HOLI HOLI farewells!

I stepped into another Bollywood extravaganza for the usual 500 Rupees and free food but this time it was high-budget, superstar studded, with the energetic Bollywood dance routine that my Bollywood dreams are made of. The film: Double Dhamaal. I got to dance "loud and with high energy" in the background of one of the scenes with one of the stars of the show, Sanjay Dutt, and then got to witness Bollywood's own "Sexy Siren" (so named because she actually does kissing scenes in her films. Shock!) Mallika Sherawat diva in action with yet more background dancing in my usual style of the seaweed dance. (My seaweed dance consists of swaying, eyes closed, arms raised in a fluid seaweed-like motion irrespective of the tune so it works for drum n bass, electro, folk music, all genres are covered here!). It's one to add to the CV I'm sure!

The day after was Holi Holi, a colourful festival where paints of many colours and toxicities are thrown into the air and on each other. The festival combines the celebration of the full moon, the advent of spring, and a way of showing, that despite the ranges in skin colour, that when everyone is covered in paint everyone of every colour is united in the same smudge of vibrant colours - this is my favourite interpretation of Holi.

Sculpture and Stuff

Phew...so after a few wordy entries here are some visuals of the sculpture and painted murals that I ogled during my last few weeks in India...

Khajuraho: saris and temples

Khajuraho: ancient rudies. The temples are famed for their erotic sculpture which decorates the outside of many a temple

Khajuraho: See here: the woman on the left is modestly bathing, then a couple across and you can make out a woman picking a thorn out of her foot with some assistance, and then on the far right a woman picks up a child. Incredible detail Incredible India!

Ajanta Caves: a mural depicting Padmapani of course!

Ellora caves: super old rock-cut temples

Ellora caves: goddess with peacock and kid learning in the corner

Ultimate People Watching

Varanasi is defo one of my absolute Indian faves! The people watching experience is just incredible. This is Incredible India afterall. The happenings here are so diverse and colourful. A puja ceremony is held every evening on the Dasaswamedh ghat which was magical and mesmerising with hundreds of people watching from the ghats and boats on the Ganges, with Hindus reveling in the religiosity of the ceremony and tourists like me in awe of the beauty and enormity of it all. Incense and fire and feathers were bandied around by the eight Sadhus performing the ceremony as they moved with their props in synchronised fluid motions for two hours. Absolutely captivating.

Sadhus in full swing

End of ceremony and a closer peek at the Sadhu stage

I took a couple of sunrise boat trips down the Ganges and passed by the conspicuous burning death and funeral pyres which was really moving yet felt slightly intrusive, but Varanasi is the place where life, love, and death all happens so unabashedly. The laundrymen beating out the grime in the Ganges, folks modestly bathing, those meditating, symbolic first dips for newly weds...And of course I released flowers nestled amongst a lit candle into the Ganges.

I took several strolls along the ghats to absorb as much as I could of this fascinating city and got lost in the weaving labyrinth of the back streets passing by kids playing cricket on dusty pitches, veg sellers, shrines, the usual. And of course the sacred COWS! My fear of cows has really been tested in India. The tiny alleyways of Varanasi meant that I had to slink past cows regularly with as much calm as I could muster. There was even the odd bull sashaying down the tiny, maze-like streets!

Colourful bathing ghat

View from my sunrise boat along the ghats

Crabs Escape on Train!

So to my weekend jaunt to the delightful Sunderbans. A perfectly chilled group of us took a 2 day boat tour of the Sunderbans in search of the elusive man-eating Bengali tiger through the largest mangrove delta in the world (not mangoes as one of our troupe thought!). We started off super hungover after a Hope Foundation flat-warming party (the results of which saw the Hopers get evicted due to the apparently rowdy party. Eeps!). We then, of course, took a plethora of transportation modes: firstly, the taxi to Sealdah train station, onto the locals train, onto a sort of rickshaw front end with a flat wooden cart stuck on the back for us to sit on (possibly the most uncomfortable 45 minutes of my life with every bump in the road felt as heads and legs were thrown against bars and boards), and finally onto our modest little boat.

Rickshaw/cart fusion. Beautiful scenery en route made this journey bearable: mud huts, rice paddies, tropical trees...

