Kolkata Diary. A Different Way of Living With Animals

It looked like the back end of a rat.  The biggest rat I’ve ever seen.  It was on the balcony outside my hotel room in Udiapur, one morning.  I thought of Minnie and Flo and the pieces of mice, moles and bunnies they leave on the back porch.  This rat looked almost as big a Flo.

I wondered what left it there and thought of the eagle I saw perched on a flag pole outside the roof top restaurant yesterday.  I wondered if the monkeys that I saw the day before ate meat.

When I told the owner of the hotel about it, he joked and asked if I was feeding the rat.  Then he said, “Welcome to India.”

From what I witnessed, there’s a different relationship between animals and people in India than in America.

Their lives are more integrated, more organic.

I didn’t see a lot of cats, but the ones I saw were the kind I wouldn’t want to cuddle with.  They were dirty and beat up looking.  Wild things, sauntering around like tigers on the prowl.

Dogs were everywhere I went.

Not pets.  I only saw one pet dog.  A beagle who lived at the Jaiwana Hotel.

Dogs live among the people.  They have their own lives, go where they want when they want.  They have their territories.  I saw the same dogs every day in the village of Bolpur and in Udiapur.

Dogs roam the streets.  They sleep on the side of the road, scavenge the piles of garbage and run in packs.  Sometimes people throw them scraps to eat.  In the early morning you hear them fighting.

Some were so skinny their bones were showing, others had open sores on their bodies.  But most of the dogs I saw seemed healthy and content.   Roaming the streets, living side by side with people, avoiding cars and motorcycles.  Once I saw a man throw a stick at some dogs hanging around a hotel, to chase them away.  But mostly people seem to ignore them.  Or maybe it’s that they accept them.

The dogs in India have found a way to live with the people there.

And maybe it’s because of the cows.  Because the relationship between dogs and people looks much like the relationship between cows and people.

Although the cows seem even more easy going and relaxed than the dogs.  Nothing seems to rattle them. Certainly not people.  But they also stay calm and go about their business with cars and motorcycles whizzing by them.  They’ll stand confidently in the middle of a busy highway while trucks move around them.

And the grassy medians off the highways, that we mow and maintain in America, are grazed by cows in India.  Because they are seen as sacred, they’re not afraid, they know they’re not in any kind of danger.  So they live harmoniously with people in rural villages and in busy cities.

It’s an amazing thing to witness and be a part of.  Because you can’t help but be a part of it when you’re there.

I know it helped me keep in touch with the natural world, having the dogs and cows walking next to me down the streets in Kolkata.  As if it were the most natural thing in the world.

It wasn’t about petting them, or feeding them, or trying to rescue them.   They didn’t need rescuing.   It was about living along side of them.   And respecting them and their lives for what they are.

When the monkeys ran across the balcony of my hotel one afternoon, the babies hanging off their mothers chests, I was enthralled. Someone had hung the ropes they used to climb to the roof tops.  Their presence wasn’t discouraged, but encouraged.  They had as much a right to be there as I did.

As I left Udiapur for  the airport early Saturday morning, it was still dark.  I saw the cows sleeping together in small herds on the sidewalks.  Dogs found beds in the tuk-tuks ( golf cart like taxis) parked on the side of the road.

I thought of fleas and feces and disease and wondered why I didn’t see more of each.  I imagine if I lived in the slums instead of staying at a nice hotel my experience might be different.  But no one seemed to begrudge the animals their presence.  They are just a natural part of life.

I know seeing them everywhere, walking among them, helped ground me, as nature always does.

Dogs in Udiapur
Monkey on my balcony

 

 

A man with a pig and cow in Bolpur
Woman with donkeys on the side of the highway in Udiapur.  These were the only donkeys I saw.  As often happens with donkeys, they seemed to carry a heavier burden than some of the animals I saw.

Kolkata Diary. What I’m Feeling

I keep trying to think about how I’m feeling.  About my trip, about being home.

