Making our Way West

Since Varanasi, we have visited Allahabad (in Uttar Pradesh), one of the four holiest Hindu sites in India, where two of the holiest rivers, the Ganges and the Kumana, meet. It is the home of the Kumbh Mela celebation, where every twelve years on a very auspicious day millions of Hindu pilgrims bathe in the sacred confluence of the two rivers. The last celebration was recorded as having the largest number of pilgrims in one place ever in history- 70 million. Compared to Varanasi, Allahabad was somewhat of a retreat. While we truly enjoyed Varanasi, at the end of the week I was tired of the endless touts, the unclean streets and the wild roaming cows, dogs and goats everywhere. While Allahabad did have its share of stray dogs, it was pretty clean and calm for an Indian city. It is not a heavily visited place for Western tourists so we were able to wander the streets tout-free. We chatted with some friendly people and had lunch at an Indian cafe where Allahabad businessmen gather for a mid-morning chai tea.
After wandering around the city some more, we caught a 2-hour delayed train (quite typical in this country) to Satna, a stopover point for travelers heading to Khajuraho. As we got in a taxi to go to our over-priced hotel, after rejecting the driver's countless offers to drive us to Khajuraho, I eventually realized that paying the driver was one US dollar more than staying in the hotel for the night and we would save hours of travel the next day. So, at 10PM we paid the driver the equivalent of 21 dollars to drive us to Khajuraho, which was 2 hours away. He was safe, took us to a cheap restaurant for a late dinner and dropped us off at a decent hotel for the night.
We have spent our first day in Madya Pradesh and intend to explore more of this state over the next week. Khajuraho is a small town known for its millenium-old sandstone Hindu temples. The temples, while noted for their detailed medieval architecture, are best known for their erotic carvings. While the town built 80 temples a millenium ago, there are currently 24 in good condition over a 20 sq. km area, which is pretty impressive. We enjoyed our walk to many of the temples as we were frequently stopped to buy postcards or mineral water or sculptures or illegal drugs. After weeks of experimenting with different answers, we have found that the best way to ward off these vendors is to tell them we do not want it in Hindi, "Nahi Chahiye", or to say "Is it free? I will pay zero rupees." Both responses usually make us and the touts laugh and then they leave us alone.
I have been practicing Hindi whenever I can but my abilities are certainly limited. People really enjoy when we speak in their language and are eager to help us improve. Hope to pick up more of the language as the trip goes on.
Tomorrow morning, we head to Orchha, another town known for its erotic religious ruins. There we will greet the New Year before heading to Bhopal.

Learning Hindi in Varanasi

Varanasi

Here are S's thoughts on our last week:

today we are in varanasi, in central India. varanasi is basically the center of Hinduism, which is an exceptionally tolerant religion, so in some ways it seems appropriate to have spent Christmas here.

we've spent the last week taking intensive hindi classes. for those interested, what follows are a few notes on some of the languages we've encountered so far:

according to wikipedia, hindi is actually the 3rd most spoken language in the world after mandarin chinese and english. for a native english speaker, it's definitely not easy to pick up - when trying to learn hindi you will come to appreciate how closely related are english and the romance languages. ultimately though, english and hindi come from the same language family, as opposed to say Chinese, which is entirely different. for an english speaker, chinese has some advantages in that there are no tenses or verb conjugations, or gendered nouns and adjectives, which makes things a little easier. on the other hand, having no shared past, in addition to the tones there are all kinds of sounds that are not only very difficult for us to reproduce, but they are almost impossible for us to hear in the first place. i can't tell you how many times we'd be in a situation in china where someone would say a word or a sentence to us, and we'd try to repeat it back to them and completely fail. to our ears, we'd think we were reproducing the exact same sound - but to their ears it was like we were trying to say 'tree' and it was coming out 'dog'. so even with a roman alphabet transliteration of the chinese word, we still couldn't really make ourselves understood. and this doesn't even begin to take into account the difficulties of learning the chinese writing system, which surpass description.

