boat. It’s our mother’s boat Moni and Ramzan said in Bangla. But as I said, we were looking for serenity, not to be anchored next to a rowdy crowd of Bengali men staring at us longer than was comfortable.

I made this clear to Ramzan and Moni, who replied, “But if we dock here, we will not have fear.”

Fear? Why fear? Is it a fear of the tigers, who people in the region might be afraid of swimming up to the boat and nabbing a human? Or is it a fear of pirates? Last week, I had been told, a boat had been hijacked and pirates made away with it.

Either way, there wasn’t much I could do other than to shut up and stop being pissy about it.

We woke early and set out to the Mangrove Interpretation Center, a surprisingly good museum on the ecology of the Sunderbans. We were also given a guide, apparently a necessity for the trip. He mumbled, liked birds and deer—telling us to take copious photos of every one we saw— and said the word “also” at the end of every sentence.

We then ventured further into the Sunderbans. Up until now we had only been on the North Eastern edge.  The forest protection agency has a camp set up purely for the delight of tourists to spot wildlife. They’ve carved out a giant square tank (pond) for animals to sip water as well as four or five 50 meter wide half kilometer long swathes through the jungle so tourists can spot tigers or fauna crossing them. I’d call it environmental destruction. But this is India and India doesn’t really do environment, unless it is accompanied by a pile of garbage.

Later we went to another similar location, called “Dobanki” where the forest agency has set up a canopy walk, but is really just an elevated concrete walkway. After Dobanki, our boat slowly chugged its way back to Godhkhali with its 95hp diesel engine.

 Highlight of the journey:  Riding on the roof rack of a Tata Magic (Minivan like vehicle) with 26 people (Perhaps twice it’s max intended carrying capacity) in and on it between the Godhkhali boat launch and Canning (where we got the train to Calcutta).

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Bhubaneswar, to me, seemed like a dusty, open, and spacious developing city. It is also entirely improperly mapped by google. The rock edicts of Ashoka, a 6^th century king of India who conquered most of the country and converted to Buddhism—google says they are located under a highway flyover on a four way intersection. The modern art gallery—google says it is located in a back alley of a non-descript housing development (it has since moved to adjacent to forest park).

We spent one day walking around the city, I with a cold, Sam sicker. We saw Abhishek again and had drinks at his hotel.

The next day, convinced that a taxi would be a better way to go about it, we visited Konark and its UNESCO world heritage Sun Temple. It was huge and is designed in the shape of a large chariot, drawn by a team of horses. When it was constructed it was apparently on that coast and faced a position that the sun’s morning light would directly shine through the center of it.

Next we visited Konark’s beach—a lovely piece of sand, and the best beach I’ve seen in India second to that at Kochi (Ok, I’ve only seen about four beaches in India). We were told no swimming, that people were afraid of the ocean there, but we saw no signs forbidding it, so we decided to walk in. Lovely.

Our train ride back to Calcutta was not as lovely. We booked sleeper class again and found ourselves next to a group of Indian men—the same type of group that I had warned about two posts ago.

They sat on Sam’s bunk while he was sleeping, threw a bag onto my bunk too (Sam had lower, I had middle). One of them, possibly drunk was certainly creepy, telling me that he was in the India navy and that he had a girlfriend in Calcutta with a large lecherous grin. And did I have a girlfriend in Calcutta? I pretended to not understand him.

It was a great relief when they left the train.

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Sam and I set off on a sleeper train from Howrah train to Vizag two weeks ago, leaving at night for the 14+ hour journey where we had the upper bunks—a surprisingly pleasant journey, and the first time I had taken a long distance train in India since I had been studying abroad in Hyderabad in 2010.

Our ride to the train the station was the usual madness figuring the number of red lights we ran, cars we nearly hit and the one way street we went the wrong way on.

We arrived into Vizag around 2pm in high spirits, taking an auto to Abhishek’s parents, who live on the coast in a beautiful 6^th floor ocean-view apartment. We were well fed, and spent the first day going to a beach north of the city as well as to hill park overlooking the city via chairlift. Sam had a cold and I was beginning to feel it too.

Next day we went to Borra Caves by a train but found them to be closed, a bunch of people milling around outside the gate. Different people told us they were closed until 12, 1, or 2. So we decided to hedge our bets and walk to a waterfall 7 kilometers away, rather than paying the outrages fees for a shared car. Plus, we had plenty of time to kill.

