Soan Papdi!

Ah, a new favorite sweet that I discovered at an American Center function. The American Center works in conjunction with USIEF, Jarrod's "employer" while he's on Fulbright. They have cultural programs and things periodically, and always serve delicious sweets and cha afterword.

Anyway, I was surprised and delighted when I tasted the new sweet that was on my plate. Wikipedia describes its texture as crispy and flaky, but it's more threadlike-crispy. Totally awesome. Here's a picture:



It's a dry sweet, flavored with cardamom and pistachio. After the American Center event, I went out and bought an 8-pack of Haldiram's packaged stuff for Rs 40 at Spencers. We polished it off and then got some more. We polished it off again.

Then we decided that we didn't need the packaged stuff. On the street one day we came across a guy selling it for Rs 2 apiece, so we each got one. It was good, of course. Another day we went into a sweet shop and bought eight pieces for Rs 40 (same price as packaged!). We're still finishing this last round--they're a little weird-tasting, just the way the shop makes them. Whatever :)

Learning Rabindra Sangeet

There is a man you need to know about. His name is Rabindranath Tagore, and he is the pride and joy of West Bengal/Calcutta. Here he is:



Tagore lived around the turn of the 1900's, and was a writer--poetry, short stories, etc. Back in 1913 or so, he won a Nobel Prize in Literature for his book of songs, called the Gitanjali. I guess part of it was the fact that he had not only written the songs in Bengali, but he had created English translations for them as well. The translations are not entirely similar, and other English translations are out there, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, in his lifetime he wrote over 2,000 songs. This guy was prolific. And here's the kicker--everyone around here knows and can sing many of these songs. They're just that ingrained into life around here.

Jarrod and I have been meaning to take voice lessons or something, but last night I just decided that I wanted to learn right then, so I sat down at YouTube to teach myself. Jarrod caught on to what I was doing and came over to learn with me, so, thanks to our efforts, we can now sing about half of this song:



We're very excited. It's like a whole world has opened itself up to us.

Alive and Kickin'

First matter of business, happy birthday to me! Twenty four years ago today, in a little yellow house on 11th street, I came screaming and red-faced into the world. And not much has changed since!

Today has really been great. It started out with a delicious cup of Starbucks Via Cinnamon Spice instant coffee, my for-immediate-consumption birthday gift sent from Jarrod's mom. Okay, delicious. I'm sorry. I don't like cinnamon flavored coffee normally, but this was just fall in a cup, really. Just so, so wonderful.

In the morning, Jarrod and I went to Dakshinapan, a government emporium with shops from each state in India that sell goods from their respective states. It's a really great, quiet place, away from the crowds and noise of Kolkata, with the shops arranged around a large courtyard area. Kind of hard to explain, but nice to explore. The shopkeepers aren't too pushy, and the prices are fixed (I think!)

We had been once before, but went back with a goal in mind: to visit the Kashmir store for a purse for me, a few painted wooden boxes for our apartment, and two shawls for the coming winter. After a successful trip and some wandering around the shops, we took a cab back home so we wouldn't be late for our lesson.

This evening, then, we went out to one of our favorite restaurants, The Banana Leaf, with our friend Jordan and two of his friends, a Bengali girl and a guy from Bangladesh. It was great fun. When they found out it was my birthday they sang to me and made me blow out Jordan's lighter.

Anyway, here's some news from around here. Last Saturday, Sujitra came to cook for us as usual, but was complaining of back pain and looked all-around miserable. We told her, "Please--go!" but she insisted on cooking a vegetable and some rice for us before she left.

She hasn't been back since, even though she normally comes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I was beginning to get worried. So tonight when we ran into Poulami, another Fulbrighter who lives in our building, on our way out to supper, I asked her what was going on with Sujitra. Yeah--apparently, she has dengue. So, tomorrow I'm washing the dishes and doing laundry, because I don't know when she's going to be back with us.

Then I asked about the doorman, who had also been absent for about a week or two. Apparently he has malaria. So, um, yeah. I'm definitely going to be taking my pill and bathing myself in mosquito repellent.

Finally, I have to say. I've been delinquent in writing, but it's not even because I've been so busy with NaNoWriMo that I couldn't write, because NaNo definitely got shelved too (we had guests is my new answer). So I'm trying to catch up. Yesterday morning I had about 6,000 words. This evening I have 15,050 words. It's been crazy, I tell you, but fun.

No more slacking! Expect to hear more from me from now on.

If You Want to Study Bangla With Me...

Okay, let's forget about the fact that you most likely have no idea how to read the Bangla script. Let's also forget about the fact that there's no way you would use Bangla in everyday life.

You now have the ability to study Bangla along with me!

