Snakes & Ladders

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So, August. Well that was that I guess; we’re a few bombs, an impeachment and an Olympics Games ‘richer’, but here in Thakurpukur, the world is a little less hard-nosed and really there is thankfully very little drama to talk about. I guess there comes a point, and indeed that point has come, when things become very ‘everyday’. I suppose what I’m saying is that what follows is very likely to be a bit ‘dear diary’ and somewhat lacking in revolution, but I’m hoping I’ll be forgiven.

For a couple of reasons, this month has absolutely raced by; we’ve had loads of guests staying with us in Kolkata, and also I’ve been chocker busy at work - for a refreshing change. Look at me referring to Rosalyn and I as ‘we’ as if we were a married couple; it’s an unavoidable habit when you spend nearly all our waking hours with someone.

Kolkata is a pretty advantageous place to be as a VSO in many ways. As most VSOs are based in the North East region, Kolkata is generally their transport hub when traveling further a field, this means we get loads of visitors on the way to and fro, but I’m pleased to say that we also warrant the odd visitor or two in our own right. At any one time there are numerous volunteers traveling around the country for whatever reason and we’re always happy to be a stop-off point. I certainly am, because it’s usually Rose that does all the hosting and hard work as her flat is way more comfortable than mine. It’s so good to hear about other people’s adventures and indeed have a face to face catch up about the joys and woes of VSO-living. One of the joys of coming to Kolkata for many of the VSOs is that in the centre of the city they can find untold culinary treasures; things that just aren’t available in the boonies. I’d heard on the grape vine that somewhere Kolkata had a proper Italian restaurant. Indians tend to like their foreign cuisine tweaked a little to suit their spicy pallet, and curried lasagne and curried pizza just don’t do it for me, so when I heard about this restaurant it was worth the search. We walked over an hour with our first set of guests searching for this place and then half an hour waiting for a table - every minute was very well spent! We’ve taken all our guests there every since. Not only do they have thin crust pizzas, they also, have capers, olives, a variety of cheeses, proper wine and even pesto!!! My goodness, it was hard to contain the joy. There was very little conversation at the dinner table as we devoured what was easily the best tasting food in the world ever.

VSO India is currently massively increasing the size of its programmes and so new volunteers are now flooding into the country. This is great in theory, but you do worry whether their placements have been considered with due care and indeed whether the staff have the capacity to support three times more volunteers than they’ve ever had before - only time will tell I guess.

On the theme of fabulous food, though in a very different league to the Italian, we now have a new eatery in our little enclave. When I say eatery, I’m not quite what you’ll be imagining, but it’s not that. It’s basically a couple of benches in a porch; the guy prepares the chowmein on a hot plate at the front and his wife makes samosas and fulory (deep fried ground chick pea) in some undisclosed location at the back. What the menu lacks in variety, it makes up for in quality. The chowmein is amazing and costs 12p. The fulories are pretty plain, but great dipped in mustard and are only 1p each. Hurrah! I’ve become a regular; I love sitting there watching the world go by. The couple who work there are so lovely, they always make a special effort to make my food lovely and give me big portions, they even wash their hands before making it! It is a particular pleasure of the Woman (who’s name I really must try and remember) to check out my Bengali by throwing random phrases at me. If I answer back in Bengali, they both burst into laughter. What it is to bring joy into people’s lives! They always return the favour each time I walk past their little shop as they beam a massive smile and wave at me, it’s just what I need on the way home from work. Bless them.