But my brain  had gone dull, the synapses not sparking.   My eyes  want to stare into nothingness.  And my body goes from being desperately hungry, like there’s literally a hole in my stomach, to being exhausted.

I wake up early in the morning, when it’s still dark out, thinking of what I still have to do.  Selling the tote bags the girls made at the Women’s Interlink Foundation.   Choosing the organizations to donating the remainder of the money that was given to me for the trip.  Figuring out how to work long term with Soma and the women in her village.  Thinking about how to start working on my own art again.

By the time I get up, feed the animals and eat breakfast, my energy level had evaporated.  Just thinking of placing an order for my Show Your Soul posters makes me want to climb back into bed and pull the blankets over my head.  It just seems too hard to do.

But when I think about the kids in the daycare, in the Red Light District in Kolkata, that makes me cry.  Then I know what I’m feeling.

An overwhelming despair at how vulnerable they are.  And these are the kids, girls and boys,  who at least have a chance for something other than  the almost certain life of abuse they were born into.  To think of all the kids who don’t…..well I just haven’t let myself do it. I haven’t let myself think too much about any of it.

I can see that now.

Every day we went from one place to another.  Meeting people hearing their stories.  Stories of  brutality, and oppression, success and hope, stories with unknown endings.  Gathering information in words and pictures.   And through it all being careful not  to allow myself to feel too deeply.

Now the question is what do I do with it all?

How do I use the experiences and information I’ve acquired to do something good?

My rational mind tells me to take it one step at time.  One small action after another.   But my body is weary.  I’ll get to it she says.  Right now I need to do nothing.  Right now I need to sleep.

 

 

Kolkata Diary. Driving Home With Help From Mechanic Jon

The flowers Jon gave me when I got home.

Flexibility is the ability to adapt and change amid the fluctuating circumstance of life.  We go with the flow seeing the choices, challenges and opportunities in all that happens…. When the unexpected comes we rise to the challenge with resilience and confidence….From the  “Flexibility” card that Dahn gave me.

I grumbled a little when I couldn’t unlock the hatchback to my car.  It was 8am on Sunday (Monday in India)  and I just got off the bus at the Logan Express where my car was packed.  I was wide awake after spending the last 48 hours in airports and on airplanes.  I slept for hours on the plane from Dubai to Boston (a 19 hour flight), determined to get enough sleep to drive the three hours home once we landed.

My suit case felt like it weighed a ton, loaded down with all the fabric I bought in India.  I’d have to pull my car out of the parking space to be able to open the door wide enough to squeeze the suit case into the back seat of my two door Yaris.

As I backed my car out of the parking space something was terribly wrong.

Although the car moved, it felt like it was being dragged.  The tires weren’t moving at all.  I pulled the car back in, then out of the spot again.  I got out of the car, walking around it looking at the tires, thinking they were all flat.  They weren’t, but I saw the black tire marks on the pavement where I had driven.

I’ve had a lot of old cars in my life, and they’ve broken down  on me many times,  but I’ve never had anything like this happen before.   All four of my wheels weren’t turning, it wasn’t good.

I called AAA and I called Jon.

Then I lost it.

Towards the end of the trip, when we were just about to leave Kolkata for Udiapur, I tried to get money from an ATM.  Nadine, who had lots of experience with the ATM’s in India was helping me navigate the different options.  After three tries I finally gave up.

“It’s the fucking bank,” I said to  Nadine, annoyed that I couldn’t get money.   “I called them to let them know I’d be in India, but I knew there’d be a problem.  It’s just the way they are.” (I actually ultimately appreciate my banks safety precautions, even if they can be frustrating at times).

“Well I wondered when I’d hear you drop the f-bomb,” Nadine said to me.  “It’s about time, I was beginning to  think you weren’t human.”

A few days earlier, Dahn had handed each of us on the trip two different cards.  They were the positive traits she saw in us. Mine was Wonder and Flexibility.  I hadn’t thought about Wonder, but I’ve been working on being flexible since deciding to go to India.

If Nadine saw me in that parking lot she would have been proud.

