A Kite Story

What is the perfect toy to have if you live on a roof? Answer: a kite! If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I’ve wanted a kite since the first day I got to Kolkata. This week I learned the word (ghuri), bought one, and flew one.

Monday was Viswakarma Puja, a holiday that is mainly celebrated by the working classes. It also is the day of a kite festival, and about a month before Durga Puja, so it starts the festive season. I asked my teachers where I could find a kite workshop (where they are made), because I like to buy things in the place that’s known for them so I can see how they’re constructed and talk to the people there. He said that there was a place in North Kolkata named Furiya Pukur where there may be a workshop. I took the metro to North Kolkata, then asked directions to find Furiya Pukur. It ended up being a small side street off of a sidewalk-bazaar lined road.

(Side story: One of the people I asked about directions was really funny. He was one of the vendors in the bazaar, I think selling juice and that sort of thing. He looked at me stunned as I asked for directions in Bengali. In English, he said, “You speak Bangla? Congratulations!” grabbed my hand, and shook it a few times. Then he gave me directions in English.)

Furiya Pukur is an alley lined with old buildings and two or three kite shops. Because it was the day of the kite festival, there were large crowds around each of the shops. I didn’t find any open workshops, but I did buy three kites, string, and a large wooden spool. Then carried all of it home on the subway, and miraculously none of the kites were smashed and destroyed.

My first day flying a kite here ended in failure, because I strung it the wrong way (I know, I know. Kite 101. But it’s different than the other ones I’ve ever strung). On Wednesday my teachers gave me another kite, a larger one with a tail, that was already strung.  I took it home and flew it. It caught the wind really quickly and I managed to fly it really high. After about 40 minutes, I decided to start bringing it back in. As I was doing this, some kids across the street, who had come out to fly kites a little bit before, got their kite near my string. The kite came up, the string of my kite, and away flew my nice big kite.

Moral of the story: Make sure you know how to fight kites before you fly a kite in a place where they’re fighting them.

First Two Weeks in Kolkata

What have I done in the first two weeks in Kolkata? Browsed the largest used book market in Asia, visited the India coffee house, gossiped with shopkeepers, explored the old European cemetery, studied Bengali, and made friends with a Brahman while giving a puja at Kalighat temple.

I can tell that this language program is going to be excellent. It’s very small, with only four students, so we each get individual attention. Besides me, there is one other student (Bennett, who has been in my class in Dhaka for the last two summers) who is studying for a year; the other two are one semester students.

I’m starting to know my way around now. On Thursday and Sunday the first week I was here, I did some comparison shopping to get a feel for prices. It’s a bit disorienting to know what the price for something should be in taka, but not in rupees – especially when rupees are called taka in Bengali (it’s the word for money). Luckily, in my neighborhood there is a variety of stores from sidewalk bazaar stands to high-end boutiques. I have yet to buy any clothes here, but I have a better idea of what the prices should be. Also, I discovered that most stores are closed on Sundays.

On Wednesday, I wanted to go shopping and see more places in my neighborhood. One of the other students, who has lived here for 10 years, showed me around. We first stopped by Gariahat market, an indoor bazaar that is very near to the institute. It has a very large selection of produce, fish, and meat. From there, I walked south, passing a branch of the Ramakrishna Mission on the way, and went to Dokkinapur, a shopping complex specializing in handicrafts from all over India. Most of the Indian states’ governments have shops there to sell their products. Although I wasn’t ready to buy anything, I still had some good conversations with shopkeepers. In one store, there was a group of workers who were about my age with whom I was able to have a good conversation. To get back to my house, I walked through this large park surrounding a lake that is just south of where I live. It is a really gorgeous location.

Speaking of gorgeous locations, on Friday we took a short class trip to visit Park Street Cemetery, the old imperialist British cemetery. It is filled with gigantic, moss-covered stone monuments and ancient trees. It reminded me of pictures that I have seen of Ankor Wat.  

Saturday morning I walked to the Kalighat temple. There, I was pulled into the tourist racket to some extent – given a basket with offerings and sent inside with a Brahmin guide to give a puja. They were surprised when I didn’t have any money on me (I honestly had just come to look around outside, and only had 50 rupees with me), but didn’t press me too much on the matter. I enjoyed talking to my guide, who was happy that I could speak Bengali and offered to take me on a tour of the other major temples in the city if I wanted. The inside of the temple was crowded; I had the misfortune of randomly wandering into that area on a special feast day. My guide took me around the back way, where I could give my offerings and see the image but not have to stand in line for hours. After the main puja, he took me to another shrine on the side, where women could give offerings to pray for a good marriage, children, etc. After coming out of the temple, I retrieved my shoes and walked around the block. Immediately next to the temple is Mother Teresa’s Hospital for the Dying, a big white building that has a crucifix affixed to the roof. In some of the stalls selling devotional materials in front of the temple, there was a mix of Hindu and Catholic religious icons.