you don't really have too many of these problems with hindi. yes, the writing script is different, but it's still based on a learnable alphabet. and yes, there are different sounds that are difficult to reproduce, most obviously the aspirated consonants and the nasal vowels, but at least we can hear the things that we are getting wrong. and being distantly related, you still have the same basic structures of tenses and conjugations (i go, you go, i went, you went etc.), so it's somewhat familiar. it also has all the same confusing aspects of the european languages like gendered nouns and adjectives and confusing irregular conjugations over way too many tenses.

the biggest difference is that hindi is a subject-object-verb language (I you love), as opposed to english which is subject-verb-object (I love you). more confusing is that with intransitive verbs you conjugate the verb based on the subject (as in english) but with transitive verbs you conjugate the verb based on the object (which you don't do in english). it has no prepositions, instead employing a very confusing system of postpositions - there are more of them and they are much more specific than in english. the syntax of the sentences is also much more rigid and specific. whereas in english you can say either 'yesterday, i went to the beach' or 'i went to the beach yesterday' without changing the meaning of the sentence, you don't have the same freedom in hindi, which is actually very difficult for an english speaker. there are also other issues like there is no verb 'to have', which is instead replaced by 3 non-verb constructions based on whether the thing that is had is a person, an object or an abstract concept. the upshot is that you can basically never translate sentences directly from english to hindi. so whereas when learning french or spanish, it's possible to correctly guess a spanish phrase based on your knowledge of english, that really isn't possible in hindi. in some ways this is good, because it forces you to start thinking in hindi right away, but in other ways it's bad, in that it precludes any intuitive leaps while learning the new language.

the week was intensive, and i think we picked up a lot, though we definitely need to practice. hopefully we get better over the next two months as we travel around the country. vickie made much more progress than I did, due to a better memory for vocab and a far greater willingness to practice with strangers.

anyway, we'll spend a day or two more here in varanasi, then head to allahabad. after that we will make our way southwest towards bombay.

Varanasi

S and I have just arrived in Varanasi, the holiest site for Hindus in the country. It is also a place of worship for Buddhists and Jains and it is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. It is a very spiritual place- many elderly or sick come here when they are dying because passing away in this place removes you from the future cycles of rebirth. While we have not seen it yet, Hindus are also burned on the banks of the rivers of the Ganges and their ashes are thrown into this holy river, which many pilgrims also use to cleanse themselves from evil spirits.
We took the non-AC sleeper last night from Kolkata to Varanasi and we both had restless sleeps, being awoken every hour by snoring, loud conversations on cell phones (even at 4AM) and chai-wallahs trying to sell tea and others selling snacks. Our train was 3 hours late and we pulled into Varanasi at 12:30. This evening at 6 we have our opening session for our one-week Hindi language course at Bhasa Bharati Language Institute.

Pinky and Mo

The Rocket and Dhaka

Today we visited the home of Pinky and Mo, two very kind and friendly Bengali sisters who truly welcomed us to their city. We met them at a popular intersection near their home and we spent 5 hours at their home eating, laughing, sharing stories and experiences and even more eating. Their mother cooked for hours to prepare over 7 vegetable dishes for us and 4 of the best Bengali desserts that are eaten during their religious holiday Eid. They were all so lovely and they have invited us to spend the national holiday with them tomorrow. Tomorrow is the 38th anniversary of Bangladesh's independence and we can already see the people showing their pride- many people have attached Bangladesh flags to their rickshaws, cars or are just waving them as they walk through the street.

Short Stories from Bangladesh

So much has happened to us over the last 7 days that it is difficult to know from where to continue.

Bangladesh is an incredibly beautiful country. As there are many lakes and rivers, the country is very tropical and green. There are palm trees and flowers in every direction and the slight humidity casts a haze over the country that makes it look somewhat magical. While the center of the towns are a little dirty, most of the country's land is very open, far-stretching beautiful farmland. As a new crop rotation for rice is beginning, many plots of land are flooded with water, a necessary step when cultivating rice. Despite being winter here, it is still quite warm and the evenings have a nice breeze that reminds me of the Caribbean.

