On Pets in Kolkata

Dear Becky,

I hope your summer is going well and that the server at the school hasn't crashed or that Mr. Marzolf, our superintendent, hasn't suddenly decided to order new computers for the entire district.
I have been very remiss in keeping up this blog, partly because I have e-mailed so much, and partly because my experiences seem less novel, less worthy of posting.
I will say that I have spent a little more time in people's houses this trip. First a visit to my friend Niladri's house where I was greeted by the ladies of the house who insisted I meet:

I was told in very excited Bengali that these cats are the center of the household; indeed they seem to have the run of the place. Most of the cats I've seen in Kolkata up to this point seemed to be steetwise alley cats, but these two fat cats enjoy their life of ease. Needless to say Nildari's relatives were eager that we should meet, even though I didn't speak Bengali and the cats didn't speak any English.

A dog's life seems to be little different in Kolkata than in San Francisco. Meet Brownie the beloved Irish Setter of Mitali and her family.

Brownie knows both English and Bengali and seems to be fluent in begging as well. She spent a great deal of time begging for Cheetos of which she got a few. Brownie loves to argue with her family about food and floor privileges, but in this heat, I can't blame her for sleeping all the time.
Mitali told me that Brownie was essentially a rescue dog, coming from a friend of the family who knew another family who could not keep her as they were moving away. She has the heart of the whole family and is a happy, vibrant looking dog. Unlike these strays

who look essentially the same, with color variations, which suggests a small gene pool indeed.
In fact, Kolkata has no animal control or SPCA to stop the dogs from breeding. Instead they are scavengers who help to clean the streets.
I guess I'm not terribly surprised to find out that pet owners are as nutsy about their pets in India as we are in the U.S. Pets make us happier, they keep good company, keep pests away, work as alarms and doorbells and footrests. I do feel a little shamed out that I'm not as bilingual as Brownie.

Circles

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Dear Carolyn,

Thank you again for a place to stay while I was in San Francisco, Your hospitality is something I look forward to with every visit. I posted the above quote to give you a sense of my feelings as I return to Kolkata, and while I am far from finished exploring there is a sense of knowing Kolkata for the first time. Of being able to name what I see, even though I don't understand it. I think that is the trickiness of Eliot's phrasing, to know something does not necessarily mean you understand it, as in I know how to get from Haight St. to Market, but I don't understand all of the politics and issues that play out as I travel along those streets.
Perhaps I am jumping ahead a little; perhaps Eliot's idea of knowing here is a deep understanding that can only come with experience and contemplation.
What I do know is that I am more alert as I move around the city, grasp more of what I see, and definitely feel more comfortable.
We arrived at the hotel Sunday morning after two arduous hours at the airport, waiting for luggage and getting our money changed. The Oberoi staff greeted us at the airport with our own personal transportation and were off through flooded Kolkata streets to the Oberoi Grand Hotel.
Just as I was amazed and over-whelmed by the luxury and opulence of the Oberoi last year, so this year's teachers were stunned that this would be our home for the next five weeks. I am again on the 4th floor, but not in the same room, and walking down the hall, I felt a little nostalgic for last year's group. As I walked past Brianna's room I expected her to come popping out, ready to do Insanity workouts in the gym; or for Kyle to come strolling down the hall in his plaid cotton button-up.
I suppose this is what it is like to return to a place, to know it, remember what it was like when you were there before, but to put those memories into context.
Now that I am in charge of this year's group, I have a new respect for what Brianna did last year, and I understand a little more what it means to be a leader.
The other teachers have gone off to their first day's assignment, and I will start school on Thursday, eager to see my colleagues and students, to meet new students, and to know a little more than I did last year.

A Break From The Heat and Another View of India

Dear Becky and Sheree,

India is not for germaphobes. In fact neat freaks or people who are concerned about tidiness in general will have their limits of decency pushed, even in nice areas of Kolkata. There is garbage everywhere on the street, and most neighborhoods dump their garbage in nearby open air pits that don't seem to be maintain as local dogs will rummage through the trash and drag it half way down the street. Gutters are littered with trash swept from the sidewalks; disposable clay cups for chai, wrappers, food from the street stalls, it all ends up on the ground somewhere. This is a stark contrat for me from the cleanliness obsessed Japan I visited last year where even eating on the street was considered a no-no, lest you drop a crumb or a wrapper. The US is somewhere in between, our cities have definitely gotten cleaner, but they still retain a grungy feeling in certain parts.
Needless to say a weekend in trip to Darjeeling with Linda and Kate, two often other teaches in the program, helped me see India's garbage problem is not limited to the cities, it's everywhere.
The three of us took an hour-long flight to Bagdogra, the nearest airport to Darjeeling. From there we hired a taxi service to take us up the mountains. The ride was close to four hours, but the scenery was spectacular the entire trip. As we drove out of Siliguri, tea plantations and rice paddys covered the lower plains. Houses where scattered and there were no honking cars, but garbage pits still decorated the occasional roadside and local lakes and rivers looked grey-brown and polluted.

