Saturday, September 17: In this city of 16 million (2001 stat), Howrah Train Station contains 24 passenger platforms. Easily 20,000 people are coming and going at any given time.* Rosalie and I wait 25 minutes for a prepaid taxi, which is cheaper than riding with regular taxi drivers who negotiate fares rather than use a meter. Traffic is normal: more stop than go. It takes an hour to travel five kilometers to her flat. (*per Wikipedia: Howrah Train Station is one of four in Kolkata; it handles 600 trains and one million people daily.)

Sunday, September 18: The population density in Calcutta is an astounding 25,000 people per square kilometer (2001 stat). Shoulder-to-shoulder people are shopping for Durga Puja, the most major Hindu holiday, which starts in two weeks. The sidewalks are impossible with pedestrians and vendors. People stream in all directions with no sense of order. Even on roads, we can’t walk side by side for more than three steps.

The New Market contains thousands of tiny shops packed together in a building as large as most shopping malls in America, but the aisles here are one-fifth the width. Signage is minimal. Goods are piled high. Exits are out of sight. Turn around and get lost. For a baksheesh (tip), wallahs (people of a particular work) will help us find whatever we want. This is their job. They hover like hawks. Browsing is impossible.

Later, we sit in lounge chairs in a luxury hotel. It’s a different world here: plush, air conditioned, quiet. The restaurant serves beef. Rosalie says, “Some Indians have money.”

Monday, September 19: The monsoon dumps rain for nearly two hours. The water on the narrow street around Rosalie’s flat is ankle deep. The open-air public toilet, used by most of the people in this ‘hood, regurgitates previous deposits. Trash floats. Rosalie has an appointment. Rather than risk infection, she hails a rickshaw wallah who, by hand and (perhaps bare) foot, conveys her to the main road where Mr. Kahn, the taxi driver she’s hired for years, waits. She says the water is more than knee deep there. After four hours, the water recedes.

Walking even on dry concrete is a challenge. “Watch your step” is the watchword. Cookers with propane-fired stoves, buckets of charcoal, and vats of boiling grease force everyone to single file or risk burns. Sidewalks are broken and partially repaired with loose bricks. Little construction projects and low-hanging wires abound. Beggars’ legs protrude. Toddlers play in small piles of sand while their parents labor. Babies lie unattended. At night, dozens of people sleep here on cots or sheets of cardboard. It’s easier to walk in traffic. But cars and motor scooters “horn” (honk) their presence, and the pulling forks on a hand-drawn rickshaw are silent menaces to the chest, back, or face.

Above: A man with an umbrella walks in ankle-deep water in the neighborhood commons outside Rosalie Giffoniello's flat. Monsoon rain that fell for an hour required four hours to recede.

Above: A toddler plays in sand that will later be used to mix concrete for a sidewalk repair project. Two women laborers, dressed in colorful saris, watch.
Below: A Calcutta laborer stands barefoot to mix concrete. The blue structure is a food stand, partially blocking the sidewalk, at which Indian meals are prepared and served.

Rosalie and I visit six schools and a children's orthopedic hospital. Her organization, Empower The Children, operates and totally funds three of these schools and partially funds the other facilities. The children range in age from three to teens. Some are physically or mentally challenged. Some are talented and determined to escape the slums in which they live.

Rosalie tells her teachers, “Love the children first. If you love them, they will learn.” Striking a child is forbidden in an ETC school.

Durga Puja, a major Hindu holiday in which most people participate, is a few days away, and Rosalie’s mission is to distribute new clothing to each child. Some of the clothing is fancy, some practical. The beautiful, charming teenage girls in ETC’s vocational school choose to receive yards of fabric from which they will make their own salwar kameez clothing. Plans are under way to, soon, introduce them to computers.

Two of the ETC schools are decent buildings. The third building is slated to be razed and replaced within the next few months. This is a major accomplishment.

The hospital provides free orthopedic surgery and treatment. It’s a great service to hinterland children who, otherwise, would live a disabled life.

Two of the schools not under ETC care are poorly maintained with broken floors, poor electrical wiring, and leaking roofs.

Class sizes are about 40 students with one to three teachers. Ninety-nine students, age preschool to teens, fill a 20-foot by 20-foot space at one school on the day we visit.

