Two blog posts in two days...ridiculousness. I was supposed to go to Daya Dan this morning, but I slept in. Whoops. It's okay. Going tomorrow. :-)
There's been something I have been trying to articulate since I've been here. And I haven't figured it out until today.
A few days ago, I was talking with a guy from Texas. He asked where I was from, I said Chicago, he asked how long I would be here, I said four months. He said I was practically living here. I said I started living here when I got here.
Today, Matt and I were sitting at a little corner restaurant, discussing that conversation. Matt says that being here does not equal living here. I don't understand the difference. I don't think there is one.
At that cramped little table, I suddenly realized something. This will probably sound arrogant, so let me preface it with a complete discrediting of myself. This isn't something I feel I've accomplished. It's something I feel has been given to me. Here it is (more so, here I am): I'm at a point in my life right now where I feel completely at home with God. And that's it. I love my family, but that's not why I feel at home in Buffalo Grove. I love my friends, but that's not why I feel at home in Bloomington. In Kolkata, I feel home. I felt home in the Delhi airport. I feel home at Daya Dan. I feel home lost in the streets. For awhile now, maybe since Timber-lee, I feel like I've lost my ability to feel displaced. I think this is part of what it means to be at home with the Lord. That phrase is probably supposed to be about heaven, post-death, but I think part of having a relationship with God is experiencing a little heaven on earth. And heaven is home, and heaven is complete closeness with God, and therefore home is complete closeness with God. Which is a little bit of what I'm feeling right now. Not completely, but a little. Like mist before a downpour. Thus, it doesn't matter where I am anymore - as long as God is with me, I am home.
That sounded convoluted, I think. But it's the best way I can explain it without spending hours on the internet rather than out there experiencing a more tangible India.
There are a few more thoughts I want to get on "paper" before I walk around the city. Maybe I'll make my way to Apne Aap today. Might as well.
Okay. Focus, panda.
I realized this morning that I haven't written up any descriptions of India. That's almost tragic. The environment here is so different from anywhere I've ever been (except maybe Ensenada - that's definitely the closest), and I haven't even started to describe it for anyone reading this. So I'll try. In list form.
1. The loudspeaker announcements. Every day, often, there are announcements made over city-wide loudspeakers all over the streets. There are two kinds of announcements: the Muslim call to prayer (4:30 in the morning, and other times during the day) and Communist propaganda. West Bengal is a Communist state (which you can't tell by the way people live - it's a great example of completely failed Communism), so there are people driving around in trucks, fists raised, cheering often. But the announcements. Maybe once an hour? The call to prayer starts with a droning, kind of like the "the aliens are coming" call from War of the Worlds. And then it continues with a chanting, in Bangla or Hindi - I can't yet tell the difference. This happens multiple times a day. The Communist propaganda is more like a man yelling over loudspeaker, again, in either Bangla or Hindi. These often happen late at night, but still, multiple times a day.
2. The catfights. Literally, cats. Fighting. Outside my window. Every night. I've never heard cats fight before. At first, I thought people were beating them, like in Monty Python. But I was mistaken - every night, cats literally battle each other, screeching to the death. It's disturbing.
3. Stray dogs and cats - all over the place. Sometimes kittens, sometimes puppies. Often very old and gaunt, occasionally pick-'em-up-and-cuddle-'em-but-don't-'cause-you'll-get-ringworm cute. So cute. They don't bother anyone, kinda like pigeons in Chicago, but cuter. But they all look sad and lonely. :-(
4. The beggars. There are people begging all over the streets, everywhere. They nab you when you're stopped in traffic in taxis. They grab at your hands, the children grab at your feet while you walk. There are doe-eyed babies, wearing shirts and no pants, carried by different crying, whining women every day. See, most aren't actual beggars. I mean, they are, but they don't need the money. Begging on Sudder street is closer to mafia work than it is real begging. They do it professionally. They rent cute babies from local villages, and pay for their spots on the street. The women latch onto new tourists, hold eye contact, and say "my baby, my baby, please, please" until they get money. The money goes to the leader of the begging group. Then it goes to whoever owns the space in which the people beg. I recently had to roll up a window, almost to a woman's hands. She wouldn't leave - she had been hysterically asking for my granola bar for five minutes, following me down the street to my taxi. I've never felt so conflicted. Of course, I want to give these people money. If they need it, and I have it, I feel I should give it. But I learned this semester that sometimes what people think they need isn't what they really need, and sometimes seeming "help" actually makes things much worse. If these actors / beggars continue being able to support themselves on new, white tourists (the real beggars beg from Indians too), then they'll have no need to learn a trade and support themselves. So I continue to say "ney, ney, cholo, cholo" (no, no, go away, go away) and usually avoid eye contact. I feel like I'm refusing to acknowledge their humanity, but then again, we, the "beggar" and I, both know that it's a game. Convince, get money, pay leader, start again. Return baby at the end of the day. Sleep in the bed they inevitably have. There are different beggars out at night. Beggars wearing real rags, coked out and smelling like human waste. Those are the beggars for whom I can buy a cup of chai.