As we climbed, our driver explained that local elections had just taken place and a newly formed party had won all the seats. This new party promised to fix the roads that led in and out of Darjeeling, the main road having been closed for three years now due to massive landslides. Like any other democratic citizen our driver was a little skeptical of the promises the new party made, but he said if the roads could be fixed the trip to Darjeeling could be reduced by over an hour. For a main route carrying thousands of people and hundreds of kilos of goods a day, the road we traveled resembled more of a backcountry byway, ill repaired and dangerously narrow. However our driver seemed to know the road well and took no risks, going slow and using his hour to let downward traffic know we were just around the corner.
During our journey we stopped at a tea plantation and a Buddhist monastery, arriving just as evening prayers started. It was quite an experience to still inside a high ceilin-g monastary while monks changed and prayed around us.
We arrived at our hotel near dusk, the room not looking nearly as good (or clean) as it had in pictures. That was ok though, the view right outside on the balcony was beyond words. Green mountains rolled and plunged before, with white specks of houses Dottie g the trees and seeming to grow straight up from the mountainside. The rest of Darjeeling faced away from our hotel, on the other side of the mountain top where the view was no less spectacular.

"There Are Two Indias"

Dear Sabia,

On Tuesday my mentor teacher, Subha, took me to visit the second schools St. John's supports with fundraisers and donations. These schools are located in highly impvierished areas of Kolkata. Subha had warned me several times before we visited that the neighborhoods we were going to pass through are very poor. I was not prepared for what very poor meant. The first school we visited was in a neighborhood that consisted of streets that narrowly progressed into a kind of cul-de-sac. The street near the school was so narrow that our driver could not fit the tiny, Ford Fiesta sized car down it. We got out and walked to a low-ceilinged building that functions as a community hall for marriages, festivals, etc. The school rents space from the landlord at a rate I thought was exorbitant for such a dingy ill lit building, but where else can there be a school? About 35 students greeted us with a "Good morning, ma'am", face lit in expectation. The room we entered was hot and a little crowded. There were no decorations on the walls, no posters or drawings. Only three chalkboards and the rows of tired benches and tables gave in indication that a school operated here.
Although st. John's is a girls school, boys are included in instruction at second schools, and instruction begins at the same age as it does at St. Johns, age three. The students also wear uniforms just like the girls at St. Johns. The boys in dark blue slack, the little ones in short pants.
One of the students placed a garland of tube roses around my neck as a show of honor, though to be honest I was the one honored. For the next twenty minutes or so, Subha and I were treated to recitations and songs from the littlest to the eldest students. The eldest would leave eventually to study at nearby English medium schools or at free night schools that allowed them to study for Board examinations.
One very lucky girl would be absorbed into the St. Johns school proper, her tuition waived, her supplies donated. Seven such girls go to St. Johns right now, and a new one will join soon.
The children at this school come from home lives heartbreakingly similar to those in America, unemployment, broken families, alcohol and drug abuse, but with one monsterous difference: the children at this school have no social safety nets. None. Not free schooling beyond the two and a half hours provided by St. John's; not health care, not child protection services to remove them from dangerous or exploitative situations, nor a food program to keep them nourished.
All of the social programs that people complain about in America as coddling the poor and keep them from work are simply not here, and the results are sad, and cautionary. I'm not trying to compare America to India, they are two very different countries with different cultures, histories, and needs. But humans have basic nessessities, adequate food, proper shelter, access to education to allow them to change their life. Life without these seems to be,well depressing, an endless cycle of poverty and sickness. When the basic needs if all people are cared for, life seems to get a lot better for everyone.
Education seems to be a key component in the quality of life, yet at this community the facilities for the students were only available for two and a half hours a day. And community members grumbled that the school shouldn't be in their neighborhood to begin with. Without an education it's hard to know the value of education, with an education it's difficult to know the approximate worth of that education.
India has millions of students working hard everyday to get into the top college slots in the country, or to prove themselves worthy to study abroad. Countless still are the children in neighborhoods like the ones I visited, cheap labor for their parents, or the only breadwinner in an ailing family.
"There are two Indias", Subha has told me more than once. The India of the Oberoi Grand Hotel, Park Street, South City Mall. This India is really indistinguishable from the US, busy, happy Indians spending money and enjoying life; drinking coffee or chai, shopping for salweer suits or sarees, reading books and investing in the future. It's a bright hopeful India, full of energy and promise. Then there is the India I saw very briefly, children manning counters or running errands. Men gambling, or hauling goods on bicycle rickshaws or pushcarts, women endlessly washing and scrubbing, carrying water, cooking. The elderly seemingly wasting away, their bodies no good for work, they might care for a child or tend small stoves. This is an India seemingly left behind, at least to my western eyes, things here have gone on as they always have.
Of course in the end, I am a foreign visitor, and have an incomplete understanding of what I see, I can only think, 'thank God education is free at home' and come home and teach.

