Lucknow to Simla

March 26 -- Lucknow to Simla

I think you can tell the class of sleeper cars on the train by the odors. There is a pervasive smell of male urine (we all agree that no woman’s urine could smell as disgustingly heavy) in the Sleeper Class cars. Sleeper Class is the lowest of the cars with sleeping facilities (I use this term loosely... complete description to follow). Above Sleeper Class is 3AC, 2AC and, finally, the creme de la creme 1AC. There are also levels beneath Sleeper Class which are sitting areas only that can be extremely crowded and the quality of fellow passengers poses more of a challenge to your and your luggage’s safety.

I’ve never stayed in 1AC but I hear it’s quite posh (porters to help with your luggage and offer you food and drinks). The other three classes have some similarities (in general, of course):

*The sleeping areas are arrange like two-sided compartments with two or three beds on each side (2AC=two beds/side; 3AC and Sleeper=3 beds/side)

*The top (or middle) bed swings down to form the back of the seat during the day and up for a bed at night

And some differences:

*From 2AC to 3AC to Sleeper the space goes from relatively clean to less to less clean

*In 2AC and 3AC they provide sheets and pillows; in Sleeper they provide nothing (which is a problem if you don’t realize this and have no blanket...especially if you’re wearing a skirt)

*2AC ad 3AC have air conditioning (although rarely needed); Sleeper has strong fans (that are often a point of contention between passengers...there are always those who want them on and others who insist of turning them off)

*The quality of people devolves as you move from 1AC to Sleeper (which says something about Art Karavan...we stay in Sleeper). Friendly families and interesting English-speaking businesspeople populate the AC coaches; by the time you get down to Sleeper there are people like the man we bunked with recently that kept urging Anna to join him in bed and flashed porn her way via his cellphone. The safety of your luggage also becomes less assured as you drop levels (although I’ve never had anything stolen).

*Food follows a similar pattern starting from excellent meals in 1AC (I surmise!) to lesser quality and variety as you move down through the levels. (Every time the train rolls into the station, however, vendors of all sorts mob the trains and make a speedy sweep through the cars selling everything from tea to omelets to packaged meals.)

On our trip from Lucknow to Simla we stayed in Sleeper Class. Anna, Christina, Yola and I shared our compartment with an Indian mother and daughter (who weren’t very nice at all). Within an hour of the start, the Indians announced that they were going to bed and, since their beds were the lower ones, we were forced out of our “room.” this worked out just fine,though, since we went and hung out with a bunch of Karavaners drinking and smoking, talking and laughing until 1:30 am.

i figured this would be just fine since we were going to be on the train until 10 am; only problem was that the Indian mother got up at 4:30 am, turned on the light in all of our faces and happily proceeded with her morning routine. But thanks to eyemasks and earplugs, we all managed to get some sleep.

We took the train to Chandigar (one of India’s first planned cities... Courbousier designed much of the city) and then another train to Kulka. In Kulka they have a “Toy train” (smaller gage than normal) that take you on a scenic journey into the mountains and Simla. However, we hadn’t made reservations and the train was fully booed, so we ended up hiring a couple mini-buses for the 3 (or 4...or 5) hour trip to Simla.

Varanasi -- city of the burning ghats

Post - Varanasi 3/19/10

In Varanasi I went hippie. At some point if I travel long enough in India, I give into the heat in favor of comfort and exchange my jeans for something else (always silky and flowy). So after a day shopping with Anna, I have become psychedelic hippy queen. For $30 I now have 3 dresses and 2 shirts (that make me look like a psychedelic clown) and some I Dream of Genie balloon pants (that finish off the clown look)... have exchanged cool for cool (hahaha... THAT can be interpreted as you will)

Yesterday was a good day.... Anna and I (Kata and Eric disappeared on separate journeys in the morning and we didn’t cross paths again until evening) wandered the streets of Varanasi...