Obviously, there are no desks. The chalkboards are only about 3 feet by 3 feet. There are no individual student textbooks; they wouldn’t survive the humidity, dirt, and mice. Storage cabinets, whether wooden or metal, deteriorate quickly and are replaced annually. With no toilet, children use primitive, public facilities in the surrounding neighborhood.

Ventilation comes from open doors and windows, which are very few, and ceiling fans, some of which hang precariously, held by twine, to rafter poles.

Schools are open year-round. “The parents want them in school because they get one hot meal a day and they're in a secure environment,” says Rosalie. “In the summer, the temperature in here is above 100.”

The adjacent buildings are slums, some of concrete and some of wood scraps and tin. The population density is intense. Schoolyard? Playground? No way. No space. In front of one non-ETC school, women wash clothes at a public pump and clothesline; the closest home is two steps from the school’s front door. Within a few feet of the ETC school that will soon be replaced, a man keeps cows in a corral. 

Preyrona 1 is an ETC vocational school, where pre-teen and teenage girls learn to sew and will soon receive computer training. The word preyrona means "inspiration."
Below: Preyrona 1 exterior with green plastic covering above a large rooftop area for theater practice. 
Second: Girls in one of two desk-less classrooms.
Third: The girls express delight with fabric to make holiday clothing.
Fourth: A residential building adjacent to the school.

Atmaraksha is a one-room school for which ETC pays teacher salaries, provides hot food, and buys holiday clothing for 50 children, ages 3 to 5. 
Below: The school is the pink building. Women wash clothes between the street and the school. Inside, the children receive lessons on the floor.

Preyrona 2 is a one-room school, attended by 99 children ages 5 to 15, that ETC will soon raze and replace.
Large left: The children, teachers, and staff in the schoolyard adjacent to the school.
Far upper left: Man washes a cow in his corral adjacent to the school.
Far lower left: Interior with teachers and children.
Near left: Children being served a daily hot meal of rice, vegetables, and a banana.
Large left: Rosalie with some of the older girls modeling their new holiday salwar Kameez.
Below: Rosalie with one of the boys in his new holiday shirt and shorts.

Rosalie's apartment is in a relatively nice slum. The buildings are made of concrete as opposed to scraps of wood or tin—and I've seen those too. Yet, neighbor families of eight to twelve adults and children dwell in a single room that might measure 12 x 12. Some rooms are sleep-on-the-floor dormitories for, perhaps, a dozen men who lie on thin blankets or pieces of cardboard. The intense heat in these rooms motivates many men to sleep on sidewalks and building steps. 

People bathe and get their water, pumped into buckets or bladders made from goat skin, from community hand pumps. A large bin, made of bamboo poles, holds hundreds of other bamboo poles that people borrow for construction scaffolding. Several outdoor toilets dot the area; the one I can see from my window isn’t enclosed. An uncovered garbage wagon sits between the pole bin and the toilet. Crows and cats scavenge as do a few men with dirty clothes, scraggly beards, and burlap bags over their shoulders. A Muslim mosque uses loudspeakers to call people to prayer five times a day, starting at 4:30 a.m. 

Rosalie's apartment is on the second floor of a four-story building with a flat roof and half wall for parties. Compared to homes in neighboring buildings, her place is luxurious: two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bathroom with Indian-style toilet and showerhead, terrazzo floors. There’s no shower stall and water from the showerhead wets the entire floor, so we squeegee the excess into a drain under the toilet. The kitchen appliances are a water filter, electric pitcher to heat water, and a toaster oven but no stove. The fridge, bright red, is in my bedroom. The six other apartments in this building are comparable or larger. No one has screens on their windows nor carpet, which would mold quickly. Live-in geckos and spiders keep insects under control.

The wide ledges on the living room windows hold a jungle of houseplants that live outside year-round, watered well by Mother Nature in the summer monsoon season and by Magdalene, Rosalie's cleaning lady, in the winter. The ledges are plant-sized only, serving to hold decorative wrought iron security grills and not human weight. The grills are immovable, which makes escape from the inside impossible. For this reason, when we're in, we padlock the deadbolt on the door's outer side in its open position so mischievous persons can't entrap us.

Our water supply comes from the community system. Someone uses an electrical pump to lift it to a cistern on the roof. The landlord pays a woman in the neighborhood to open valves once or twice a day to allow water to flow by gravity from the cistern to storage tanks in individual apartments. Our tank, which holds 40 gallons, sits on a platform over the bathroom door. On any given day, this woman may or may not resupply our tank. If she doesn't, we ration. If she gives too much, the tank overflows and floods the bathroom. Until yesterday, when I patched a hole in the bathroom wall, it would also flood the living room. Water heater? You’ve got to be kidding! Fortunately, the water is partially warmed from solar absorption, so it's not too cold. 

