[Listening to Ulrich Schnauss]
Back to catnaps, cockroaches, ceiling fans, handkerchiefs, luke warm drinking water, clean boxer briefs, and humidity. If that makes even the slightest coherent sense, then cool.
Saying that the weather in Calcutta is scorching, sweltering, & sultry doesn’t really do it justice. I take three “cold” showers a day - cold in quotations because the pipes don’t give you the option to actually receive anything cold enough to give the body a jolt from the chilled sensation. Then as soon as I step out of the shower, beads of sweat have already started to form, and I’m not sure what purpose my towel is playing as I attempt to dry off.
When I walk down Chowingee, I usually have to kick myself for forgetting my handkerchief. I mean, I normally never need (woah triple n!) one but since my face is dripping for a better part of the afternoon here, its can be quite annoying to not have something to dry off with. I guess I should just pay another 10 rupees for a new one right? At times I don’t even know that I’m perspiring profusely (it really just brings a grin to my face because it’s so unbelievable… but I go to scratch my face, and wind up wiping it instead. Or I look in the mirror and go “Woah, what happened!?!?” The two interesting things I noticed about humidity:
1) For the first time in my life I don’t need chapstick. It’s bizarre.
2) After a while, my sweat is no longer salty… I guess it just loses the concentration of salt that normal sweat has.
I just returned back to Calcutta, after going to Darjeeling and Sikkim for about 10 days. It was quite refreshing to get struck by fog instead of humidity. Ice cold water out of taps that leaves your body in a state of shock. And hot water showers felt worthy for the first time in months. But I was desperately in need of a shower when I got back to Esplanade station, Calcutta - after a 60 hour hiatus. You best believe I was bringing the funk Oatey.
I visited my pops old school, St. Pauls, in Darjeeling. Class of 1966 baby. It’s a beautiful place perched high atop the hills and winding roads. I saw the tea plantations at Happy Valley, grubbed many momos, drank too much tea, and had some beers with some travellers at Joey’s pub.
I left for Gangtok, Sikkim after a few days. I’ve seen cities & villages like its nobody’s business in India, and I was dying to see some natural beauty in the form of mountains, lakes, & rivers. It was pretty cloudy with sporadic hits of rain in Gangtok, so I tried to just relax, add some chowmein to my momos, & figure out some plans for leaving Gangtok.
In the process I met 4 ladies from Iceland and got to know one of them pretty well. She’s been working in Baroda, Gujarat for the past year with another Icelander and they are now both travelling for a bit with their other friends who came to India. I was less than certain that they were speaking German when I started some conversation up with, “Where in Germany are y’all from?” “No, we’re from Iceland.” Damnit, I just lost my citizen of the world status…I should be able to tell German from Icelandic, right?
My knowledge of Iceland is far from good. Hmmm, puffins tend to get lost in the winter, and they have some good music coming from there: Bjork, Sigur Ros, & Mum.
Turns out Bjork wasn’t famous in Iceland until her international stardom and then she became “Our Bjork” after people back home realized her status.
“People from Iceland are cocky and we think that we are the best at everything.”
They all agreed & felt happy that Iceland had not joined the European Union. It was keeping its independence from the Europeanization of the continent.
“It’s good in many respects but bad in others. Some feel that we are missing out on trade opportunities and that we’ll be left behind. Another negative is that we have to pay higher tuition prices to go to college anywhere outside Iceland in Europe.”
Although Iceland has kept its “independence” from the EU, its interesting that their only army is a US military base. You can bet this is a divisive issue over there - “Are we better off without them here? Does that make us a target or is it beneficial to have them on our side?”
That one Baroda-Icelandic girl is currently applying for masters programs in Globalization/Development & Politics around the United Kingdom. She’s lived in England, Guatemala, Norway, and now India for extensive periods of time. I thought her experience in Guatemala for 1 year when she was 18 was quite touching. She came back home to Iceland after the one year expecting to hug, kiss, and be affectionate with her family and friends…but forgot that Nordic culture is not analagous with that of Latinos.
We enjoyed some great, playful banter over some beers and a fellow from New York teased them like crazy about being from Iceland, butchering the pronunciations of Bjork & Leaf Erickson. Definitely not pronounced LEAF as became obvious from the mouths of the Icelandic ones. The New Yorker, my fellow “Yanqui”, definitely wasn’t helping me try and kill the American stereotype.
From Gangtok I headed to western Sikkim, but I’ll have more on that adventure in another post.
I think we people need time away from the grind, turmoil, & monotony that life can throw us into. I was only in Calcutta for a couple weeks, but felt myself getting into kind of a rut/routine, especially being here in the thick of the heat and at my Grandparent’s place. But after going up North for a while, I feel a new sense of happiness, awareness, & satisfaction for being back in CAL. I’m ready for the hagglers, shop keepers, passerbys, humidity. I’m here with a renewed sense of love for people. I think workers of the world need to take more weekend trips & breaks - come back home to work feeling refreshed & ready to take on the task at hand
As I walked around town this evening and headed down Lindsay Street, cut through to Suddar, and then on to Free School Street, I was saying to myself, “Damn, the market is popping right now.” It was 7 o’clock and street vendors were calling out their prices to folk bustling down the street. It was crowded as hell and bustling with life & excitement. Ohhh, it’s Saturday! People looking to consume anything if the price is right and others looking to slang something if the price is decent. Dare I try this Kati roll or Sikh kebab off the street? After 4 1/2 months my stomach might struggle a bit, but my boldness & confidence won’t hesitate as much. Ohhh, it’s good to be back & caught in the grip of yet another city.
Interesting… an icelandic girl living in Baroda. Even though Reykjavik is the party capital of Europe, did you know iceland was the first european country (with all its 275K population) to introduce prohibition in early 20th century? And beer was banned until 1988? It’d be interesting to know the views of an icelander living in dry Gujarat on prohibition.
Hi. I came across your blog randomly. I’m a student at UCSD- we met last summer, although I doubt you remember me. Stumbling across your blog was extremely refreshing. I found your writing to be intriguing and eloquent, and most importantly, truthful. Its remarkable to find Indians like you who are cognizant of their environment outside of the obvious cultural/commercial facets. And your segments on the definition of identity are completely relatable. I particularly loved your description of Mumbai. My family is from Mumbai, and I couldn’t have explained the paradox of that city better. I’ve never felt anywhere in my life the way that I have in Mumbai.
I look forward to reading your future posts.
ps. is that banner on the homepage a photo of the Parisian metro??
Yeah, I look forward to reading your future posts too.
What the fuck.