I noticed I got significantly more intrusive questions about which country I was from here than in Calcutta.

We arrived to the amazement of the many other tourists who were shocked that we walked. The waterfall, which was cool, contained plenty of garbage at the bottom.

We took a shared jeep back in time for a quick lunch at the dhaba outside the caves and saw the caves, which I was told were either discovered by a British guy in 1807, or by someone who’s cow fell into a hole at the top. The side entrance to the cave was excavated later on for tourists.

We went to train station to buy tickets back, but the train was going to be three hours late. After a wait, we took a shared jeep to a bus station about a 45 minute drive away but our jeep broke down. And it wouldn’t start. At all, even after attempts to push start. The driver sent his buddy in an auto to get fuel which they poured into the tank but just poured out the bottom of the engine. After an hour wait in which two buses to vizag passed by—our fellow passengers asking why we didn’t get in the second bus and us telling them that we asked the conductor, “Vizag?” and he looked at us, gave us a confused hand gesture and then just drove away.

Anyways, we got back to Vizag no issue and made it on our train to Bhubenswar, arriving the next day.

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I went to the High Court much of the time that I was not traveling last week (more on that in a post coming tomorrow—hence why I’ve not been able to update the blog in awhile)

So, here’s a list of things that I’ve found at the ‘Mayor’s Court’ record room in the Centenary building adjacent to the original High Court building.

1. An original copy of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette Extraordinary from 1781.<— If I can make a soft copy of this then I will have completed in stitching together all of the known issues of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette into a complete copy.
2. Unlisted trials regarding James Hicky and his debts in 1776, as well as in 1773 when he was a surgeon in the city. These have given me more insight into Hicky, in that he had an active medical practice when he arrived in India in 1772, as well as that he owned a house which he rented out to boarders and mariners. After which he moved into the shipping industry, becoming a merchant and trading goods, before one of his ships was wrecked and his creditors called up his debts, throwing him into jail—in which he struck up the idea to begin a printing press to pay off his debts.
3. Trials involving John Hyde in 1798 regarding his estate after he passed away and non payment of debts to the East India Company. Rule of thumb is that if you owe the Company money, it’s going to get you. Hyde was a Justice on the Supreme Court and my personal favorite—the most honest of the bunch. He recorded almost every trial that happened in Calcutta from 1774 to his death and wrote parts of it in a pesky shorthand that I am desperately trying to break/have broken.
4. Numerous trials involving Peter Reed from 1770s to the 1780s, salt merchant and founder of the India Gazette, the rival to the Bengal Gazette. Appears he was notorious for not paying debts.

Today I went to the High Court and submitted my request asking for permission to make a “certified copy.” I had gone to the Court on Tuesday and submitted a request to make a digital copy of the Extraordinary issue. But, apparently I had done so in the wrong form, and had to re-write my letter, where I went to one office where they double stamped and then hole punched and dated it. Then I brought it to the registrar, pleaded my case and he said I could bring it to the Chief Justice and if “his lordship pleases it” I could proceed in making certified copies. Then I brought the form to a person in a little-tiny desk with huge stacks of paper, he took the original form, marked something on it and took my copy and stamped and signed it, “received but not verified” and that was that.

Now I wait to see if “his Lordship the Chief Justice pleases it.” I’ve been here so long that it all doesn’t seem so ridiculous anymore.

So, my tasks are now:

1. Wait for a reply about whether I can make a certified copy of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette from the Chief Justice.
2. Once done, bring scanner and start scanning away!

Badger certain people at the Victoria Memorial about the shorthand in Hyde’s notebooks Start looking through the manuscript archives of the Asiatic society with Priyanka Build an itinerary for Calcutta Walks based around the city’s Early Newspaper History

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We made it to Guwahati after Cherrapunji later than expected. It was election day, the day we went out. In the morning, we went to Sumo taxi stand next to our hotel, and were shown a taxi back to Shillong, which we declined because we had not yet eaten breakfast.

By the time we were finished, we learned that all the jeeps were commandeered for the election. There was no transport. We did, however, get a shared taxi to Cherrapunji market, where we were told we might find a ride. And we were in luck. A bus, crowded though it was, came twenty minutes later.

Guwahati is a rapidly developing city. It’s dusty, and congested but has a certain vibrancy to it. We arrived to meet Rehanna, a grad student, where she was appearing as a guest judge in a talent show. There was a bit of a miscommunication and we  shuffled from one bus station to another, all the way back to the first where the show was being aired.

