Slow Start, Full Finish in Calcutta

Saraswathi

On January 13, we get a slow start.  Leaving around 11:00 a.m., we head straight to an alley in the old part of Calcutta!  A festival will be held at the end of January for Saraswathi, the Hindu goddess of arts and learning.  Madhu wants us to see the street where sculptors are forming clay images of her in preparation for this festival.  We wander amongst the huge clay forms. During the festival, these will be purchased, paraded, and ultimately immersed in the river. 

Many images of the goddess of arts and learning

Sculptor

These two were viewing the statues, too

Four goddesses

Of course, we pose for a picture as goddesses ourselves!

As we leave, we ask Madhu how many gods and goddesses there are in the Hindu religion.  She estimates over 30,000, adding that deities – emanating from folk forms and beliefs - are unearthed all the time.  Nobody has ever counted them, she says.   As I ponder this tidbit, I marvel how this trip is ending up as my “world religion tour” – having now traveled through Muslim Bangladesh, Buddhist Myanmar, and now Hindu India.

Fabulous fabIndia

We stop for lunch at a very modern mall, and find out that the mall has a fabIndia store.  A favorite clothing store from our last trip, fabIndia is packed with clothing of every hue.  And, Beth looks fabulous in everything she tries on!  Exercising self-discipline, she only buys one item.

We decide to head over to Jadavpur University for Ali’s reading.  As we cross campus, we see students in every direction - jubilant in their “victory” over the Vice Chancellor the day before.  They parade, have colored faces, and prop up hand-made posters.  

Holding hands in solidarity

An example of a poster

Leon liked this poster best.

Consequently, we enter the room for the reading a tad late.  Ali is already reading from her book: Give Me Back My Mother’s Heart.  This novel describes efforts to wipe out aboriginal culture via removal of aboriginal children from their birth families and adoption to white families.  In sparse, direct prose, she paints her own life story.  It is very moving – and Leon is first in line to buy a copy and get it autographed.

Ali - Author of
Give Me Back My Mother’s Heart

Leon gets his copy autographed

We then drive around Calcutta.  Called “the city of palaces” when it was the British capital of India, you can still see why as we pass old colonial buildings in the section called white Calcutta.  Jim and I both comment on the traffic.  While congested, it is much better than in 2008.  And, after being in Dhaka, what was once shocking is now viewed as relatively calm.  

Street scene in Kolkata

Around four o'clock, we stop for tea.  Sitting out front of Dolly’s teas, a local institution, we sip on a very mellow Darjeling tea and mellow out ourselves. 

Enjoying their tea break

Us, too

We return to our B & B and freshen up - then head over to Bapa and Munu’s.  We talk and talk - and laugh a lot.  Then, it’s dinner.  Delicious! -- and served at the not uncommon time in India of 11:00 p.m.   Twelve hours almost exactly from when we first started out.  Time for bed!

Dodo’s house party

On January 12, we arrive in Calcutta, the “hometown” of our friend Madhu Mitra.  Madhu is a Literature professor at St. Ben’s/St. John’s, and through her, we’ve gotten to know her family.  When we were in Calcutta in 2006, we met Madhu’s mother, brother Bappa, and sister-in-law Munu.  Actually, I should introduce her as  “Dr. Munu” as she has received her doctorate since we last saw her.  They all have become dear friends.  Both Madhu and Munu are at the airport when we arrive.  They embrace us with big hugs.

Dodo, with her blue plate

Enroute to a B & B near their home, they ask if we are up for a party yet that night at a friend of Munu’s.  “Yes,” we say, and a little while later, we all walk a few blocks to the friend’s apartment.  What an interesting assortment of people are gathered!  There are a woman potter, a painter, a musician who plays a 15-string instrument, a French-born director of contemporary theater, authors, a Japanese woman who brings her original designs to local weavers in India, etc. -- and there's Dodo, the person whose apartment it is.  When I ask Dodo what she does for a living, she replies, “I am a serial agitator.”  (It turns out that she is a professor.)  Tonight, she is the hostess, having invited this eclectic group to her home.

We sit around, casually meeting each other over plenty of wine and plenty of food.  The party guests are abuzz about the administrative Vice Chancellor at Jadavpur University.  He has been the subject of widespread student protests, stemming back to an attack on a female student that he didn’t take as seriously as some thought he should.  Students had been protesting for some four months, culminating in a recent student hunger strike.  On this day we arrive in Calcutta, he resigned!  Those assembled think that this is unprecedented. 

Jim, Beth, Leon and I talk the most with two aboriginal Australians.  They are both authors – one a poet, one a novelist.  In fact, the novelist - Ali Cobby Eckerman - was in Calcutta because the University was sponsoring a reading from her new novel the next day.  When she finds out where we’re from, she tells us that she is probably the only Australian aboriginal author to ever attend the Iowa City writers’ workshop! 

At one point, I ask another guest, “How often does Dodo host a party like this?”  The answer: “About two or three times a year.”  Once again, we’re fortunate to hit town on the right night!  

