thirty-six: last entry… for now!

This post, in particular, is a little experiment in a lovely little tool called “Windows Live Writer.” Browsing through some blogs today, I came across a few writers commenting on the innovative, accessible design of this Windows tool. Basically, the program syncs with your current blog to open up what is like a Microsoft Word for your blog. Kind of like Outlook is to e-mail.

That tidbit  aside, it is definitely strange to be home. As usual, my sister and I are amazed with our surroundings – from water pressure to quiet streets. As usual, we painfully miss all of our family and think, if we just stayed a month longer… we’d finally get to see Durga Puja, Kolkata style. On the other hand, it’s great to be back with my dad and show him all the pictures of the trip, all the pictures of his family he hasn’t seen in three years. (It’s pretty nice, Smita and I agree, to sleep on a softer mattress and have access to Internet on a more regular basis. Actually, I’m mixed on this one… sometimes it feels good to just ignore the digital world and the responsibilities it involves, like answering emails promptly!)

As the school year approaches with its many responsibilities, I have made the decision to stop posting here until I once again globetrot. I don’t want to get bored of blogging – no need for me to blog the mundane stresses of college life. (I’m thinking of starting another blog.) When will I next write here? Let’s see when I’ll next globetrot. Next summer, I hope.

Until then, with love,
Nina

thirty-five: wrap-up

It is funny how quickly a month can pass by; it only feels like yesterday that we landed in India, let alone Kolkata. Admittedly, in some ways I am eager to return to home and then to college. Both will offer a sense of permanency - something I miss after being in the limbo of travel for two months this summer. (Not that I didn't enjoy it!) Going back to the U.S. also heralds the return to reality and responsibility, of choreographing deadlines for IASA and worries about financial aid. Textbooks and packing and cleaning.

I am looking forward to getting back to exercise and meditation. Without going to the club, it's difficult to walk through the streets of Calcutta uninterrupted, and I much rather walk outside than on a treadmill. Sometimes I felt like I was stagnating in the flat. The smallness of our flat made it difficult to find some "alone" space for meditation. I'm not good enough at stilling my Mind where I can meditate anywhere, with distractions around. Additionally, to see my dad again would be great! He couldn't come with us to India and was missed very much. :( He has taken the week off this week so we'll definitely get to spend time with him!

My attempts to practice Hindi this summer have been an absolute failure - I understand most of it, but speaking still feels beyond me. I'll continue to brush up my grammar and writing before classes begin. I did speak more Bangla, though, promise! Sigh. I will have to try harder and force myself to speak more of everything. Though I really want to do many Chinmaya Mission courses next summer which would be really good for me spiritually and volunteer some of the mission's rural development programs, I also want to study Hindi in a structured immersion atmosphere. It's a bit of a predicament, so let's see how things turn out. Regardless, I will apply for that language scholarship for that particular program... Additionally, to do some side traveling with my uncles next summer would be pretty rad - like, to Sikkim and stuff.

Again, there is so much to say about India and my family. I'll continue to write about it here - sort of a post wrap-up. Or maybe I'll write it in my journal, let's see. But anyway, I know I'm going to miss my family here the most... I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope they will eventually come visit us, some day.

argh, still there is much to say but it's quite late.. goodnight.