I had had enough of “life’s challenges” and “fluctuating circumstances.”  I just wanted to be home.     I didn’t want to be stuck in a parking garage in Framingham Massachusetts.  I didn’t want to wait for a tow truck to come.  I didn’t want a three hour drive home sitting next to a tow truck driver.  I didn’t want to have to wait for one more ride.  I wanted to be in the drivers seat, taking myself home.

Frustrated and pissed off,  I picked up my really heavy suitcase and threw it on the ground.  Then I picked it up again and threw it one more time.  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I yelled as I did it.  I may even have been stamping my feet.

Then I jammed the suitcase in the back of my car, closed the door and locked my keys in the car.

Luckily my phone wasn’t in the car. So I was able to call  AAA back and tell them that along with my car not moving, I would also need someone to unlock my door.

I think it was at this point that I started to calm down.  Or maybe I just gave up.

And that’s when Jon called me back.  Jon who knows nothing about cars. Who can’t even change his own windshield wipers.  He had gone online, on You Tube, and thought that the problem was that the emergency brake was stuck.  Because I had driven to Boston in a snowstorm and left the car in a cold parking garage it was likely that I just needed to warm the car up to release the brake and allow the wheels to turn.

It wasn’t AAA at it’s best.

It took two hours for the tow truck  to get to me.  And after a lot of phone calls back and forth about garage clearance.  The tow truck that eventually came was too big to get into the parking garage anyway.

But by then I was convinced that Jon was right about the parking brake and all I needed was someone to unlock my car.

After the tow truck driver opened my door  (he couldn’t help with anything mechanical, could only tow the car) I let the car run a while and released and set the parking brake a few times.  The first time I backed out of the parking spot my wheels were still locked.  But as I pulled back in I felt the front wheels turn.  As I pulled back out again, all four wheels were moving.

All those car people couldn’t help me, but Jon, sitting at home, in front of his computer, somehow knew what was wrong with my car.

I couldn’t wait to get on the road.  I waved good-bye to the tow truck driver and got on I-90 headed home.

 

 

 

 

Kolkata Diary. Reflection Photos at the Mumbai Airport

I spent a few hours at the Mumbai airport in between flights.

I knew I’d be sitting a lot, so I decided to do some walking.  And keep walking.  I made many rounds past the same stores and gates and on one of them, I notice the reflection in the museum displays that are at the airport.

Some of the walls, were filled with  giant depictions of ancient Indian art and contemporary art.

Once I saw how the reflections from the airport window looked integrated with the art, I spent about an hour taking pictures.  I accidentally caught a person walking by in one of the first pictures, and liked what they added to the photo. So then I started waiting for people to walk by and into my photos.

I used the photo program on my iphone to bring out the colors and add depth through contrasts.

I didn’t have any wifi at the airport so I couldn’t post them.  But I was able to email them to Jon, even though I knew he was sleeping.   I was so excited about how they came out, I wanted to show them to him.

I’m on the plane now on my way to Dubai.  I was feeling all cranky and bitchy (I’ve been traveling since 5am and have about 23 more hours to go) before getting on the plane, but now that I have wifi and can  post the photos and write on my blog, I’m feeling good again.

Here’s some of the photos…..

Kolkata Diary. Going Home Tomorrow

 

The dogs of Udiapur

It’s my last day in Udaipur.  I just found out that the hotel has a coffee shop with wifi.  The internet was spotty in my room and non-existent in the past couple of days.

But I did some writing on my word program  and was able to copy it to my blog.  But now I’m having so much fun writing and posting pictures  it’s hard to stop.

I’m leaving tomorrow at 5am for a 7:00 flight to Mumbai, then to Kolkata, then home.

And as much as I’ve loved this trip, for so many reasons that I’ll continue to write about, I’m ready to go home.

I want to hold Jon and see his beautiful face when we talk.  I want to be able to share our days together and eat our meals together.  I want to be able to tell him the littlest thing when it happens.  I want to feel his body in bed, next to mine.

And I want to see what happens next in our life together.

