I can declare that after trying the majority of the "biscuits" here in Kolkata, my official favorite is (drum roll, please...) Priya Elaichi Creme! They not only have cardamom flavored frosting and cost five rupees, but the creme is also tinted a beautifully fake green color, such as you can only find in artificial food coloring. Biscuits are really more like cheap, packaged cookies in such a variety- salty and sweet, round and square, cream filled or plain. They're best eaten during an evening stroll around the city, or an evening constitutional, as some well-worded people might call such a walk. Let me know if you want to try them, and I'll send you a package.
Another exciting snippet of information is that I am now an official member of Naga Christian Fellowship, I even filled out a form. This means that for the remainder of my Sundays in Kolkata, I get to hear special songs by boys wearing "If there isn't Bacardi in heaven, I ain't going there" t-shirts. Oh, the joy.
And finally, I rejoice in the fact that after years of searching, I have discovered a language with as much time confusion as I have. In Bengali, the word borshu means both day after tomorrow and day before yesterday.
"My India is Great!" (As the blue dump trucks say. I couldn't agree more.)
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
feelings of flimsiness
Today I had a picnic in a park, all too complete with a trail of ants. My dear-hearted Lara and I picked up some bread and fruit and sweets and made some space for ourselves on a green bench.
Kolkata at night is my favorite. Perhaps because its swollen and slow-moving, having eaten too much rice for dinner. Maybe because at night you see labourers and lovers taking a slight break from the cares of the day. Maybe because cities at night make me want to wander into a small cafe and chat till morning.
I feel sort of flimsy these days. I'm overwhelmed by my own thoughts and the complexity of this woven life which in truth, I was never asked to unravel. I'm walking around in sackcloth and ashes. It's a hurting unlike what I've felt here so far. It's not acute or emotional. It's sort of numbing. I'm grieving the abandonment that has taken root in the children at Shanti Dan. I'm grieving the loss of autumn. I'm wishing I could share two things with my sister: an americano and the beauty of morning prayers to God through Our Lady, Mary. I smell like playdough and sweat. It seems like just when you find joy and contentment, it slips away. Ocean waves. Such is life. I'm going to wait with sandy, salt crusted feet. I'm here, whenever you want to wash back my way.
Kolkata at night is my favorite. Perhaps because its swollen and slow-moving, having eaten too much rice for dinner. Maybe because at night you see labourers and lovers taking a slight break from the cares of the day. Maybe because cities at night make me want to wander into a small cafe and chat till morning.
I feel sort of flimsy these days. I'm overwhelmed by my own thoughts and the complexity of this woven life which in truth, I was never asked to unravel. I'm walking around in sackcloth and ashes. It's a hurting unlike what I've felt here so far. It's not acute or emotional. It's sort of numbing. I'm grieving the abandonment that has taken root in the children at Shanti Dan. I'm grieving the loss of autumn. I'm wishing I could share two things with my sister: an americano and the beauty of morning prayers to God through Our Lady, Mary. I smell like playdough and sweat. It seems like just when you find joy and contentment, it slips away. Ocean waves. Such is life. I'm going to wait with sandy, salt crusted feet. I'm here, whenever you want to wash back my way.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
a few poems... again
Finding a Church
we don't think the same
be the same
share the same ideals
sometimes i worship theology
we don't see the same
sing the same
create the same beauty
sometimes i worship art
we don't touch the same
commune the same
seek the same poor
always i worship love
here in the noise
not of buses
but synthesizers
and parroted repeating
here in the colour
not of nature
but waxen flowers
and velvet curtains
here in the Hallelujahs
i shout to love
'ready or not,
here i come!'