On our second day in Bangladesh, S finally decided to get a haircut. We walked into a Bangla barber shop on Khulna's main avenue and S asked if he could get a haircut in English, also gesturing the cutting symbol with his fingers. They told us to sit and a man getting a shave in the shop told us in English that it would cost 100 takas, which was a dollar and fifty cents. The barber, without words, gestured his vision for S's new cut and, not knowing how to communicate anything otherwise, S shrugged and left his fate in the barber's hands. This haircut was the most elaborate I have ever seen- the man cut and styled for at least 40 minutes and then included a head massage, a full body massage, a shave and a beard trim. Since then, Steve has literally gotten 3 glowing compliments on his haircut every day.

All women here dress incredibly conservatively, with most women wearing head scarves and usually wearing a saree, which is 6 yards of fabric wrapped around the body several times and held with simple tucks in the fabric, or a salwar kameez, a loose fitting knee length tunic over baggy trousers. As not many tourists visit Bangladesh and the opinions of foreigners are still being formed, I purchased a bright pink and turuoise salwar kameez to fit right in here. While I still stick out like a sore thumb, many men and women have thanked me for wearing their clothing in their country.

Our day in the village with the BIWTC manager Firoz was absolutely amazing. We were the first Westerners in the village and we met all of his family, extended family and extended extended family. The village is 45 minutes outside of a town Gopalganj and a family of farmers on one plot of land generations ago has expanded to a whole village with hundred and hundreds of residents. As Firoz proudly paraded us around the town, he introduced us to every relative, explaining the web that connected them together. As we walked from house to house, we were followed by a group of about 15-20 children who continuously said hello to us, shook our hands, picked flowers for us and tried to jump into the foreground of every picture I tried to take. As immediate families normally have their homes built around a communal courtyard, when we walked in, the mothers ran to the kitchen while the grandparents smiled at us shyly and the children grabbed chairs for us to sit down. A minute of two later, the ladies emerged from the kitchen with a plate of snacks or a hot glass of milk and the family stood around us, commenting about us in Bengali. The women commented that I did not have a nose ring and asked if my dress was Bengali while the men played with S's hair and told him he looked great. At every house, our short-term hosts told us how happy they were that we came to their village and that we were enjoying their country. Firoz was also very happy that we were enjoying ourselves and his sister cooked us the best Bengali food we've had yet.

After we left the village that afternoon, Firoz arranged for us to take the 24- hour ferry ride from Khulna to Dhaka. We got on the ferry at 11PM and started moving around 11:30. When we woke up the next morning, we were back at the Khulna dock. The ferry manager explained that we were held back due to fog and that, as a certain part of the trip could not be done at night, there would be an additional 15-hour delay. That morning we were the only passengers in 1st class and Ashish, the 1st class supervisor, told us that passengers would not be getting on until the 2nd day. For the enitre first day, we had our own large private dining room, a spacious outdoor deck at the front of the boat and our own personal staff of 5, the last part being a little overwhelming at the end of the day. Ashish gave us a tour of the boat, took us to the control room to meet the captain, introduced us to the ship's engineers and called us from our rooms when there was great view.

Today, after a 55 hour ferry ride, we finally docked in Dhaka. We left with a pocketful of phone numbers and email addresses of people we had met on the boat that wanted to stay in touch and many more memories of incredibly kind, generous and welcoming people. A pair of sisters invited us to their home in Dhaka for lunch tomorrow and said they would also show us around the city. We are to call them in the morning tomorrow to make plans.

We got into Dhaka at 4PM and, as we were trying to get a rickshaw to our hotel, an English-speaking Bengali told us he would help, leading us through unfamiliar streets and finally bargaining with a rickshaw driver and telling him our desired destination in Bengali. The streets of Dhaka were very congested but not how you would think. There are not many personally owned vehicles so the streets of Dhaka and other Bengali cities are packed with rickshaws and 3-wheeled auto rickshaws. It is estimated that Dhaka has about 600,00 rickshaws on its city streets.

Today S also arranged a very nice belated birthday celebration for me. I am very lucky.