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Sheela and I traveled to Cherrapunjee (Sohra as it is locally called). I found the village to be one of the strangest and eerie places I have been to. Not from any material threat, but because it was the dry season and all around us were burning fields of tall grass (apparently used as a harvesting technique). The air was heavy with smog—I would say the air was mostly smog—and the air pollution was far worse than Calcutta.

It was dark, despite being the middle of the day when we arrived. There were no trees, either.

Cherrapunjee exists on a narrow plateau, which is part of the reason that makes the rain fall there the second highest on earth (the highest being a neighboring town), as clouds from the Bay of Bengal are forced up the valleys in between the plateaus and deposit rain on their way up.

I remember walking off to the edge of one of these cliffs, and looking down. I couldn’t see anything.

We checked into a decent hotel, which was recommended to us by the fantastic owner of By the Way Hostel (we decided not to stay there—eastern toilet, not attached. I was feeling a little sick.)

The hospitality given to us by the owner of By The Way was fantastic. He brought us to excellent local restaurants, where we had great food.

The next day we went to see the living root bridges, which was by far some of the coolest sights I have seen in India. Along the way we met a few backpackers, including an English couple who were staying at By The Way, and we trekked down with them to see the bridges.

At the moment the living root bridges are still fairly pristine. More tourists are coming however, and that means more plastic bottles and trash. I saw people who were certainly seemed educated throwing their wrappers and trash into the water. It would be terrible to see the consequences of these bridges ending up like so many other things in India: polluted.

We joined other travelers on the way up: an Indian couple from a city in northern India I can’t remember, and a British woman.

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Have you heard of Don Bosco? I hadn’t. But if you’re in Shillong you will see his likeness or his name more than you will see Tagore in Calcutta, or perhaps, the Virgin Mary in Rome.

He was a missionary and his disciples proselytized Christianity to many parts of the world, including Meghalaya.

Some type of guilt exists in Shillong as portrayed by the Museum: As if the people of Meghalaya were so indoctrinated with notions that, before the missionaries came, they were savages, lacking in humanity. You can see this at the Don Bosco museum where there is an image of a missionary getting beaten to death. The next images in the museum portray all the good things the missionaries brought.

There’s also an ‘interesting’ segment on evolution. “If you believe in it.” Another floor tries to describe all the religions in the world. (very colorful)

For some reason, the Don Bosco museum is around the top tourist destination on tripadvisor. I can probably ascribe this to different sentiments from different cultural perspectives.

There’s a quote from Indira Ghandi that goes something like this found in Don Bosco’s museum, “I have only seen two floors of this museum but I can tell you this is the greatest museum in India.” Clearly, she didn’t see the other 5 floors.

Nevertheless, it was a colorful museum. Plenty to look at. And the experience of climbing up the disorienting conical rooftop is something else.

We took a day trip to Laitlum canyon, in a remote part of Meghalaya rarely frequented by tourists. At the top of the valley you can see a town at the base of the valley, perhaps 800 meters down. Remote in all senses except a power and television line going down the cliff side. Reception was perfect, however. At one point there was a chairlift, now long since broken.

We walked down, me cajoling Sheela against her better judgment to go all the way down. People kept asking us, “Why are you here?” What answer could we give?

 I made it to a soccer field in the center of the village, Sheela a little farther up. It was a tiring way back, with no water  and food, and a brush fire to our left that really did concern me. We got back to the top, but It being a Sunday, there was, of course, no transport of any kind going back to Shillong.

I was incredibly thirsty so I asked a man where I could get water, and he pointed at a concrete aquifer. That was a bad decision—the following days I got more of a cleanse than I wanted. We ended up knocking on the doors of every house that had a car. We didn’t have the energy to walk to the next village 8 miles away on the main road for a lift. Eventually a school teacher and her family took pity on us, gave us tea and bread, and a lift to the main road—where we caught a taxi back to Shillong.

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It’s been a awhile since I last wrote

This past weekend I:

Played in Hiland’s Park Squash Tournament, which I took far too seriously (intentionally). I lost in the semi-finals, if you can call them that, to Shivam, Hiland Park’s best player. The final set was epic, and I lost 21-19! That’s 10 overtimes. I think on nearly every point, I had to make a diving shot for the ball. A normal squash set only goes to 11, with the winner having to win by two. It was awesome to have a crowd cheering, too!