Shobuj Brishtir Nice*
the last time i tripped
and fell
and scraped my knee
i cried
not from pain
but from the sight of the blood
not from seeing myself bleed
but from watching it run
Red
down my leg like vein patterns
worn on the outside
for decorative purposes
driving up the mountain
the one marked
with Tibetan prayer flags
flipping their farewells
like train station kerchiefs
waving goodbye to me
in a gesture of welcome
i knew what i must do
and with a quaking hand
i cut clean
with an old forked stick
down the ragged scar
i thought was out of sight
out of mind
i wept then
with the delight of myself
recognizable once again
as the familiar green
came instantly pounding
and singing
in rivulets of cell and chlorophyll
feet in the dirt
and a voice in its own
stream of a self
my hands a clasped clay
cup full of the liquid story
of my fluid life
i tossed it up
to hit the underbelly of the clouds
and come raining back down on me
who has found a place in the garden
just another tree
i raise my limbs to the sky
like theirs
to catch peace in our webs of leaf
and drip green together
* Under the Green Rain
we don't think the same
be the same
share the same ideals
sometimes i worship theology
we don't see the same
sing the same
create the same beauty
sometimes i worship art
we don't touch the same
commune the same
seek the same poor
always i worship love
here in the noise
not of buses
but synthesizers
and parroted repeating
here in the colour
not of nature
but waxen flowers
and velvet curtains
here in the Hallelujahs
i shout to love
'ready or not,
here i come!'
Shobuj Brishtir Nice*
the last time i tripped
and fell
and scraped my knee
i cried
not from pain
but from the sight of the blood
not from seeing myself bleed
but from watching it run
Red
down my leg like vein patterns
worn on the outside
for decorative purposes
driving up the mountain
the one marked
with Tibetan prayer flags
flipping their farewells
like train station kerchiefs
waving goodbye to me
in a gesture of welcome
i knew what i must do
and with a quaking hand
i cut clean
with an old forked stick
down the ragged scar
i thought was out of sight
out of mind
i wept then
with the delight of myself
recognizable once again
as the familiar green
came instantly pounding
and singing
in rivulets of cell and chlorophyll
feet in the dirt
and a voice in its own
stream of a self
my hands a clasped clay
cup full of the liquid story
of my fluid life
i tossed it up
to hit the underbelly of the clouds
and come raining back down on me
who has found a place in the garden
just another tree
i raise my limbs to the sky
like theirs
to catch peace in our webs of leaf
and drip green together
* Under the Green Rain
so pleased to meet you
I'm still catching the blog up on life here, so here's something from what seems like forever ago. It's just a little somethin' I wrote right after arriving...
It was raining when we arrived in Kolkata. I rolled down the taxi window anyway, if only to keep from being suffocated by the incense burning to Ganesh, stuck in the dashboard like smouldering birthday candles. It's almost my birthday, too, I tell him. Just in case he wants to throw me a surprise party. Our driver in a wet and dirty tanktop, the once-had-been white now transparent from some combination of sweat and rain. The horns are a sort of sonar it seems, like bats flitting around trying not to collide. Shush, I tell them. Let me meet the city. Introductions are sacred. Like puja, like prayer. In them you read the silent longings, the spiritual pleas. Like an old text, an ancient scroll. In this manner we greeted each other, Kolkata and I. I read boldly its crippling poverty, its burning spirituality, and its beauty which is rooted in a history older than my body plus my soul, times a thousand. In return its scalpel eyes saw my crippling selfishness, my spiritual poverty, my burning desire for love. I kneel to touch the feet of this place, and it returns the blessing with a hand on my head. As I walk away from this first impression, I am actually moving in. Moving to this place where wounds like tendons lay exposed, still pulsing with inextinguishable breath. Out of my silence then came the only word I knew to say. One that's been lying dormant and dust covered for awhile now. Mercy, I whispered like a lullabye to the men sleeping exhausted on their rickshaws. Mercy! I shouted at the marble hotels, white... oh-so-white. Everywhere the word fell it returned from, louder and shining. Mercy, the wind whispered in song as I slept. Mercy! it shouted and rained down respite life.
