Seeing Kokata Again

We are currently in Kolkata staying with an old friend, who has recently been widowed.  Her energies are low and she is not engaged with life in the way that she always has been.

Today is the Holi festival in Kolkata, although much of the rest of India celebrates the holiday tomorrow.  We have pink colors on our foreheads, (so I didn’t wash my forehead when bathing).  The cook, Krishna, placed the colors on our foreheads this morning – and we on hers.  Very special.

This is the first house that we have stayed in with a tik-tikki – that is, a house lizard.  I am reminded that having such a co-habitant is a good thing, because it eats spiders and other unwanted guests, but I am, nevertheless, always a bit shocked when the tik-tikki races across the wall or ceiling.

In Kolkata, there is lots of talking – perhaps a bit like Italy.  Everyone talks very quickly and with great animation in Bengali for several minutes about a given subject.  But when I inquire about what has been resolved, often it seems that no movement has occurred.  It’s confusing.  Yesterday we had a driver take us to a mall here in the household’s private car.  It seems that the ignition lock had frozen, but the outcome was quite chaotic.  The chief household manager told the driver to have the lock repaired on the spot, so we gathered heavy bags of groceries and then emerged to find that parts of the car had now been taken to other parts of the city.

There was much going back and forth to the car and loud discussions while I sat next to the heavy bags of water, etc., (which we now had to somehow transport home).  We were also late (for the second day) for lunch with a friend.  After much consultation we ended up renting a cab, with the driver waiting at the mall, the piece of the car taken to another part of the city and the household manager accompanying us on a circuit -- to leave us at the restaurant, then to home to leave off the groceries and back to the mall to find the driver and the car (which was eventually repaired).  It was a bit chaotic, but eventually all of us – the groceries, the car, the household manager, our friend and us – arrived safely home.

Today is the holiday when people throw colors with great abandon, drink bang (sort of a liquid version of Magic Brownies), and get time off of school and work.  It’s a time to let loose from the normal restrictions and pressures and be silly.  Holi derives from the stories of Krishna engaging in these same games, and has a religious basis, although the temper of the day is a little bit more like a New Year’s eve event.  All the color throwing is supposed to end by 3:00.  Many, including senior citizens, tend to stay  behind closed doors until then in order to avoid the excesses of a somewhat bacchanalian celebration.

I love to go to the markets and look at all of the beautiful silk and embroidered saris.  They are very lush and ornate – brilliant oranges, reds, blues and greens.  I don’t need to have them – just to see them and appreciate all the craft of their creators.  Calcutta is known for handloomed saris, that have a lot of intricate work.  Also a center for a certain type of silk sari that looks like liquid gold – in colors.

Like other cities in India, Kolkata is changing rapidly, with new shopping malls and flyovers in the midst of traditional neighborhoods and still considerable poverty.

Tomorrow we will meet with several old friends at an art gallery to discuss some questions that we have put out to them about the rapid changes taking place in India and what they think it all means.  Then I’ll be off to Bangalore, while Ran remains in Kolkata to meet with more special friends whom he rarely gets to see.