If I have one goal for the end of my time in Calcutta, it is to be able to beat Shivam and Ankur, the number 1 and two respectively at Hiland consistently. This is more important than my research. Did I say I take squash far too seriously?

Sunday morning I left with Ankit and his father to see the The Statesman’s Vintage & Classic Car Rally. It was an incredible display of cars and something that makes Calcutta seem so incongruous with itself. It’s a city with abject poverty but one with a history of extreme wealth, and even if that wealth doesn’t exist today in the same forms, these cars tangibly represent the city’s privileged class. But, I think more strangely is the fact that these cars signal old wealth. Where else in India is old wealth visible? Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Adhmenabad—predominantly new wealth, cities with incredible growth. Calcutta doesn’t really have that. Much of its wealth is from the past, and many of its families are dignified in the peculiar way that perhaps, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby captured.

The car show had one Rolls Royce. I couldn’t figure out the exact model, but I recall it being built in 1923.

But the real steal of the show, for me, was a, bright yellow, unusual German made car by Messerschmitt, a company which to me evokes images of camouflaged WWII fighters. I had no idea that Messerschmitt as a company even survived World War II. Anyway, they developed a couple cars with two wheels in the front and one in the back in the 1950s. You sat in it, and the door closed above you like a cockpit. The steering wheel pivoted much like a the dials on a clock face.

After the car show, I headed with Sheela to join our friend Ifte as he presented a Calcutta walk (his company) to a group of South African tourists around some of the historical colonial sections of the city, including St. John’s Cathedral, St. Paul’s, and Dalhousie Square (now B.B.D. Bagh—named after three martyrs (I suppose the British would have called them terrorists) who tried to storm the Writer’s Building (then opposite Dalhousie Square), the seat of the British Government. We also the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta which is where the Nawob of Bengal threw the British Inhabitants of the city he captured in 1757 into a hole where many of them died, though this history is certainly debatable. It was good to see parts of the city on a Sunday when it was quiet, and of course parts of the city that I hadn’t seen as a tourist.

In other news, we’ve had Turkish-Dutch guests over, and they just bought a motorcycle which they plan on riding all the way back to the Netherlands on! As well, Mithu our maid came back from her Holiday to Jharkhand. Also confirmed is that One Step Up on Park Street has great burgers (lamb, meaning they are great for India standards) if they are available.

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Calcutta’s 11k/Marathon began in chaos.

The announcer shouted, “Women to the front! Women at the front!”

The women moved to the front, shuffling through the crowd. The announcer said that they would start the 11k race five minutes before the men. As I was mulling the patriarchy and patronizing-ness of the situation, the starting gun went off.

The women began the race, but so did the men too! A horde of green shirts and cold, excited men stampeded forward, bursting through the attempts of the race authorities to stop them.

The announcer was shouting for the men to stop and managed to succeed to some extent. But then the starting gun went off again, by mistake! 

And the race began! A total chaos of swarming moving bodies

But, actually, it was chaos before the race even began. The “public toilet” was a bamboo structure with blue FEMA tarp constituting all four walls. No actual toilets or urinals, you just peed on the dirt on the ground inside the structure.

The desk in charge of giving out numbers and t-shirts to runners was overwhelmed. After a few minutes a shouting match broke out. The desk collapsed as people were climbing over it. I managed to snatch someone’s number (and made it mine), but Sheela nor I could get a shirt.

I don’t know if anyone knows their time. I don’t. (I think I came in in 44 minutes but that’s just an estimate) There was no starting clock, no specific starting time, and no times noted for people approaching the finish line. 

But hell it was fun!

(The actual marathon runners started about 20 minutes before the 11k)

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There are few geographical features that evoke mysticism like the Himalayas. There are even fewer passes through the mountain range. For Christmas Tanmoy arranged a trip to the far north of Sikkim, to the mountain pass in which the Chinese and Indian armies meet in tension.

This pass, which follows the river Teesta north from Sikkim’s capitol, Gangtok, travels through remote mountain villages to the Chinese border. It was been fought over for hundreds of years, and within the last two centuries has seen invading British, Bhutanese, Nepali and Tibetan armies. (Yes, Tibet once tried it’s hand as an expansionist power). Eventually the British succeeding in establishing their dominance over Sikkim.

