November - What a Month!

November has been a very busy month and I’ve sadly neglected this blog quite a bit. There’s been so much happening that I keep thinking about blogging but haven’t sat down to actually write. The last three weeks stand out in my mind though so let me try to catch up now.

The second week of November was the week where everything got messy. On the night of November 8^th Prime Minister Modi announced that 500 and 1000INR were no longer legal tender (read more in Zahra’s blogpost here) and we didn’t fully realize how much this would affect us. We were distracted though by a major event happening on the other side of the world: the US election.

I’m sure that there are a lot of people that remember this day way too clearly. For me, I woke up and checked the news to see that the race was quite tight. Figuring that was okay, I went out for a walk and was back making breakfast when Zahra came racing into the kitchen with her laptop, “ have you seen this?!”, and showed me the predicted election results with Trump in the lead. We managed to make it to work where we promptly set up our laptop and stayed glued to it for the final 3 hours of the election results while also searching up articles and frantically messaging friends and family. Trump came on to say his speech and I felt numb. We went home early, laid down in our beds and mourned.

Later during that messy week, we realized that we needed to go to the bank and exchange our money for legal tender. We exchanged what we could and crossed our fingers that our credit cards would work most places. It ended up taking us four separate trips to the bank to get all of our money exchanged. As we had limited access to cash and our Visa cards only worked sometimes, we had to be very strategic about spending money. It gave a whole new meaning to traveling on a budget.

At the end of a very messy week filled with the US election and trips to the bank (see Zahra's post here) we were very much ready for a break by going to Varanasi for the weekend. The Indian train system is very complex and confusing. This was our second train trip so we headed to the station feeling like experts because we knew how to find our seats and what to expect (ha! I should know by now to never expect anything). After much confusion at the station, we got on the train and found out that we had 2 seats but only one bed. We hadn’t realized that our seats were not confirmed, they were RAC, “Reserved Against Confirmation.” We had been on a waitlist for seats (though we didn’t know it) and had been bumped up to RAC which meant we had two seats but only one bed and we had to wait and see if there was an extra bed. We lucked out and the bed right across from where we were sitting was available so we didn’t have to either a) sleep sitting up or b) attempt squeezing ourselves into one bed.

We arrived in Varanasi and the chaos began. There are no cars in Varanasi so I foolishly thought that traffic would be calmer. However, it turns out that people, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, and cows can create an extremely chaotic, noisy scene without any other vehicles. Varanasi was LOUD and the crazy traffic combined with our limited cash flow meant that we walked everywhere.

Varanasi was interesting and definitely worth seeing. Admittedly I was surprised by the pollution in such a holy city. The air was thick to breath in and I had to take extra care when walking to avoid stepping into cow dung. Speaking of cows (and holy moly there were a lot of cows…. Get it? Cows are holy?), I had an unfortunate encounter with a cow. While walking up the steps of the ghats one evening, I walked between two cows and suddenly felt a sharp jab in the side of my leg. I yelped and started running up the steps with Zahra laughing and following behind me. The cow had decided to casually headbutt me while I walked by. I’ve been sporting a nice bruise (and a newfound fear of cows) since then!

Being on the ghats was quite amazing; I didn’t appreciate how long and varied the ghats in Varanasi are. When I think of Varanasi I of course think of a picture of people bathing in the holy Ganges River with the steps going up from the river behind them. I didn’t realize that there are several kilometers of ghats, each one unique in it’s own way. I’ve included some pictures below.

Some artistic additions to the ancient ghats

Morning boat tour on the Ganges River 

The ghats at night

Dashashwamedh Ghat during the day

Floating Fire - an evening ritual

A Sadhu

Preparation fo Dep Deevali - a festival on the day of the super moon where the ghats are all lined with thousands and thousands of candles (unfortunately we planned to be there for the day of the festival and only learned upon arrival that the festival was all at night when we left on the train... we did get a nice view from the train window as we left the city though)

I love that even the cycle rickshaws are decorated with lots of colour

In our panic to get to the train for 6pm we didn't get a chance to eat dinner so we bought food from the train station and had a really sad looking picnic. So sad that I decided to take a photo and put it here for you to appreciate.

Catching trains and sunsets

After Varanasi, we arrived home and realized how little time we had left. Time has absolutely flown by. It’s hard to remember the early days in September when Zahra and I had time to kill at home, missing our social lives at home and wondering when we would start to feel more at home at the Destiny office. The days when going grocery shopping was an ordeal and I would need to lie on my bed and bathe in the air conditioning after work every day because walking 10 steps made my drip in sweat.

Every day, I reference how soon I am leaving Kolkata. Today, as I write this, it is the final Sunday of living in Kolkata and tomorrow will be the final Monday. It feels as though I just became fully settled into my life here and now it is almost time to leave. 

What a month.