Khulna Division

Land of the Banglas

Three days ago, S and I got on a bus headed towards the Bangladeshi border town of Benapole. On the Indian side, a kind bus operator escorted us through Indian immigration and customs and, when we crossed over into Bangla territory, there were kind men every 5 feet pointing us in the direction of the immigration office. As we walked by with a smile, they all stopped us and asked, "What country?" and when we responded America, they shook our hand, held their hand up to their heart, and said thank you as we walked away. This is representative of the kindness and curiosity that Banglas have been showing to us over the last 3 days. Tourists do not come to Bangladesh and so people are incredibly friendly, curious and eager to ask you or share whatever they know how to say in English, which ranges from a screaming hello as someone passes on a rickshaw to an extended discussion about America, Bangladesh, politics and wealth. If we are stopped for more than 10 seconds on the street, the crowd surrounding us literally multiplies by the second.
As Bangladesh is a country full of rivers and canals, sometimes the most direct or most picturesque route to your next destination is on a boat through the country's waterways. When we first headed to the Bangladesh Inter-Waterway Tranportation Company (BIWTC) yesterday morning to book a 24-hour boat ride from Khulna to Dhaka, our early frustrations with the manager Firoz's poor customer service skills as we waited for 30 mintues in his office quickly fizzled away as he excitedly offered us tea, talked to us about his country and ours and asked us for our mailing address so he could send us letters in America. He repeatedly asked us to confirm that we would write him back and told us he was happy to have new American friends. He also asked about our 'relation' to each other, and if S had 'given me any babies yet', which is the standard set of questions asked after 'what country'. He wrote out a receipt for us and told us to go to another office to pick up our boat tickets the following day. When we arrived at the other BIWTC office this morning, the manager told us that the boat was cancelled due to fog and that we should go back to see Firoz. Our 5 minute, 15 cent rickshaw ride took back to the center of town where we walked to Firoz's office. On the way there, we were creepily followed by a crazy person who, after trying to come with us into the BIWTC office, was shooed away by the office guard. We sat down in Firoz's office, where he told us that he had been thinking about us all morning and was sorry that he could not call us himself with the news about the cancellation. We chatted with him and had some tea as we waited for the crazy person to go away from the front of the building. During this time, which wound up being about an hour, he invited us to visit his hometown with him tomorrow during the day for lunch. He lives in Gopalganj, a small fishing village 2 hours from Khulna that is known for its farmers that fish with river otters. We accepted his invitation and stopped by his office this evening, after our trip to Bagerhat, to confirm all the travel details. As he was away from his office when we arrived, he had stationed a assistant to keep watch for us and to call him when we got there. He quickly came after the call, treating us to more tea, more interesting conversation and fueling greater excitement about the visit to his village tomorrow.
We experienced more of the same during our day trip to Bagerhat, where we were quickly adopted by two Bangdladeshi college students, who insisted on calling us 'auntie' and 'uncle', a sign of respect for elders. They turned out to be excellent tour guides, taking us around to all of the town's historical mosques. They were exceptionally friendly, and extremely persistent about exchanging email addresses, mail addresses, and cell phone numbers, insisting every 10 minutes that we promise to stay in touch with them. Shuvo kindly requested that we write down our day full of 'memories' with them, so that we'd never forget them, because they surely would never forget us. This seemed slightly less weird when we later discovered that we were the first foreigners they had ever met. There are already countless other, shorter stories like these, and the stack of email addresses and mobile numbers is growing by the minute. We've been touched by the friendliness and hospitality of the people we've met here.