After a couple of weekends hosting and being sociable, we finally got to go away on our own holiday (together of course!). We went over freedom weekend (the one around Independence Day) with the aim of searching out countryside, peace and not a lot else, and we nearly found all three. We ended up in Shantiniketan which is 3-5 hours north, depending on which train you get. It had been sold to us by friends and colleagues as ‘the most Bengali of Bengali towns’. Not being one to doubt local wisdom, we booked ourselves in for 2 nights. Of course we should have known that being especially Bengali, roughly equates to having a large Tagore influence. In West Bengal, Tagore is hero-worshipped and celebrated at any opportunity. He seems to have become ingrained in the Bengali psyche. I’m afraid I can’t spell his first names. For those, who like me, had never heard of Tagore (shhhh! don’t tell anyone), he was a writer, a poet, a composer, a philosopher, a philanthropist and all round good-egg! Oh, and a Bengali one at that. Clearly he was also rich, which kind of helps! And he was one of Gandhi’s mates, but anyway, enough of the cynicism. His stories, poems and songs seem pretty inaccessible to the likes of me I’m afraid, but I have to say that he certainly had a few good ideas tucked away under that barnet of his (he looked like the grey wizard bloke from lord of the rings). One of his things was the founding of a model community, indeed it started as a school at which the pupils were taught about Internationalism, they were taught to think outside themselves and they were also taught to value Bengali culture, the idea being that his school would become a portal for West Bengal’s interaction with the world. Somewhat remarkably it seems to have done exactly that; a university has grown around the school which specializes in performing arts and International relations and is apparently populated by many International students. The curriculum for the new school was written from scratch by Tagore himself as in parts is still used today. Much of that curriculum is also now in the national schools syllabus. Tagore’s basic theory of learning is another lasting legacy. He believed that pupils should not be constricted by classrooms and that they should have an appreciation of the world around them and the nurturing value of nature; thus all of his lessons were given outside under a Banyan tree, a practice that continues today at both the school and University, though I’m not sure it has to be a Banyan tree, which is good as they’re not very comfortable to sit under! Tagore sited his school in Shantiniketan because of its rurality, so the other part of his plan was to do something to involve and benefit the local villagers. He set up a research centre into agricultural techniques and a training programme to disseminate his findings to the surrounding villages. So, all of this is great, good old Tagore. Sadly however, this isn’t enough to warrant a visit to Shantiniketan; clearly a few trees and some plastic tunnels are all well and good, but they don’t make a tourist attraction, not that you’ll get any Bengali to agree with that. Indeed, so desperate is the place for focal points, they’ve even encased Tagore’s car in a garage as a tourist draw - I don’t get it myself. Anyway, the getting-away-from-it-all thing worked out beautifully and the lack of attractions as such really wasn’t an issue, though upon our return to work, our colleague who studied at the University was a little disappointed in our lack of dedication to the Tagore cause.

Last week I finally got to see some of my work come to fruition, though sadly it didn’t turn out quite as planned. I had written a 2-day training course for the general members of our district networks and had also expected to deliver it. I spent ages learning about the cultural nuances and expectations of the participants and then I was told that we couldn’t afford an interpreter. I wasn’t prepared to deliver it with one of my colleagues pseudo-interpreting as I’ve already learnt from experience that messages are not expressed clearly in this way and to create mis-information would be so much worse than doing nothing at all. Instead then, we commissioned numerous staff from another local HIV NGO to deliver it for us; why that’s not more expensive than an interpreter I don’t know. Anyway, I met with the facilitators to explain our needs as an organisation and also the participants’ individual needs and all looked rosy. On the training days however, it seems that they had forgotten our conversation as what was produced was a generic basic HIV awareness course which wasn’t even good. There were good bits, but it wasn’t inclusive and it really wasn’t up-to-date, the second day wasn’t even participative. I got so frustrated that all the work I put in led to so little. The two-days included absolutely no work on taking the information and disseminating it to other network members which was our second key objective. For me this experience is a pretty clear illustration of why my placement is fruitless. The skills I have can not be used directly here and are not valued enough to be passed to others. The idea that facilitation and training are professional skills is mocked somewhat as everyone here is up for ‘giving it a go’ and that seems to be just fine. Anyway, in the end I did deliver one of the sessions on the first day as they couldn’t find anyone else who understood the basic biology of HIV. The person interpreting was a medical student (who I guess hadn’t reached that bit in her studies yet) and so it actually went pretty well. I enjoyed it a lot as of course delivering training is why I originally came and despite endless effort, this was only the second time that I’d succeeded in doing so. Ultimately for the participants, training sessions are seen as a jolly. There are often residential as this one was, so they get to stay in an AC (air-conditioned) room and eat posh healthy food and they even get a few goodies such as a notebook, pen and folder. This may seem like trivial information, but believe me, these things are absolutely the point of attending any training session. If they happen to learn something as a by-product then all-the-better. We actually had an interesting moment on the second morning. We arrived in the training room and settled down, then just as we were about to start, the light switches began to spark. Most people instantly got up and ran out. I personal felt this was a little over dramatic, but was certainly concerned. Two minutes later when smoke began billowing and the sparks were very much loader and more frequent I decided that just maybe I needed to pay heed to local knowledge and experience of electrical wiring! As I was shepherding everyone away from the drama that was unfolding (everything is a spectator sport here!), my colleague tried to persuade us that we should move to the training room directly above ours and start again! After a few seconds of chuckling, I realised he was serious and then proactively ignored everything he said for the rest of the day. Anyway, no harm was done in the end. The thing is that as you flick any switch in India, it will almost always spark and so now of course I’m super paranoid.

