Pandal Anticipation

This morning was the first time that I woke up oblivious to the fact that I’m living in India. It didn’t hit me until later in the day, as we were going about our routine, that I’m miles away from family and friends. To my delight, I feel at home and normalized to the sticky heat, smell of burning incense, and chirping birds that had felt so strange to wake up to about a month ago.

I think I’m starting to truly enjoy the hustle and bustle of life in Kolkata. There are tons of people, markets, food stands, shops, and colourful ads that keep your eyes endlessly busy. Not to mention the thrilling experience of being driven around, which feels like you're in some sort of video game. All in all, I love the constant buzz around me. I’ve slowly started to understand the chaos, find my place in it, and simply absorb the city’s electrifying energy. A big part of this liveliness is due to the city’s preparations for the Durga Puja festival. Here, it is such a highly anticipated time of year that the build-up feels greater than Christmas time back home.

Our neighbourhood, though usually quiet and quaint, is clearly gearing up for this prominent celebration. In worship of Durga, a Hindu goddess that fights evils, the entire city - community by community - designs and builds structures called pandals. Hundreds, if not thousands of pandals can be found under construction around almost every corner and down every street. Come next week, each pandal will have a unique, colourfully expressed theme that represents its' community. Viewers from far and wide will embark on walking tours to take in as many pandal sites as possible and enjoy the elaborate artistry.

The pandal nearest our place (which has been the most helpful landmark since our arrival) has been growing like nothing we’ve ever seen. Just when you think it’s almost done, another segment is added on. Finding ourselves impressed by the speed at which “our” pandal expands, we suspect that construction must go on all through the night. And we can’t wait to see the finished product!

Here’s a look at the progress:

 
  

Puri in Pictures

This past weekend was our first trip out of Kolkata, to a city called Puri in the state of Odisha. Puri was not originally on our list of places to get to, but India is a big country and it turns out that getting to some of the must-see places is 20+ hours away! Puri is a mere 9 hour overnight train ride that is mostly spent sleeping. It was a nice weekend getaway trip and seeing the ocean occasionally is a treat (that might be our inner Vancouverites talking)!

Our trip was a mix of relaxation and adventure. I have decided it would be best told through photos so here we go...

We were both anticipating our first train ride in India. These before and after pictures pretty much sum up our train ride.

When we got to the train station we discovered that data was not working on our phone (so no booking an uber cab) and we didn't know how far away our hotel was (which makes it harder to haggle the price of a taxi). Ooops. This was particularly amusing as we had been exchanging stories of mistakes we'd made when taking trains elsewhere and not looking up how to get from the station to the desired destination was a common theme. We problem solved and ended up taking our first rickshaw ride through the monsoon.

After freshening up at our hotel, we were keen to walk along the beach. The waves were huge and the whole beach was lined with people wading, jumping over the waves, or simply sitting in the sand and letting the waves wash over them. No bathing suit necessary; we saw people swimming in jeans, skirts, even sarees.

Why hellooooo Mr. Camel.

There were A LOT of cows living harmoniously among people in the city. They were everywhere (and so was their poop but I didn't photograph that). In this picture, you can see a large group of cows stopping traffic to walk down the middle of the road.

We took a car ride about an hour out of Puri to see the famous Konark Sun Temple, built in the 13th century. This is one of the wheels on the temple that is built in the form of a giant, ornamented chariot for the Sun God.

We couldn't help but notice some rather.... suggestive imagery detailed on the outside of the temple as well. Further research has taught us that this is not uncommon in India. These Maithunas, erotic sculptures, are not uncommon to find on Indian temples and reflect a 13th century India where sex and sexuality was openly talked about. 

Back in Puri, we also visited the Jagannath temple in Puri, which is huge! There was a shoe stand the size of my old apartment and fences to corral people into an orderly line before entering the temple. As we are not Hindus, we could not enter the temple but had instead read in our Lonely Planet book that there was a library rooftop we could view the inside of the temple from. We climbed the stairs and a man greeted us and told us a long tale about all the visitors (including the Pope!) who had visited this library. He insisted we make a donation towards the library then led us to the rooftop. On the way up the stairs, he pulled out a long stick and started tapping along the walls and stairs. Seeing our shocked faces he explains "It's the monkeys! They bite! Don't worry I will be your bodyguard." He then proceeded to walk around the rooftop, occasionally jabbing out at monkeys and yelling while we took photos. Predictably, he then asked for a tip for being our bodyguard.

We are pretty sure the whole thing - from the picture of the Pope to the biting monkeys - was an elaborate scam to get our money. The view was pretty good but the sight of him climbing the stairs and fending of the monkeys was worth every rupee.

Dramatic clouds, sandy beaches, and the sound of waves was worth the whole trip.

We also ate "Kung Pao Paneer" at a Chinese restaurant and found a breakfast place with pancakes! However, we couldn't find the "Puri Cheesecake" or bakery we had read about online and spent an hour or more walking in search of baked goods. The second day also included a well-deserved trip to the spa. By the evening Zahra had an upset stomach and the monsoon was back so we hid out in a coffee shop and waited for the train. 

A rather hilarious weekend all in all. Not quite as relaxing as we had thought but also very eventful :)

Red Light District Visit

I do this thing sometimes, where I “Freaky Friday” myself into someone else’s body and try to imagine what it’s like to see everything through their eyes. When I’m on a crowded train, busy street or even sitting at a cafe, I picture where they must be heading…picking up their kids or their dry-cleaning…imagining what I look like through their eyes and how everything must look so different even from where they’re sitting, 2 feet away. We all walk around as if we’re the center of the universe, so I like to imagine I’m someone else to see what it would be like if I wasn’t at the center. It’s a fun little game I play back home because I love watching people; amusing myself that I was the beautiful woman with long legs walking by that I wish I resembled or imagining what it’s like to be a man. I’m a curious person, and it helps me understand the world around me. But in India this exercise is not quite the same light-hearted pursuit.