Santiniketan

Dear Anastasia,

This weekend our group traveled to a place called Santiniketan, a school, university, and living philosophy founded by India's revered poet Rabiindranath Tagore. It is impossible to write about Santiniketan without writing about Tagore's philosophy a little first. As you are a poet, you understand that poetry is a way of seeing the whole world, not just art, but learning, family, nature; everything.
Tagore envisioned a place "where the world makes its home in a single nest", where learning happens at the student's pace and in a natural environment. He believed that a school that included Indians, British, Bengalis, Punjabis, would knit the world together, so too did he feel the importance of including all religions, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddihism and others.
The feeling one gets when setting foot on campus at Santinketan is peace, deep and whole. This might be a campus that encourages free speech and inquiry, but it is pursued with the utmost respect for all. Students mainly study outdoors, under trees, in smaller groups than most of the classes I've seen in India. They seemed absorbed in their studies, paying little attention to the group of American teachers snapping pictures and making comments.
I have to admit, most of us where entranced by the outdoor classrooms, the serenity of teacher and student as learning seemed to take place with ease and comfort. Our guides at the school explained that students call their teacher 'sister' and 'brother' as Tagore also believed that learning is an exchange between equal partners. Students may still practice rising when the teacher "enters" the classroom, but the formality is much more subtle. Unlike other schools in India, students at Santiniketan are encouraged to seek their teachers out, discussing their ideas, asking questions, and learning constantly.
Students live on campus in dormitories and examples of student art pieces pepper the campus in unexpected places. The air at Santiniketan makes one want to sit under a tree and learn and it is not hard to see why this university has produced some of India's most famous thinkers.
Down the road, four kilometers from Santiniketan there is another school called Sriniketan, developed in conjunction with Tagore's rural reconstruction project. Tagore wanted to maintain and preserve village life in India, at the same time, giving villagers access to an education that would improve their lives and promote prosperity. If Santiniketan was a school for wealthy students who wanted to study humanities and arts, Sriniketan was the school for peasants who needed access to more practical skills like agriculture and craft work. Herein resides Tagore's contradiction. He makes a case for blending the world together at Santiniketan, but acknowledges that the peasant has no part of that world and belongs at Sriniketan.
It is elitist no doubt, but Tagore was part of a wealthy landowning family, known for their philosophy, art and poetry. His school was merely a continuation of the world he grew up in, a place where people knew their place. Tagore was pragmatic enough to realize that wealthy Brahmin parents would not send their children to study with peasants, so the creation of two schools is really not surprising.
My visit to Santiniketan reaffirmed my belief that education can happen in a variety of circumstances, using a variety of methods. The students studying at Santiniketan do not merely sit under trees and contemplate their navel. They become scientists, mathematicians, national leaders, and teachers. Yet they study the arts and humanities. We put so much emphasis on STEM subjects both in India and the US, it is easy to forget that humanities play a role in our understanding of those subjects as well.
Learning is universal, but teaching, it seems, beyond the student and the teacher is not.

