toy trains and turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I am missing home, thinking about pies and the Macy's Day Parade... everything that is good and true in the world, eh? I did, however, have a Thanksgiving adventure of sorts and for that I am thankful.

I traveled overnight from Santiniketan on some boring old India train... it was lame, so I slept the whole time. Then I arrived at 8:30 am in New Jaipalguri, where I was to board that Toy Train to Darjeeling at 9 am. Quick turnover! It was hectic, but I made it. The train pulled up and, to my surprise, it really is just a toy train. It was blue with yellow trim (very becoming) and had only 4 cars, each about 25 feet long. That's a pretty small train. Unfortunately I don't have ANY photos from the whole journey because my camera battery died (AH! It sucks, you don't even need to tell me). But, it's in the mind and I'll tell you a little about the trip...

The train is small for a reason. Basically we were going up and up and up on the smallest track possible through the most amazing terrain. It was just hills and then just mountains and we would pass through small villages where the train must be a part of everyone's life, because it goes straight through the markets and rights next to people's doorsteps. It was so much fun riding around through these villages. Little kids would pop out of doors and wave and then all the school children would pile into the cars to get a ride to the next town. It was crazy and fun and loud and increasingly cold.

Yes, it's very cold. So cold that I think I'm going to putt long underwear on under my carhartts. So cold that I need MITTENS! I couldn't be happier. I want to be cold. Thank Thanksgiving for coldness.

The train ride was also incredibly beautiful, of course. Beautiful in a way I didn't expect. It was freezing in the mountains, but there were marigolds and poinsettas blooming everywhere, and morning glories were wound around the bamboo in the forests and were all in full bloom. It was so bizarre. As we ascended the vegetation got a little more sparse, but basically it's still lush and jungle-like, just with huge fir trees instead of bamboo.

My hotel is lovely. It's located at the tippity top of the hill that is Darjeeling, and my room looks out on the mountains! Well, I assume it does, because right now it looks out on fog. I hope that clears up soon. It will, I can feel it.

I'm going to go feast now. All I have had on this Thanksgiving day is a bowl of rice. WHAT?!? It's time to eat.

Love to all, missing you and happy turkey eating.
This is an erratic post, c'est la vie.

trash burns

It is my last day in Santiniketan. At 9:30 pm tonight I'll leave here, board a train and then board another train at 9 am bound for Darjeeling. I'll be riding in a Toy Train on Thanksgiving!! How cool!
It's trash burning day here in the old santi-town. Actually, every day is trash burning day, but today they're burning the morning too, which is unusual. Usually at about 4 pm the air fills with smoke--smoke that stays in my hair and on my scarves and inside my nose. I've decided is a mosquito-repellent, and so I've embraced it. But the smoke in the morning is a bit much, I have to say.
I also had to pay my nice old cleaner woman 70 rupees this morning, and for what? That's all I have to say. I swept my own room much of the time. But she's just so old and... she held out her hand... and I gave her 20 and she wasn't satisfied so, whatever. $1.50 later, she's giggling and blessing me. I guess it was worth it for the karma.
I was up for four hours last night, from the hours of 12 - 4 am. I'm not sure why... just staring at the ceiling and turning on the light now and again to swat some mosquitos. But, in my dazed and confused state I came up with the idea that the tractor riders here in santi-town look like rogue bandits. So, it was a worthwhile 4 hours of sleep lost, because obviously the theories were flowing.

If I am unable to write tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving all! I will be thinking of you in Darjeeling. I'll treat myself to chick curry or tandoori chicken or something... I haven't had meat in 1 week so it will almost be like turkey, right?

Santiniketan Landscape!

i'm sorry. it's taking too long. I don't have enough rupees. save it for darjeeling. LOVE ya'll

the "abode of peace"

Hello all! As promised, here are some pictures. The first is, of course, my dear Marmite, the constant companion.

I leave this quiet town tomorrow evening, on a train bound for Darjeeling. If all goes well I will get to ride the Toy Train, which I'm looking forward to.
Today is a holiday for the inhabitants of Santiniketan. In the
tradition of Tagore, this town takes Tuesday and Wednesday off, instead of Saturday and Sunday. Tagore was trying desperately to differentiate his ideal society from all other societies, hence the strange "sabbath days." It is almost painfully quiet here today, but really lovely. I took a walk next to a river and while I was staring off into the distance, meditating on art and nature and being quite "Tagoric" I happened to feel something squish under my shoe. It was, of course, cow poop, and though I tried desperately to remove it from my sandle it's just caked right in. My life in India, a comical experience.

I'm having trouble uploading photos, but here is a photo of the guest house I'm staying in:

It's lovely. Sometimes there are goats and cows that eat the vegetation outside (and you thought deer were bad, mom!). In addition to the cows and the goats, I was standing a food stall the other day and witnessed a HUGE monkey (I mean, the size of a ten year-old child) steal about ten packs of Lays potatoe chips. None of the Indians seem to notice. I laughed and thought it would make a good commercial. Ah, monkeys. As long as they aren't biting anyone they are pretty darn funny.