The other day we visited community members from the Khidirpur red light district in Kolkata. And I found myself doing the same thing. Watching the 30-40 year-old women I’d met that were trafficked and forced into prostitution but never fortunate enough to be rescued. I imagined myself in their bodies, as them. Replaying the movie of their lives in my head. Trying to fathom what it’s like to be in their shoes and relive their memories; seeing the the things that they’ve seen.

But the things they’ve seen are just that, a movie to me. Unimaginable as more than a nightmare or sad film. They’ve lived through my biggest fears and survived. Their strength is something I can’t seem to process. It seems unreal, even when they’re sitting right in front of me. I feel like I’m on another planet or in an alternate reality. Because how could the same reality have been so cruel to them and so kind to me?

Katie and I both felt this odd, confused state of being. I suppose we’re still in shock. Or maybe some form of denial? It’s a difficult sadness to accept. And a reminder that life really isn’t fair.

Better Alternatives for Girls' Survival

I first heard about Destiny Reflection in my introductory health sciences class at SFU about 3 years ago when my prof talked about some of her students doing an internship in Kolkata. There was also a huge poster advertising working at Destiny Reflection as an international coop that I would always pass on my way to the bus stop. It sounded like everything I was interested in: education, women’s rights, non-profit work, and analyzing the social determinants to create healthier communities. I was hooked.

I think that being so determined to make it here to Kolkata so early on in my degree shaped a lot of my choices and decisions over the last three years. I joined the coop program to get experience in health sciences fields. I took a course on Indian History and a course on Gender and International Development. I Volunteered with a non-profit that focused on doing educational workshops on different issues of social and environmental justice. In my social media accounts, there have been increasing numbers of posts related to feminism and women’s empowerment. In general, I talked about wanting to go to India and intern at Destiny Reflection. A lot. And, possibly most importantly, I got involved with BAGS Inc. as early as I could.

Better Alternatives for Girls’ Survival (BAGS) Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Vancouver that works in partnership with Destiny Reflection to support survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in India. BAGS was started by a group of young women after their return from their internship at Destiny Reflection in fall of 2011, the same group of students who my prof had been talking about in my intro class a few years ago. Inspired by their time in Kolkata, these women have committed themselves to the issue and found a way to stay involved and make a positive impact.

BAGS is regularly in touch with Destiny Reflection in order to import Destiny’s products, sell them in Vancouver, and return the profit to Destiny. They are an essential link for Destiny to reach the North American market and expand their organization. This is important: the more products the Destiny sells, the more money they make, the more money they are able to hire to work at the production center for a liveable wage. Creating dignified employment and opportunity for these women is huge.

                                                                                                                                 

The ladies at BAGS do exceptional work and I am inspired by all of them as people and by the effort they have put into their social entrepreneurship. Having the opportunity to be part of BAGS and volunteer at markets with them was huge in preparation for coming to Kolkata, even if I didn’t realize it fully at the time. Moreover, it’s nice to know that there is something in place for me to continue to stay connected to the work I do this semester once I return home. In no way does the 4 months that I spend in Kolkata have to be in isolation.

Check out BAGS Facebook page here.

Check out BAGS Instagram here.

"Indian Yoga?"

When describing the stereotypical Vancouverite, one might mention eating kale, enjoying slow drip coffee, running around the sea wall, and of course doing yoga.. I’m not sure when or how yoga became so trendy in Vancouver but the streets are full of cool yoga studios. I have dabbled in doing yoga classes over the years, usually periodically, and with some minor skepticism. Though I enjoy the practice itself, I find myself judging the crowd it attracts. A typical yoga-goer can be seen wearing lulu lemon and driving an expensive car to the door of the studio. When the instructor asks the class to chant “Om” I tend to feel a little uncomfortable knowing that everyone is happily chanting a very religious word with no concept of its meaning or context. I’ve long imagined that I wanted to try “real yoga” when I travelled to India.

Skip forward to a week after I arrived in Kolkata and had found a yoga studio nearby to where I am staying. It was clean, had a big window, and served yummy tea and chocolate cake in the café downstairs (I’m very thorough when checking out a new place, the chocolate cake must be tested).

When we arrived at the studio at 7:15am with our shiny new yoga mats, we were prepared for the ideal “Indian yoga experience.” Our biggest worry was not speaking Bengali (looking back that makes no sense considering the webpage, schedules, brochures, and the discussions I’d had with the person at the front desk were all in English).

We sit down in the class, ready for perhaps some breathing exercises and meditation. The young man who had been sitting on the counter playing a video game on his phone had marched in the room and barked for us to all stand up. What ensued was an hour of intense stretching to the consistent chanting of “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,  9, 10, again! 1, 2, 3,…”. It was rather aggressive actually – if you had the wrong foot forward, you got called out in front of everyone repeatedly until you corrected yourself to his satisfaction (this was particularly awkward when his English wording did not make sense and I didn’t understand what he was saying but he continued to repeat himself). At the end of class, he told us to all lie down in shavanasa corpse pose and close our eyes and then he left the room! It was only when I heard the shuffling of the other people in the room that I realized class was over.

To be honest, I was holding giggles in for the entire hour because I was so taken back by this experience. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but definitely not the relaxing morning I had expected! In fact, I have been quite sore for the last couple of days (stairs are difficult sometimes).

We are going to try again and hope for a different instructor so we can confirm that this experience is an anomaly. If this is “Indian yoga”, I think Vancouverite yogis would be shocked to discover they’ve been doing it very, very wrong!