It's been awhile since my last entry. Apologies to my loyal readers, I have been rather distracted by the love and madness and friendship I have found in the City of Joy. One must be careful here what they call people that they interact with. For a couple of days, I was referring to the man who runs my favorite internet hub as daddu. He seemed a little put off by it, and after about half a week asked me if I knew what the word meant. As it turns out, what I wanted to say was daddah, and I was [View Full Entry]

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Alright, time for some self indlugence, keeping with the theme of music. A few times I've had problems going to sleep. Thinking too much is the curse of humanity. So I wrote some songs. Anyone is encouraged to figure out their own preferred melodies and chords. To my generation of "middle-class" Westerners: Well you drank too much vodka 'cuz you got it for free Now you're naceous and thirsty with a fresh STD.... While people chew bark 'cuz there's no food to see So really your problems don't matter There's a child parapalegic who's covered in lice And folks way up [View Full Entry]

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Basavanna Vacana 820 The rich will make temples for Siva. What shall I, a poor man, do? My legs are pillars, the body the shrine, the head a cupola of gold. Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers, things standing shall fall, but the moving ever shall stay. I love Kolkata. It is a magical city, a refuge for millions, a veritable mixed vegetable koorma of belief and language and genetics. However, it is time to move on. I need to mentally digest some of the things I have seen and done and heard and smelled in this rather humanly intense [View Full Entry]

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I woke up at 5:20AM to go to a party hosted by the American Consulate. Free food and coffee, and live election results. Didn't find out about Obama's victory until after I came back from volunteering. I hope President Obama can live up to half the expectations the world seems to have. Naturally, the free food was overexploited by myself and some Seattle U students. I also swiped about a dozen unwanted McCain/Palin buttons, to be given away to random people in need on the streets of Kolkata. Still rockin' my Ron Paul bling. [View Full Entry]

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10,416 rs. Most expensive day= October 29 (691 rs) Least expensive day= October 18 (206 rs) Been spending a bit too much for my taste. I suppose it has been holiday season though, and I'm paying fifty rupees a day more for the best single room on the second floor of my guest house. A quick word on languages: In the last week I have heard conversations in Hindi, English, Bengali, Spanish, Italian, French, German, some sort of Nigerian language and Nepalese. I have participated in conversations in English, Bengali, Spanish, and Northwestern. There are some students from Seattle U [View Full Entry]

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The celebration of Halloween is, in the Celtic tradition, the one night of the year when the worlds of the living and the dead become one. Kali Puja, a three day festival that overlaps with Halloween, acknowledges the destructive power of the deva of death. Mexico's Dia de los Muertos predates contact with Spain. We are all just cousins. At harvest time, our thoughts turn to the cycle of death and rebirth. For three days almost every block had Hindustani, American, and fusion music blasting next to their statues of Kali. Seeing as I am the best nonprofessional heterosexual [View Full Entry]

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There is music, dancing and lights everywhere. People are happy; there was a good harvest this year. Rains and soil fertility are unaffected by the madness of the world financial system. Two and a half words on the Kolkata public bus system: It's great. [View Full Entry]

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Two days ago I was with a man when he left his body. An Indian worker and I were washing him. He had been softy crying and going fetal, and was very squirmy while being soaped up. I kept telling him ekkane nirapad, ekkane khanna, aum shanti shanti aum (he was almost certainly a Hindu). While I was washing him, I was wondering if sick/senile/confused people in Prem Dan sometimes think that perhaps they have already crossed over. Depending on one's attitude, it is a place that could be interpreted as either a higher or a lower plane of existence. I [View Full Entry]

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6:40 AM Dress self (I now have three lungis and three headscarves) and ready backpack. 6:50AM Pay for the roof over my head. 7:05 AM Free chai, kole aur roti (if I am lucky and not too late) at Motherhouse. 8AM- Noon Feed people, carry people, talk to people. 12:45 Egg chow mein extra spicy to which I add peanuts. 1:45-3ish Siesta. 3 PM- 9 PM Read, go on a walk, practice Bengali, drink chai, eat street food and/or Punjabi food, play clarinet, try to impress bideshee notun with my knowledge of Kolkata and language skills, use the internet, swap travel [View Full Entry]

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Hard to believe its been more than a month since fall equinox when it is 32 degrees celsius in the midway heat (thats roughly 89.6 for my fellow countrymen) and the sun rises sometime around six in the morning. I have three lungis now, the heat barely phases me. It helps too to think about it as in the thirties instead of the eightees. I feel maybe a bit too much pride occasionally taking the newbies on walking tours of Kolkata. Been eating lots of badam, dahi aur dim . The plan at the moment is to spend approximately one more [View Full Entry]

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