Gandhi’s birthday week

Hello all! I’m in the middle of applying for graduate schools, so much of my free time this week was spent emailing, replying, drafting essays, and filling out online forms. I therefore have less to report than in the last few weeks. I had my second dance class, in which I was marginally better than last week. Tuesday was Gandhi’s birthday, a free day which I spent working on my applications. On Wednesday I went to a play that told the story of Pandu from the Mahabharata. The costumes were quite good, but the sound quality was terrible so it didn’t help my Bangla at all.

On Friday we had a henna artist come in for an interview and demonstration during our last class. Apparently guys also get henna occasionally here; they usually want it to look like a tattoo. The three guys in my class all got a henna tattoo on their forearm, while I had a pretty design on my left hand. After class we went on a class trip to see the Marble Palace. I hadn’t realized the first time, but the family still lives in the house. It’s like the country houses of the wealthy British landowners in the 1800s; the house is open for tours by strangers, but the family still lives there. After we left, we went to the street food place that my friend took me to last week; I tried something similar to gelapi called amriti, It’s very similar, but not as sweet. And, of course, I also drank two cups of tea. Afterward I walked to College Street, bought a book, then went to Rabindra Sadan. Meeting Bennett there, we went to a play that his host brother had told him about. It’s name was “Draupadi” and it ended up being an excellent production about female war victims that was in the Monipuri language. I was really impressed with how well they conveyed the meaning of the story through their motions (it was almost like a dance) even though most of the audience would not understand what they said.