"Dr. Yunus of Myanmar" & Yangon, Part 2

Young restaurant worker

On January 11^th, we fly back to Yangon.  We plan to meet up with a friend of our friend Arlys.  An American ex-pat who lives in Yangon, he suggests a restaurant at which to meet.  We arrive by cab – and laugh!  It is the same restaurant that Lan took us to.  We have eaten in exactly one restaurant in Yangon – and now here we are again.  We point to the food we want, eat our meal together, and then end with ice cream.  We know what to do!

This ex-pat also spoke of Myanmar’s recent history, reinforcing what I had read.  He said that there have been prior periods where windows of more freedom and interaction have opened, only to slam shut again.  Leon suggested that with all the money coming from tourism, the rulers couldn’t go back now.  Our lunch partner wasn’t so sure.  We talked about other aspects of human rights.  He says the people of Myanmar are still afraid to speak out.  And, he believes that Myanmar is the only country in the world currently where citizenship is constitutionally based on race.  There are several minority groups – primarily Muslim - who are denied citizenship, regardless of the generations who have lived in country.  He’s also watching the 2015 election, waiting to see if the rulers honor the results.

He suggests a few things for us to do around Yangon.  He believes there’s a walking tour of downtown that starts at city hall at 3:00.  We say good-bye and head for City Hall.  Not only closed, it is fenced in and guarded.  Jim and Leon decide to check out the nearby Sule Pagoda, while Beth and I step into a Baptist church service in progress.  The church is packed with people in their best outfits.  And, the singing is impressive! 

A drink at the Strand Hotel

We four wander the streets until we get to the Strand Hotel.  An extremely elite British hotel fifty years ago, we hear that it became quite dilapidated before its recent purchase by an international hotel chain.  It looks colonial posh to me.  Its central lobby is filled with rattan chairs, slowly oscillating ceiling fans, and a few servants standing by.  I see a menu offering afternoon tea … with scones and clotted cream.  We choose the bar instead, sitting at the long, polished wood bar and ordering fancy, cool drinks.  We pass an hour there, pretending to be part of another century, before heading back to our hotel and sleep.

Enjoying dim sum with Fahmid

The next morning, three of us go out for dim sum breakfast with a friend of Salehuddin’s.  Fahmid Bhuiya works for PACT, an American non-profit working in 27 countries to underwrite loans for small, personal enterprises.  Fahmid is the president of the microfinance fund in Myanmar. Salehuddin called him the “Dr. Yunus of Myanmar.”  We were honored to meet with him.

In the time Fahmid has been in Myanmar, PACT’s microfinance work has done amazingly well.  In 1997 when he arrived, banks charged more than 100% interest, if you could get a loan at all.  PACT’s micro-finance offers were considered “low interest” – at 36%!   Ninety-eight percent of his borrowers have been women who take out loans averaging $150 to start small businesses in agriculture or domestic/tourism products.   He guessed that many of the vendors we encounter are likely his customers.  PACT in Myanmar now has 800,000 customers and 140 million in capital!

We asked him what major changes he has seen in his twenty years in Myanmar.  He mentioned cell phones first.  When he came to Yangon, he paid $2500 for a cell phone with fairly dedicated service.  Now, for $1.50 a person can get a cell phone and most people have them.  However, the government-owned service carrier can’t handle the volume of calls and data, so coverage is quite spotty.  Another area of change concerned cars.  There simply weren’t any in 1997, but now the streets are full.  

He said that most people are happy with the country’s recent economic growth, but are worried about the loss of their culture of friendliness, family-centricity, and faith.  

Fahmid is also concerned about Myanmar’s heavy reliance on China.   And, Myanmar’s economic growth has been very dependent on the export of raw natural resources, such as natural gas and jade.  The latter is disappearing at alarming rates.  Fahmid says that entire jade mountains are being sliced into huge slabs that are then shipped to China.   “The mountains are disappearing,” he said sadly. 

We walk around a beautiful park and talk more.  We tell him how much we have enjoyed the people and beauty of Myanmar.  He quoted a Myanmar saying, “Once you have dipped your toes into our waters, you will return again and again.”  

Before I leave Myanmar (maybe to return again and again), I want to point out more aspects that were so charming:

She's charming...

•       People are not used to the practice of tipping.  The times we left tips at hotels or on restaurant tables, people would run after us to bring us the money.
•      The bicycle rickshaws here all have sidecars rather than seats at the back. 
•       The traffic is courteous, almost to the point that traffic jams happen because everyone waits for everyone else. 
•    You always give and receive any item with your right hand, extending your right arm supported with your left hand.
•    Elders, monks and nuns are very respected, and are met with acknowledgement everywhere.
•     There appears to be a hunger for books.  The sellers walking among traffic selling items car to car, more often than not are offering books for sale. 
•      Although I don’t know the reason, I was told that by Burmese custom, a wife never sleeps on the right side of her husband (which is where I sleep).  Anyone know why that might be?

Last, I have to return to the markets.   At markets, there were so many familiar, yet foreign-looking things:  huge, green grapefruit-like fruit, bananas that were red, brittle dried fish tied in bundles, dried chilis, sections of leaves rolled and filled with rice, lengths of cloth of all colors, and papier-mache marionettes. 

And, there were birds chirping in cages, because to buy a bird and release it is good for Buddhists.  I could have spent several more DAYS wandering through!

The colors!

 

Fare Thee Well, People of Myanmar!