It was raining when we arrived in Kolkata. I rolled down the taxi window anyway, if only to keep from being suffocated by the incense burning to Ganesh, stuck in the dashboard like smouldering birthday candles. It's almost my birthday, too, I tell him. Just in case he wants to throw me a surprise party. Our driver in a wet and dirty tanktop, the once-had-been white now transparent from some combination of sweat and rain. The horns are a sort of sonar it seems, like bats flitting around trying not to collide. Shush, I tell them. Let me meet the city. Introductions are sacred. Like puja, like prayer. In them you read the silent longings, the spiritual pleas. Like an old text, an ancient scroll. In this manner we greeted each other, Kolkata and I. I read boldly its crippling poverty, its burning spirituality, and its beauty which is rooted in a history older than my body plus my soul, times a thousand. In return its scalpel eyes saw my crippling selfishness, my spiritual poverty, my burning desire for love. I kneel to touch the feet of this place, and it returns the blessing with a hand on my head. As I walk away from this first impression, I am actually moving in. Moving to this place where wounds like tendons lay exposed, still pulsing with inextinguishable breath. Out of my silence then came the only word I knew to say. One that's been lying dormant and dust covered for awhile now. Mercy, I whispered like a lullabye to the men sleeping exhausted on their rickshaws. Mercy! I shouted at the marble hotels, white... oh-so-white. Everywhere the word fell it returned from, louder and shining. Mercy, the wind whispered in song as I slept. Mercy! it shouted and rained down respite life.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
puja season is upon us
We are entering the season of Pujas, folks. Puja means prayer, specifically prayer to the Hindu gods and godesses. It is also what the celebrations for these same dieties are called. Starting with "motor vehicle puja," which isn't its official name, of course. During motor vehicle puja, all the cars were draped with streamers and garlands of marigolds, and offerings of sweets and incense burned under their parked hoods. Pigments marked their metal forms in streaks and dots, as on the foreheads of devotees returning from the temple. Kali Puja and Durga Puja are coming up, along with the festival of lights, with prizes for the best displays. Apparentely the US isn't the only country whose celebrations have become competitions, also. I know the celebration time has come because a few days ago I woke at five am to classic Bollywood Hindi songs blaring from the site of a soon-to-be display outside my window. Overnight the braces for a huge structure have gone up several stories high, and men climb around on these like circus performers to secure the frame with rope. Bamboo structures are going up in different communities across the city. With only poles and canvas, huge replicas will be made of the Taj Mahal, the Victoria Memorial... even the White House has been known to have its very own Puja replica. Trust me, India, one White House is more than enough for all of us.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
rickshaws and wings
I spend several hours a day transporting myself around the city. Perhaps I should more accurately say that rickshaws, buses, and the metro transport me around the city. If only I really could transport myself, I would, of course, choose wings. They would be varying shades of green... bright, chlorophyll green, and dark, earthy green fading into brown. This way I could sometimes sit unnoticed in the trees.
Anyway. The buses are insane, I have yet to figure out the number system (as evidenced by my hours spent wandering unknown parts of the city.) They are numbers like 45 B/1, 205 (not to be confused with 205 A,) and 1C/15,000. Okay, the last one might be an exaggeration. I'm sure they are systematic... but it's a system that is far beyond my comprehension. Sort of like the periodic table of elements. At this point, most of you are wondering why I don't understand the periodic table. If you figure out why I am so bad at chemistry, please, let me know. Sometimes one must have a running start to board the bus, or exit with a flying leap as the money man announces they just passed your stop. This is not so easy as it sounds, since you are shoulder to shoulder with more people than could possible fit on this bus. And then ten more come on.
I take a bike rickshaw to and from home to the metro when I'm too lazy to walk, or when it's dark outside. The first one I took was hard for me. It provides jobs to many men, and I want to be able to support them. Yet, sometimes it's hard for me to ride along, the cause of physical labor for a few rupees. I feel a bit like a Turkish princess in a veiled stoop, riding along on four muscular shoulders. Except for the pot holes and speed bumps and the lack of wine. The bike rickshaw wallahs all look older, I think, than they really are, and there isn't an extra ounce of fat on their bodies. Perhaps their thin faces contribute to their aged appearance. They also have a community that interests me. They wait together, and take turns. I would imagine them competing for customers, but it seems, rather, that they take care of each other.