We eat most meals in restaurants. At expensive places, we pay the equivalent of $15 for a pair of fine meals. Most of the time, we eat in smaller places for about $2 each. The food is descent and the service half-hearted. If a meal isn’t prepared properly, the waiter won’t take it back but simply says, “Tomorrow, sir.” (Translation: We’ll get it right next time—maybe). The lack of sanitation at small cookeries that block many sidewalks with charcoal-fueled woks for rice and cauldrons filled with boiling grease makes that food totally unappealing. And we drink only filtered or bottled water. 

This is Rosalie’s eleventh year among these people, living here six months at a time. For the first three-and-a-half years, she lived in a guest house, furnished with only a bed, on Calcutta's famous Sudder Street.

The women and children of Sudder Street sleep in tarp encampments on the sidewalk. They're experts at picking lice from hair, a service for which Rosalie once employed them. Many have homes in their native villages. She asked them, "Why don't you live there?" "The village is boring! Calcutta is exciting," they replied.

She knows many in this 'hood: her landlord, his older brother who lives upstairs, and their families, the men who gather on marble benches in the neighborhood “commons” outside her windows to discuss politics and religion long into the night, the dhobi wallah (laundryman), the tailor, the cobbler, the frame maker, the man at the international courier stand, the Internet café operator, the wandering flute vendor, the man who sells women’s yoga pants from a single rack by a tree, numerous rickshaw wallahs, waiters at many restaurants, beggars, and, of course, her favorite taxi driver, Mr. Kahn, who has come to agree with her that horning only makes noise and doesn’t make traffic move.

All of these people greet her lovingly. “Aunty, Aunty,” they say, using  the traditional term when addressing a foreign woman. “The West Bengalis are very friendly people,” she says often. 

Her neighbors in the adjacent building across the narrow alley that separates us certainly are. Living on the same level, we often greet each other through open windows as we prepare cold food in our kitchen and they hang laundry on twine attached to their wrought iron security grills.

And the children who play and chatter in the commons below my window are a joyous choral background while I work on the book project that has brought me here.

Mr. Kahn and his "new" ten-year-old taxi with a broken speedometer and hard, hard rear seats. With his family and home hundreds of kilometers away, he sleeps in or on the hood of this vehicle along Calcutta's famous Sudder Street.

Above: Rosalie's apartment building (center right). In the foreground, a teen pumps water and a boy carries laundry. A bin for bamboo poles and another tenement are on the left. The narrow walkway is Syed Ismail Lane, wide enough for pedestrians, motor scooters, and rickshaws. Because it's too narrow for automobiles, we aren't subject to horning.
Below: A youth pumps water into a bladder made from a goat's hide.

Above: A businessman who also barbers on the street cuts his son's hair in the commons of Rosalie's neighborhood. In the background, a dobie wallah carries ironed laundry while more clothes hang adjacent to a concrete wall.  
Below: Boys expertly play with tops near the man cutting hair and the community pump and ablution area. 

Above: Rosalie with the frame maker who works while sitting on his shop floor, holding frame pieces with his toes while gluing with his hands.
Below: The flute vendor can make his simple instruments sound amazingly like a tenor saxophone.

Above: The dobie wallah and his wife and daughter in their laundry shop, which measures about six feet by twelve feet. They wash laundry at the community pump, hang it to dry on lines or fences, and iron it on this table on the right. When finished, he delivers in a neat stack for a cost of five to fifteen rupees per item. He uses two irons: while ironing with one, the other is heating on a metal plate atop charcoal embers. At night, the dobie sleeps on the ironing table, and his wife and child sleep on the floor. 

Above: Five young men drill a well and set a hand pump. The two walking on the left use chain wrenches to turn and lower the water pipe, the man in the foreground slowly plays out a rope that holds the pipe upright, while the two on the right use a fulcrum pump to feed water, as a lubricant, into the hole being dug. Not shown are a sixth man atop the conical bamboo scaffold who also helps hold the pipe upright and a seventh man who carries water in yellow pails that are the lubricant for the drilling process. 