It was simply extremely chilled with guitars and singing, nice peeps and beautiful surrounds. On the first night we went to one of the villages and sat amongst a courtyard of mud huts for many hours with more guitar and singing and a cheeky little toddler to keep us entertained. The villagers then cooked us the most amazingly delish foods as served up for festivals (and of course there was a festival, this time for Saraswati): mushed up and spicy lentil and rice dish, grilled aubergine, and matchstick fried plantain. All eaten by hand and served up on a metal tray. We then popped off to the main event which turned out to be a village dance-off and as the guests we were invited up on stage. Urgh! I avoided this humiliation but the boys had a great time even giving a thank you speech. Afterwards we returned to the boat for some sleeps but alas!!, the boat was stranded on the mud bank! With some bloke muscle power they managed to haul the vessel back towards the dock. Disaster averted!

Mangroves...not mangoes!

We spent pretty much all of the next day cruising around the Sunderbans spying a few monkeys, a big lizard, and a croc...but no man-eating Bengali tiger! At one of the docks we bumped into a famous Bengali actor who climbed aboard, blessed the boys with a splodge of river mud on their forehead, and then gave us some river crabs as a gift for us to cook up for our tea. Bizarre!

Bengali actor warmly greeting his fans

On the journey back we piled into a tempo which could comfortably hold our group of eleven plus driver, but as soon as we were about to depart the masses piled in as they wedged their way onto the benches, clung to the sides, and sat on the roof bringing us to 25 aboard! Hilarious!! Then, at a brief stop at another town, another 5 magically squeezed their way on!! Impressive stuff! On the train back to Calcutta I was in charge of looking after our crab dinner. I did a poor job. Unbeknownst to me one escaped and as I caught sight of the second trying to claw its way out of the carrier bag it was too late and it too scuttled off - it's pincers looked pretty fierce and determined! There was mild pandemonium on the train as word got out that the foreigner's crabs had escaped! Pointing and high dramatics ensued. The crabs scuttled a little further down the carriage towards the doorway and were promptly kicked off the train by two in our group who were trying to save the crabs from being stomped to pieces by the locals. So no crab dinner. Funny times.

Peanut Butter Eating Catholic

I took up volunteer work for a month with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in part to take a break from my self-indulgent travelly adventure, to lay down some roots for a while, try my hand at voling (obviously missing Surface Gallery voling back in Nottingham), and to extend my time in Kolkata.

Mother's Tomb

I helped at a home for mentally and physically handicapped women at Dum Dum (yes, the awful obvious cringe of the name of the place is not lost. The home is in an area called Dum Dum). Dum Dum was challenging and over the month we saw other voles give up on Dum Dum after a day with us.
I helped in a class teaching women numbers, colours, the alphabet, with some colouring, screechy singing, energetic drumming, and fun dancing led by the trainee Sisters, and beating out rhythms on various percussion instruments. At first I felt incredibly patronising towards these women (one of whom is older than I am) as I taught them simple school stuff. There would be brilliant days such as when Asha said "ten" for the first time ever!! Suporna who had limited motor skills but an eye for shapes and patterns. Small improvements felt so huge and it was great to see tiny progressions. It was so lovely to be able to see the individual personalities and talents of these women shine through after slowly getting to know them. Teaching them the hokey cokey was winner, even though 8 of the women were in wheel chairs we still got them moving and laughing at my dance skills! It's reinforced a massive respect  for anyone who works in this profession day in day out as it's tough to be constantly patient and entertaining and loving and educational. It was also personally rewarding and so many voles come away with a sense that they have taken so much more than they have managed to give out. I concur.

On the commute to work: goat happily balancing whilst munching on leaves

And alongside voling I even embraced the Catholic culture of morning mass (nowhere near every morning but still a first for me!) and Adoration in the evenings. I came to love Adoration - for me it was a chance to sit and chill and attempt a bit of meditation or write in my journal as I tried to process my thoughts and feeling and trials over the past few days as a vole. I never expected to come to India and end up going to Mass and surrounded by so many Catholics!

The sugary breakfasts of sweet chai, plain white bread, and sweet bananas with mid-morning break of yet more sweet chai and biscuits took its toll on my ever fluctuating sugar levels (this is the country with the biggest diabetes problem in the world. Not at all surprised!). I was feeling weak and in need of a protein fix. This came in the form of crunchy peanut butter bought at nearby Hogg Market. My first ever peanut butter purchase. Back home I am not a fan but out here my feeble body craved peanut butter asap.

Confusing Banyan

Captivating Calcutta. I got into Calcutta at 4am and couldn't believe the intriguing energy that came off the streets of the city. The place was alive. Everything happens on the streets here. Laundry, pavement-side water-pump showers, curries being cooked up, chai, fruit and veg and fish and live chicken sellers, kids playing cricket, peeps sleeping and living. This is India.