Had chai with kids running the family shop (many shops are run by kids between the ages of 8 to 20)... the younger boy watched Avatar on his I-Pod while the 10 year old girl decorated Anna and I with tiny stamps dipped in colorful powdered dyes....

Spent an annoying half hour being tracked by an overly aggressive Indian guy that was “in love” with Anna and called her “honey” and professed his desire by assuring her that he was “very strong” and didn’t sleep with “many women.” In final desperation, he told her he had “a big banana.” (However, a couple of young boys took me aside and told me he was an undercover policeman .... In Varanasi, police try to sell travelers drugs and then bust them and make them pay NOT to put them in jail...of course, any astute traveler will hear about the scam within 10 minutes of arrival in town...

Flew a paper kite with some young boys (every evening the skies are filled with colorful paper kites soaring and plunging through the air)...

Ended up at the Varansi waterworks (much to Anna’s delight... her art project is about water in all its aspects). The workers at the water plant were also delighted... few Westerners visit the waterworks and ask for a tour, much less two white women. They proudly showed us around. The city’s water is pulled directly from the (very polluted) Ganga River. There was an article in the newspaper detailing the incredible levels of pollution... in addition, of course, they dump numerous dead bodies in the river each day as part of their rituals of death.

Patna, India --Magical Moments

At some poiont (earlier if you travel fast) India overwhelms the senses to the point that they begin to shut down...one by one. The pervasive smells of urine and garbage and thousands upon thousands of bodies rushing and working in the heat soaked streets go mostly unnoticed (unless, of course, you walk downwind of a public urinal). the ears stop yearning for just ONE MOMENT of silence or quiet and accept the constant cacophony of screaming, honking horns, chugging generators, blaring music, wailing songs and babies and bellowing cows. The eyes adjust to the insane patchwork of colors that adorn buildings an landscapes alike, to the crumbling structures and sidewalk shelters, knotted electrical wires, crippled, maimed and snot-nosed beggars, to laborers lugging sacks of grain that bend them nearly to the ground, to careening cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws, and bicycles, to temples featuring multi-limbed, garishly colored, elephant and monkey-like Gods and the eyes begin processing the chaos with barely a flicker. The tongue accepts the flavors of pollution, spices, exhaust fumes and smoke and the skin absorbs the veil of dust and dirt and becomes one with the earth.

The unusual and unique become the norm and you move through the throngs of people and bumper car traffic with comfort and ease. But even as you accept the unusual as usual, India continues to surprise and delight.

The other morning I got up at 6 am to go the the Ganga (Ganges) River for a performance by Khitish (a wise 23-year-old Orissa artist). A group of 10 or so where walking through the awakening streets enjoying the cool morning breeze and relative quiet. A bicycle rickshaw drove by and, as usual, the occupant, an elderly woman, craned her neck around the side of the rickshaw to get a longer look at the white people walking. I waved and smiled. Up ahead, the rickshaw stopped. I thought she was going to ask me if I needed a ride or something. Instead, however, when I approached her, she gently took my hands in hers and bowed her head murming a blessing (I presume) before touching her hand to my forehead. I smiled and bowed my head in return. And then I continued walking and she told her rickshaw to “challo!” (go!) The girl walking next to me looked and me and we both raised our brows. “Things like that rarely happen to me in Ohio,” I said, and we both laughed in wonder. I was at peace the rest of the day.

In Ranchi a similar thing happened to Kata and me. We were sitting on the steps of a small temple relaxing. Some boys were playing cricket nearby, people from the neighborhood were walking her and there going about their daily business. A young girl in her teens fo 20s with a small child walked by and I, as usual, said “Namaste” and smiled at them and joked a bit with the kid. About 10 minutes later, I saw the two of them coming toward us from a distance carrying something. As they came closer I realized it was a big bouquet of flowers (for the Gods in the temple, I presumed.) Instead, she walked up to me and presented the flowers to me with a smile and a bow of her head. she then turned and walked away. Kata and I looked at each other and the world was suddenly a very beautiful place.