Who needs action when you can sit and moan about the lack of it? Bless our board members, they are crap. At the moment, one of them has obviously read something from a donor agency that contains long words that got them very excited. Every conversation now has to contain some contemporary development concept, in name if not in substance. A current favourite is IGPs - Income Generating Projects. Of course a great idea; to empower people to support themselves and meet their own needs. Lovely, would be much lovelier though if we actually initiated any! But anyway, my lack of conviction at work often leads me to day dreaming and recently I’ve been thinking about the travelling I’ll be doing after my time here is up. I was thinking that maybe I should start an IGP to fund my trip and then it can be a model for BNP+ to follow. My first thought was ‘Mosi-world’; turn my flat into the ultimate mosquitoes experience, its all there, all I need is a ticket booth. Then I hit on the master plan; open my flat up to biology research students as a laboratory of mould habitats. I’m currently harbouring an impressive variety of mould species that are spreading with impressive fecundity and each of which seems to inhabit a different realm of my world. There’s the brown dusty one on, and probably in, my laptop; the white fluffy one all over all of my clothes; the grey powdery one that has engulfed my walking boots; and the black sludgy one that adorns my outdoor spaces. Then, in case they need a baseline study, they can use the ever pervasive and disappointingly normal damp which is the suffocating organism that I find in just about everything else! I’ll just sit back and watch the money role in. Or I could snap out of it and get on with some work.

On the theme of theme parks, so to speak, which I was, loosely, Yesterday Rose and I ventured over to Salt Lake. It’s a soon-to-be spangly new enclave in East Kolkata where they have allsorts of incongruous things. We visited two of them. We started at Nicco Park which is very much your typical theme park and is thus very much atypical of Kolkata. It was however devoid of the expected tourists and in fact it was middle-class Bengali heaven. For us, it was less great, but amazingly funny. The rides were mostly tame and generally pretty dangerous looking, but we carefully selected a few and then let our hair down. I have to say the Roller-coaster looked amazing, but was not in operation. Otherwise, the rides were amusing only because of the joy others got from them, despite the fact that they were generally pretty dire. The only other exception was a very groovy drop-slide which you navigated in pairs perched upon an inflatable tube. On this ride we laughed very much and had a great old time. It alone was worth the entrance (all 60p of it!). I did get carpet burns at the bottom though, but nothing a little Nivea won’t fix! After our brief outing at Nicco Park, we went to cool off at Aquatica; a water-theme park which, although situated not far down the road, was an utter nightmare to get to… but anyway, you’ve had enough of my transport angsts. Aquatica is a whole different kettle of fish from the other park. Out with the families, in with the young and rutting males! Poor old Rose had a hell of a time. It seems Aquatica is where teenage boys come to ogle and courting couples come to get busy away from their parents’ disapproving eyes. The testosterone fuelled boys were strutting in their little white singlets trying desperately to show off what barely passed for definition in their muscles and almost literally prowling the area in search of females, any females. Poor Rose ended up with swarms of them clinging to her wake and slipping up on their own bile and they drooled their way to dehydration. At one point there was some decidedly pack-mentality behaviour as a whole row of them advanced towards her whooping and hollering with animalistic fervor. Thankfully, the couples weren’t quite so invasive, but were really not what you want to see in a swimming pool. Our options then for places away from such freakishness and tomfoolery were limited to say the least, but it was a big place and actually messy sexual tension aside, was really surprisingly good. We ended up having a really good time. There were loads of slides, chutes and wave pools and the usual malarkey. Really it was about regressing to our childhoods and absolutely abandoning thoughts of our day-to-day lives. It actually made me realize how lucky we are to be in Kolkata, despite its downfalls, the city does host a huge variety of stuff to do and so given some money and time, which are not always available, we can at least escape and indeed rejuvenate.

