chasing Durga in Calcutta
guesthouse hopping, the grand Durga puja celebration, what is real, coming home, a sample chapter of my book, and enjoyable things to read
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When I came to Calcutta at the beginning of September, I didn’t know how long I would stay. My previous letters, in Wonderland and chasing fish in Calcutta, explode with my vivacious energy and excitement to explore this beautiful city. From the train station, I go to the home we booked for a week. Immediately I am signing books in stores around the city, my partner and I are invited to generous readers’ homes, we run into friends, unexpectedly, and we both celebrate our birthdays.
Everybody tells us Durga Puja, the biggest religious celebration in Calcutta which is now a UNESCO cultural heritage, is oncoming.
“You must stay to see. It is grand here, and there is nothing like it. Now you are here DO SEE.” Hosts, friends, and strangers tell us.
I have more fish to chase, too. More names to learn, hawkers to observe, cats chasing fish to giggle at, markets to visit, recipes to invent, and of course, to eat.
So we stay. Yes, for us two nomadic souls, this much is enough to stay. We had an Airbnb sorted out for us as well, so we thought it would be easy.
As always, we were wrong.
Oh, how wrong!
Right before Durga Puja we had to leave the hopeful Airbnb because it had an interim booking. So, making another booking from October 1 for twelve days, we leave this apartment, and very hopefully pack our bags and hop into a cab to go to our new Airbnb. I have written extensively in my Travel Resources guide about why I don’t choose Airbnbs anymore. That practice changed in cities and towns such as Dehradun, Chennai, Mahabalipuram, and Kolkata because, well, there were some nice-looking options with a kitchen and washing machine, and because hotels were really not good-looking.
When we enter this new Airbnb and slowly make ourselves comfortable, I have a deja vu. This is why we don’t choose Airbnbs anymore. The staircase is utterly dirty, all the windows are jammed and locked and hard to open, all the almirahs are locked, dusty, grimy, a million-years-old stuff threatens to overspill from every space, the bathroom is beyond imagination, and those who have stayed in guesthouses would know this one: as you move a table towards you, or go closer to the wall or into a corner, slowly these tufts of hair, rolls of cottony black grime, and more filthy material start popping up everywhere. I throw some, some I ignore, and though I shouldn’t have done it, when I look under the bed and see the layers of filth there, I do what maybe any decent homeless person would do.
I order two bottles of phenyl. It is hot, and there is no air-conditioner; I should have listened to my friend Juju (introduced in the letter Wonderland and a friend whom I ran into in Calcutta), who had warned me it will get hot. I add some orange juice and an ice pack to the order too. Within ten minutes, I am under the bed, on my knees, throwing phenyl everywhere, hoping it would kill the smell and keep the germs where they belong. I do this in as many corners and under as many surfaces as possible until only very little is left in one bottle.
“Finish this off too. Put it somewhere,” My partner Sagar says, eyeing the bottle, hoping to be able to throw it in the dustbin. Yes, he likes to throw stuff. We are definitely not keepers.
I am not going to let him have this one.
“NO! This is for emergencies,” I say, my eyes glinting.
Yes, we are dismal, rendered hopeless by the state of homes in India that are put up on Airbnb just because there are four walls and a roof but having traveled for close to five years without a roof to our name, it takes much more to dampen our spirits.
Plus, it is Durga Puja. The idea is to experience this marvelous celebration of religion, pottery, and art rather than sulk after some inconsiderate hosts.
“Emergencies?”
“You know if I find something really bad I would need this handy.” I chuckle. He does, too, knowingly.
He had warned me not to look under the bed.
We go out for dinner because the idea of eating in that house makes me want to throw up, and because the vegetable chops, oh the vegetable chops…, Sagar had brought for me (before the grime discovery) had digested during the ungraceful yoga around the house.