Of course, I’ve come to expect magical moments when doing my bracelet project. Every time I tie a bracelet on someone’s wrist, a wonderful “something” passes between us. The beggar kids stop begging and, instead becomes kids and we joke around and laugh and talk. I gave bracelets to two adorable gap-toothed older ladies who wanted money for food. They giggled like teenagers throughout the process, patted me on the shoulders and head and then strolled away jabbering about the strange experience they had just had. (Two young Muslim men watched this exchange and by the time the ladies left, they, too, were smiling...and the Muslin facial expression is a tough one to crack!)

At the railroad station, I tied bracelets on a man with half a hand, a man so dirty he seemed to be permanently black from head to shoes, a beautiful young beggar mother carrying her baby, an entire family of street people, a cow (his horn) and a statue of Ghandi.At lunch we had the most adorably ancient waiter. He took such good care of us and we enjoyed jabbering in my horrible Hindi. I presented him with a bracelet and he seemed to actually GROW in stature as I tied it on and then be BLUSHED and giggled and looked proudly at the other waiters. Every time he returned to the table, he shook his gray head and chuckled with happiness. It’s a good project.... definitely making connections that run far deeper than I expected.

But enough of the serious stuff.... on to THE INDIAN EROTIC MOVIES

Eric, Kata and I decided it would be fun to go to see some Indian porn in the lowest class theatre in town. We arrived about a 1/2 hour late, but there were still about 50 or more mostly young men buying their tickets. One man, obviously concerned about our ignorance, came over and informed us that this wasn:t “a family movie” and that we couldn’t attend. When Eric asked why he said he didn’t know... “it just isn’t fair,” he said. We, of course, responded by going to the ticket counter and buying our tickets (despite constant warnings that this was not a family movie). But we bought our 12 rupee tickets (45 rupees to a dollar)... there were 10 rupee tickets, too, but you had to STAND downstairs in a mob (we might be crazy, but not THAT crazy!)

After climbing 5 flights or steps, we settled in our balcony seats...the movie was underway. Unbelievable. I thought maybe it was a filler flick before the real thing, but it was indeed the feature. It looked like it was made in the 70s (because one of the sexy girls was dressed like a hippie)... The film was badly scratched and marked and the “scenes” were segmented by black film with “lightning” scratched into it which was accompanied by crashing fake thunder... I can’t even describe the plot, but it involved two policemen, three sexy girls (the hippie, a very dark skinned girl and an Indian woman with her sari tucked seductively?? in her belt), several overweight mustachioed Indian guys, and -- my favorite character -- a MONSTER (yes, a big hairy, ugly monster man with huge fake hands hanging down covered with green fur) The monster lurched around, roaring and grunting until he found a sexy girl (usually on the bed having erotic dreams) that he could ravage and then kill. If he happened upon a man, he’d simply kill him. In between the monster shots, there were odd scenes in which some erotic act was featured (from unbuttoning a shirt to doing “the deed” which was captured by flashing from the man’s head to the woman’s head with groans of OOOOH! AAAAAH! OOOOOH! AAAAAAH! OOOOOOH! AAAAAH!)

Meanwhile the fellows standing downstairs whooped and hollered. (The ushers kept anyone from sitting next to us, but one guy sat two seats away and moaned “Ahh, boobs, I love big boobs! F***ing boobs! Yaaaaaah!” until our lack of interest sent him scurrying back to his seat.We stayed until Intermission (God only knows what happens during the break where hundreds of excited Indian boys are involved!) It really is a sad and pathetic comment on the state of sexual affairs in Indian. If hundreds of men and boys throng to see such horribly, pathetically bad porn, something is definitely amiss!

Other news--Two guys from Serbia joined the Karavan yesterday and my friend Anna arrives in the morning... the Karavan blogsite is up (although I haven’t posted to it) at artkaravan.wordpress.com ... it probably has some photos of me and the rest of the crew...