5. Speaking of games...bartering. Oh man. I love bartering. It's so much fun. Certain things here are set prices - food in restaurants, chips and bottled water at corner stands. Everything else is up for grabs. You're supposed to act mildly interested in what they're selling; that way, the price lowers drastically. Speak Bangla, that lowers it too. Never ask for the price until you're nearly sure you want to buy it. Sit around for awhile, walk away, come back, form a relationship with the vendor. Look through a few different things you might buy, but probably won't, because you're ostensibly "just looking." After you've chosen one that you might, possibly, maybe, if the vendor's lucky, buy, you ask "koto dam" - how much? He says, for example, (this is in Bangla, but I'll write it all in English) 180 rupees. You act shocked, completely taken aback, how dare he? That's an absurd price. You shake your head, furrow your brow, start to walk away. He calls you back, you return unenthusiastically. He lowers the price 10 rupees, 170, 170, just for you, 170. You say 80. Slash it in half, more if you're gutsy and speaking completely in Bangla. He will act offended, but he's really not. Part of the game. He'll tell you about how well crafted the object is (let's say it's a purse), and show you the intricate, hand-done stitching on the side. It's probably machine done, but that doesn't matter, because this entire exchange is full of lies anyway. You say, fine, fine, I see - 95 rupees. This keeps going, back and forth, until you settle on maybe 115, 120. Or at least, that's as far as I usually get. Many people can barter vendors a lot lower, especially if they've been in Kolkata a long time. I'm new here, so I can only barter a little.
6. The mess. Everything here is dirty. The air is dangerously polluted. Obviously, the water is full of bacteria. You can't use straws in restaurants; they're reused and probably never washed, or if they are, it's in water with no soap. The gutters are completely blocked by a mixture of human waste and garbage. People throw their food wrappers and such to the sides of the streets, in which men will later, unhindered, pee. There's seemingly no shame here about male urination. Public urinals are common. There's one right outside my hostel; I walk by it every day. It's not awkward anymore. Women, however, are completely covered. This should be a new topic...
7. Modesty. Women wear salwaar kameez and saris. Interestingly, sari tops are teeny, like sports bras, so when women wear saris their skin shows from below the bra line to their waist, on the side. So one of the few parts Americans don't show, Indians perceive as normal. Oh, and fat is attractive, 'cause it means you're well fed and thus rich. Everything is worn with a pashmina, which is a soft, wide scarf made of thin material. They're worn draped over the chest and neck. Some international women wear jeans and shirts short enough that their butts (covered by pants) show. Then men grab at them in the street, on the metro, on the bus. I've been here long enough that the public will not see my clothing-covered butt until I'm back in the U.S.. It's just awkward. I don't enjoy being stared at and groped. It's salwaar for me.
Okay, that's enough.
And now for a brief, incomplete list of things I don't have here, that I had in the U.S., that I will either appreciate or avoid out of habit when I come back.
1. Hot water. Cold showers are the norm.
2. Toilet seats. Hurray squat pots!
3. Salad. It's washed in bacteria-infested water.
4. Tap water. Hand sanitizer all the way, and bottled water for everything - excluding showering, including teeth brushing.
5. Pie. ...yeah, that's weird, but I'm craving pie.
6. Quiet. There's no quiet.
7. Washing machines. I wash my clothes by hand, in the bathroom, in a bucket, with cold water. And hang 'em on a line in my room. They dry in a day. I'm getting into a habit of washing clothes every night, so there are no dirty clothes in my room, and so there are less clothes hanging on the line at a time. ...'cause I broke the line off the wall last night, and I learned my lesson.
8. The ability to shower in the morning. It's too cold. I shower in the mid-afternoon, when it's the warmest.
9. Indoor heat and air conditioning. The temperature is controlled by the fan and whether the windows are open.
10. ...food. There's no food in my room. I buy all my food right before I eat it. No refrigerator, no pantry. I guess I could store dry food in my room, but I don't want to. Bugs would get it.
11. Clean air.
12. Driving rules...ha.
Wow...if you've read all this, I'm impressed.
Okay, now I'm done.
I don't remember the last time I wrote this much.
Oh, wait. College. Right. That.
Time to sign offline.
Love and traffic jams,
Stephanie
