People so many people!

The one thing I think I'll always remember about the crazy "taxi" ride through Kolkata-known as Cal to all "Real" Indians-would probably be all the people carrying things on their head. Everyone, everywhere amongst the brightly coloured buses, the children begging on the road, the trams and the people riding on the backs of trucks, is carrying something on their heads.

but maybe I'll also remember the pavement which we got a chance to stare at, seeing as to how the traffic was at a complete standstill. Through the space between the two vehicles next to us, I could see, bananas. Now I come from Sri Lanka, I've seen bananas. I know the quaint image of the bananas hanging in the shop front. But this many bananas! How many bananas! It was an entire pavement covered with a 3-4 foot high mound of bananas and right next to it was a man carrying more bananas on his head!

Or maybe I'll remember the little boy who came to our taxi while stuck in another jam. He was bare-chested and could not have been anywhere above 8 years of age. "Eh didi...Eh didi" he kept saying with a beseeching look that was very,very good. But, we don't give them money right because we know it's wrong and that this is all an organized scheme.

But, Tina had cheese sticks! Sow e gave it to him and off he walked off happy. Looking back we saw him break out into a huge smile as he tasted the first cheese stick! :D

The old building, crumbling and dilapidated, the shouting people, the garish posters of the goddess Durga, the blue buses which look held-together by mere wires, the coolies, the bicycle ricksha-walla, the ACTUAL rickshas, the back of the taxi guys head, the fellow yello ambasador cars next to us, the throng of humanity...all of it is a blur of colour.

I'm glad we didn't take the Volvo from the airport!

Durga Puja-Bengali Style

Went for a Durga Puja today. The 10-day-long puja is part of the Dussera celebrations of the Bengali community. The whole festival culminates in the immersion of the statue of the Goddess Durga in water. The Bengalis apparently give more importance to Parvati-considered by some to be the Mother Goddess-as compared to the South Indian Tamils in whose festivals Parvati (and her other form Durga and Kali the Goddess of destruction) hardly feature. Durga is said to be the wife of Lord Shiva, and mother of Ganesha (The Remover of Obstacle and God of wisdom), Karthik, Lakshmi and Saraswathi .The family-tree of the Hindu Pantheon is complicating and varies a lot depending on who from WHERE is telling the tale. Various communities differ in the importance given to each God and Goddess.

This Durga Puja in Bangalore was organized by the Bengal Association here. Almost 4-5 lakh Bengalis live in Bangalore which is a startlingly large number for me the small-islander! Ha ha J The vast ground near Ul-Soor lake where the puja is held is full of non-Kannadiga-looking, fair, aquiline-nose people speaking with a lot of o’s and sho’s in their speech in an accent I personally find rather cute.

The main marquee has a big stage set up at the front where the 5 statues of Durga and her children set in a Gold painted frame worked with frieze-like designs. The statues are made of mud from the banks of the Ganga delta…now that is a lot of mud. HOWEVER as D points out, it goes back to where it came through the immersion of the statue in the lake J Smart hai na?

Durga herself is a slightly scary lady with kohl-ed eyes and ten hands holding a number of frightening and unfeminine things like for instance, a spear. She sits atop a lion-her vehicle-and is trampling a hideous, green, grimacing demon. Ganesha her son-supposedly created from the saffron off her own body-is a pink-bellied, elephant-headed God with the rat as his vehicle. Lakshmi is smaller version of Durga with a decidedly Hedwig-esque owl as her transport while Saraswati keeping in tune (haha!) with being the Goddess of Music has a sitar in her hands and a delicate swan at her feet. Karthik’s aight.

We have yummy Bengali food in the lunch tent-kichri, which is a mixture of rice, dhal and spices like Jheera, an Aloo and Gourd curry and a pineapple “chutney” which is such that if I was at home I would have had it for dessert with cream ;) We have rasgollah, a white version of the Gulab Jamun for dessert (which is OF COURSE put right into the plate with the other food) but I still hold out that Gulab Jamuns are the yummiest sweets in India.

The rest of the stalls house everything from books to a Rajasthani home-made pickle stall with MANGOE pickle etc. Yummy stuff which they let us taste with small, wooden spoons. I go all tourist and take a million picture, which calls for hastily-covered snickering by my so-called friends!

The event is quite obviously thee place for the Bengali youth in Bangi to ahem “socialise” and generally check out the market for prospectives. We give a coochy’ing couple their privacy and sit down in the main tent to gossip and exchange myths.

Rosh is a Tamillian and D a Bong (As the Bengalis are called). They have different versions on seemingly every myth. We talk about the hilly regions of Uttaranchal, the pollution that’s set into the picturesque tourist town of Darjeeling and taking cold-water baths from the Ganges at some unearthly damn hour in the morning. It just makes me want to visit these places so badly.

I love my little country with it’s 20 million nut jobs and I know I haven’t seen half of what Sri Lanka offers to the anyone who bothers to look but here, in India, away from stupid restrictions like transport and friends who think where you’re going is duh or people worrying about their other holidays, I seem to have more scope to travel wherever I want to go. And the choices are literally endless.

We then decide to have paan. Paan is basically betel leaf wrapped around well a lot of things including a lot of sweet stuff. That might not be too clear a description I’m afraid. I’ve had it once and although it was an interesting experience it tasted decidedly leafy. This time my God. Yummy. The minute you crung down on the bright green outer covering an explosion of tastes just bursts in your mouth-leaf, sugar, bitter, sour. Paan uncle is thrilled when I ask him if I can take a few pictures of him and the stall. This is the perfect ending to a great afternoon. Chewing on the paan is a companionable, friendly business which leaves more than just the after-taste of betel leaf and sugar on your tongue. Three buddies eating their paan has a simple, almost village-esque feeling to it.

We take off. This has been fun :)