Escaping the Heat and Getting in a Good Cry

What better way to spend a hot Kolkata afternoon than in a (relatively) cool movie theater, crying my eyes out? While Josh went to bond with a sarod player over some South Indian yumminess of dosas and uttapam, my friend Bridget and I sat with about 100 Indians, most of whom were crying along with us, as we watched "The Namesake."

Some of you may have read The Namesake by Ms. Jhumpa "I won a Pulitzer at a ridiculously young age" Lahiri. I decided to read it while we were living in California--a little pre-India warm-up--but wasn't a fan (and many of the Indians I've met here who've read her work also didn't dig it). It was as though she took one of her short stories and steeeeettttcched it for more than 400 pages. I just couldn't get into it.

But the movie? Ah, kya bhat hai. What a thing...It made me alternately homesick for the U.S. and completely at home here in India, particularly Kolkata. The family at the center of "The Namesake" is Bengali, and some of the scenes take place in this wild and passionate metropolis. For those of you who can't make the trip halfway around the world, go see this movie and you'll catch some true glimpses of Kolkata. Even though some of the scenes are ostensibly in the 1970s and 80s, the Kolkata of today still has the same careening buses, the same raucous markets, the same strangely appealing cacophony of sounds.

It was a real treat sharing the move experience with a theater full of Bengalis who appreciated every little nuance and turn of phrase and tilt of the head that are so classically Bengali. The characters made liberal use of my favorite Bengali utterance, "Oh Baba" (or sometimes "Eh Baba"), and every time they said it, you could see dozens and dozens of heads in the audience move their heads side-to-side in gentle affirmation. Moments of cultural dissonance or misunderstanding were greeted by the audience with their own chorus of "Oh Baba," and the scenes of Kolkata were vocally approved and proudly appreciated. And the actors who played Gogol's parents...khub bhalo. So good. The small gestures they used to express their deepening love for one another were beautifully and truly Indian, and were what brought most of us to tears.

Perhaps what I enjoyed most about the movie was its decision to let those nuances and turns of phrase and slight movements of the hands stand on their own. It didn't over-interpret or over-translate. There was no "exposition girl" to spell everything out. The actors infused the gestures with so much emotion, you couldn't help but know what they meant. And if you didn't entirely understand the reference to Bata shoes or recognize one of the main streets of Kolkata, you wouldn't be lost to the strength of the story. But if you did, as the theater full of Bengalis did, then you could share a knowing smile with the Bengali or American sitting next to you.

Paz y Amor,
J&J

Do We Have a Cricket Problem?

It's Sunday. Most shops are closed even though today is not an official sabbath for the majority of Kolkata's dwellers. Perhaps it's a remnant of the Brits (they were here for an awfully long time), and besides, who really wants to turn down a day of rest?

Radios crackle up the street, men gather to gamble noisily, women beat their clothes clean. And everywhere, cricket. Kids playing on sidewalks, young men holding court in parks, crowds gathered in front of appliance stores to watch the World Cup on television. Josh understands more of the intricacies of the game than I do, but neither one of us are big fans. In terms of what India has to offer we'd rather listen to Nikhil Banerejee, read some Tagore, wander around Lake Market, cook up luscious grub with Mala, go to a dance performance, travel to the mountains.

But according to Mr. Shashi Tharoor, a departing under-secretary of the UN, not only are Josh and I missing out on an amazing sporting event, but our lack of passion for cricket indicates many flaws in our character, and those flaws are of a particularly American nature. You can read his op-ed for the NYTimes here

It may be that Mr. Tharoor's op-ed is so tongue-in-cheek that I'm just not picking up what he's putting down. But I have a strong gut feeling that he truly believes not liking a particular sport is a huge indication of character, and a national character at that. What do ya'll out there have to say bout this?

Paz y Amor,
J&J

EGADS!!!!

And what madness is this you ask? Was I so overcome by the generosity of my friend Nichole's birthday package of chocolate and literature and brilliant poetic commentary that I couldn't resist the urge to ravenously attack said package with my teeth??

Oh no, twas not me nor my dear hubby (he's out of town and so has been eliminated as a suspect)...I opened up the neatly wrapped package which had traveled all the way from Pareeeee only to find that SOMEONE had taken extreme liberties with my chocolate...an entire toblerone was missing. half the lindt milk chocolate bar had been eaten. and that SOMEONE in their patriotic haste to assure that the chocolate was not anthrax or a bomb CHOMPED THROUGH THE PACKAGING OF THE 70% COCAO DARK CHCOCLATE BAR (and took out some of the letter and a bit of the book while they were at it).

Some have suggested that perhaps a rat or a dog got at the chocolate. I worked on a farm in Arkansas where rats attacked my chickens...I've seen how they bite. They nibble, they gnaw. They do NOT leave behind perfectly formed HUMAN BITE MARKS where you can see the imprint of bicuspids. And they also do not REWRAP their prey.

Luckily, the dark chocolate with raspberry was relatively untouched. There is some justice in this world. And I suppose there are worse things in the world than unwittingly sharing Parisian chocolate with customs officials. At least they sent along their leftovers...