I gave a talk on Conceptual Art and my work at the college and the kids loved it (although don’t really quite get it)...Getting the equipment, power, plugs and screen was the highlight... the plugs were held in by placing rocks around them... the screen was a big white blackboard thing scraped and marked.... an electrician (and I use this term very loosely) had to come and twist some wires together and stuff them in a box... we got started about an hour late, but no one cared in the least..

Kata, Eric and I went to a “ritzy” Indian members-only club on the banks of the Ganga last night for drinks and snacks with the guy running the Patna leg of the Karavan and his wife (both of whom I know from the time I spent in Bodh Gaya). There were no other women there (they come on weekends).... just groups of guys gathered in circles of chairs in the grass and on the patio, drinking and eating...

Went on a siteseeing trip to a private museum... The Quila House featuring the Jalan Collection http://www.jalanmuseum.com/ Unbelievable amount of stuff of all sort... the guy who accumulated it was obviously a hoarder of the highest level and had a bit too much money at his disposal! But it was interesting... and then on to the Jain temple (second largest in India?? or Bihar??)...

Jains are a separate religion from Hindu and Muslims (share some roots, I suppose)... they’re the ones who wear turbans. When we walked in, the temple display was bright and flashy and beautiful...but off to the side sat about 40 people counting STACKS of money and coins from the collection boxes... obviously, the Jains are doing A-OK.

Kata and I are launching a new project -- Non-Performance Art. We’re just going to go stand somewhere until a crowd gathers and then take a bow and leave. We got the idea when we went to the train station to watch a performance by some of the artists...they were painted with white faces and carried spoons with rice in them in their mouths...very dramatic. However, Kata and I simply standing there watching drew a crowd as big or bigger than the performance. Khitish, the Orissa artist, kept telling the crowd to watch the performance, but to no avail. Finally, I stepped forward and said *Hello, my name is carol Hummel. “I’m from the United states and I love India” The crowd went wild with approval!! Kata did a short speech, too, to the crowd’s delight! Khitish so aptly summed it up by saying, “Well, it’s obvious who the real works of art are” Hilarious!

And so ends my chatter for the next week or until I find an internet again. We’re having the end of Patna party tomorrow and on the 11th the Karavan goes to Lucknow, but a bunch of us are going to Bodh Gaya for several days to enjoy some monks and temples and Tibetan food.

The Wedding of Trees

The Wedding of Trees -- Emily and Kalpabatta

Today I did a collaborative piece with the artists from Orissa... We had a marriage between my daughter the tree and Kshitish's son the tree. (My tree's name was Emily) Why would we marry trees? Welllllllllll.... in India there is a tradition of marrying trees...(true story!) If someone wants to marry his or her love and there is a problem with their horoscope, if they marry the love, the love will die. SO they first marry a tree (there are male and female species of trees...bet you didn't know that!!) The wedding is the real thing complete with guests, food, music, priest, the works. The tree apparently absorbs the the bad stuff and allows the person to marry their love without knocking them off.

THEN, once married, if the couple is having trouble getting married, are unhappy, having any sort of problems, they call upon the trees again. This time, they have a marriage between a male tree and a female tree (again, full-blown marriage)... they plant the trees together ... and they, once again, do their magic (a lot cheaper that infertility treatments or marriage counseling, eh??)

So, we had a marriage between two trees (I crocheted a LOVELY red and gold outfit for the bride)... It was really cool... they went through an entire (but small) Hindu wedding ceremony.... took red paste and put between our eyes and then pressed rice into it... then did to all the guests (we had 20 or so... an intimate affair, you know)

The priest chanted in Hindi... some of the artists played drums and tamborines and sang in the background... the priest had us put marriage crowns on the trees, and thread bracelets... the lady who hosted the wedding brought the tree couple gifts of bangles and saris and material and money.... she danced and sang whenever the mood struck her... others in the audience joined in... we danced with the trees around the wedding table (a low table with red cloth... oranges on 3 corners, grapes on the 4th... a spiral shell filled with red liquid and a flower -- obvious reference to virginity -- a small God figure) seven times and then the woman put tikkas on the trees brows and voila! the marriage was over!