Our destination was Gurudongmar Lake, a holy lake surrounded at mountains on the plateau on the other side of the Himalayas, and just south of the Chinese border. The lake had stood out like the holy grail of our trip. The blue beacon we had been aiming to reach. Tanmoy had assured me that I would be able to reach Gurudongmar and its 17,000 feet elevation.

It was a journey that brought thoughts into my mind of the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. With long jeep rides, I had much time to think and to read, and to reflect upon my experience. I also had time to reflect upon how I want to approach life, and with what attitudes, values, norms and acceptance of others. What joy a the respite from the barely functional chaos of Calcutta was.

We started our trip with an interminable 16 hour bus ride from Karunamoyee Bus Stand, Salt Lake, Calcutta to Siliguri, and then a 5 hour jeep ride from Siliguri to Gangtok.

Gangtok is a lovely small city, and has probably the most attractive people I have seen in India. (That’s a plus, you know). The center of the city is a road only open to pedestrians known as M.G. Margh and reminiscent of Istiklal in Istanbul. In our limited time in the city we were able to explore a beautiful park at the top of a cable car that transports people from one hillside to another.

Another 8ish hour ride brought us to Lachen. On the road from Gangtok to Lachen, along the river Teesta you can see much construction work, including the building of a great damn near the town of Mangan. This huge infrastructure project, which I was told the 2011 earthquake claimed dozens of workers’ lives, will surely change the nature of the valley.

Lachen is a small town in Northern Sikkim, reachable by a treacherous and winding dirt road. It’s a wonder that, amid the road’s many switchbacks, more trucks don’t fall off the edge. There we stayed at a small guesthouse, suffering in the cold unheated building and sleeping in all our clothes. On the hillside on the west side of Lachen is a two hundred years old Buddhist monastery, with beautifully painted walls and interiors.

Further north and more remote is Thangu. Thangu is another 2-3 hours. It’s not really a town as much as it is a small village of a few roughly made homes attached to a larger military base. Three years ago there was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that forced some of the outlying homes to be abandoned.

The next day we traveled to Thangu at 14,000 feet (4,300 meters). From Lachen, At 14,000 feet, I felt the altitude distinctly, in my sluggish movements and low level nausea at certain points. But altogether, it wasn’t terribly difficult to adjust to.

From Thangu, Tanmoy and the Indians traveled to Gurudongmar (only Indians are allowed to reach the lake). The night before Tanmoy were to had told us two Americans that we would be unable to make it to Gurudongmar lake. When I heard Tanmoy’s words, I was indeed disappointed. Despite the initial disappointment in knowing we would not reach Gurudongmar, Richard and I decided to make the best of it and, with Sonam, our Sherpa guide, we trekked into the Chopta valley, climbing another estimated 500 to 1,000 feet.

Our short hour and a half hike stretched into 5 hours, whereby the end of it we were thoroughly exhausted, and surprisingly hot, the sun’s rays at 14,500 feet warming us well despite the bitter winter cold. Sonam told us were the first tourists he had taken so far into the valley—so it was nice to know we were the “first” at something.

Midway in the Chopta valley, after scrambling down a hillside off any path, we came across a few large boulders. What do I do when I see a large boulder? Climb it!

I will not forget that valley.

It was nice to have a trip organizer, and to bond with Richard, a Fulbright researcher. We shared our thoughts from everything from Consumerism to the Great Classic novels. I didn’t have to think about a thing. Every detail was planned for and I was simply taken along for the ride. Not having to think or plan is great. That said, my usual gripes remain in that Indian hosts tend to be overbearing especially in wanting to ensure that we are fed and comfortable. (Also, dinner at 9pm or later?)

Great trip. Wonderful Christmas! Goodbye Himalayas.

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Forgive me, for I have forgotten. What color is the sky?

And, forgive me, for I have also forgotten. What color is water?

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Sheela is in Delhi till Saturday at a conference for iMerit! Doing the whole networking thing for her new company. The Manthan Conference is for companies showing innovative ideas in the realm of social entrepreneurship in India.

This is where I’ll be going for Christmas break: Gurudongmar Lake is one of the highest elevation lakes in the world. Second highest to be exact, I believe at about 17,000 feet elevation. The lake is right at the border of China and India.

Bangla passes well and already after four I am somewhat sort of. coherent, and can read Bangla at an intermediate level (I think). বাংলাভাষা খুব জরদী আমার গবেষনার জন্য. হয়ত আমি সংবাদপত্র বাংলা থেকে ইংরেজি অনুবাদ করতে পারব. তাই আমি বাঙালি ভাবুক (Bengal Renaissance) নিয়ে বুঝতে পারব.