Above: A man tends the fires under two cauldrons of biryani (rice, potatoes, meat, onions, chilies, and spices) in the commons near Rosalie's apartment building. 
Below:  Two men use long poles to transport the cauldrons of food to and from the cooking fire. When atop the flame, the cauldrons sit on pillars of bricks stacked four high. I took this photo from my bedroom window. When the wind blows toward my room, I have to close the windows to prevent smoke from coming in.

Above: Hari the tailor poses at his sewing machine with Rosalie. 
Below: Hari, his bare feet, and the foot treadle he uses to operate his sewing machine. When the electricity goes out, he keeps on working. Hari made for me a kurta, a traditional Indian garment like a long nightshirt,  and a pair of Western style trousers of fine blended cotton for a cost of 900 rupees (about $20).

Above: A cobbler on a Calcutta sidewalk. At night, there's no trace of his "shop," but in the daytime he's always in the same place.

Above: In the small courtyard that fronts their home and many others, brothers Altab and Mehtab Alam hold their niece while women look on. 
Below:  Altab stands in the single room that was the home in which he and his five siblings were raised. The bed is elevated to hold cooking cauldrons beneath. The family kept most of their possessions in the cabinets on the right. 

Below: Women and young girls tend to the community's children, a living example of how this "village" collectively raises their children. 

Above: A teenage boy holds his kite, which, amazingly, he is able to get airborne from a tiny space between homes. 
Below: The same boy stands with his spool of kite string after his irretrievable kite came down atop some distant home.

The government of Tibet has a new leader. Lobsang Sangay, 43, officially assumed that role on August 8 after having been democratically elected by Tibetans throughout the world.

This is significant for both political and spiritual reasons:

First, Sangay’s ascension to political leadership of the Tibetan people is the result of action by Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Fourteenth (current) Dalai Lama, to end his dual responsibilities as both Tibet’s temporal leader and Buddhism’s spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama’s decision is profound because these dual leadership roles began in 1653 with the Fifth Great Dalai Lama. Thus, the decision by His Holiness marks the end of a 358-year precedent.

Secondly, following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949, the nation of Tibet has not been recognized by other world governments. For presidents and prime ministers pressured either politically or economically to recognize China’s claim that Tibet is now a part of China, this is a political hot potato.

For example, when the Dalai Lama visited Washington, D.C., to lead a Buddhist Kalachakra initiation in June of this year, an audience with President Barack Obama did occur—but only on the last day of the ten-day event and only after it appeared that an audience would not be granted. Interestingly, both men are recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Similarly, the Union of South Africa, in September, denied the Dalai Lama a visa that would have allowed him to participate in the 80th birthday celebration of his good friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also a Nobel Peace Laureate.

TIME Magazine World, in its online issue dated October 01, 2011, has a comprehensive article about Lobsang Sangay. 

Encore magazine of Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, is currently running my article about the Dalai Lama’s teachings (page 14) at the Kalachakra in D.C. and at in his home in exile, Dharamsala/McleodGanj, India.

My web site contains collections of in-depth stories on the Kalachakra, the teachings in India, and interesting people I met in Dharamsala and McleodGanj.

The stories about the teachings in McleodGanj convey the wisdom of the Dalai Lama and conclude with a very informative conversation with Thubten Samphel, the person in charge of communications for the Central Tibetan Association (the Tibetan Government-in-Exile). Mr. Samphel explains the history of Tibet and its centuries-old autonomy from China, the lack of freedom among Tibetans today, and extreme desperation there that has prompted monks and nuns to set themselves on fire in protest.

The Dharamsala and McleodGanj stories describe:

• interaction with people who are generating harmony in the world by educating mentally challenged Indian children,
  
• a special visit to a Tibetan Children’s Village and a reminder that we can make a difference, 
  
• conversations with a young Tibetan who is willing to risk the danger of returning to Tibet in order to help his family,
  
• a profound religious and humorous experience of teaching Tibetan monks to speak English, 
  
• a unique medical session with the Dalai Lama’s former physician, Dr. Yeshi Dhonden, 
• and more.

I enjoy sharing these stories with you and hope you enjoy reading them. 

Relevant links:

• the Dalai Lama’s web site
  
• web casts of the Dalai Lama speaking at public events 
  
• news from the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala
  
• news about Tibet

Above: The Dalai Lama enters the Buddhist Main Temple in McleodGanj to begin teachings on compassion for all sentient beings. 
Below (two photos): Bedecked Buddhist monks perform ritual dances at the Kalachakra initiation in D.C.