Walking back toward my house, I found a Greek Orthodox church (I think it is the nearest church to where I live), and then walked south through Lake Market. Lake Market is both sides of a road where flower and produce sellers spread out their wares. It goes on for a little more than a block, and has a large selection.

First Impressions of India

As most of my readers will know, Bangladesh was, until last night at 9 PM, the first and only foreign country I had visited. So India is a new experience for me, not only because it is a different country, but also because it was the first time I have travelled alone outside the US. (The last two trips were made with the rest of the CLS group.)

First, the airport in Delhi is really, amazingly, super fancy. As in, there is a mall inside the airport that puts Easton to shame. Who wants to shop for crystal necklaces or state-of-the art children’s toys while they’re waiting for their next flight? Apparently some people do, and for those people there is the Delhi airport.

Second, always you make sure you have all the paperwork you could ever possibly need (and then some) when doing anything at the Delhi airport. I had to show a guy at the door my print-out from Expedia just to get into the building this morning, and then the woman at the airline counter almost didn’t accept the same paper as proof of my ticket.

Kolkata, after a short drive from the airport on a Sunday, seems to have a lot less traffic than Dhaka. A LOT less. I’m living in an area of the city named Ballygunge, which is an older area. I am writing this sitting on the roof of my host family’s house. Why the roof, you may ask? Because that’s where I live! My apartment is a little guest house on the roof of the building. I love it. The view is amazing. I am currently sitting here watching the sun set as people fly kites from their rooftops all around me. I want a kite. From what I can see of the surrounding area, this part of Kolkata is kind of like Old Dhaka – the nice part, with the old buildings and nice houses – but with normal-sized streets, instead of the rickshaw paths they call roads in Old Dhaka. The intersection in front of the house is at odd angles. Between the wedge-shaped buildings, the wide streets (with curbs!), and the large trees, the view on that direction is reminiscent of pictures of some Eastern European city (or, maybe, my mind is partially in the Czech Republic with Marissa). My host family is lovely, as well. They were surprised to find out I was so young – they’ve housed a lot of other foreigners, not just for AIIS – and my host mom called me a baby. Of course, she said that before I told her how old I was! Then she said that I really was a baby.

(The next morning)

I still don’t have internet, I’ve already unpacked, and I’m waiting to go to the orientation session at the institute, so I want to add a few more things to this entry. One of the things I like about Kolkata is that there are taxis – specifically, yellow-painted, 1940s-style cars like the ones you see in old movies. I mentioned that the streets in front of my house look vaguely Eastern European, and that effect is only compounded by the taxis. This morning I saw two taxis sitting in that street, and to look at it you would think you were in an old movie from the 1940s, set somewhere in Europe.

One of the problems that I did not expect to encounter is that my host family has access to too good of a water supply for me to drink. They get their drinking water from their own deep well, which is clean and doesn’t need to be boiled. I may be able to drink this water, but I’m not sure, so I chose not to drink any yesterday. Maybe after a while I will try some, but I’ve had too much experience with waterborne illnesses recently to attempt it immediately. In my house there is a UV-treating water purifier and a pot to boil water in, and I used both last night. So if I get sick, it must be from one of those sources. I remembered this morning (too late!) that I have iodine tablets that I could have used.  Oh well. I had to find out at some point whether the water from the filter was safe to drink.

I’m having some trouble making myself understood, partially because I haven’t used Bangla for a month, partially because I speak Bangladeshi Bangla. I’ve already been corrected for calling breakfast “nasta.” The hardest is the word for water, which is jol, not to be confused with jhal, jhor, jal, etc. I think I’m not pronouncing it correctly. Also, my host family referred to Sprite with the same word, so maybe it just means drinks here? I’m also still getting used to my host family’s accents, which will probably take a few weeks, even though Kolkata Bangla is closer to Standard. 

Old Dhaka

On Friday afternoon, I went pearl shopping in Gulshan. I went to the same shop where Katie and I had stopped in a few weeks before. He remembered me, and started with surprisingly good prices for his products. After shopping for a little bit, I walked to Banani and got a delicious banana smoothie. It’s Ramadan, so I feel bad eating or drinking in front of people who are fasting, but I really needed something to drink. In Banani, I decided to try an experiment. My theory is that it is possible to rickshaw across the city by taking multiple rickshaws. Since I had some extra time (it was about 3 PM, and during Ramadan no one really does anything until they start to prepare for iftar around 6 PM anyway), I decided to try it out and took a rickshaw to Mohakali, but couldn’t get another to Farmgate so I gave up. I went to my LP’s house, ate iftar, and stayed the night.