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On Tuesday Jess, Matt and two of our teacher went on a day trip to Chandernagore (now Chandannagar).

A fascinating town, now effectively a distant suburb of Calcutta, Chandernagore was owned by the French until 1952, a few years after India gained Independence. So, there existed an entirely landlocked French town surrounded by India. How strange.

The town had passed back and forth between the French and British as the British, in a series of successive wars, captured the town, only to repeatedly give it back.

You can still see the French influence. In the long stone waterway promenade with large trees, steel benches, the smattering of Colonial Buildings (such as a church), and in the street lamps that look as if they come straight out of turn of the century France (Although Debanjan noted that, “Do you really believe those remain from the French?” Regardless, they give the town a colonial feel.

However, you wouldn’t know the historical aspects existed if it you had stepped of the train or bus station as Chandernagore looks similar to the other Calcutta suburbs.

We went to Chandernagore to witness an idol immersing festival. I think it was Doshami, related to Kali puja, but someone should correct me on that fact. It was a hot, sunny, loud, polluted day, so I wasn’t quite following the intricacies of the festival.

Supposedly there exists an interesting library in town or nearby.

Enough of this—look at some photos!

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Durga Puja was this past weekend. With the metro open until 4pm, there were back to back all night parties, which I, being the old man I feel like, did not often have the energy to attend.

The photos above are at different puja sites. You can see how trippy the puja sites can be. The wheels in the third photo were constantly spinning, and a loudspeaker was playing soothing music, making the whole scene surreal.

The final photo is an image of Ganesh made entirely out of different types of gram (dal) and glue. The complexity and creativity of designs of puja sights is incredibly given the inexpensive materials they are made from—cardboard, gram, besan, bamboo, twine. One puja site had five or six series of ping balls attached to bent metal poles on motors. They were synchronized to provide a constant background noise. It was incredible to listen to!

Everything in durga puja is temporary and will be taken down at the end of the festival. The pandals, which are constructed out of bamboo, will be desconstructed, the twine holding the bamboo together removed, and the idols of Durga dumped in the river. As everything comes from the Ganges (Hooghly) everything will return to the Hooghly, and the process will continue, year after year.

Idol submerging is tomorrow night!

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The bamboo structure the bike repairman dude was working on collapsed and we all plummeted into the waist deep sewage below. There were five of us on the structure—appears that was enough weight to make it collapse.

He sent his poor kid to fish out the bike parts from the water.

So, my night of going to get my bike tires patched ended smellier than I had anticipated. Rs. 80 is a good deal, I think, for four tire patches, a tire change, and breaking his front yard. 

Couldn’t help but share this experience…

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Today, the festivities for Durga Puja started. All around the city, communities are erecting “pandals,” small houses to worship the gods, especially Durga. Durga is an incarnation of Devi, the female manifestation of the supreme being. If I’m not mistaken, she’s quite a strong willed, you might say ruthless goddess. This is great. How many cities can claim that their most important religious festival of the year centers around a powerful female goddess!?

At the festivities today, which involved sand painting and a DJ, I finally met a fellow squash player. I’m stoked to play him. Couldn’t be happier. I was struck by how much life at Hiland park resembles that of a suburban US town, and how Durga Puja so far seems to be a form of a block party, where family get together and meet. I’ve also been surprised so far by how accessible and down to earth people are. Most people are willing to give me time n Calcutta and exchange plesantries.

Durga puja is also like an odd variation of Christmas. The giving is such that you tip staff and workers. By giving them a bonus, you spread the good cheer.

The next week will certainly be an interesting one. I’m told the city will be awash with festivities, which will span a week. Given my previous knowledge of India. This means noise, crowds, colors, traffic, and revelry 24/7. On a scale beyond anything from home. It’s uniquely Indian. Uniquely Calcutta.

Last night was an interesting one. My housemates and I went to the consulate to visit a friend. The consulate residence is swank, and it’s nice to see a little bit of America—or America in the type of quality of life that I’ve dreamed of, but would need either the patronage or income to afford.