Peace and Love,
J&J

Telling It Like It Is

Most days, I can soften the way India confronts me. I can find touchstones throughout my day that steady me and bring me balance. I can stop to watch the rush of water men pump into their buckets. I can wave to the young girl who smiles at me every day from the chai stand in front of Hamen-babu's shop. I can take pleasure in the sounds of the singing bowl I strike to start my writing, and the way those sounds make new sounds when they meet the noises rising off the street and up to my window. I can trade curries and dal with the woman next door, share wedding fotos with the women at the tailor shop who are very happy to know that I am a respectable married woman. I can make the men at Krishna Sweets laugh by mispronouncing the word for fourteen in such a way that it means something VERY obscene and blushing like mad (damn that Irish blood!). I can take satisfaction in the bounty of banana blossoms and tomatoes and peppers and ginger and garlic and guavas and bananas, and in the bounty of all of the people coming together around that decadence.

But there are other days. Days when I'm too tired and frustrated to contextualize and relativize and culturalize. When I don't want to soften confrontations--I want to take them by the throat and shake them into submission. I want to slap the men staring at me and muttering to each other as I pass by. I don't want anyone to touch me, even if it's by accident. I want the swarm of ants to get the hell out of my kitchen. I don't want to hear how flexible I need to be, how respectful I need to be, how patient and demure I need to be.

But in a country of over a billion people, in a city of at least 16 million and countless numbers of other noise-making beings and machines, I can't stop the dog who repeats the same shrill shrieks for hours or the Tata bus that just barely misses running me over. I can't clean the air and empty the sidewalks and disappear the trash and the urine covered walls.

So, I can make a choice. I can seeth about my hacking cough, my black nostrils, those DAMN ANTS. Or, I can laugh at the way I have to walk in the street instead of on the sidwalk--which is overrun by people selling, selling, selling and buying, buying, buying. I can let Mala cover me with purple and gold and hug me around the waist as she shows me off to our neighbors. We can play futbol in the street with a very enthusiastic young Indian man while it rains. I can proudly construct a semblance of a sentence in Bengali and receive huge grins in return. I can wander through St. Paul's Cathedral with a friend and meet four young Indian women who smile brilliantly while the most confident one tells us: "You are so beautiful, that if I were a boy, I'd run away with you." (They even complimented my shaved head:-) I can find some words which make so much sense here:

"I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and there also thou abidest...When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many." --Rabindranath Tagore

"Here Amen/must be said/this crowning of words/which moves into hiding/and/peace"
--Nelly Sachs (trs. Ruth and Matthew Mead)

Paz y Amor,
J&J

A Neighborhood Tour

.We've nicknamed this man "The Blue Door Guy" for the shocking blue door of his shop, which is a gold mine of goodies. He climbs over tumbled boxes and piles of burlap bags to pull out everything from turmeric to garlic to sugar to ginger biscuits. It's like magic.
This is where all the action, and I'm betting all the gossip, happens--the veggie vendor.
Every morning, the fish merchants set up a few blocks away. Fish is hugely popular in West Bengal, and they do good business before it gets too hot to have fish out on the sidewalks.
One of the fish merchants doing his thang, with a really impressive blade.
This man with the great safari hat runs the Mother Dairy shop around the corner.

Trash collectors (who are always Untouchables) use these carts to do their work. People usually leave their trash in piles on somewhat designated corners (and occasionally in bins), the trash collectors pick it up, sort through it to take out anything they can bring to the merchants who buy back paper and glass and plastic, and take the rest of it to....we don't really know where, but somewhere else. Leftover from the British Empire, crumbling Victorian buildings are scattered throughout Kolkata. This one is just a few blocks over and it blows our minds to think about how decadent and opulent they must have been a hundred years ago.
It's hard to see in this foto, but the blooms on this tree are an incredible red and they are also the size of my fist. Their time is coming to an end and the sidewalks are carpeted with their crushed petals.
Some sort of beautifully palmed tree holding court on the corner of our street.
Josh let himself get a bit Holi-ed...
I got seriously Holi-ed.
Mala brought Holi to us and proudly showed us (her handiwork:-) off to everyone in the building and her friends on the streets.
Some of our neighbors basking in the glow of Holi, a spring festival, which comes with bhang lassis (weed milkshakes) and a rage of colors that people toss, squirt and dump on one another. l They're laying on top of the local vegetable stand which is packed up during the heat of the day and set up again when evening comes with some coolness.
Some Bengali graffiti. Josh and I are learning how to read this script, but we're still at the stage where we can recognize sounds but have NO idea what words they make.
I think, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, that this is a banyan tree. They are an amazing presence on the streets of this city--wildly and exuberantly growing things.
One of the dozens of temples and shrines tucked into the side streets of our neighborhood. I dare someone to take on the challenge of counting ALL of the places to offer prayers within the labyrinth of Kolkata.


We're off to Bangla class but as always, send you all lots of peace and love from India.
J&J

P.S. We've begun uploading ALL of our fotos from our travels to a flickr site...it's a bit easier to manage then trying to get them all up on this blog and you can browse at your leisure:-) just click here It's a work in progress (aren't we all?) but hopefully you'll enjoy it.