In travelling around Kolkata, I find, you cannot escape from people. Such is life in India. In the US, we get in our own personal car, and we (in some states) pump our own personal gas. We drive in straight lines, awkwardly looking away if we make eye contact with the person driving in the other lane. In this city, I cannot forget by whose labor I am getting to where I want to go. I slide around in the water on the floor of the metro, while a group of men scrape the dirty liquid over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks. I sit across from men and women staring unabashedly at my Western form. This is exhausting. But it is also humanizing. I am a part of something. One in a million. I must choose which part, and which something. Hopefully, the rebuilding part. The broken part. The part that fights for freedom. Hopefully, the friendship something. The God something. The world something. All these thoughts and a ride home... and it only costs me ten rupees.
Anyway. The buses are insane, I have yet to figure out the number system (as evidenced by my hours spent wandering unknown parts of the city.) They are numbers like 45 B/1, 205 (not to be confused with 205 A,) and 1C/15,000. Okay, the last one might be an exaggeration. I'm sure they are systematic... but it's a system that is far beyond my comprehension. Sort of like the periodic table of elements. At this point, most of you are wondering why I don't understand the periodic table. If you figure out why I am so bad at chemistry, please, let me know. Sometimes one must have a running start to board the bus, or exit with a flying leap as the money man announces they just passed your stop. This is not so easy as it sounds, since you are shoulder to shoulder with more people than could possible fit on this bus. And then ten more come on.
I take a bike rickshaw to and from home to the metro when I'm too lazy to walk, or when it's dark outside. The first one I took was hard for me. It provides jobs to many men, and I want to be able to support them. Yet, sometimes it's hard for me to ride along, the cause of physical labor for a few rupees. I feel a bit like a Turkish princess in a veiled stoop, riding along on four muscular shoulders. Except for the pot holes and speed bumps and the lack of wine. The bike rickshaw wallahs all look older, I think, than they really are, and there isn't an extra ounce of fat on their bodies. Perhaps their thin faces contribute to their aged appearance. They also have a community that interests me. They wait together, and take turns. I would imagine them competing for customers, but it seems, rather, that they take care of each other.
In travelling around Kolkata, I find, you cannot escape from people. Such is life in India. In the US, we get in our own personal car, and we (in some states) pump our own personal gas. We drive in straight lines, awkwardly looking away if we make eye contact with the person driving in the other lane. In this city, I cannot forget by whose labor I am getting to where I want to go. I slide around in the water on the floor of the metro, while a group of men scrape the dirty liquid over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks. I sit across from men and women staring unabashedly at my Western form. This is exhausting. But it is also humanizing. I am a part of something. One in a million. I must choose which part, and which something. Hopefully, the rebuilding part. The broken part. The part that fights for freedom. Hopefully, the friendship something. The God something. The world something. All these thoughts and a ride home... and it only costs me ten rupees.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
getting ahead of myself...