Above: The principal at the Harmony Through Education school in Dharamsala helps a student learn a skill. 
Below: Children at Upper Tibetan Children's School where a sign on the playground pronounces "You Can Make a Difference." 

Above: Three of the monks to whom I taught English and with whom I shared much insight and laughter
Below: The Dalai Lama's former physician, Dr. Yeshi Dhonden, who still sees up to 60 patients a day.

The choir at St. Francis Catholic Church sings English carols of the variety I’ve known since my youth. The congregation for Midnight Mass has packed the church to standing room only for this candlelight service. A padlock on a steel security gate and five security guards prevent the throng outside from also entering.  

There, people in a festive mood chatter and take photos of each other on their mobiles. Many wear red-and-white elf hats with red blinking lights being sold by roaming vendors, boys of about 12. Four older teens give me two candy bars, wish me Merry Christmas, and ask the standard questions: “Where you from?” and “You like Calcutta?”

I meander home, casually observing.

Lights are strung across Park Street, a five-lane thoroughfare. A crowd of thousands, some moving and some lingering with plates of ice cream, fill the sidewalks and spill onto the street. Drivers, mostly in taxis, “horn” (honk) incessantly, expecting the noise they make to unsnarl the jam in front of them. The MacDonald’s, which normally closes at 10:00, is still open.

On Free School Street, which is not quite as large, a boy no older than 10 washes a large wok, using water from a community pump, in front of a food stall; his work surface is the sidewalk. People sleep under threadbare blankets. Each person is covered from head to feet and looks like a lump in a shroud. One is curled fetal-like atop two armchairs that have been precariously pushed together, seat to seat. One bundle, on a thin sheet of cardboard, is wide enough for two bodies, spooning. Another sleeps atop an ironing table. These people aren’t indigent. In the morning, they’ll awaken, bathe with water from the curbside pump, and run the tea stalls or food stalls or fruit tables or laundry services that are their businesses – in the same spot of sidewalk.

The daughter of a cobbler who has repaired my sandals is closing the door to their shop and home, a single room about four feet by ten feet with a shelf, four feet above the floor in the back third, that serves as an “upper level." Three people, representing three generations, live here. The daughter might be in her 20s, the cobbler in his 40s, and the grandmother looks ancient with no teeth, puckered cheeks, and glasses thick like the bottom of a soda bottle. In the daytime, she sits on the single step, cast in sunshine, and is quick with her smile and wave.

On narrow Collin Lane, a portly man, probably a grandfather, walks and sooths an infant in his arms. And on the even narrower Syed Ismail Lane on which I live, two women who appear to be a weary mother and a withering grandmother, their bodies and heads fully covered by burkas, move slowly in supportive embrace.

Only two men are sitting and talking on the bench in the commons, so the neighborhood is relatively quiet. Someone is sleeping on the stack of wooden tables under the stairway that forms the interior core of our tenement building.

The Internet says the outside temperature in Calcutta is 57 degrees Fahreneit tonight. It’s cool in the flat where I’m staying, which, like all the homes here, doesn’t have a furnace. Outside, many people wear sweaters and wrap their heads and necks in scarves but clad their feet only in flip-flops. Tonight, I’ll cover with my sleeping bag.

This afternoon, I attended a Christmas program at Rehabilitation Centres for Children, an orthopedic hospital that performs extensive surgeries on children with extreme deformities of their limbs, primarily feet and legs. 

Sarena, a 14-year-old girl with a tremendous smile and spirit, normally wears an orthopedic boot on her left foot because the bones in her foreleg are severely bent. Tonight, she performed a dance of three or four minutes, barefoot and bootless – on one leg. A group of teenage girls – a mix of Christians, Hindus, and Muslims – performed a drama, “The Birth of Jesus,” speaking their lines in Bengali. One of the “Wise Men” became embarrassed when I complimented her “beard,” drawn with a black marker on her face.

Walking back to the Metro, I lingered outside the subway station and strolled through the bevy of sidewalk vendors, chai stalls, and food stalls there – all small, four or six feet across with a depth of about the same. A special moment occurred when a holy man took my hand, placed it on his heart, and initiated a silent prayer. The photographs accompanying this story begin with Sarena and continue with the shots taken there.