So I’m hearing a lot from you all about the weather in the UK, it seems to be all over the place. I had the impression that you were actually having a decent, if slightly delayed summer this year, but it seems maybe that was speaking too soon? Here, nothing changes. It’s still Monsoon, it’s still hot and it’s still sticky, though slightly less so than during summer. Unfortunately, Monsoon hasn’t been nearly as exciting as I thought it might be. I was really hoping for dramatic weather and beautiful storms. The few storms I described to you some months ago, were amazing, but they were the very few ‘pre-Monsoon storms’ and since then nothing. Don’t get me wrong, there’s major rain and more than the occasional storm, but nothing extreme, passionate or even just beautiful. What we are getting is a lot of is the resultant power-cuts. The Grid can’t cope with the increased usage from fans and AC units and so everyday there is a power-cut, the only surprises are what time and for how long. With any luck they occur during work time, but invariably the pitch blackness descends just as I’m in the middle of cooking my meal, or sat on the toilet or have just spilled yoghurt all over the floor. It’s amazing how adept you become at knowing exactly where everything else is in your flat in relation to each other. After caressing the walls around to where I keep my head torch, I actually quite enjoy most of the power cuts - though it depends what mood I’m in. Really, as soon as the fans stop, your only priority is to seek coolness in any way possible. All things being equal, I’ll have a cold bucket bath by torch light, climb under my mosquito net and lay very still reading a book and trying to forget that my blood feels like its boiling. The incandescence of my body at such moments is surprisingly not sufficient for lighting my book, so hurrah for head-torches; definitely my most valuable possession here.

I must tell you, I’ve actually come across a woman more bonkers than my landlady. You can be gaily going about your day without a care in the world (if you’re lucky) when the harridan-from-hell suddenly shows up at the office door and proceeds to spend half an hour or so espousing the most foul language imaginable with vitriolic passion and at lung-bursting volume. Clearly she’s utterly mad. She doesn’t actually direct her thoughts at anyone, just randomly into the ether at immense volume, to such a degree that it is impossible to ignore. Telling her to go away has proved fruitless, so now we all just sit and laugh at her. I know, it’s a shocker thing to do, really she needs help, but the help just isn’t there and actually, there’s no denying that it’s bloody funny! I’m pleased to say that my Bengali hasn’t degenerated enough that I can understand her rantings, but one of my colleagues delights in relaying the salacious details.

So with reference to my last blog, I’ve since come across some better examples of Indian English that I thought you might enjoy. This first one is from a very formal letter inviting dignitaries to an organisational birthday; ‘we heartily expect your glorious presences on that occasion and your golden blessings, which will enrich us, is highly solicited’. This second example is the opening line of many everyday correspondences; ‘Esteemed sir, with high reverence, I would like to beam on an aforesaid matter’. Got to love that!

So last weekend was festival-tastic. Independence Day on Friday was basically a good excuse for a day off work, but there was also a little bit of flag waving and such. Saturday was called ‘Rakhi’ which is traditionally a day in which women get to give their brothers a braclet to show them how much they love them. Yikes! Thankfully, in Bengal at least, this has now become a free-for-all in which anyone who likes anyone for any reason can give them one of these bracelets and may even get one in return. Sunday was another festival, but I’m afraid they’re all merging in my mind and I can’t remember what it was called. It’s a Muslim day on which they stay up all night, visit burial grounds and eat lots of halva; happily, they also like to share lots of halva! It’s about celebrating the cycle of life and death. I’m told it’s always 15 days from the start of Ramadan (the month of fasting) so I guess that starts next weekend. What I didn’t know about Ramadan is that apparently it is written into the scriptures that people who are old, very young, ill or otherwise infirm (whatever that means) are allowed to be slightly less strict with themselves. It seems there is a very sensible rating system of just how abstinent you are expected to be. Once established however, you are absolutely expected to stick to it. I’m told you get double the benefit from any religious observance carried out in this period so it is deemed extraordinarily important.

