the good, the bad, and the puja

Sorry for the week-long hiatus. It has been a hectic week, and I have much to report. I'll just include some highlights/lowlights for you all.

First of all, my computer is lost in transit between the U.S. and India - that's a major lowlight that needs no further discussion.

Another lowlight (I'll move to the better things) is that I am finding this program to be a bit, well, unfitting. I find the lectures fascinating and I really like learning Hindi and my Bollywood dancing workshop is the most amazing thing every (really), but the Academic Director is really hard to take. One day in class she referenced some obscure piece of literature and when we replied that we had not read it she exclaimed, "DO YOU GUYS EVEN READ?"

Ah ha. That's very funny, right? I laughed uproariously. Don't worry, dear parents, this will not be another one of my brushes with authority (a la Miss Gates), but she tries my patience and my deep commitment to human decency. Being treated like a petulant child cramps my style a bit. Let's leave it at that.

But, there is a silver lining, and it might actually be gold.

I really, really love India, and I really, really love a lot of the people on my program. I've found a great support group (we can commiserate about some of the less fun aspects of the program) and my homestay family is to die for. Truly. Aunty is now asking me to call her "mama" (I'll call her H-Mama on here, so that my own mother does not become confused) and last night the extended family came over for tea. We will be celebrating Durga Puja on Sunday and I'll get to hang out with the whole family and get down and Hindu with it all. I'm pretty excited.

On Sunday I went to a Bhangra lesson (Sikh dancing from the Punjab) with some of my friends and had the realization that we may have been in India too long since we think that our Sikh teacher is like a gangster, and that Kurtas (long Indian-style shirts) are "attractive." But Bhangra's crazy and by the end I am covered in sweat and feel great.

Also, I'm making headway with my Independent Study Project. I went to the National Gallery of Modern Art on Sunday and I came across the work of Nandalal Bose, a nationalist artist who sort of headed the Bengal School movement. He's pretty amazing, and used traditional Indian materials in his work. So, I'm thinking I'm going to go to West Bengal and sort of retrace his steps (from Calcutta - Darjeeling and all in between) and I'll be simultaneously writing a research paper about his philosophies on nationalism and myth and mature in artwork, and also doing my own collage work from found materials. I'm still trying to pass off some of the aspects of the project to the Academic Director. She's pretty supportive but also a major art historian and has her own ideas about "what is interesting" to study. If the "practicum" portion of the project doesn't fly I'll just make the art anyway, because that's kind of the point behind the whole thing... we'll see.

I really miss you all. Much love.