So, yes. Everything is dandy. I'm going to post some pictures of the countryside too, but not right this minute because the internet is being dumb. I am excited to leave this town, but not because it lacks anything, just because I like being on the move. I get emails often from my dear friends in Delhi, who are all having a great time partying with each other... and sometimes I wish I was there with them... but most of the time I'm thankful for this experience and for this chance to just be immersed in something that is so different than anything I've ever done. It's fun, in a different sort of way.

they speak bengali here

Pictures, ah, the bane of my existance. I will post some, but really probably not til I get to Darjeeling where the internet will run more smoothly.

Enjoying my time here in Santiniketan. I don't speak one lick of Bengali, but I speak some Hindi and with Hindi-English I can sort of get by. There is an old woman who comes into my room in the morning who speaks no English OR Hindi... so that's fun. She comes in and I think she might want money, but I'm not going to pay her. Basically she cleans my room a little bit and then throws flower petals everywhere which just irks me. Why do I want flower petals all over my room, lady? But I just smile and say "OH! Thank You!" and she smiles back toothlessly and says "OH! TANK YOUUU." and then laughs maniacly. It's all very weird. Today she made me come outside with her to shake a tree and get more petals, something I really wasn't interested in doing. It's amazing how much time I spend appeasing strange old women in India, I'll probably miss that when I go home.

I've been writing an outline for my paper and feel pretty great. I want to finish it all up before heading to Darjeeling so that I can just spend time hiking around the hills and making collages while I'm there. I don't really want to be working on a paper.

I would like, also, to say that I have found a constant companion here in Santiniketan for my evening meals. I simply turn on the television to a channel called "Star Movies" and, voila! I've got any C-list movie from the last 20 years at my fingertips. I've seen bits and pieces of the likes of "RoboCop-3" and "Kate and Leopold" and "Hackers." I'm sure Julie will argue with me when I say that Hackers is c-list, because I'll bet she loved that movie. Everyone wears rollarskates... it's just weird. That's my brush with American culture at the moment. Also, this morning I went to get some passport photos taken (I need them for my special VIP security pass at the Tagore museum) and the men there were looking at YouTube videos of strange child celebrities from America like Zack Effron (is that his name?) and other 'High-School Musical' types. Strange.

Speaking of High School Musicals, good luck to Mom and all the cast and crew of Oliver! I'm thinking of you all over here.

"santiniketan" or "the cows and the goats"

I'm in a tiny town in India... northwest West Bengal to be exact. It's small, there are a lot of goats and really annoying men. It's very dusty and quiet, one might even say peacful. I walk every day from my lovely guest house (where a nice Bengali family lives, they give me dinner and let me watch terrible television with them) to the Visva-Bharati campus. Visva-Bharati is the university that Tagore founded in 1919 and it's beautiful there. Today I got access to the special archives (with my secret letter from Uma Das Gupta, a very distinguished scholar, ahem, ahem) and spent the morning pouring over books. Tomorrow I'm going to look for photographs of Tagore to put in my collages.

So, yes. There's actually not much going on that's of interest to the general public. I had to spend about two hours looking for an internet cafe, that's how small this town is. It's just nothing really, just trees and a few lakes and goats and lots of cows. It's beautiful. I will take photos either to post here when I get to Darjeeling, or to share with you all when I'm home.

I do miss the craziness of Kolkata. There was something condusive to working in that hostel full of loud drunk people. I'm going to hunker down here and do lots of work, but I'm excited to continue on to Darjeeling soon. Darjeeling is apparently very, very "modern" which will be a bit of a relief. The simple life is lovely when you aren't trying to get anything accomplished, but not having internet when you are trying to write a research paper is a bit daunting and frustrating.

I'm sorry for my incredibly lame posts. I wanted to check in and tell everyone I'm safe, but the only thing I do all day is research a cool dude and make art and swat mosquitos (lots of mosquito swating going on).

I miss you all! I'll write again soon...

the grind and the marmite

WOW! ISP and all that's involved in it has hit be full force today. It's already November 16 (how did that happen?) which means I have only 20 more days of ISP! In those twenty I shall write a very good (hopefully) paper and complete 18 more little artworks (hopefully).

Gah! It is a lot of work, enough to provoke sounds of exasperation. Everything is still great. My two favorite British friends left today, Anna and Sally. We spent every morning together eating breakfast at the Blue Sky Cafe, for 20 rupees you can get poached eggs on toast!! They introduced me to the wonders of Marmite (bizarre stuff, but really delicious, and it's just yeast extract so it's good for you too!) and the proper behavior of true Brits. It was a lovely week-long friendship that has now come to an end, and in a way that's great because I need to become isolated and self-involved for the next 20 days if I am to complete this project.

I spent the weekend wandering around Kolkata. I went to St. Paul's Cathedral, an impressive remnant of the Raj, and I visited the Academy of Fine Arts which wasn't what I expected it to be... but was pretty cool, none-the-less.

Tomorrow I'm headed to the National Library, then to Santiniketan on Wednesday. I met with THE Tagore scholar of India today. Her name is Uma Das Gupta and it was a pretty great meeting. She was pleased with my project and thought the art component (I'm calling them "meditations") is a perfect way for a young student to get to know Tagore in an intimate way! How great. It really is great. Now I just need to prove that I can do something with it and keep on trucking.

First, however, I need to go to the bustling market to get some Marmite...

galen.