After a few pre-drinks at my temporary residence, Modern Lodge, we stumbled across this puja held down an alleyway inbetween two spare parts shops which were both still visible with some of the women sat off to one side in amongst the metal junk. We were blessed (red blob on forehead), presented with a red and gold ribbon, and then had a great view of traditional singing and dancing. Fun times!

I headed off to the Botanical Gardens to see the great old banyan tree via local bus (of course) and crossed the Howrah bridge and it was just an incredible and awesome sight. It's hard to describe just how many people there are in India. As we passed by Howrah station the place was just seething with masses and masses of people filling all available space as they journey purposefully and frequently across India.

There is no sense of personal space here and everyone happily piles one on top of the other at all times of day and night and in pretty much all situations. I guess with the sheer numbers there really is no extra space to be had and so this is the way that life is led. It's possibly part economical and also part collective psyche. Observing the streets out here seems comparable: the roads are so chaotic with rickshaws nonchalantly driving up the wrong side of the road, all forms of transport zipping in and around each other at full speed piled high with people and cargo, pedestrians moving between traffic with ease and confidence; and yet there are so few calamities because of this seemingly huge understanding of each other and between each other.

...although you do still see the cycle carts being loaded incredibly high with bulky goods cycling down the busy streets. And then there's the hand-pulled rickshaws lugging lazy passengers through the city.

After musings with fellow travellers, it appears that there is a sort of silent communication that floats above the typical but figures somewhere in this collective psyche. And then somehow, after some months in India, you feel your own self drawn into it, but then everything becomes so disorienting as you battle with the homegrown idea of striking out as an individual against merging and swaying with a collective Indian way of life. You start to loose your mind a little bit as you grapple with this and the first idea to go is any sense of time. So days later as we sit drinking rose lassis I remember that my ill friend wanted a 7Up but it turns out that was a request made days earlier. Hard to explain but it was pretty funny (and maybe slightly worrying!).

Point 3 reminding you not to bring a DEAD BODY on the metro (???!). Jeez!

So yea, the banyan tree was pretty awesome. It looked a lot like little trees all clumped together with some roots starting in the sky and working their way down towards earth. Also it was pretty chill out there what with the little lake, munching (squirrel-like) on cashews, and kids messing about in pedalos and not too many "one photo".

Part of  the great big old banyan tree

Yoganation

A week in an ashram in India, but of course: Sivananda Ashram, Neyyar Dam to be precise. It was actually refreshing to have a bit of structure and discipline to my somewhat flitty, floaty travely lifestyle option, although being woken up by bells sounding at 5.20am not so much.

The day started with an hour or so of chanting and meditation. I was not so great at the meditation but a bit of daydreaming so early in the morn whilst sitting cross-legged was a fine way to start the day, especially with the sun rising as the session progressed. Afterwards we had some chai or healthy herbal tea which tasted of smoke, followed by some yoga by the lake, onto non-spicy thali all-you-can-eat brunch, a related lecture, more yoga, more thali, more chanting. On one lunch break we swam in a lake with crocs, lions and elephants, as you do.

Musical entertainment during one chanting sesh with audience participation sweeping the masses. Those in yellow are the peeps on the intensive yoga teacher training course

Setting up for meal time in the sweltering dinning hall. Karma yoga of serving dinner was probably the toughest part of the week for me!! Sweat literally dripping off me and possibly into the food! Yum. The silver trays are the thali dishes set up with little partitions for various foods including curd, beetroot salad, chickpea combos, rices, sambar, curry, chapati blah blah. And all eaten by hand whilst sat cross-legged on the bamboo mats in silence.

It was a bizarre, interesting, physically demanding week. The life skills of yoga asanas are keepers and I've been trying to get in an hour or so every morn. The Sanskrit chanting is one to leave behind and caused a slight internal dilemma as I screechily chanted to Hindu gods. As part of the cynical group we questioned this in a lecture with the director and he and the masses cast all usual logic aside towards a leap of faith attitude: who cares that we don't know the meaning behind it, we're in India right and must embrace the chanting to deities we don't believe in. Hrmm. It was intriguing to say the least and the hours of yoga each day was brill.  We were also taught "eat to live, not live to eat" which just doesn't sit well with me as my daily activities are largely centered around all things food based. Masala dosa was, of course, my first non-ashram meal.