Kumartuli

Friday was a long but very good day. It started with receiving an email from AIIS saying that they have officially received their grant, so my fellowship does, in fact, include funding! Yay!

In class, we had our second monolingual guest: a puppeteer and ventriloquist. He was really fun to talk to, and definitely an entertainer. He had brought four of his puppets, and gave us a demonstration. Besides performing for entertainment, he also creates skits that deliver public service announcements like “don’t get married until you’re 18,” which he then presents in villages.

After lunch, we went on a trip to Kumartuli, a “potter’s colony” in North Kolkata. This is where they make the clay images of Durga that are used in Durga Puja. Because we visited nearly a month before the Puja, we were able to see all of the stages of creating the sculptures. It starts with a model made out of straw, which is covered with layers of clay and cloth (kind of like paper-mache). When the image is fully constructed, it is painted and then dressed.

After leaving the potters’ area and walking for a few minutes, we came to the banks of the Ganges. Boats docked nearby are used to transport clay for use by the potters. As we were looking at the river, we saw a school of river dolphins that surfaced occasionally. After drinking tea out of small pottery glasses in a cha stand by the river, we walked back to the car a different direction. We stopped once more, to taste the famous street food of this one intersection (I’ve forgotten the name of it!). It was my first time at a very small food establishment in India, where they serve the 7.5-rupee meal on a piece of palm leaf. 

And now... pictures!