Kolkata Diary. Visiting Ekling Ji Temple

Putting up the bamboo barrier for the Shiva Festival at Ekling Ji.  Photographs of the temple weren’t permitted.

All along the highway people were setting up colorful tents where they would serve food for the  worshipers coming to the  Ekling Ji Temple for the Shiva Festival the next day.

As we got closer to the temple  there  were temporary  barriers made from bamboo poles.  The next day people would line up for miles inside the barriers waiting to worship at the temple.

Ekling Ji  is in the middle of a small village.  Most of the people visiting it that day were Indian tourist.

I left my shoes with the others at the entrance and got in line, walking bare foot on the red AstroTurf carpet that led to the temple. Women were sitting just inside the gate handing out garlands of flowers, flower petals, leaves and what I think was shredded coconut, to make offerings.

I felt conspicuous among  the worshipers,  but not uncomfortable.

One  man asked me where I was from.  It was then I noticed that I was standing in a line of men, and to my right were all the women and children.  I looked at the older woman, the drape of her orange sari covering her head,  standing  next to me.   She seemed to read my mind and motioned for me to get in line in front of her.

Soon there was the sound of a bell and a voice came over a loud-speaker.  The people  around me responded.  They went back and forth a few times, then the  heavy wooden doors to the temple opened.

Like the Nagda Temple the area was made up not just of one building, but one large indoor sanctuary and other smaller buildings which had alters to different gods inside of them.

The AstroTurf ended and now I could feel the cool ancient marble beneath my bare feet.  It’s one of the things I immediately loved.  Being able to walk barefoot in the temples.  The bottoms of my feet touching the worn steps and walkways that so many other feet have touch over the centuries. That sensation of being in such close physical contact with the sacred ground.

The line continued single file.  A man was drumming and we circled a roped off area with the statue of a bull in the middle of it.  People ducked under the rope touching and kissing the bull’s head and leaving offerings of flowers on it.

We made our way into the ornately carved interior of the temple.  Alters to gods lined the walls and in the center of the space musicians and singers surrounded another statue of a bull.  Again people made offering of flowers and coconut shavings.  The woman in front of me turned around and said to me ” You like this?”

I grew up going to a Catholic Church.  There was a time in my life when  I was looking for religion.   But I was never able to make sense of the masses we went to.  I never felt any connection to them.

It probably has something to do with not having any knowledge of the meaning of the ceremony, not being able to understand the language and just making the connection on a visceral level that appealed to me.

I responded emotionally to the music and singing of the Aarti ceremony.   I felt  the devotion of the worshipers.  It seemed like a celebration, and yes, I was enjoying it.  So much, that it  made me want to dance.

The line broke up after that and people wandered around the grounds visiting the smaller building with alters in them.    Most of the gods were unrecognizable to me.  And the worn stone blurred their features. But on the way out I  saw two alters for Ganesha.  They both had aluminum foil molded over the sculpture of the elephant god, making him shiny,  his big belly, ears and trunk easy to distinguish.

I got my shoes and headed  back to the taxi.  My senses full and my need to see some ancient Indian art satisfied.

I was looking forward to getting back to my room and googling the Aarti Ceremony, finding out the names and meanings of the gods I saw statues of.

But there was something pure about experiencing the temple with very little knowledge it.   To experience them bodily and emotionally.  And find a connection on a guttural level.

I found I entered the space more with my heart and body than with my mind.  I wasn’t applying information onto what I was seeing.  I was gathering information with my senses.

As I walked back to the taxi there was a medium-sized, white cow on the road.  When I passed her, she turned her head and pressed  the top of it gently  into my belly.  I stepped away from her, touching her head with my hand, putting space between us.

I don’t know if she was trying to butt me or nudging me like our donkeys do to get attention.   It was unexpected, but it didn’t feel aggressive.  Some of the people around me smiled and pointed.

I smiled back, wondering what to make of it all.

I was ready to get back to the hotel, but trip didn’t end there.  James had a couple of other ideas about places to visit.