Afterwards (during the many obligatory photos after any event that involves white people) the lady and I talked and both agreed that what would really be happening at that point is that the bride would be crying and begging her mother not to make her go live with the groom.... we were wailing while Kshitish tugged on "Emily" ..hilarious.

The drummers led our dancing wedding party to the place where we planted the trees (down a dirt path, through the kitchen tent where 3 cooks were stirring massive pots of rice and vegetables). The trees were planted together in one hole, intertwined... and we all dumped panfuls of water on them while the drummers drummed and the men wrapped their arms around each other and danced around the tree... then the women joined in and I am now, once again, the "dancing white woman"..adored by all... One Indian artist said, "When you dance you are like a flower slowly opening.." Hahaha... sooo sweet!

Ranchi

Post -- Ranchi, Bihar, India 2-24-10

So, as I said, this is the cleanest, most organized, least wacky town we’ve been in yet... so looking forward to aimlessly wandering around enjoying a smaller, cleaner, easier-to-handle town than Kolkata... and then we get a call to tell us to return to the compound immediately because it’s dangerous to be out on the streets... that we’re going to get kidnapped and robbed or held for ransom.

Of course we ignore such nonsense (calm down, worryworts back home, it’s OK). I’ve been in Bihar (the most violent and dangerous state in India) and although they have some Maoist mafiosos (or Robin Hoods, depending on your perspective) out in the countrysides, they generally don’t come into cities to grab tourists (which are few and far between in Ranchi...really not worth the effort).

However, fear spreads through the Art Karavan participants. We are told we can’t leave the compound (for a week??!!)... we are told we have to sign a waiver of liability if we DO go out (no problem)... we are told we have to be in each night by 7 pm if we do go out so they can lock us in.

We had an opening gathering of politicians and sponsors of Art Karavan so I asked some of the local people if we really are in danger. Every one of them say absolutely not... the city is safe (just use common sense and take precautions you’d always take; there ARE bad apples in any place!)

I had a nice chat with a retired geologist from Shantinikiten (spelling) and told him we wanted to go to the Indian cinema to see “My Name is Khan” and he offered to take us today. Kata, Eric and I went with Babul to the fanciest theatre I’ve ever seen in India (plush, overstuffed armchairs...popcorn... clean). The movie takes place in the US and is about the Muslim hate-fest that rippled through the country after 9-11. The theme of the movie is, “My name’s Khan and I’m not a terrorist” (i.e., just because you’re a Muslim doesn’t mean you’re a terrorist... there are good Muslims and bad Muslims just like any other group of people). Of course, mixed in with this message were others: Hindu-Muslim marriage (the hero does one and is ostracized by his brother), issues involving the handicapped (the hero is autistic), a dash of Black poverty and suffering in America, and I’m sure a few more. But it was good.

Afterwards we went to Babul’s apartment (lovely place) and had tea and snacks and talked with his wife (a junior high teacher of Sociology and Political Science). Babul gave us all parting gifts (Eric-a notebook, Kata-a change purse, me-an owl piggy bank) of traditional leather work and design from Shantinikiten. So sweet!

Tonight we learned some traditional Indian dancing (if you think Country line-dancing is tough, try this!! You have to coordinate feet, hands, neck, head, and EYE movements! Never gonna happen to me in my lifetime!! But it was fun trying!), looked at some paintings and sculptures and had a couple performances by local art students.

The week is filling up fast.... may go to a tribal village a couple hours away and spend the night... Holi (the color festival where you throw dyes on each other) is on March 1st... we’re going to visit a local prison (cool!) and do some performances... some are doing workshops at schools and here at the compound.