After some meats, cheeses, fine beers (stouts!) and some imported licquers we took a car to Jadavpur University of watch a concert that our friend S, a fantastic guitarist, was playing in. We went from the privileged life of the consulate to wading through mud and muck in a wet outdoor concert with more than its fair share of bromance—hordes of men dancing with each other, etc. It’s fun, but there’s only so much I can take.

As an aside, right now I am listening to Alexi Murdoch, and I have to say, that he is an excellent musician to fit my mood. Thank you to Sean for introducing me to him while we were in Sri Lanka. I miss that time a lot.

Calcutta has an amazing variety of live music and cultural events which makes it a truly awesome city for the arts. Just in the past two weeks, I’ve gone to see a play (in hindi/english/bangla/french and spanish) starting Kalki Koechlin, a fantastic modern dance performance, both at Tollygunge club as it celebrated Tagore. I’ve also seen a live table concert running from 10am one day to 6am the next. Non stop drumming. As well as the concert I mentioned earlier.

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Photos of AIIS in Ballygunge and the train station at Baghajatin that leads to the school

I’ll have to give an update on my life, which I have repeatedly put off the for the past week.

Recently people have asked me what exactly am I doing in Calcutta. Not in sense of my grant, which is to ostensibly focus on early newspaper history in the city, but what I am actually doing on a day to day basis.

To this, I reply, I am taking Bangla classes intensively at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Calcutta, in Ballygunge. That is, from 9-2 every day, Monday to Friday, I go to class. It’s a humid, sweaty, diesel fume-choked 45 minute bus and auto ride after which I arrive fairly exhausted. 

I’ve been going since September 1st and will be taking classes in this fashion until around January. After these first four months, I will begin the official part of my research on the newspapers. For the first few weeks I arrived, I was “settling in,” meaning dealing with bureaucracy, meeting my contacts, affiliates and surveying site locations. Since catalogues are not generally posted online in India, I travel to each institution and ask around to understand their resources. 

I’ve been to, or intend to go to, the below:

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We three white guys rode our bicycles to Ballygunge and back. What a sight we were for those 20 km.

Turning on to the desolate EM Bypass, we began to make great pace. I got to test the true speed of my bike, easily going faster than the few cars and autos.

Out on EM Bypass, I saw a woman alone, dressed in heels, a reflective mini skirt and wearing copious makeup. Clearly she was not lost, and as I rode by, I am sure I awkwardly gaped. She said hello but I had no intention to stop.

B. and G. were behind me, and as I they passed her, she said aloud, “Can I fuck me?” B and G started laughing as they rode by, probably spurred on by the awkward humor of the situation.

I found myself bothered by their laughter (although I can’t criticize them for doing so and there much greater injustices). She probably knows limited English, but does that give right for her to be laughed at? She is out on a lonely dark road at night, soliciting business from men she does not know, and has no reason to trust. That takes guts, if not desperation. How does she keep her dignity then, if laughed at?

Alas, as we rode by the hundred pillars of the under-construction metro line along the Bypass, enjoying the blissful night ride, my tire popped as we were pulling into Big Bazaar, just 200 meters from home.

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Birla Institue of Art in Kalighat had a fantastic exhibit called “Voice of India” where the Weavers Studio Center for the Arts featured “artists of the early 20th Century from all over India and specially Bengal, their photographs, brief bio-data and listening kiosks/android phones.” The exhibit was fascinating. Having been given an Android Phone, we were set loose among a gallery of 50-60 of the most important cultural-musical figures of the early 20^th and late 19^th century. At each portrait, we could listen to a short clip of that artists’ singing.

One item that struck me in particular was a poem by Tagore. Here is an extract of Tagore’s poem “প্রশ্ন

I see secret violence under cover of darkness
Slaughtering the helpless,
I see the just weeping in solitary silence,
No power to protest the oppression of the mighty,
I see tender youths hitting out blindly
Cracking their heads against stones in their agony.

Today my voice is choked, my flute is without note,
The prison of the no-moon night
Has extinguished my world, given me nightmares;
And this is why I ask, through my tears:
Those who poison your air and blot out the sun;
Do You truly forgive them, do You truly love them?

The Last Two Lines, I think, are a special jab against Gandhi. How could you love or forgive someone, Tagore asks, who does such terrible things? Is that truly possible? Or does Gandhi live in a fantasy world of impracticable pacifism?

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Bangla classes at AIIS have been draining. I must admit that four hours of class monday to friday saps my energy. Traveling there and back is a trip: either packed into a suburban rail so tightly that boarding is a process that involves shoving people further into the carriage. On the plus side, I don’t need to hold on to anything as the mass of humanity around me holds me up. Alternately, I can take a bus and then shared auto to class: more civilized, but does take longer.