On Christmas Day, I’m volunteering for the third day at Daya Dan, Mother Teresa’s orphanage for disabled children. More than a dozen volunteers from around the world, youths in their 20s and retirees, are here. I’m working the first floor, the home of about 20 boys who are the more-abled kids. Children of both genders who need constant care for all aspects of life live on the third floor. Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity reside on the second floor.

One of these first-floor boys is a drumming prodigy, another is a natural singer and entertainer, a third, gymnastically inclined, loves being hoisted high in the air. But none of these will likely ever be able to live on their own, much less perform professionally. Other children, like one with a scoliotic, L-shaped spine and legs as thin as a broomstick, need total care.

At Christmas Sunday Mass, eight of these special children, seated in contour chairs and propped by pillows, occupy the last row of the small chapel. The Mass, the priest’s message, and the wall murals throughout Daya Dan attempt to bring joy to the residents. But these eight, with their un-responsive bodies and un-present eyes, don’t seem to have the capacity to grasp conscious joy. Yet, they are souls. And they have a purpose here in this life – just as do the nuns and the volunteers. In that, they join with all to both bring and receive joy. 

Above: Serena with her friend Julie, a nurse from San Francisco. 
Serena's booted leg. 
Below: Serena dancing on one foot at the Rehabilitation Centres for Children's Christmas Eve program. 

Below: Street vendors, such as these with their stalls on sidewalks or goods spread curbside, are common throughout Kolkata. 

Most of people in the neighborhood where I live are Muslims. Five times each day, starting at 4:45 a.m., a man’s singing voice pours forth from electronic megaphones attached to the nearby mosque calling everyone—regardless of faith—to prayer. Sometimes, a congregation, their voices chanting, echoes the lead voice. In the distance, singing from other mosques float across the city.

The laundry dobie and many other people we know are Hindus, noticeable by a symbolic, protective tilak on their forehead between the eyebrows.

Hari the tailor and Nazi who runs one of my favorite diners are Sikhs, the men always distinctive in their turbans.

My accupressurist practices Jainism.

At a Christmas Eve event at an orthopedic hospital for children with malformed legs and arms, children of several faiths performed the story of Christ’s birth. There, I met a Zoroastrian, proud of the fact that hers is the world’s first monotheistic faith.

The Christian population is modest. Among them are Magdalene, Rosalie’s cleaning woman who is named after Mary Magdalene, and her family who took me to Mass at two nearby Catholic churches.

There are some Jews, but the population is miniscule compared to the years prior to the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948; then Jews in Kolkata numbered 6,000.

I see a few Buddhist monks from time to time, but these—as well as Kurds—were much more prevalent in the Himalayas during the earlier part of my journey.

Thus is the religious diversity here, a diversity that stretches far beyond the minor distinctions between denominations within the Christian world that I knew as a Catholic boy: Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal. Here, I experience the eye-opening revelations of my college class on world religions in which I heard, for the first time, that Catholicism and Christianity don’t hold a spiritual monopoly on numerous tenets, including the Golden Rule and belief in a savior born of a virgin. Here, today, unlike my boyhood village, which was 97 percent Catholic, I’m living and interacting daily with members of the world’s major faith groups.

It’s exciting. And the experience is rich with holy days and holidays—so many, in fact, that I wonder how does anyone get any work done. Eventually, the better question dawns: What does it matter how much work we get done when we have so many opportunities to grow spiritually.

Hindu: Durga Puja, Oct 2011
The city comes alive for Durga Puja, the principle Hindu holiday that honors the deity Maa Durga. For weeks in advance, huge billboards proclaim the community intent to celebrate. In response, every neighborhood creates temporary temples called pandals. Some are huge and elaborate while others are small but imaginative. The craftsmanship is exquisite as professional artisans work side by side with others to build each pandal according to a particular theme.

Then for four days in the fall, people go pandal hopping, visiting as many temples as possible. Young people boast of starting in the early morning and going late into the night, enjoying what is considered the world’s largest outdoor art festival.

One pandal that Rosalie, our hostess friend Madhu, and I visit uses cloth in seemingly hundreds of shades of red, from pink to purple, and numerous patterns to depict dozens of deities. This pandal is about 40 feet tall, totally covered with cloth. Inside, its four-story dome is crowned with a crystal chandelier.