OH! The most amazing news of all! When we checked in, I took a room next to the toilets that smelled like a nasty latrine... nobody else wanted it... they all rejected it before I took it. Well, last night, Kata discovered that behind a door that we thought went to the outside, was a big, beautiful BATHROOM!! complete with HOT WATER!!! (Before this discovery we had to walk outside to the line of common squat toilets and take our bucket baths there, too, with ICY cold water.) I am sooooo happy!! India really does take care of me.... I wish for something and it suddenly appears!

Omm Shanti!

Karavan stop 3 --Ranchi

Post - Ranchi Delhi Belly & Raj Holi Feb 27, 2010

Delhi Belly in Ranchi, the clean city, is Delhi Belly nonetheless. A wave of illness washed through the artists during the past week and -- literally -- cleaned us all out (with the aid of a large dose of bacteria, I suspect). Marisa was the first to get “it,” a bug featuring diarrhea, vomiting, extreme fatigue, headache, dehydration in a combination of any or all. But it soon spread throughout the Art Karavan, dropping white people first but eventually hitting some of the Indian artists. It only lasts for a day or two (during which you sleep around the clock when you’re not running to the toilet). However, two of the artists ended up on IVs in the hospital because of dehydration and other complications.

I actually got off fairly easy -- I didn’t vomit. However, I felt like I was GOING to vomit for two full days. I couldn’t face food (especially the greasy and or spicy food we are usually fed) and I slept an entire day. The worst part of my bout was the SPLITTING headache I had for 3 days. No matter what I took or how much water I drank, my head pounded relentlessly. The doctor came to check us all out (and prescribed some medicine for the cough I’ve had since Nepal 6 weeks ago) and basically had us drinking rehydrating salts and taking pills to stop vomiting and diarrhea.

So, of course, as bad luck would have it, this is Holi time. Holi is the festival of colors... people light fires in the streets and fields to kick it off and then spend a couple days drunk and throwing powdered dye on each other. Nutan, the Rajasthani lady who hosted our tree wedding, invited Khitish, me, Kata, and Eric to a “Rajasthani Holi” celebration. Which would have been wonderful at any other time, but I was in the midst of my sickness, Kata just recovering from hers, and Eric starting to slide into his. Oh, and it was also 10 pm and followed a looooong program and the local museum.

But when a wonderful Rajasthani lady calls, we answer.

We walked to a hall a short distance from our place to the community room in a beautiful (gated!) high-rise apartment complex. The room reverberated with pounding drums and singing. We were greeted like royalty (showing up late, but, hey! we’re royalty!) The women (all dressed in beautiful brightly colored saris) jumped up and started dancing, dragging Kata and I into the fray. Of course, Nutan said there would be no colors (throwing dye), but we got smeared with fluorescent pink within moments of our arrival.

For the next two hours, the men drummed and sang (it was wonderful! Indians really know how to drum!!) The women danced and then the men danced and then we all danced together for the grand finale. The food looked wonderful but my stomach wouldn’t even consider letting even a morsel come its way.

Even though I gulped down some pills and crashed the moment I got home, it was a night to remember.

Post -- Ranchi -- Feb 28, 2010

I woke up today feeling half myself and that was good. My headache was halfway gone, my stomach felt fairly good, and my cough was slightly improved; a good day (compared to the last two days of pain and exhaustion).

I spent the day editing photos and video (learning I Movie out of sheer necessity) for our presentations tonight at the Center for Coal Production (or something like that), who gave us some money for the Karavan. Khistish and I are going to present the tree wedding piece.

Of course, we were first dragged to another place with another crowd wanting us to do anything to entertain them but none of us were prepared because no one told us what was happening so a few improvised and seemed to satisfy them.

But the Coal Center was amazing. The most modern building I’ve ever seen in India. It was in the midst of a corporate living community that could have been in the US. The show was long and drawn out .... lots of folk dancers and singers and our presentations that dragged on and on. We did get to dance with one of the tribal village groups which was fun. But basically we were all starving.

But, boy, was it worth the wait! It was a spread! Hot and sour soup, chicken in gravy, steamed vegetables, ice cream (these are what I ate) and loads of other delicious dishes.