So, I realize as I look over these thoughts I've put forth so far, that they are bits of my life slightly absent from their context. That is to say, that they are scattered and ambiguous to ones who cannot see what I see and feel what I feel. Reading these sundry ramblings are, as you all know, rather like living life with me, so I suppose you aren't all that surprised. However, this is my attempt to (in the words of Piglet to Winnie the Pooh on a rather tumultuous Hefalump hunt) "begin at the beginning." Oh, the wisdom. So, the next things I will put down should tell you more about my daily-ness. Logistically and spiritually. Thanks for sticking with me. For your sakes, I will try to be more linear. Gypsies don't tend to think or live in a very straight line. I need your prayers tonight. I miss coffee in the mornings (and afternoon... and evening.) I miss the trees that are just starting to take on that ochre color that tells you that Autumn is just around the corner. Walk quickly and you may catch it unaware one day quite soon. I miss being known. From Kolkata, peace is flowing to you. Dekha Hobe. Love, love.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
my cup
As a community, my WMF team has been discussing Henri Nouwen's book, Can You Drink the Cup? It's about what it means to drink fully the cup of Christ in all it's horror, humanity, and joy. We spent some time writing down what "our cup" holds for us here in Kolkata, what we must drink every last drop of. Some days the cup seems easier to drink than other days. Some days, like Christ I wish for another, perhaps a different kind of cup or contents. But without the bitter, there would be no sweet. I'm rediscovering the beauty of intentionally caring for a group of people, and letting them care for me... I'm remembering how to trust. I'm so aware of my own lacking here, that the love of people washes over me in deep and refreshing ways. What follows are my thoughts on what I have only just begun to taste. From those first sips I can see that the cup is full, and that it holds both the tasteful, distasteful, and the tasteless. From all three, good Lord, deliver me. This is what I wrote during our time together. This is my cup:
I landed bright eyed and newborn on the runway.
Joy has been lying dormant.
Self-doubt has chopped itself a space in my life in withering ways.
Questions about God have abused God's love.
My cup is full of healing. It's time for my trust to blossom and reclaim itself from the winter of deep hurt. I choose to trust perfect love that will not reject me. The cup of healing requires reconciliation. It's time to rejoin myself with people. To find community in my teammates, the beautiful children and women of Shanti dan, and the poor and prostituted in Kolkata. It's time to reconcile my heart with the protection of God as father, recognizing that this doesn't give him the broken traits of man. I drink the cup, and find the strength to claim the name Gomer and run on home.
As I drink deeper I discover humility. I am like the ants at my feet, bumping into walls and eachother in a mad scramble to carry a load to heavy in a time too short. I must drink deeply the humility of Christ. I must learn that the poor have a beautiful theology, often more truthful than my own. I want to be taught by the goodness in those around me. The courage of the women seeking freedom from prostitution that is slavery, rather than an occupation. I would cry "abuse" and cling to my anger. The "simple" women at Shanti Dan who have more love in their twisted limbs and burdened minds than in my entire being. They embrace me over and over without bothering to know me... if I'm worth it... if I deserve it. Kolkata is a cup brimful of humility.
Here in this place, I want to laugh all of my laughter and cry all of my tears. The deep intersection between sorrow and joy is the call to Christ. I want to know sorrow. It's time for joy to rise up. This is my cup.
I landed bright eyed and newborn on the runway.
Joy has been lying dormant.
Self-doubt has chopped itself a space in my life in withering ways.
Questions about God have abused God's love.
My cup is full of healing. It's time for my trust to blossom and reclaim itself from the winter of deep hurt. I choose to trust perfect love that will not reject me. The cup of healing requires reconciliation. It's time to rejoin myself with people. To find community in my teammates, the beautiful children and women of Shanti dan, and the poor and prostituted in Kolkata. It's time to reconcile my heart with the protection of God as father, recognizing that this doesn't give him the broken traits of man. I drink the cup, and find the strength to claim the name Gomer and run on home.
As I drink deeper I discover humility. I am like the ants at my feet, bumping into walls and eachother in a mad scramble to carry a load to heavy in a time too short. I must drink deeply the humility of Christ. I must learn that the poor have a beautiful theology, often more truthful than my own. I want to be taught by the goodness in those around me. The courage of the women seeking freedom from prostitution that is slavery, rather than an occupation. I would cry "abuse" and cling to my anger. The "simple" women at Shanti Dan who have more love in their twisted limbs and burdened minds than in my entire being. They embrace me over and over without bothering to know me... if I'm worth it... if I deserve it. Kolkata is a cup brimful of humility.
