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. :)