thirty-four: Haldiah and Odds/Ends

In the week since my last post, much has happened. Yes, some of the time we relax in the cool and quiet of the flat, but we have been on the go for the rest of the days after lunch. Earlier in the week I ventured with my aunt, mother, and family friend into the chaotic heart of Kolkata: Boro Bazaar. Because of the great deals, it is a wonderful place to get done with shopping, but it is a tumultuous trip requiring patience and street smarts. (Thankfully, my aunt is quite the expert at bargaining and navigating the throngs of people in the streets.) We used multiple forms of transport that day: metro, taxi, hand-pulled rickshaw, car. Boro Bazaar was a visual carnival with its rows of vendors (fruits, hair clips, buckets, bags, anything you could imagine) and the narrow alleys leading to bright colors of sari shops and jewelry. Without the brief respite from the crowded streets - so crowded moving often was difficult - in the A/C market, I may have gone crazy. The long day, punctuated with some yummy dosa for lunch, neared an end with a confusing rickshaw ride through the streets back to our car.... when the rickshaw-walla didn't understand our directions. Culminating the trip was negotiating with the goonda (small time gangster) trying to charge us 20 rupees an hour for parking - a ridiculous sum for parking in that area. Our family friend - might as well be my aunt! - immediately argued back: Sure, I'll pay that rate. First show me the paper where it's written officially? Suddenly the rate fell to 10 rupees an hour. Awesome. Sprawling with exhaustion on the bed back at home, I asked my sister, What did you do today? Why do you look so tired? She sighed, We watched three movies today. I groaned.

We've done many other things: drink delish street chai, learn poker, spend time at Tollygunge with my grandmother, hit up huge malls, spend time with old friends from back in Michigan, but this weekend we've ventured to Haldiah, a town 2.5 hours away from teeming Kolkata when the traffic was good. Today? Today it was not, and we reached my mother's childhood best friend's house in four hours. She and her husband are doctors in this area, and have the fortune of living in a lovely, yet big flat and duplex community. There's a gorgeous lake near the guesthouse-villa we are staying at in this gated community, and it's understandable why people come here to vacation. The drive here was pretty uneventful, and it was nice to just sleep and watch the deep green of rural West Bengal pass by.

Anyway, we are currently playing Egyptian Ratscrew (the only card game we can think of to pass time) and I am also reading Q&A by Vikas Swarup. Q&A, the book which inspired Slumdog Millionaire, puts the movie to shame - the movie, though already with an element of fantasy, seems even more glossed over and illogical once you read the book. The book is well-written and realistic and miles away from the movie in terms of plot. Read the book, now!

Anyway, we should be eating soon.... back to reading!

(And happy birthday Dani if you're reading this! :) )

thirty-three: kolkata

We're finally here: Kolkata in all its hot, humid, sweaty glory. Currently, we have escaped the Ballygunge flat for my aunt's house... a change of scenery. My sister and my cousin Rudhir are involved in an intense pillow fight and Debjani and Chandni, my other two cousins are watching. We are waiting for our cousin Dyuti to get out of the shower to go to lunch.

Being here has been.... interesting. In some ways, I feel a disconnect from my other cousins who always get to talk to each other and are so close and in some I am still so glad to be here. I just wish we actually did stuff, like actually begin shopping, hanging out at places, and so on. But it's so awfully hot right now. Sigh.... I guess Calcutta always has me in mixed feelings.

I've been occasionally practicing my Bengali more, but I feel very self-conscious still and can't always grasp the words I want properly. It's embarrassing. And then my mother always has to tell people I take Hindi at school and expects me to practice speaking that, too! It's a lot of pressure, sometimes, and I do feel a little inadequate. That isn't to say that I haven't been brushing up on hindi. I do have my hindi books to practice exercises and have been consequently racing through some of my lessons from last year... it's nice, even relaxing.

We'll see how this trip goes. I know parts will be very enjoyable, but I am still apprehensive for some reason...

thirty-two -- bangalore and mysore (day 1 cont'd, day 2)

street vendor in Mysore (July 21, 2009)

Since we have decided to relax at home today, I now have the time to briefly describe our last two days in Bangalore. Monday we visited the gorgeous Shiva Mandir and yesterday we visited Mysore. It's nice to play the tourist in India, for once. Too often we're just caught in the middle, shuttled from flat to a relative's house, seeing India but not really seeing it. See our pictures here.