On Saturday, I met Audrey to go to Old Dhaka. I took a rickshaw ride from my LP’s house in Farmgate to Dhaka University. I recommend touring Dhaka on a rickshaw, because it’s the most scenic way to travel, and is especially nice when there’s no traffic (i.e. sometimes the morning). Audrey’s bus was late, so I explored a bit of the Dhaka University campus. I wandered down some of the roads, and discovered exactly how close everything is in that part of town. I had the rickshawallah drop me off at the Shaheed Minar, then walked for 10 minutes to get back to the TSC where I was supposed to meet Audrey. A little kid was selling birds made of folded palm leaves. He said his big brother made them. I bought one because I was very impressed with its artistry, although I’m not sure whether it’s really supposed to be a bird or a shrimp. A ten minute walk down another road led me to Kazi Nazrul Islam’s tomb, the Dhaka University Art Institute, and the National Museum. I hadn’t realized that all of these places were so close to each other. Between the National Museum and the Art Institute, I found the Dhaka public library. At the Art Institute, there was a solo art show going on featuring these gorgeous modern art-style paintings. My favorite painting was an outline of a mosque that faded into nothingness, all painted in gorgeous rosy orange hues. Outside the art institute, I looked at the books being sold by street vendors, and was surprised to find a Bangla version of E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s Social Anthropology.

Audrey and I finally met up and took a rickshaw to Old Dhaka. We started out asking to go to _____, a bazaar that I had heard was a Hindu community where they made handicrafts. We made it most of the way there on a rickshaw, but then we decided to stop to check out a store selling rickshaw decorations. I bought a hand-painted piece of vinyl fabric that would normally cover the seat of the rickshaw. From there, we walked to Shakhari Bazar. It turned out that the bazaar was a place where they make and sell gold and silver jewelry. We got to watch several different methods. I’d like to spend more time there when I have time to document the process (and when I have several thousand extra taka to spend on jewelry). From there, we got a rickshaw ride to Shayambazar, which I had read was a spice market. The ride was very scenic, but it turned out that the spice market was actually a wholesale market – it was right by the Buriganga, where people are unloading boats full of produce transported from all over the country. We wandered back into the market, and everyone was really excited to see us. From the riverbank, the view was gorgeous. The people on the boats were waving to us to come for a ride, but Audrey wouldn’t let me. I took a few pictures, and soon enough everyone in the market wanted their picture taken. We ended up only spending ten minutes there, but it was a lovely ten minutes. Our next stop was going to be Chok Bazaar, but we decided to ask for Lal Bagh instead. I knew that the two places were just down the street from each other, and Lal Bagh is probably the most famous place in Old Dhaka. This rickshaw ride was about an hour and a half long, because we traveled through the length of Old Dhaka. We saw a lot of the old part of the city, however; I can’t stress enough how wonderful it is to take a tour on a rickshaw in Dhaka. We passed back through the Hindu bazaar, through the car district and the bicycle district (for some reason in Dhaka there are places where all the stores specialize in one specific thing), and ended up in an area with tons of tiny stores that each specialize in one item. There was a store selling only sugar, another selling raisins, many spice stores, and so on. After a while of this, we asked the rickshaw where we were. The answer was Chok Bazaar, so we got to see it anyway! It was crazy preparing for iftar, so we just stayed on the rickshaw and looked from there. I would like to go back when it wasn’t Ramadan. We arrived at Lal Bagh, where we got on another rickshaw and went to meet Sarmad and his brother for iftar. They took us to the Royal Hotel (which, funnily enough, is right around the corner from Lal Bagh), where we ate iftar. I was happy that I got to drink some more badam shorbot before I left Bangladesh! All in all, it was a great day in Old Dhaka. 

Second-to-last week in Bangladesh

Last Thursday, I went to Newmarket by myself. I think this was the first time I went alone, but I was definitely ready to do it. My Bangla is at the point where I can understand pretty much everything that people are saying to me. Meaning, I can understand the individual words as if they were in English (at least in common speech). The traffic was terrible going to Newmarket on the Dip Bangla bus, so I decided to get off when we got to Dhanmondi. This was a great decision, because I got down on Elephant Road, where a lot of other types of stores are. As I was walking down the street, I saw a rug in one of the stores: a handmade wool tapestry featuring a map of Bangladesh. As I was talking to the store keeper, I found out that the tapestries are made in a workshop somewhere in Dhaka (he said the name, but I forgot it). I then walked to Newmarket, which turned out to be really close by – down an alley, turn right, and it’s straight ahead. Dhaka is a surprisingly small city, but you don’t realize it because of all the traffic. I shopped at Newmarket for a few hours, just wandering around and finding interesting things to buy. This included a bamboo fan like the ones they use in the village, which I saw a guy hawking on the street. After I got tired of shopping, I took a bus to my Language Partner’s house, where I spent the night.