The centerpiece, as it is in all pandals is the altar that features Maa Durga and her entourage of four children: Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and prosperity; Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, music, arts, science, and technology; Ganesha, lord of beginnings and remover of obstacles; and Kartikeya, god of protection and purification of human ills.

Maa Durga, herself, is “goddess of the inaccessible or the invincible,” “the one who can redeem situations of utmost distress.” Consistent with legend, the altar in each pandal depicts this bejeweled, multi-arm deity astride a lion, a slain water buffalo at her feet, and in the process of thrusting her spear into the chest of the demon Mahishasur.

The final pandal that we visit is the grand prize champion. It occupies a street, wide enough for two cars, for about two blocks. The theme is metaphysical with a sculpture of a body-size hand holding a floral-petaled sun in its palm, a giant "third eye" illuminated with blue lights and suspended in an elevated cave of gray, a life-size golden human form standing in a boat with arms upstretched to gather golden rain, portals and crystals suspended aloft to represent the path of human evolution, and a towering waterfall of cascading, glowing red energy imaginatively created with motorcycle tires.

The entire length of this pandal is crafted to represent the ship of life. The one-way flow of compressed humanity is ten abreast, and the walls of the ship are eye-high to an adult. But the visual emphasis is entirely upward, encouraging people to choose an ascended view.

Even Maa Durga and her entourage, finally visible at the end, seem to float in mid-air in a watery, three-dimensional field of blue shapes that could be eyes or boats or fish.

These figures are carved with intricate detail in simulated bronze. The overall effect—gazing at the universal guiding hand, the "third eye," and the glorious golden human; moving with a slow, pressing part of humanity on a ship of life; looking up to see an ascending crystalline path; then coming upon the beautiful deities—is inspiring, magical, transformative.

It’s love—and maybe that is why this pandal took top honors. Even Maa Durga’s spear is not thrust into the breast of the demon Mahishasur as it is in other pandals. Here, the spear is poised near a serpent that creeps across the deity’s right knee, while Maa Durga, empowered with Universal Love, tames the demon with simple strength of her big toe.

We linger by the deities for as long as possible, aided by a security man who shelters us as we take more than our fair share of photos. Then we move back into the streets and into the grip of buses, taxis, autorickshaws, and pedestrians.

Madhu reminds us that the pandals we visited are all within a few minutes’ walk from her home, and they are but a few of thousands within Kolkata. “At the end of Durga Puja, they will all be taken down and the deities taken to the Hooghly River for the immersion (set afloat),” she says.

Islam: Eid al-Adha, Nov 2011
Syed Ismail Lane, only 200 feet long and six feet wide, and the entire comparably small chaupal (commons) by Rosalie’s flat are filled with 50 head of cattle, two dozen goats, and a camel. The first arrived a month ago. All will be slaughtered in the Islamic celebration of Eid al-Adha, the “Festival of Sacrifice.”

My young friend Mehtab explains, “Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son because God told him to. But God was only testing him and showed him to sacrifice a ram instead. Maybe it’s true that, if God had let Abraham kill his son, that would be our tradition today.” He pauses. “I’m glad it’s not.”

The slaughter and butchering for our locale occurs in the chaupul, literally outside our door and below my bedroom window. The killing is done by professionals who, with ropes to restrain the animal and a sharp knife to the throat, perform their duties efficiently. Butchers, working in the chaupal bathing area, use knives to dissect the carcass and hatchets to chop the meat and bones into fist-size clumps that are soon cooked to become the main ingredient in biryani, a stew of rice, potatoes, meat, and spicy herbs.

The concrete runs with blood even though it’s frequently rinsed with water. Some find the scene offensive. The English couple who live upstairs move into a hotel for four days. The Hindu laundry dobie closes the door to his home and business for three days. Magdalene, a Catholic, doesn’t come to clean for two days because she doesn’t want to walk through the blood.

Honestly, I don’t blame her. When I venture forth to take photos, I stand on a van, that is, the back of a wagon permanently attached to a bicycle.

Those opposed to cruelty to animals would object on principal. Yet, the slaughter of Eid al-Adha is part of this faith community’s religious tradition. It’s a celebration that begins with prayer in the mosques early, early in the morning of the first day. And the entire community is involved.

Men, women, and children observe the professionals in the same way that families in America assemble around a barbecue at a picnic or community cookout. In both cultures, meat and sharing are the reason to gather. The only difference really is that in America the blood-letting is done behind closed doors and here it’s out in the open.

