Golden West Bengal

Aji Bangladesher hridoy hotey kokhon aponey
tumi aei aporoop roopey bahir holey janoni.
O-Go Maa, tomai daykhe daykhe ankhi na pherey.

You, the epitome of beauty,
When you emerged from the Heart of Bengal!
Maa, I look at you in spellbound wonder.

- Rabindranath Tagore, "Sonar Tori"

We entered West Bengal, the final state of our journey, on January 9th. The state is known for being full of people who are fiercely proud and defensive of their culture. When, in the 19th century, there emerged what came to be known as a "Bengali Renaissance" in literature, led by the above-quoted poet Tagore, it became a legacy that no one is going to forget anytime soon. The other two things that define the Bengali psyche, a friend recently told me, are an outspoken political leftism (West Bengal, along with Kerala, is one of two states in Indian controlled by the Indian communist party, CPI-M) and an obsession with soccer. Apparently, during the last world cup, the city was in mourning when both Brazil and Argentina (for some reason their teams of choice) got eliminated.



There were some important things to see in Bengal. We passed by Kenduli just a few days after the countries largest Baul festival. The Bauls are a sect of religious mystic wandering minstrels who wander Bengal and Bangladesh singing songs, begging, and seeking enlightenment. I saw one of the most famous and accessible Baul singers, a dreadlocked chanteuse called Parvathy Baul at Banyan Tree Entertainment's Ruhaniyat festival back in October. Baul singing is incredible -- it reminds me vaguely of the unaccompanied Irish Sean-Nos style of singing, but you can also hear a bit of the fatalism in the singers that can only come from hard living and homeless wandering.

So yeah, we missed the festival, incidentally. But we did to some other important things, like crossing the Ganges after Suti (and almost got arrested for flagrantly violating the "No Photographs" policy, which is clearly marked, by hanging out of the rickshaw with a large SLR camera and taking pictures facing East, directly into Bangladesh, which is exactly why the "No Photographs" policy exists -- because of the porous border with Bangladesh...), but we don't have pictures of it. Instead, we have pictures of Rogier being stared at, pitilessly, by a bunch of Bengalis...



At this roadside thali, not so far from Calcutta, apparently...



Where you eat sitting or reclining (or uncomfortably straddling) on wicker mattresses...



I found the dal excellent, and gobbled it without utensils...



Then, we passed through Market Day somewhere outside of Bankura...





Somebody, at least, found an excellent buy. This kid is rocking the "It's an unfair life: So many girls, So little time" t-shirt.



Along the road, later on we found a whole string of lotus ponds, which were really just too picturesque. I took a few snaps I'm proud of, given the high crapometer reading on my Sony Cybershot. The landscape:



The art shot:



Benji's shot of me and Rogier, taking the art shot, which is, in itself, a meta-art shot, and also retribution for many long days of Rogier referring to Benji as an "arty f**k" for taking pictures of rocks and pieces of strings and random scraps of cloth, kinda like that kid from "American Beauty".

Gives you a sense of the place, though, don't it?





On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,
and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my
dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to
me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this
perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.

- Tagore, "Lotus"