Details on the ceiling of Nagda Temple. Ekling Ji was similar in the kind of detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kolkata Diary. Hannah Trying On Shoes or Empowered Cinderella

Hannah buying shoes in Udiapur

Walking around Udiapur is like being inside Jeannie’s bottle.  Remember her pink circular couch and fabric wall.  It’s like a fairy tale of small spaces, little shuttered windows that open on small alleys, shallow balconies, decorative doorways and Escher-like stairways.

So when I took this picture of Hannah trying on shoes, I couldn’t help but think of  Cinderella.  A modern day Cinderella, who gets to choose her own shoes and buys them with the money she earned.

An empowered woman.  Which is what this trip to India is all about.  Empowering women.

Kolkata Diary. Visiting Nagda Temple

 

Carving at the Nagda Temple

None of the women I was traveling with wanted to see the temples.

The hotel had three pages of suggestions of places to tour in and around  Udiapur.  The 8th and 10th century temples, Ekling Ji and Nagda were just the kind of thing I was looking for.  I wanted to see some of those carvings that I’ve seen so many photos of.  I wanted to see some of India’s ancient art.

The hotel made arrangements for a taxi to pick me up in the lobby at 9am.  Leaving then would insure that I’d get to  Ekling Ji in time for the Aarti ceremony.

I had no idea what the Aarti ceremony was.  I hadn’t been able to get on-line to find out more about it,    but I knew I wanted to see it.

I had a little apprehension of going alone.   I haven’t traveled a lot and this is just the kind of thing, a woman alone in a foreign country, that I was taught to be afraid of.

But I had spent the past 7 days with women who regularly travel around the world, often alone.  Being with them for over a week inspired me.  I want to be the woman who isn’t afraid to do what she wants, not the one who lets irrational fear dictate her actions.

I got into the front seat of the small white car, and the driver, a tall thin man, introduced himself as James.  I wondered if it was his real name or one he used for English speaking tourists.

I wouldn’t want to drive a car in India, but I quickly got used to seeing buses, motorcycles and cars, coming at us, head on, only for them, or the car I’m in, to swerve out of the way at the last moment.  I’m still in wonder at how a car will come within an inch of a cow on a small road or highway without hitting it.  And at how the cow takes her time getting out of the way.

I haven’t seen any car accidents, but James said there are many.

The Nagda Temple is a historical site.  It’s outside the city on a lake surrounded by mountains.   I gave James 50 rupees to park the car, (the only admission to the temple)  and walked through the gate.  On either side girls stood in traditional dress carrying pots on their heads asking if I wanted to take their picture.

In the short time I’ve been in India, I’m  figuring out  how to say no when offered something I don’t want.  Like dealing with a telemarketer, giving the smallest indication that you might be interested in something someone is trying to sell, is all they need to pursue you.

For me, saying no thanks and walking quickly away works, or even to just keep walking ignoring the person. This still feel rude to me but, I’m even less willing to be taken advantage of than to feel like I’m being rude.

The ruins of the temple rose up in front of me.

The intricate carvings were a feast for my eyes.  Much of the marble was worn smooth with age,  the detail obliterated.  There was no one there to tell me I couldn’t touch the ancient carvings.  I pressed my hand to the cold blocks of marble inside the small temple.  I ran my fingers over the details on the dancing figures on the outside of the temple.

I tried to see a story in the bas relief that ran around the bottom of the building. I looked for symbolism in the gods sitting in the lotus position surrounded by flowers, snakes and skulls.

I took lots of pictures and visited each of the smaller shrines surrounding the main building. I spent about an hour absorbing it all.

Having no information about the temple I only knew what I could see.  But I would learn more about it when I visited Ekling Ji  and witness the ceremony there.  The two temples were similar in their design.

But while Nagda still emanated some  palpable energy,  it held the hush of being abandoned.  As if it were sleeping.  Ekling Ji was just the opposite.  When we got there fifteen minutes later, it was alive and throbbing with the energy  of the village it was surrounded by and the worshipers visiting it.

Nagda Temple
Bas relief on the outside of the temple

 

Full Moon Fiber Art