Weeks before the event itself, we picked out what we wanted to wear. I decided to wear a gharara, a traditional Muslim dress-type thing one day and a sari the next day of the main wedding. Rachael chose saris for both days, and Khadeeja let us borrow salwar kameez suits for the less formal days. Unfortunately, the first day of festivities, which was presented to us as "small gathering" in which the bride would have turmeric rubbed on her. Rachael ended up feeling too sick to go (she slept all day that day and continued the entire time we were gone), so Khadeeja gave me a yellow suit to wear, and we piled into cars with her sister and nieces and some other obscure relatives whose names I don't know.
We went to Old Delhi, near Chandni Chowk, and walked through a very, very cockroach-infested alley to get to the house of someone related to someone in the wedding party (still unclear who exactly owned the house, but the hostess seemed to be someone's aunt and she was incredibly sweet, if a bit pushy with food). As soon as we got there, I realized the "eight" predicted people had somehow multiplied to 80 or so, and everyone was wearing yellow. Many young women and children and even some older woman were dancing energetically to some Bollywood music playing form a set of speakers, and I was almost immediately roped into joining the dance floor happenings. I don't consider myself a bad dancer — I'm not winning any awards any time soon and I mostly just writhe the same as everyone else — but these women and children (especially the children) put me to shame. They were confident and moved beautifully, while I awkwardly stood there and tried to imitate their dance moves, which involve a lot of hip shaking and hand gestures. Every time I tried to excuse myself, I was dragged back into the fray, especially by this one nice woman who I think was the domestic help of another woman there. Everyone thought I was just a riot (an awkward, clumsy riot, but a riot nonetheless) and the older women made the younger ones teach me some dance moves.
Eventually the bride came in looking beautiful. We later found out she has this hybrid Scottish and Indian accent when she speaks English, which is awesome. She sat on some pillows on one end of the room and a ceremony was performed, in which all the women smeared turmeric on her arms and hands and face and any other exposed skin they could find. Apparently this ended up giving her a rash (oops). Then it became a free-for-all of people picking up globs of turmeric and spreading it on one another, and I had about an inch-thick layer of yellow paste all over my face. I think I was considered a novel target so everyone there came up to me to cover me even more thoroughly in yellow. We then washed our faces, ate a delicious meal, thanked our hosts, dodged more cockroaches, and headed to our host grandmother's house. I finally got to meet her, and the women discussed more wedding preparations while Khadeeja's nieces continued to dance.
Oy vey, as usual, I left this until the last part of my night, and I think it's time for me to go to bed. I also have to put a band-aid around my headphones because there are some wires sticking out that sort of hurt when they poke me, and I'm afraid the sound is going to go soon. I need to update more about Kolkata, but I'll give some brief highs and lows here.
I spend most of my time alone because Sarah Kate and Tania are working with another NGO and I'm in a completely different part of the city. We're staying in what amounts to the living room of a nice older couple in south Kolkata, and every morning (or almost every morning), I wake up a little before 7 to go to the DOTS (directly observed treatment, short course) treatment center in way, way north Kolkata. I walk to the metro station, take the metro for about 40 minutes, which is a barbaric experience because the trains are always overcrowded and people shove like you wouldn't believe, sweat a lot because it's hot here and the metro isn't air conditioned, sometimes nap if I can get a seat, and then walk to the clinic. I've been interviewing patients, and I've also had some interviews with NGO leaders and health care practitioners, and my study is coming along nicely. Calcutta Rescue, the NGO I'm partnering with, is an awesome organization led by a very nice man named Dr. Bobby, and they do lots of comprehensive and holistic health care work in the poorest areas of the city.
After the clinics, I usually try to find lunch somewhere, which either involves buying something kind of sketchy that isn't very satisfying and then something chocolatey (you know me, carboholic over here), or not eating much at all. There aren't that many restaurants, and sometimes I kind of set myself up for failure because I like to get off at random metro stops every day to explore the city, but then I end up in areas that I don't know at all so I don't know were to find restaurants. So after I eat, I usually go read in a park or do work somewhere like the NGO headquarters, or try to do something cultural. That attempt was foiled the other day the planetarium because all that day's shows were cancelled "due to the untimely demise of our colleague," which made me (morbidly) wonder if some man had actually died IN the planetarium. That's really not a bad place to go though, because I would imagine the stars are lovely (I wouldn't know, though, since I couldn't see a show that day).
I've seen the Victoria Memorial from the outside but I haven't gone in yet. Maybe Sunday? There's a multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) clinic on Saturdays that I go to, but Sundays are kind of my day off. Oh, I just remembered! There's also a carnival thing at St. Paul's cathedral, which is this beautiful cathedral in central Kolkata, built by the British of course, on Saturday! And last weekend was the film festival so we went to a terribly violent Brazilian film about organized crime and corruption, and then a terribly tragic Chinese film about an earthquake (like, nothing positive happened in this film and most of the characters spent a good portion of it wailing, for good reason because their homes and families were destroyed by a massive earthquake). I tried to go to another film that I thought was Dutch, but it was actually this really slow Indian film and I kept falling asleep, so I just left after a little while. Mostly I walk around and read and sit on the Metro and eat chocolate. And talk to random men who always open with, "Where are you from?" I think that's funny because there's rarely even a greeting. Most of the time I just ignore people like this, but sometimes I get sucked into conversations with them when they walk beside, and some of them are actually nice and not creepy. Tania currently has a semi-stalker here (not quite that serious, but he's creepy) in the form of a French man that we've run into a few times a films. He's married and middle-aged and awkward and won't stop emailing and calling her, but she's told him now very explicitly to leave her alone (several times) so I think he's finally getting the message.
Those were largely a lot of unconnected sentences but I figured I would word dump about Kolkata for a little while and finish the wedding post another day. Summary of the rest of the wedding: I did the worm three times, we ate our weight in food (which is even more impressive considering we've all gained weight here, I think), our host uncle's friends became our pseudo-friends (and friends on Facebook), we wore really pretty Indian clothes belonging to our host mom, and then we had to write really long papers after all that was over. I'll go into more detail later, but I have to go to bed now so I can go to the DOTS clinic tomorrow and then interview the head of the epidemiology department at the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health. It's really a riveting life I lead here in India, no? Good night, and good luck!
P.S. I've completely stopped wearing deodorant here after I got this incredibly painful infection (so much TMI, sorry!), but I really don't think I can swing this is in the United States. Mom, maybe I can get some all-natural deodorant as a stocking stuffer? You know, just for a fun and whimsical Christmas present. That's all!
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