After leaving her house after lunch the next day, I went home planning to just stay in and do homework. However, Andrew invited me to come to Dipa’s house with him. Dipa is the woman we interviewed last week, who is very poor and lives in a one-room house in a slum. At her house, we were unexpectedly met with a small prayer service. I was happy because I could actually understand everything. Afterward I talked to Dipa for a little bit, and she invited me to go to mass with her on Sunday (she is Catholic).

Saturday morning I met up with a professor (Apollo bhai) who teaches at the Anthropology department at Jahangirnagar University in Savar. He took me to see the department, where I talked to the students and several of the professors. I was impressed that they have been able to keep up with current theory even while having difficulty getting newly published resources from the US and England. Apollo bhai and I had a good conversation about the problems that the anthropology department and teachers at public universities face in Bangladesh. After his class, one of the students gave me a tour of the university, which is very large and has a lot of green space. After the university visit, I went to Moumita’s house for the first iftar of this year’s Ramadan, and then spent the night.

On Sunday I went to mass with Dipa after class. I wore a sari all day, and walked to her house as soon as class let out. We got to the church about half an hour early, and sat on the floor in the front. I was surprised by how little of the mass I understood – prayers are said in the same sort of continuous chanting as in English, so I couldn’t catch very much of it. After mass, Dipa introduced me to the priest and a nun, who invited me to have tea with them. The nun is Italian and doesn’t speak much English, so we communicated in Bangla. Her accent sounded really strange at first. Also invited to tea were an Irish man and his Bangladeshi wife, who were in town for a few weeks. I talked to them, and they invited me to their house to have some tea after mass. It was really nice to talk to a Catholic Bangladeshi family, simply because I hadn’t really had the chance to do so before.

On Monday, we had a field trip instead of class after lunch. We met Qumrul in front of Apollo Hospital in Bashundhara, and the three of us, plus another student, plus Qumrul, all squeezed into a taxi to make the trip to Dhanmondi. It was a long two hours in the car, with me essentially sitting on Audrey’s lap. Our first stop was Bangabondhu’s house, where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman lived and where his entire family was assassinated in 1975. In the house, they have the bedroom where their bodies were found preserved behind glass. Behind the house is a really well made museum that is still being built, dedicated to the life of Sheikh Rahman and his contributions to Bangladesh’s independence. After leaving Bangabondhu’s house, we visited an Eid field (where prayers are said only on Eid) that dates to the Mughal period. It’s now used as a cricket field when it’s not Eid. We then walked to an art gallery where a photo exhibition displayed the skill of a photographer who just died in a road accident last year. After that, we walked to Dhanmondi lake, where we sat and talked for a while. Finally, we went to Qumrul’s in-laws’ house for iftar, and met his wife and their whole family. Afterward Audrey and I took a bus back to Bashundhara, which only took about 15-20 minutes (as I said, the city is actually really tiny; if there’s no traffic it’s really easy to get places).

Tuesday in conversation class, we interviewed a hijra, or transgender person. It was probably the most interesting interview we’ve done all summer. She was very lucky, because her family is accepting of her and she still lives at home. After class, I went to my Language Partner’s house for iftar. After iftar, I met other students from our group at a radio station, where we gave an interview that will be on Bangladeshi national radio at some point.

On Wednesday, we had a second field trip of the week, this time with Farzana. We took a CNG and met her in Dhanmondi, where we first went shopping at an audio video store, and then at Joyita, a store that is completely run, owned, and operated by women. It takes up two floors of a shopping mall, and is filled with small stands, each run by a woman where she sells handicrafts. Most come from the shopkeeper’s village. I bought a lot of things there, some gifts and several things for myself, including a kameez made out of jute. Afterward we went to a mandir, where we met the head priest and talked to him about religious issues. As we were leaving, they offered me some of the fruit from the offering. I still feel conflicted about it, but I declined because I didn’t want to become sick. Maybe I should have eaten it. Anyway, our next stop was iftar at Farzana’s aunt’s house, where we met the family. Her uncle was a freedom fighter, but has been sick so we weren’t able to talk to him very much. Finally, we went to visit Farzana’s friend, who talked to us about some of the problems in Dhaka city. Audrey and I went to the bus stop, where the ticket seller told us we would not be able to catch a bus because they had stopped for the night. Another student who was going to Bashundhara told us to just wait a bit, because the bus would actually just be late. We were able to get on, and made it back to Bashundhara in record time.