I’ve now spent 4 months in Kolkata bemoaning the lack of extra curricula activities in Thakurpukur, only to find three new things on my doorstep this week. Finally, I have found a gym; I’m now told that apparently there are loads in my area, how gracious of people to tell me now that I’ve found one and have been asking them for months! Anyway, this gym I’m told is relatively large for the area. It is in fact someone’s lounge and the adjoining corridor - quite literally! The room has been gutted and into it, 4 or 5 machines have been placed and a little area for the weights was marked out in chalk. As I entered this tiny concrete box of a room, I was ‘welcomed’ by the eight or so patrons with a particularly synchronistic example of the ‘pivot, drop-jaw and stare’ manoeuvre that people round here do so well. It didn’t take me too long to realise that I wouldn’t become a regular user of the facility however keen I am to do so. Gyms are terrifying enough, let alone being scrutinized with each every blink. To be fair, the machines were in such a condition and so unsafe looking that I’m unsure I would have returned anyway. Today we went to check out the other two new options for evening joy. First we went to the Yoga Centre which is only 15 minutes bus away, but I decided it was way too serious for my liking and then went to the ashram over the road. I’ve been keen to go to an Ashram since I arrived, just to get the feel of one if nothing else. What I hadn’t realised however, is that ‘ashram’ is a non-denominational term. I really thought they were exclusively about Buddhist retreats and meditation. Oh no, ours is a Jesuit nunnery, and every other faith seems to have their own version. It seems ‘ashram’ is a place for religious learning in a very generic sense and not just for Hindus as my dictionary professes. Anyway, needless-to-say, that too is off my list. Basically then, I didn’t have much luck checking out new exciting stuff, but I still have the cinema so all is not lost. This week we saw a Hindi rom-com, probably not our best choice, but entertainment of sorts nevertheless. The movie had a completely incomprehensible name, so I won’t even bother! I hear that the Mama Mia movie is out in the UK? Is it fabulously awful? I’m hoping it’ll be on the plane on the way home. While we’re on random popular culture; the Indian version of Big Brother has just begun it’s second series and included in the housemates is Jade Goodey. I tell you this because Shilpa Shetty is hosting the show and so the media are very excited. Clearly no-one here knows anything about Jade Goodey, or rightly cares, but the media are latching on to the race-row thing and desperately trying to generate some venom towards Jade and it seems to be working, all of a sudden the whole country views it as a revenge thing and its all getting out of hand - very messy indeed and sadly unavoidable as conversation here. The one thing I am interesting in on TV is the Olympics, but sadly, as India isn’t so hot at many of the sports we tends to only hear about Badminton and Hockey, with the odd bit of Shooting thrown in. I mention this as I read the medal table last week to see Britain had one medal or something ridiculous like that and then this week we’re Third!!! We now have 17 Gold medals - what happened? (I say ‘we’, but I’m mindful, not all of us are included in that collective pronoun, bare with me). Anyway, it’s all very exciting. If anyone who has a clue, and the inclination, could offer me a brief synopsis of Team GB’s progress that would be most appreciated, cheers. So I’ve managed to drivel on about most forms of entertainment, I may as well continue with a book review. I believe I mentioned some time ago that I was reading Shantaram. I no doubt was singing its praises as the first 300 pages are amazing, but having now finished the other 650 pages! I’m keen to clarify my opinion. Its so disappointing that the protagonist decided to share his intimate knowledge of fighting and weaponry with us, A couple of hundred pages of blood curdling violence tends to turn me off a book - especially disappointing in one which began with such sensually evocation. The author is also so painfully descriptive about every single hip wobble and lash flutter of his latest flame that you long for her to stick her fingers up her nose and scratch her arse! Ooh, that was a bit coarse, sorry Gran! Anyway, ultimately, it’s phenomenally gripping, which is a good job considering its length. In the end, it becomes an oddly captivating journey of endurance that you may not wish to embark upon.

