You should see The Namesake

By which I mean to say...

Yeah, the computer died as it was attempting to post that last entry: I guess it was just too heavy and poetical for the poor beast! Don't worry, y'all, you just missed a rant about being a white woman in India, plus an exploration of the different manifestations of unity. I don't really have the heart to repeat it now, ask me if you're interested.
But after the computer died, and Emma and I were going to leave, the guy who ran the place said, "Oh no, don't leave now, a boy was just killed by hooligans and it's not safe downstairs." Oh boy. So we sat for awhile and drank tea that they were nice enough to serve us, and after about half an hour we got the all-okay and left. So yeah, that was interesting. And don't worry, once again this doesn't mean that Calcutta is unsafe or anything. It's just not quite as safe as Swat, perhaps. And last night I went to a dinner party with lots of awesome people, hosted by this wonderful crazy Dutch lady writer who's in my Bengali class and her husband, who's Bengali: she's the type who's probably in her mid 60's, but acts like she's 20 and has only laugh lines. They're a really cool couple: as we were looking at their wedding pictures from a few months ago, his comment was, "After 10 years we decided to make each other honest!" Sooo cute! The food was AMAZING Bengali cuisine, and since the entire company consisted of artists or students, we had some very interesting discussions about teaching and gurus, and some extremely offensive (and therefore hilarious, of course) joke-telling, as well as the Americans among us indulging in some sarcastic humor, which simply does not exist here: people don't understand it! Of course, it went late, as these things do, and I definitely didn't get enough sleep before mime class, the highlight of which was a test consisting of "show us cricket:" gulp! Thankfully, as I know next to nothing about cricket I got permission to do baseball instead. I'm sure that due to my ever-so-poor interpretation the class was just as confused about our sport as I am about theirs, but that's okay. Who actually understand sports, anyway? :P
By the way, I've been here for two and a half months!!! Craziness, eh?

It's getting hot in here!!!!!!!!

Confession

So I've become a serial killer. Yes, that's right, that's what happens when you send a mild-mannered girl like me to Kolkata. Every day I walk the streets, searching for my next victims: I seize them two or three at a time, stuff them in plastic bags, bring them home, tear off their skins and devour their flesh. Mmmm.... so good!
In case you're actually worried (hopefully no one is), the names of my victims are chikku, orange, mango, banana, guava, etc. There really is nothing like an Indian mango: I had my first yesterday, and it was akin to a religious experience!!! My favorite new fruit is chikku, which looks like a globular hairless kiwi on the outside, and like it's rotted on the inside. But it tastes sooo sweet, and even obligingly separates itself into sections at the slightest touch.
Oh, and the other day I was walking down the street when I saw a fluffy white dog sporting a black bindi in the middle of its forehead... so amazing.
Okay, I'm off to commit more murders. Muahahahaha....

Strike up the Bandh!

Ha ha ha... wow, I crack myself up. Just so you know why that's funny, here in West Bengal there's this phenomenon called a bandh, which is basically a general strike called whenever something happens that someone wants to protest. In this case, a controversial show of police force in a village called Nandigram (there have been land disputes for awhile, what with the government wanting to seize farmers' land to build a small-car factory and the farmers, understandably, not wanting their land to be seized) resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people when police advanced on protestors and fired, not tear gas or pressurized water (both of which were options), but bullets at point blank range. Needness to say, many people don't like this. So yesterday everything (and I mean everything!) was shut down, and I didn't even leave the Mission all day, since everyone there said it wouldn't be safe to go out (just during the bandh, of course). And indeed, from my window I saw many people marching with flags and yelling anti-government slogans, and apparently something like 100 buses were destroyed and there might have been a bomb at one of the railway stations. Oy vey. But don't worry everyone, this doesn't mean I'm in any danger. Bandhs are very self-contained, and anyway they're mostly an excuse to have a longer weekend. :p
In other news, I will soon have my very own Kathak music recording to perform to, which makes me think that my teacher is preparing me to perform before I leave... gulp! The more I learn of Kathak, the more it becomes apparent to me how much more practice I need. I hope everyone is well, enjoy your cool weather if you have it because I'm pretty much dreaming of low temperatures all the time now. :)

It's all about Tagore

So much craziness in so little time, I think this merits bullet-point format:
Things I have done in the past week:
-Ridden on the back of a motorcycle for the first time: sooooo scary and fun!
-Successfully completed 45 Kathak turns: oh yeah!
-Found out that, yes, I will be teaching an aerials class to students who already know lots and whose language I don't speak. *gulp*
-Experienced the Indian railway system twice, once in luxury and once in: well, not-so-luxury.
-Stayed in a room about half as big as a Willets double with two other people and a 5-inch long lizard.
-Been COVERED with colored powder by total strangers: don't worry, there are pictures.
-Seen monkeys as big as humans just running around randomly!
-After being introduced to the Bengali specialty the "roll" (greasy bread wrapped around something, like chicken, mutton, egg, paneer...), eating one at almost every meal for three days.
-Visited all six (one for each season) of Rabindranath Tagore's houses.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but yeah, wow, that was a good trip. We went to Santiniketan, by the way, which is where the Poet (yeah, that's what they call him here) lived, for Holi. So much craziness, and I'm really glad to be home!