party time

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How do I get into the last few days? Kolkata has been an absolute zoo of parties and dancing and food. With Durga Pujas here, we have had the whole week off to run around, eat too much, and not go to class or service. The week has really just turned into homework week—we have at least four papers due in less than a month now. The week has also provided us with a much needed brain break, at least from confusing and convoluted lectures at both of our schools.

It started on Saturday night with dinner at “the club” with our host family. Close to our hose there is this park around this lake and Barret and I run there in the mornings when we don’t have service. There is also a rowing club/country club kind of establishment on the lake. Eating out with our family was such a strange transplanted experience—Roxanna, Barret and I were filthy and sweaty from our long day of school and dance practice (more on that later…) and then Uncle Roy shuttled us into the car for this relatively fancy dinner. Not much heads up. Anyway, we sat out on the lawn overlooking this lake and had “hard drinks”, as Uncle Roy put it, and appetizers. It was a truly beautiful night—not too hot, the moon was out and mosquito season is ending. Looking out at the lake with all of the waiters in sailor-like ourfits with very British-Indian hospitality and fare made us confused about just where we were. It looked like we could have been at some yacht club in the keys with a bunch of retired old people. But we were definitely in Kolkata, with, I guess, the elite of the city, out wining and dining before the holiday season. Durga Puja is this crazy religious festival that has turned very commercial and capitalizes on consumers and material sentiment that humans tend to harbor and use as a replacement to genuine feelings of love and joy, much like Christmas in the US. This is not to say that there aren’t elaborate family and neighborhood rituals and rites that go on for the four days of the pujas, but also the holiday culture involves excessive spending, shopping and gift giving—it’s important to have new things and look beautiful—as we found out after the experience of our host sisters smearing make-up all over our faces the other night.

Anyway, I was talking about the temple-idol-house structures that had been popping up all over the city. They’re called pandals and their construction functions kind of through neighborhood associations, like in the US. It’s sort of like - your neighborhood has a committee and all of that, houses probably have to pay dues and such. But for the pujas then there is this pool of money for making the pandal, erecting the deities and decorating everything, and organizing neighborhood lunches and dinners and dances and contests and such. Some pandals are really elaborate and huge and involve carnivals and rides and other booths and people giving away free stuff. We went pandal hopping with our professor, which was an exhausting four hours of life. We drove around Kolkata to the “best” pandals near our house and got to walk around the grounds, see the idols and party with the locals. It sort of felt like we were going to a bunch of county fairs in the middle of a Midwestern summer. But there were no farm animals, cheese curd or deep friend Oreos, or like… funny drinks in those three foot tall glasses with crazy straws. Everything else though felt like we were just in a transplanted youth fair around the 4th of July. There was cotton candy and bad popcorn and ice cream but also drummers and larger than life sized goddesses and everything coated in lights. It felt like Christmas on the 4th of July. Also, because of all of the worship and ritual that goes on all day, incense is burned constantly and these crazy drummers pound on their drums, a custom specific to Durga, every hour starting at about 5 in the morning. So everything is loud and smells kind of like a barbeque. But then again I remember that no, it’s October and I’m in India and no one is grilling corn on the cob, veggie burgers, or serving up baked beans and Oberon.
The next day we ventured our on our own in the night to this pandal that had a carnival attached to it--- all of the rides seemed like standard carnival rides but with little twists of Asia. That lame roller coaster that’s a dragon racing around a circular track with two hills was there, a shady looking Ferris wheel, tilt-a-whirl like rides, etc. The best two things there was this very poorly and unsafely constructed structure where two junker cars and three motorcycles drove up and around these walls—wooden walls—at very high speeds while spectators watched from a platform above. I guess I am doing a bad job at describing this phenomena… it’s like the motorcycles driving around the circular cage thing in movies and cartoons. I guess that kind of daredevil activity exists in reality, but you usually see it in movies. Instead of the men on the motorcycles being in a ball, they were at the bottom of this pit. Ticket holders walked up these rickety stairs and then spread our around this circular platform that looked down into a cylindrical. Hole, I guess? AT the bottom was the cars and motorcycles and crazy men who participated in this unsafe endeavor. The whole time the four of us who decided to climb up the structure and watch this horrifying sight were screaming and afraid the entire platform, pit apparatus was going to collapse under us. Nothing of that sort—the building regulations and soundness of the construction—would have flown even in the creepiest of carnivals in the United States. It was truly amazing.