On the Importance of Difference

Dear Camille and Ivy,

Last week Mrs. Nandi invited me to give a presentation about Simms High School to the girls of St. Johns. I gave that presentation today, and the enthusiastic responses of the girls afterwards reminds me of how important difference is. We crave new experiences, a chance to interact with what is "other" because we really get to know ourselves. For the girls today they had a picture of a school in a country that they think of as rich and thrilling. America is a place where dreams come true and school is about studies and having fun; playing sports, dressing up, eating in a cafeteria, and being a part of clubs that travel and really do a lot.
We in turn, take everything our school has to offer for granted. We say there's nothing to do, or it's boring, or there's not enough time. We don't really appreciate what we have until we can see what others don't. It's human nature. It's what makes us progress and work harder. I think that's why India works so hard. They see what we have, and it's become a goal to aspire to have what so many in America take for granted. Who do we aspire to be? What vision can we create for ourselves, to reach out towards? Material wealth? Not if it's at the expense of others. What about intellectual wealth? Perhaps, but that is a danger too; it can lead to all sorts of bizarre ideas about hierarchy, class, nationalism. So what? What do we want to become as a people? As a country?
Coming to India has helped me see the importance of studies, and innocence, of manners and respect, and it has taught me that everyone needs to be included in a country's destiny, not just the fortunate.
I hope you both have the opportunity to travel abroad someday, to experience the feeling of "otherness" as there is no better way to see yourself.

My First Visit to an Indian Home

Dear Katlyn,

I hope your writer's block has ended and you are back to writing vampire and werewolf filled short stories as the summer progresses.Yesterday afternoon I visited a student who shares a similar love of vampire and werewolf fiction, and she made me think of you.
It was my first visit to an Indian home and the hospitality was almost overwhelming. "Doll" lives in a cozy north Kolkata flat with her mother, aunt, and a maternal great-uncle. It is a small Indian family, but very close and full of love. Doll isn't actually one of my students, I met her one day when I was late for school. She was late too and we stood outside the school gate for ten minutes or so, talking about life in India and America. She asked me to come visit her home with such enthusiasm that I couldn't resist. I'm glad I visited, and was surprised by both her home and neighborhood.
I tend to think of Kolkata streets as noisy, crowded, with overwhelming smells and unexpected surprises. I was a little relieved to discover how quiet the residential streets are, filled with trees and houses hidden behind gates and terraces, a typical Kolkata neighborhood is a bit like one in San Francisco, the houses are built right next to one another, with gated doors and windows, in a modern style. There are neighborhood convenience stores and little shops tucked into first floors, much like the Bay Area.
Dolly's flat is tiny by American standards, but again, similar to an apartment you might find in San Francisco. The floors are bare tile and cool and the walls heavily decorated with pictures of family, celebrities and gods and goddesses.
Every Hindu house has a idol that usually sits in a small box in a prominent part of the living room. There is also a TV, and I asked Doll how long India has had cable. Her mother thought about ten or twelve years. I think there are about thirty channels or so.
Doll and her family are very curious about America, and I did my best to answer questions. There is so much contrast to India, I'm staying in a five-star luxury hotel where my every need is taken care of, and yet I see incredible poverty: beggars on the street, elderly and disabled people who have no safety net, the differences are hard to comprehend sometimes.
Even a middle-class family like Doll's does not have the same standards as an American one. The kitchen is simple, the most modern appliance is a microwave, other than that, cooking is do on a gas two-burner. There is no computer, Doll takes computer classes at school, but does not have a Facebook. They have one cell phone for the entire family.
But oh, are they hospitable. Doll's mother and aunt cook me a meal of roti (a flat bread), potatoes and lentils, also another vegetable that reminded me of squash, covered in cheese curd. It was simple, but very satisfying. It is the custom in India to feed guests first and separately, so I ate alone, while the family gathered around the table with me. It was a bit uncomfortable for me, but I did my best to remember that this was their custom. I imagine what they must think of the American custom of a loud, boisterous dinner table with an abundance of food and conversation.
Next, Doll and her mother took me on a tour of the neighborhood, including the dairy where milk is brought to be pasteurized, and the neighborhood temple with the statues of Kali and Hanuman. They took me to visit the local merchants whose "shops" are really displays covered by a tin or tar paper roof. I saw the barber, the laundryman, the sweet shop, the vegetable stalls, and the chicken buther, bust chopping up meat while lives chickens sat placidly in a covered straw basket. We also visited a shop that sold beauty products and cheap ornaments, everyone curious to meet me, Doll and her mother explaining who I was in rapid Bengali. Doll, being a Kolkatans, was blunt and eager to explain to me the character of her neighborhood, from the cruelty of neighborhood boys who tortured stray animals, to the laziness of her driver. At times she would translate the comments of passersby, insisting that in Kolkata I was a celebrity.
When it was time to go, Doll and her mother accompanied me to the nearest metro, and I had my first ride in a bicycle rickshaw. Perched on a narrow seat I tried my best to hang on and not to move, as I did not want to upset the driver's balance and cause a spill. Doll's mother sat regally in her rickshaw, comfortable and at ease in her neighborhood.
What an amazing place India is, the people, the food, the sights never cease to amaze me. A part of my heart is Indian now, and I will remember this visit always.