Here in this place, I want to laugh all of my laughter and cry all of my tears. The deep intersection between sorrow and joy is the call to Christ. I want to know sorrow. It's time for joy to rise up. This is my cup.
a few poems
A few of the poems that have been borne...
birds eye view
off the balcony
of this fifth floor flat
i watch the north end
in a green floral nighty
rickshaws mostly
automated
buses and men
men walking
men riding
few women are out
the street is suicide
distance below me
the birds are level
scouring and flirting
i see the people and feel
nothing
the crows rise
i feel everything
the Gach*
your child has an empty stomach
so you give him yours
full and brown
your child's eyes have gone dry
so you give him yours
full and brown
your child's mind sees only Kolkata
so you give him yours
and you see only a room
a street
the tree
what will it be today, sir?
Mother God, hear our cries
*Gach is the Bengali word for tree, it is also the word by which we refer to Kolkata's largest red light district.
untitled
here in this place of hatred
and horns
across the street from the prostituted
not whores
children
ripped open, run dry
like a wooden sail boat
dropped on the rocks
you can't even close your dreams
and eye it
for you've never seen the sea
in my mind's eye
the eye at the center of the storm
same, same
there is a harbor
i dock you there
safe and salt swept
by the oceans healing licks
long enough to paint
your names
along wind weathered sides
and seal it over with varnish
first full moon
tonight the man on the moon
is a woman
a Bengali woman
who has eaten too much Mishti
i laugh at the earnest way she sings a story
as she waits
for her husband to cross the sky
bridge, and come in for dinner
when she was born, she was clever
but like other women here
she rarely has a chance to think
her round bulb of a head
has grown
not from a wisened mind
but from paneer
in her favorite rose water syrup.
birds eye view
off the balcony
of this fifth floor flat
i watch the north end
in a green floral nighty
rickshaws mostly
automated
buses and men
men walking
men riding
few women are out
the street is suicide
distance below me
the birds are level
scouring and flirting
i see the people and feel
nothing
the crows rise
i feel everything
the Gach*
your child has an empty stomach
so you give him yours
full and brown
your child's eyes have gone dry
so you give him yours
full and brown
your child's mind sees only Kolkata
so you give him yours
and you see only a room
a street
the tree
what will it be today, sir?
Mother God, hear our cries
*Gach is the Bengali word for tree, it is also the word by which we refer to Kolkata's largest red light district.
untitled
here in this place of hatred
and horns
across the street from the prostituted
not whores
children
ripped open, run dry
like a wooden sail boat
dropped on the rocks
you can't even close your dreams
and eye it
for you've never seen the sea
in my mind's eye
the eye at the center of the storm
same, same
there is a harbor
i dock you there
safe and salt swept
by the oceans healing licks
long enough to paint
your names
along wind weathered sides
and seal it over with varnish
first full moon
tonight the man on the moon
is a woman
a Bengali woman
who has eaten too much Mishti
i laugh at the earnest way she sings a story
as she waits
for her husband to cross the sky
bridge, and come in for dinner
when she was born, she was clever
but like other women here
she rarely has a chance to think
her round bulb of a head
has grown
not from a wisened mind
but from paneer
in her favorite rose water syrup.
welcome
Hello, dear ones! I'm not normally a blogger, as I don't feel like anyone but me would be interested in reading it, in which case it's less work to just journal. Then, one day not long ago, I moved to Kolkata. What follows is a collection of thoughts, poems, and general life updates for all those who want to go on an adventure with me. I hope you will be able to learn and suffer along with me as we become intimately acquainted with "the poor" who are more than an economic class, but also dear friends... sisters and brothers. You will see here my struggles and brokenness, and also, I pray, the rise of hope. As I begin to try to live out God's heart for the poor, I am discovering that Christ makes home in the intersections. Physically, Jesus often lies on the side of the road- at home in Portland and even more frequently here in Kolkata. I'm also finding that in the inexplicable intersection between sorrow and joy I find Jesus. When we too make home in sorrow too real to ignore and too big to carry, we discover also the joy of worth redeemed, of freedom. Only here can opposites collide and be harmonious. Here in Kolkata I find the intersection, and with it I find love, which is after all, God.
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