Other than those highlights, the week has basically been one big party. We had been practicing hard at the mercy of our host sisters and their friends for this big dance we had to perform in our neighborhood’s pandal on Wednesday night. After learning the dance we all were wrapped in our saris and forced to wear sick amounts of black eyeliner, mascara, LIPSTICK and blush. Uncle Roy and our sisters kept on talking about this makeup business during the pujas, and all of the small liberal art students who never wear makeup and burn their bras who are in this IPSL program were really unaware of what we were actually in store for when we put on those saris. I think we were supposed to feel like dignified and elegant women, but we just felt sort of like painted clowns. If there is one thing that was the most culturally shocking about the puja experience, it was this. And I probably don't speak for the majority of the American population—if you look at models and Hollywood and etc, all you see are women decked out unrealistically with fake eyelashes, hair extensions, nails, etc. BUT, It was like being in a person buffet where someone wrapped you, smeared shit on your face, and then made you go sweat, powder and black streaks running down your face. Very weird. I felt the farthest thing from a beautiful picture of femininity. It very well could have been because I was a sweaty pink white person with the wrong body type for carrying so much fabric and eyeliner. Besides all of that, we pulled off our dance without a hitch, no messing up, falling over in our saris, or saris falling off, for that matter. It was very exciting to watch all of the other dances that the neighborhood kids had been working on—even the boys. And all of the adults in the hood were so impressed with our American sari wearing. After the dance, we walked around the market looking for food and still in our outfits and women would come up to us and stop, giggling and telling us that we looked so nice. “Do you like it here in Kolkata?” they’d ask as they grabbed our henna-ed hands and poked at the way our saris were tucked in and folded. “Who taught you how to wear this? What country are you from?” And of course it is hard to escape the stares of Indian men “Yes! Hallo!”

It was probably our most high-profile and uncomfortable night for the eleven of us, at least the women, decked out in Indian clothing, but it was also the most positive experience of all of the high-profile instances we have been in since living here, some of the only Americans in this area of the city. It was hard to remember that this time people aren’t staring at me because I am different or out of place, but because they take pride in our use and admiration of their culture and religion.

Now I have the end of the week ahead of me to run in the morning and write papers all day. I keep on having opposite of déjà vu experiences when I look at my hands and feet, covered in intricate brown designs. I think we are kicking off the day indulging in our weaknesses: we’ve found a restaurant that services “continental” food and I think we’re going to satisfy our pasta cravings. It will probably be Indianized pasta—but pasta nonetheless. The end is getting nearer and nearer—our friends leave Kolkata in about a month and then we do in two. I’m nervous over here waiting for the election in the US to unfold and wishing I could be sitting in my living room yelling at the debates on TV and wanting to vomit form campaign ads. While the phenomenon of Sarah Palin intrigues me, angers me, and makes me want to smack some sense into the American public, I am glad that I don’t have to listen to her …bullshit…(sorry) day in and day out. I guess if her dinosaur partner wins the election because of the delusional majority of US voters, I’ll have to deal with her when I get home, but the least exposure to her inane ideas and lack of experience in doing anything that matters and is right for a country is lessened right now. Oi, Ms. Palin, it is not your fault that McCain is using your for your gender and fundamentalist book-banning ideas as a pseudo-feminist, but it is your fault that you are crazy.

Anyway, the days are getting ticked off here, and I’m getting out of my desperation of missing Michigan. I still await my homecoming, but after this week it should be smooth and quick sailing for us here in Kolkata. I am missing you all like crazy and if you have any good pictures of fall weather or NATURE, something I rarely see, pass it along.

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Comments

[michelle cavera]

hi lisa
just catching up on your India happenings. It sounds like you enjoyed the break from school but not truely a break with all the homework lurking over you. You are missing some awesome colors this past week here. We've had many warm days, loads of ladybugs and mosquitos but now it feels like fall again. You are not missing all the political signs and ads. Only a few more weeks. You cousin Andy and a neighbor discussed the voting of costumes at school and how it was passed on popularity and not the actual costumes. I guess it starts young and continues as you see all the political signs and "popularity" based on race, gender, ages... I tried to emphasize to Andy voting for the right reasons. We are happy that you are going to be home before the holidays but try to make the most of the days you have left there and the difference you are making in the lives of those you need your work. See you in Dec. love Michelle and all the boys Owen is a busy body and you won't be able to catch him. He mostly still asks "whaz-that?" and says HI to everyone. He also let's you know when he wants UP! Check out Mol's carepage for a few new Owen photos from Sept.