Class is intense, but also great in that I have one on one tuition, so it is highly individualized. They teach Bangla comprehensively: so I get training in speaking, reading, writing, and listening.

After class on Wednesday I went to the Asiatic Society to meet with the general director and the head librarian. As with most of my meetings, they are awkward in the way that I have found only meetings in S. Asia can be awkward. This one involved the gentlemanly general director, who acted as if the 1850s had never passed, expatiate on the evils of overpopulation and the downfalls of the Indian nation. After that meeting, he directed me to the librarian, who insisted on showing me every single holding they had in glass case in their manuscript room which smelled strongly and oddly of diesel fumes. She then launched into a spirited blow-by-blow account of one of the Indian epics. Of its nature, I could not be sure, but it had something to do with a prince, princess, and a fish that swallowed a ring. She later insisted on teaching me Bangla script (parts I already know) as I wondered how to politely disengage conversation. Two hours later, and with a comprehensive tour of the old and new Asiatic Society buildings, though still not having seen the manuscript catalogue (my main goal), I left.

Friday after class Mr. P. of AIIS took us three students on a tour of college street—a street known for its numerous book sellers. What a trip. Nevertheless, I am still unable to find P. Thankappan Nair’s many books on Calcutta history. (I found his history of Calcutta streets at Rs. 4000 but I’m not about to pay $70 for a beat up copy of a tangentially useful book) Hopefully I will meet him soon at the National Library. I’ve been told he goes there in the mornings, and everybody knows him. We also visited the “Coffee House,” originally the haunt of Calcutta’s intelligentsia from the 19^th century onwards. It looks like an ordinary cafeteria with uninspiring food. I’ve no intent to return.

Later, I had dinner with Alec and some more AIIS fellows at Banana leaf, a Keralan restaurant. What interesting stories these interesting people have!

In other news, I had another ‘interesting run’ today. It was nice up until the five mile stretch of running along a canal, eg open sewer. On the way back, I passed a dead kitten sprawled out in garbage. Not pleasant.

I’ve also begun reading Dalrymple’s White Mughals. What a fascinating book. At so many parts I keep thinking, “But that’s what I want to say!” Alas,

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Last Friday (Aug 30) there was a small bomb blast (IED) in Kolkata, nearby Chandni Chowk, on Madan street, near the Central Ave crossing, around 12-12:30pm. No one was hurt, and the police defused a second bomb thereafter. I was walking by Madan street on Central Ave an hour later as I was on my way to Calcutta Walks. I heard about the blast middle of this past week.

The Green Arrow, and Red A are the approximate location of the blast, while the star was my destination.

How scary is it that I missed the bomb blast by an hour or two?

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This weekend I bought a bicycle.

A very nice road bicycle.

Ok, it’s Chinese made.

Still, it’s very nice.

And I fly fast.

But the roads are bad.

People stare.

Mithu thinks I’m crazy.

And it is dusty.

Also, exhaust fumes.

It’s totally impractical.

I love it.

Here it is: http://www.fomascycle.com/products_detail.php?p_id=1080&c_name=ROAD%20BIKES&c_brand=FOMAS

(For the record, I was really surprised I could find a few types of racing bikes in Calcutta on Bentinck street Pretty awesome! But I have no idea where people would ride them, give all the traffic!)

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We had jackfruit for dinner. That’s a jackfruit. It’s bigger than my head. A LOT bigger than my head. (Our jackfruit was small, about the size of my head). But you see HUGE jackfruit in the markets here for dirt cheap.

My mother says I should never eat anything bigger than my head. But it was oh so tasty in this recipe. Tastes just like chicken: http://cleangreensimple.com/2011/06/jackfruit-carnitas/

We’re planning a thanksgiving feast here—I know what I’ll be making.

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Yesterday’s strange fruit of the day: Dragonfruit. 

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They have signs for roadwork!?!? Definitely not India.

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Why does the water feature at the Irrigation Department have no water?

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Shangri-La, where there are Sinhala classes with the ETAs and Fulbrighters. The ETA’s live in a beautiful compound in the south of the city. They’re here for a month and then go their respective ways around the country to teach English.

Sinhala is pronounced “singhala” because you’re supposed to sing it. Jokes.