7 Days of Indian Wedding

Rukmini & Joseph's Wedding

We are currently at day 6 of the festivities for Rukmini and Joseph. While day 4 was the Hindu wedding, the other days have been filled with small ceremonies at the house of the bride's family. The house was beautifully decorated with marigolds wrapped around the staircases and hanging from outdoor patio. The floors were painted with red and white designs meant to symbolize blessings for the new couple and there were white lights everywhere, representing the couple entering the light together. On day 3, there was a dinner for the bride's last evening in the home. All of the bride's family and friends came over and many family members became very nostalgic about all the memories of Rukmini as a child. On the afternoon of day 5, there was a luncheon for Rukmini's last day in her parent's home before she moved in with her husband's family. There were private blessings given to the bride before she and her husband went off in a flower-decorated car towards the groom's home. Since then, the groom's side has been holding many parties for the couple in their home.
As the wedding on the evening of day 4 was being held at the army base Fort William, Rukmini's family had to go through all of this red-tape to get a security clearance for us foreigners to be able to attend. While they secured permits for us and we were supposed to travel in a specially marked car to the Fort, the security did not even check our permits or who was in the car and just waved us through. The wedding was held in a beautiful outdoor space decorated with dangling lights, colorful fabrics and more marigolds than one could count. The groom wore a dhoti, a rectangular piece of unstitched cloth, usually around 7 yards long, wrapped around the waist and the legs, and knotted at the waist, and a traditional scarf. Atop his head was a white-tiered hat that is traditionally worn at Hindu weddings. To begin the ceremony, the groom stood in the middle of the space on a pedestal and the bride's female family members circled the groom 7 times pouring water around him to purify the space. After the women blessed the groom, all of the bride's "brothers", brothers and male cousins, carried out the bride on a carpeted platform. As she was being brought towards the groom, her face was covered with two big leaves and, when she was brought before the groom, a white fabric was pulled over the two of them. S was given the honor of holding one of the corners. The bride was wearing a colorful red sari, was drenched in gold jewelry and had a large circular nose ring which was connected by a chain to her left earring. During this time, after the bride uncovered her face, the priest began giving blessings as the bride and groom exchanged floral garlands with each other several times. After these exchanges, the bride and groom were brought over to the mandap, a canopy where the ceremony was to take place. As the hour and a half ceremony was in Sanskrit, we clearly could not understand it but the ceremony was elaborate and full of tradition. Throughout the whole wedding, older women were blowing conch shells, meant to ward off evil spirits. The dinner was a non-veg, veg and Chinese buffet, complete with carts full of Indian sweets, and over 450 people came to celebrate this event. The wedding was dry but some male party attendees snuck into the parking lot for a glass or two of scotch.
Tomorrow is the last day of festivities and we will be attending their Christian wedding, held by the groom's side of the family. It will be at the Tollygunge Club, a very nice golf resort where S and I have been staying for the last few days with the Duttas. When we have not been attending the various different events for the wedding, we have taking golf lessons, playing some tennis and enjoying the calm of the club, which is in stark contrast to the loud and bustling streets of Kolkata.
We have had such a great time with the Dutta family and they have been so generous to us over the last few days. Many, many, many thanks to Rono, Shomik and Priam!!! They have also introduced us to all of their family, who have been as equally warm and kind. One of Shomik's aunt's is lending me a sari to wear for the second wedding.
After the wedding, the following morning Steve and I will be taking a bus to the Bangladeshi border of Benapole, where we will then head to Khulna to spend the night there. At this stage, we intend to spend around 10 days exploring Bangladesh.

Pre-Wedding Festivities

From Rumkini & Joseph's Wedding

The last 2 days have been amazingly fun as we have been celebrating the love-marriage wedding of Shomik's cousin Rukmini and Joseph. The Indian wedding is officially tomorrow but we have been partaking in pre-wedding events for the last 2 days. The most fun day was definitely yesterday, which started with mehndi (henna) hand painting for all the lady friends of the bride, her family, family friends and me. The palms and other side of my hands were elaborately painted intricate designs which, after hours of drying, have stained my hands a dark brown color. According to Indian tradition, the darker your henna is the more you are loved by your man, so I guess that means I am very loved. They also had different color bangles for the ladies to pick out to wear that evening with their saris or salwar kameez. I got yellow ones to accent the yellow and blue border of my saree. In the evening, we went to the bride's sangt, where all the bride's friends sing and dance in honor of the special day to come. As the bride and her friends have all been incredibly kind to me and have really welcomed me into their group, I performed in a dance with the bride's two oldest friends and her Turkish college friends. It was really fun and I was glad that I did not trip over my saree during the dance and fall off stage. S took a video and photos. Many of the guests were happy to see that S and I dressed in traditional Indian clothing. Before the party, the bride's friends helped wrap me in the 6 yards of red fabric, pinning it to ensure that my saree did not fall off during the dance. The last few days have been great and it has been really fun catching up with Shomik and getting to meet his family.
Today is conveniently a day off from festivities, which works out nicely because it is my 25th birthday. S and I are spending the afternoon together as the Dutta men visit extended family. While my birthday is not the same without my family and friends around to celebrate with, I am so glad that I have S here with me.