A pretty large part of my mental focus right now is trying to reconcile my legal status here. Last time I went to the registration office I was solemnly directed to the Writers’ Building in town. This is the home of the state’s central government and is basically where all the ultimate decision makers sit, whether they work or not I don’t know, but they definitely sit. With no explanation or reassurance I was packed off in search of someone to help me confirm whether or not I was granted my visa extension. Clearly being sent to the big-wigs felt quite scary as my application didn’t necessarily have to go that high up the hierarchy, but I needn’t have worried, not about that anyway! Entrance to the building was ridiculously cumbersome and bureaucratic, but nothing surprising about that. I then asked someone who I should speak to and where I should go. Why I expected anyone to be able to tell me I don’t know, but anyway. After following some ‘directions’ and those of the subsequent seven or eight people I asked at the various places that the previous person had directed me to, I found myself back the start again! The building is on many floors and consists of many smaller buildings within the main quadrangle. Between the buildings are aerial walkways, fire-escape-esque stairs and innumerable corridors and alleyways. I was literally playing human snakes and ladders. If you can imagine ‘Snakes & Ladders: The Musical’ (yes you can, try harder!) the Writers’ Building would unquestionably be the set. I spent literally over an hour slugging round the same alleyways and stairwells over and over again, huffing at the same old people who were swearing blind they knew where it was I needed to go even though they told me somewhere else last time I asked them. Eventually the resolve that I’d built up over the last 5 months was wiped out from under me and I fell into my very own pit of exasperation and screamed within myself loader than any scream my vocal chords could have mustered. This was the moment I realised the irony of my situation, desperately trying to get someone to agree for me to stay in the country that drives me utterly mad! It was only after quite literally accosting someone to not direct me, but deliver me to the office, that I final got where I needed to be and did the necessary. In theory, I’m legal in the country until the decision about my application for extension has been made. My application it seems is likely to be passed, but is subject to yet more pieces of paper being produced and authenticated. So that’ll be two more visits to the serpent’s lair - lets hope the ladders aren’t burning next time! Oh, and if anyone is interesting in commissioning ‘Snakes & Ladders; The Musical’ - I’m so on to that, and the copyright is mine!

Well, considering I had nothing to write this time, I seem to have successfully used up at least your whole lunch break - sorry! I’ll stop now. Health and happiness to all you lovely people,
Stuart. xx

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Photos

Victoria Memorial
Can't remember if you've seen this one already or not, but its a classic. THE Kolkata tourist attraction.

Main Post Office
Just thought it was nice thats all!

Classic Kolkata
A rainy shot of the cabs in BBD Bagh.

Writers' Building
Don't let the outside fool you. Inside, the song and dance are relentless.

Village Home
Traditional West Bengal mud home. This one is wisely waterproofed for Monsoon with a tarpaulin.

Cow Poo!
This in fact is they way people dry cow-pats so that they can use them as fuel - not just in the villages, but in the city also.

Gratuitous Greenery
Green space is pretty rare in town, so I got very excited in Shantiniketan and lay under this tree for ever, I believe I even had a quick snooze!

Rachel & Jan
Two of my gorgeous VSO friends in Flurry's, an outrageously posh coffee shop in central Kolkata - a bit over-rated if you ask me!

Me!
Very amusing pose during the training course I delivered. Not sure what was so mistifying as it really could have been each and every moment!

Bula Di
This classy gal is the very Bengali mascot of the West Bengal Government HIV Awareness Campaign - I reckon she's pretty great. Apparently soft-toy versions are available, but I'm yet to get my hands on one.

Lunchtime
Whenever we do anything at BNP+, we must always provide lunch as an incentive for people to come along. I really like this photo of the fevour with which lunch is consumed. On degradable plates I'd like to add!

Durga
Behind my home is a makeshift shelter under which loads of craftsmen have been toiling for months to create these phenominal statues in time for October's Durga Puja, the biggest festival in Kolkata's calander. This shot is of Durga before she goes off to be painted. The statues are made from straw.