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.... read more

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 University here. As we say on the left coast, hella cool.... read more

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 melanin-deficient male dancer from the United States, I busted some moves. I attempted to fuse the Hindu style with some neo-hippy arm movements and Sufi-like twirling. Last night, delicious spiced rice dishes were served on leaf-plates from ... read more

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.... read more

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 was also curious as to where the man had received his many scars, where he was from, if he had siblings or children, why and when and where he had turned to the bottle to ... read more

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 stories, ramble about my various theories. 9PM- Midnight Quiet socializing at my guest house. Midnight To bed. 1 AM To sleep. It's been Seattle weather the last two days here. Steady light rain and cool. ... read more

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 month in Kolkata and then make my way southwards to Tamil Nadu and Kerala.... read more

I have wondered about the wisdom of blogging about the following. It is a bit of a scary story. However, I believe it may be useful to fellow travelers on this Spaceship Earth. I have mentioned before how, in September, I accidentally broke a strike against the Beijing Olympics in the Majnu ka Tila Tibetan refugee colony in Delhi. In their culture as traditional mountain folk, the guest house could not refuse me entry after I arrived off of the street and asked for a room. The three young, stout men working there seemed happy to have an opportunity to practice English, but the old man in charge (who came by that first evening) was visibly, but not verbally, irate. Around two in the afternoon the following day, I left my room to watch some TV ... read more

The evening before last, I met an Irish friend at a restaurant on top of the hotel. At the gathering, there were three other Americans and about a dozen Irish citizens. It was the most Irish gathered in Kolkata (I reminded them) since the great rebellion of 1908-1909, when fourteen Irish revolutionary conspirators who were forced to flee from Gallway to Kolkata disguised as Spanish sailors. Their plot to assassinate an English general was betrayed by a drunken Frenchman. The rebels then met up with twenty three Bengalis and Biharis struggling for the freedom of their homeland. The Irish and Bengali Brotherhood Revolutionary Army was "politically active" in Bengal for seven months. However, when their hideout in the outskirts of Howrah was discovered by the authorities, only seven made it out alive into the Himalayas. There ... read more

A few days ago I was wandering around central Kolkata in the evening (probably around eight or so). I got turned around a bit and was walking near the Writer's Building when I noticed a man (very strong arms) and a woman (older, somewhere between 40-60 most probably) sitting by their tent on the sidewalk on a mat. The man was smoking a cigarette, and the woman was smoking a biddi. Whenever one sees a woman smoking tobacco in traditional clothing, one can be just about positive that she is an Adivasi . The Forest Dwellers do not have the same taboo against tamak common to mainstream Hinduism. They smiled at me, and I gave a folded-palms nomashkar , at which point the man motioned for me to sit down on their mat. After removing my ... read more