Not everyone in the community can afford to contribute an animal, yet all are included. Those who have purchased the animals retain one-third for their annual consumption. They give another one-third to their extended family and others in the community. And they give another one-third to the poor. 

Rosalie’s landlord, Qadir, tells me on the Festival of Sacrifice’s second day, “The poor have already come to get their share.”

Sikh: Birth Anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, Dec 2011 
The parade to honor the 345th birth anniversary of Shri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the Sikh faith community’s tenth of eleven gurus, covers a distance of about two kilometers on one of Kolkata’s major divided roadways.

A color guard of men in bright orange robes and dark blue turbans, carrying either a sword or a flag on a staff, leads the parade. Behind them, process more men attired in white khurtas accented with black vests. Then comes a large “goods carrier” truck with a huge kettle drum and a pair of drummers atop the cab. These are audible and visible in the distance as I look past a squad of Kolkata police officers who are diverting traffic.

Later, come youths on motorcycles, men on horseback, two long lines of men and boys with orange turbans and blue spears, lines of women and girls, then an open, flat-bed truck with men and women too elderly to walk.

In total, the participants number in the thousands. Many more spectators walk along the road’s periphery.

The men are turbaned and many are barefooted. Beards and mustaches of the older men are long and distinctive. Women and girls also wear a covering on their heads. The hair of teenage girls and younger women flows gracefully to their waists, some to the knees.

“Sikhs never cut their hair,” says Hari, my tailor, as we walk along beside the parade. “Sikh men never trim their beards,” he adds. “Never. From birth to death.”

At a major intersection, the parade stops so that everyone can observe martial arts performed by several skilled men, one woman, and a boy. Deftly, they wield swords, knives, and chakars, which are ropes, woven into a circular web and weighted at the circumference.

The martial artists place their hands on a center ring, the size of steering wheel, and spin it until the ends flair out to become a large, engulfing shield. In the spirit of showmanship, they flip the spinning web into the air, then, when it comes down, another grabs it and continues to keep it in motion.

One week later, in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, I go to a park for the final events of this seven-day festival. A tall, official-looking man instructs me to don a head covering and remove my shoes and socks in before entering a circus-size tent that serves as a temporary temple and an open-air food area, both of which are sacred places.

In the temple, men are extolling, singing, and playing musical instruments on a stage. The congregation is divided so that men sit in semi-lotus fashion on thin carpets on the right and women on the left.

The people also eat sitting on mats rolled out on a patch of dusty ground. The meal is free to all. “Without chairs and without the need for money, everyone is equal,” explains a young man. “Poor people might be sitting next to rich people. Here, all are the same.”

One of the main food components is chapattis, an unleavened flat bread, also known as roti, that’s a staple in much of South Asia and other parts of the world. The flour-based dough is hand-mixed by youths in large vats, rolled into round pieces by women sitting in a long, long row on the ground, then cooked by more women on a number of large metal plates (griddles) heated with natural gas. “Everyone is a volunteer,” the young man adds.

Then the martial artists perform again. They feature a variety of weapons and defenses, ranging from spears and swords and chains to their bare hands. The most audacious weapon is a steel band, about two inches wide and perhaps 25 feet in length, honed to razor sharpness on both edges. By shaking and twirling a leather-hilted handle only a few inches, the person holding this dangerous “shield” causes its length to writhe and dance in unpredictable fashion, thus keeping attackers well at bay.

Even the young boy, a lad of no more than seven, participates in “combat” with a sword-length stick and padded gloves.

Conclusion
Regardless of the religion, certain themes permeate these activities: community, practicality, ceremony, religiosity, food.

In spite of attempts by some religious sects and denominations to claim exclusive rights to a heavenly afterlife, I see so much here that debunks that concept. The attire and nature of the events may vary, but the common similarity is found and bound in humanity’s oneness with the Divine Creator. As our Muslim neighbors Qadir and his brother Qayum—and others—often say, “God is good. God is all.”

Below: Hindu cloth pandal, October 4 to 7, 2011

Below: Hindu metaphysical pandal, October 4 to 7, 2011

Below: Islamic Eid al-Adha, November 6 to 9, 2011

Below: Sikh celebration parade, Dec 25, 2011

Below: Sikh celebration festival, Dec 31, 2011

"You are such a terrific writer in the way you make everything so clear and enjoyable." —H.C.