Since I have nothing exciting to write about--seriously, my life is boring--I thought I would type off a bit about my work on SuperMemo.net.

I first discovered SuperMemo when I was doing a research paper senior year in college about the Ubermann sleep schedule, that is, sleeping for thirty minutes every four hours with a grand total of three hours of sleep every 24 hours. You gain five hours! Turns out it's pretty much a crock, but competitive sailors, like the man who came up with SuperMemo, use sleep schedules like this to maximize time awake and therefore win races.

Anyway, that's off topic. SuperMemo is an online program (or a software program, purchasable for only $50) that uses some sort of complex algorithm to maximize learning by controlling how long you go between question repetitions. Make sense? No? Oh well.

All I know is that I learned all the capitals of the world this summer by using this delightful program.

There's an option online to create your own course, and since there was--surprise, surprise--no Bengali Vocabulary course, I decided to create my own. It's been tedious. It's been hair-pulling. Crabbiness has abounded. But in the end, it's a pretty intuitive program, so I've slowly begun to put in the vocabulary that I know.

Here's the site if you want to check it out. My course is under "Other Languages". It's alright.

A Misunder-fan-ding

I woke up last night just dying of heat, thinking that the power had gone out because the fan was off. It occurred to me that I should check to see that the fan switch was turned on, but it seemed like a bad idea, because we always keep the fan on at night, and the probability that Jarrod had gotten up and turned it off was low, especially after he woke up and asked, "Is the power out?"

So I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, which was difficult, because the fan also acts as a white noise producer, drowning out the sounds of honking cars and fighting dogs. I had a headache, and the yips coming from the distance didn't help, let alone the oppressive heat.

In the morning I woke up, still surprised that the power was out. Usually power cuts last for a half hour or less. Then I got out of bed and flicked the fan switch to on. So...yeah.

When Sujitra's Away...

Jarrod and I have been left cook-less since Friday. Sujitra, the woman who cooks for us, normally comes every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and on the off days we eat the leftovers. Food is always abundant.

Sujitra informed us on Thursday that she would be on vacation until Monday, leaving us to another means of feeding ourselves for four days. Well, okay.

Don't get the impression that we're lazy bums who can't cook for ourselves. I lament the fact that I don't cook much here (save for Maggie, Nescafe, cha, and reheating food). The kitchen is just so different from in the states, and in any case, what would I even cook?

Maybe I'm being whiny--that's not the point of this post. The point is, in comparison to when we were living in the guest house after we first arrived and had no cook, it's been so much easier to feed ourselves this time around, and this is why: street food.

Before, we didn't dare touch the stuff for fear of getting A Stomach Bug. Boiling hot cha was the only thing we allowed ourselves, and even that, Jarrod said, was like playing roulette. Consequently, we had to eat out for about five days, which was a big pain, and kind of expensive. We also supplemented our meals with packaged food like chips and biscuits.

But now that we've opened ourselves up to eating from the stands that line the sidewalks, there's no need for all the trouble! Take yesterday's lunch, for example: we made a big loop around our area by starting with a roll stand near the metro, moving on to luchees with aloo dom on Rash Behari, I got momos* at the stand next to the luchee stand, from there it was mosambi juice on Sarat Bose road, then a quick stop at the sweet shop by our house, and finished off with two steaming cups of ginger cha.

This is the life!

For dinner I got this delicious plateful of papri chaat, which are kind of like Indian nachos, only instead of beans, salsa, cheese, etc, they're covered with runny yogurt, some sort of hot stuff, and a little bit of crushed potato. And all for eight rupees! Unbelievable.

Anyway, Sujitra comes back tomorrow, and though it will be nice to have hot Bengali meals waiting for us every other day, we've enjoyed ourselves this weekend.

*Momos were something I forgot to write about, but in any case, the first time I tried them was yesterday. At Rs 15 for six, they're "steamed Tibetan dumplings", and basically taste like potstickers. And they're delicious.

My Halloween Costume/Advance Apologies

The following picture will have to suffice for my Thursday post. Let's just say that it's my Halloween costume (squeamish/easily scared folks, you might need to look away--it's terrifying):



Yes, that's me with fish bones in my teeth.

The honest truth is that yesterday I spent much of my day feverishly preparing for the upcoming NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month, something I've participated in for the last five or six years. The idea is to write a novel in a month, which can get pretty crazy, as three single-spaced pages of typing daily are required to keep on track.

So here is my advanced apology: my blog entries might suffer during November, and I'm sorry for that. I'll still try to get out something small each day, but no guarantees in quality.

Anyway, I need to go now. I still have a page left of plot summary to write, along with character development and a scene-by-scene spreadsheet to do (I'm trying a different method of writing this time, okay?), all by Monday. Wish me luck.