I SEE:

• strings of jasmine flowers in long dark hair
• a Shiva statue twenty times my size, striking against the blue night -- wondrous
• eco-friendly volvo busses (more expensive than a normal bus)
• a profuse number of alcohol advertisements (Kingfisher, Bacardi, Smirnoff)
• silver chudiyan (bangles) on our wrists, purchased from vendors at the Mysore Palace. they jingle and are very pretty.
• cloudy gray skies and cool weather
• in Mysore, humans and horses and cows
• people swarming the Chamundeshwari temple, straining for a glimpse of the heavily-garlanded goddess far in the back
• the Supriya Pig Mutton Hotel (Gablu: Nina didi, they call everything a hotel here! And it's true.)
• auto-rickshaws, Marutis, one Ford, motorbikes
• new buildings and malls and giant billboards
• the shabby prettiness of Vrindavan Gardens, the magnificence of the Mysore Palace

I TASTE:

• egg omelettes and pancakes
• chicken fry and noodles
• "authentic Karnatakan South Indian Thalis... veg, but still good!"
• McChicken and fries
• daal, rice, fried aloo

I FEEL:

• exhausted (poor nights of rest, still jet-lagged?)
• tense (still acclimating)
• awed by devotion (Shiva Mandir and Chamundeshwari Temple)
• overwhelmed (are temples supposed to be so stressful?)
• restless (I want to see the city more!)

thirty-one -- bangalore, baby! (day one)

When the humidity hits you, you know you're in India. Stepping off the plane in Mumbai, the three of us felt so thrilled to be nearing the end of our approximately nineteen hour flight. Only hours later, we finally landed in the vast, sparkling expanse that is the Bangalore airport. Contrary to my previous memories of Indian Customs, the process was smooth and rapid. (Probably because it was about 4:00 AM!) Waiting for us outside was one of our good friends from Michigan, Sandip Kaku ("Sandip Uncle"). His family had moved to Bangalore five years ago and only now we managed the chance to hit up South India.

Yes, this is my first journey into south India... my first journey in India that's not Bombay or Calcutta or about relatives. And really? I like what I see. The weather, for one, was the biggest surprise; cool and breezy like springtime in Michigan. It, of course, was dark when we returned to Uncle's gated subdivision, but the glimpses I saw in the dark painted the picture of the rising metropolis the world talks about. Huge apartment buildings were going up on either side of the roads, juxtaposed against the "old Bangalore," of mom-and-pop shops and a little shabbiness. The hour trip home went by quickly as I attempted to absorb what little I could see outside. Sandip Kaku described the changes he had seen in the last five years and the contrast to the India he grew up with. There's shopping malls, theatres, grocery stores -- everything at your fingertips when you have a car.

"But still a long way to go," he said.

The statement is both encouraging and discouraging at the same time. Must India really recreate the West in order to consider itself "developed"? Will the rise in this massive, massive consumerism lead to the materialism plaguing the West? India is majority Hindu, and a large principle is the detachment to material goods and goals for True happiness. While I am encouraged by the rising standard of living, I am concerned people will now equate money and goods with happiness even more than before... And is this standard of living rising across the board for all income classes? I doubt it.

This community is beautiful. Bangalore, according to our friends, is much greener than many big cities in India. You notice that too -- there's a lot of lushness and big trees here. Lots of pretty flowers. The buildings in this community in particular are just like two-story houses at home, almost reminiscent of the typical California architecture. I am amazed; it's nothing like what I have seen in Calcutta, though I am sure places like this exist there for Indians from abroad. It is really, really nice and a funny sort of culture shock... the shock of how insulated you can be. No, it's not a bad thing at all! Just... different from what I am used to!

Today we will be getting a mobile phone and checking out some spots in the city. Perhaps some shopping? We'll see.

Until then! Peace and love,
Nina

thirty --

Tomorrow, we'll be on a plane to India. The thought is so foreign and far away, yet familiar and soon at the same time. I only wonder how all my many cousins have changed, if we will all still get along, if I will still fall in love with India. I am very excited to see that brief glimpse of Bangalore and Mysore, two places that aren't Bombay and Calcutta. (I realize I haven't explored either of these cities to the fullest -- too young when I last went -- but it will be really wondrous to see a new part of India, sans relatives who may be bored with it all.)

I am excited, exhausted, and full of too many thoughts tonight. That would be what I get for not meditating today...

India, India, India: here I come.