We ended up all dancing wildly with the Indian men (and a few women) and had a fantastic time…. That’s what the Art Karavan needs – LOTS OF DANCING!!

Kolkata continued...

Pursuing serious information in the bookshops (that are air conditioned!) in Kolkata
Kata cracked up when she saw the chance positioning of Obama and Hitler books

Art Karavan stop #2 -- Kolkata

Tying crocheted bracelets on the wrists of my new brothers and sisters for my on-going project during Art Karavan

My favorite cook sitting in front of daily fare for Art Karavan in Kolkatta...yumm!?!??
Puja, her mom and friend at home in New Market slum

Kata with some of her dancing friends in the New Market slum

Tying bracelets on the arms of India

Entrance to wedding hall

Small yarn bomb of the hostel door beneath the stadium

Friends of Kolkata

Kshitish, artist from Orissa, during performance

Lunchtime friends

Gopal, from Assam, with his installation

Jeetin, from Bangalore, and Ondi, from USA (under red cloth) perform in Kolkata streets

Jeetin during Kolkata performance

India is great DANGER

Drummer girl

Kata dancing in slums of Kolkata

Dhobie wallah (laundry man)

Bare-bottomed beggar boy with stuffed doll

Kata Lengyel of Hungary in blue space where she danced and I filmed...very beautiful!!

Local lady showing me how crocheting is done!

Chicken choppers in New Market slaughterhouse, which is tastefully connectd to the main shopping "mall".... gives a special sort of olfactory ambience

"Blue Water" a small piece of hope created to inspire clean water to flow from my faucet

February 16, 2010 --Kolkatta

The train journey from Shantiniken to Kolkatta was 3 1/2 hours long and was highlighted by a dance through the train cars by Kata... the local passengers looked at us (her dancing, me filming) with surprise and smiles. It got more raucous when she did a dance over and around the seats filled with Art Karavan artists... good fun.

Our new quarters for the week are under a HUGE STADIUM in the Salt Lake section of Kolkatta... like the catacombs...numerous rooms and dormitories tucked along the circular hallway surrounding the stadium. However, our rooms are AIR CONDITIONED and relatively clean with western toilets and hot water! Can’t beat that! (Although some of the rooms host swarms of mosquitos and some huge cockroaches and there are a few rats scuttling down the hallways).

My room’s terrific because I’m by myself and can snore in solitude without worrying about disturbing any roommates. Kata has a room on the exterior of the building, however, and the mosquitos can’t be kept out. (So I am now sitting in her “new” interior room while the resident repairman hacks up the doorjamb trying to fix the slide bolt so she can lock her door. Of course this comes after the two electricians who were in to install lights in the bathroom....and they are working on getting us some mosquito nets... ahhhh! all in a day’s work!)

Last night after we arrived we took a walk with our Bangalore artist friend Jeetin. At the end of our road was not only a wedding in full swing, but also a techno-rock concert! It was tough to decide which one to crash, but we opted for the concert. However, it was for college students only and they wouldn’t let us in (hard to believe... TWO white females!! and they won’t let us in!?!?)

So we stood outside the gate and I began to dance... soon I was dancing with 20 or so college boys (Kata was hiding behind Jeet)... and before we knew it, one of the Security Guards came over and asked if we’d like to go into the concert (yes, we would, thank you!) He led us around to the VIP area right in front of the stage. The music was BLASTING! and I enjoyed it thoroughly... dancing and taking photos. The band’s name is “Fossil” and is “the BEST techno-rock band in Kolkata,” we were told... It seems that there will be another concert tomorrow night week and we, of course (now that we have established our reputation) are invited to it along with as many of our friends as we desire.

Time has slipped away from me today.... it’s already 3 pm and I’ve done very little. (Kata went out for a walk and some random man on the street exposed himself to her)... The repairman is finished, so I think I’ll head out into the streets myself...