Harry Krishna

March 24, 2008

There are sometimes that I love Indian pop music, meaning Bollywood music, and sometimes it's like a tiny screw slowly being turned inside my brain. Not to complain or anything, it's just that I am trying to concentrate and write this email, and the family that own the homestay are watching an Indian MTV that shows Bollywood videos, and after awhile they are ALL the same. Anyways, hiyadoing? We are leaving our homestay today because there was a miscommunication at the desk and now they have rented out our room and are all booked up.

Yep. So now we are taking a boat down the Ganges to the next hotel. Just part of the adventure. I have been sick with a cold the past week, and being sick in India is like having a cold in the middle of the summer -- it doesn't make sense and it sucks. Tonya was sick in OOty, probably because of the drastic climate difference, and I was trying really hard to stay healthy, and doing a pretty good job I might add.

Then we went to Calcutta, and my body just said, what are you doing to me? Calcutta is a poop hole. I thought it was the dirtiest city I'd ever been to (Varanassi actually wins that title), but definitely the most crowded and most congested and most poor. At seven in the morning you can see a fog in the streets that is pure smog from all the traffic and pollution. When we were blowing our noses, blackness came out. And to get where Amma's program was, we had to take a cab to a city train (which means a train that's com-PLEET-ly packed, people hanging out the door) to a bus (also packed). And then we were around 100's of Amma devotees and otherwise. And the Consecration Festival was totally crazy. I always thought that the men of India were pushy, but NOTHING compared to the woman, especially the nuns!!! First of all they are all small, and they take their elbows and stick them out so they jab into your ribs. There was nothing you could do but to give up to the ebb and flow of people, become one with the wave of bodies. It was actually quite fun!

I have to admit, gladly, that the people of Calcutta are so pleasant and amazing and full of life. Our hotel, definitely a backpackers hostel dive where people sat up all night, drank, smoked cigs and swapped stories, much different than the Ashram, was located right next to Gypsy drive, where people lived in little makeshift shacks on the street. People are selling everything in the street, from broken pots to phone chargers with wires sticking out. There were lots of touts, but nothing like Mumbaii or Pune. There are actually more people in Mumbaii, but there seems like there are more in Calcutta because they are all in the streets rather than in the ghettos tucked away. Yet as homeless and penniless as some people were, they are just outright more friendly. Mumbaii and Pune and Bangalore are modern cities of India, and I've discovered that "modern" equates to "a bunch of punks". Young boys don't need to smile at tourists in a modern city, they are wearing blue jeans and already think like westerners, which means everyman for themselves. Maybe I am thinking like a tourist who enjoys the "simple smile of the exotic peasants", but there is still plenty of money in Calcutta, yet everyone was friendly to us. Sure, people were peddling their goods and trying to get money from us, but no one was mean or rude, in fact quite the opposite. And during Holi, it was a big party in the street with a band and everything. The city literally stopped. Yet no one messed with us, and were very gentle to Tonya. So yea, we liked Calcutta. When we were back at the Ashram, I asked my Indian friend from Canada, Harry, as in Harry Krishna, (no joke), if he was going to go Calcutta to see Amma, and he said "Hell no, I'm not going to that shithole, it's the roughest and dirtiest place in India." Well, it was cool to us...... but I'm glad we left. And now I've spent two days in bed, re-cooperating.

Feel better though.
Shawn