At night, I close all packs tightly. There are lizards, and as my parents have told me and as I have seen, lizards like human food. Fruits, yoghurt, snacks, everything. There is, of course, the possibility of cockroaches too. And then you never know about rats. Several openings, easily reachable windowsills (we keep the windows open at night, otherwise we would stifle), and open drains worry me. In Calcutta, in every house we have gone to, the drain openings are not netted but are wide-open holes. In my parents’ house, rats used these drain openings as their front and back doors freely (they have had them shut for decades and have taken several measures to keep rats out). But who knows if rats are still the night watches in Kolkata homes? So I close as many doors as I can (hoping the uninvited cannot enter our food or sleeping area), close some windows, and for the openings I can’t do anything, I tell myself that nothing will happen for this and that reason.
Sagar chimes in. “I have had a look too. Nothing will come.” He groans sleepily from the bed while I roam around the house in my night suit, my skin that had cooled from the shower now perspiring again.
I also hang some food from a hook on the wall so even if a rat or some other crawling thing comes in, it wouldn’t be able to reach the packet. Yes, I have lived in jungles, and I know the measures. I am so tired by the time I go to bed that a little disgruntled remark from Sagar makes me give in. We both sleep on different beds that night. Ah well!
“I am doing everything, and you are complaining?”
It is the next day that his patience is tested, too. While we had gone out to eat and see the outdoor under-preparation Durga Puja camps or pandals, where the Durga idols will be put in, our host entered our house with his keys and shut all the windows. I sort of had an inkling of something like this happening. He was an old man who directed us on where to put our slippers. The host who handled the bookings didn’t care. And it wouldn’t take a Sherlock Holmes investigation to figure out that they didn’t have many people come in and stay. We had left some windows open, and it had started to rain. Though the eaves were so wide that the rain wouldn’t have entered the house (we were careful before leaving), my experience has taught me that many people, especially in India, consider rain a menace that would destroy their homes and them if a drop touched them, and so they shut everything as soon as they can.
So when we return, I can hardly breathe; it is hot and airless. All the windows are bolted tightly, both up and down latches shut, and the curtains are drawn.
“Did you close the windows?” I ask Sagar.
“He looks at me confidently, which assures me he didn’t, and not a word is needed, but he says, “No! I didn’t! What the ****?”
We call the host, and for sure he says he goes into his house behind every guest, and no one has ever complained before.
Ouch.
We discuss what to do. The host had told us he won’t do it again. “This is a breach of trust,” Sagar says, and he is a guy who adjusts.
I shrink thinking of the upcoming five nights and four days living with all the grime, the phenyl bottles we would have to get, staying out all-night to see the Durga Pandals (that’s how everyone does it), with all this baggage on our minds. The home isn’t particularly welcoming, and the staircase is worse.
I reach out to Airbnb help, put in the messages, share pictures, and this time, putting in our own lock, we go out again. No one can stop us from enjoying what we have stayed for!
We walk and see many, many pandals that night.
In between pandal hopping, yes, that’s the official word, as I am shoved around by the crowd, Airbnb tells us they would provide us three nights in hotels with an ample budget for each night. My partner and I grin and sigh with relief. We had pored over the Airbnb and Booking apps and hadn’t seen a good Airbnb or an affordable hotel. The Airbnb’s budget would let us book something decent, and for a change, we want to grab the opportunity with both arms (that makes it four arms).
Back at home, the host grudgingly opens the building door for us at 3:30 am, asks us to inform him before we leave, though he had said their door stays open and it is no problem, and so on. We hang our food again, take cold showers, and go to sleep, in one bed this time.
Next morning, we are up at 8:30, having slept for four hours, but we are excited. We make tea bag teas, and as decided, I book the best hotel in town for one night, and then another for two nights. We pack, and I leave behind the extra plastic boxes, plastics, and throwable spoons and so on that are always helpful in an Airbnb, but just an extra cloth bag full of the paraphernalia of a nomadic life would look pretty bad in the five-star hotels. We get ready and are out, hopping with energy but also drowsy with sleep.
The next three days are quite a roller coaster. We first take a long nap, in between, I keep sorting out work and admin things, and we realize that even in five-star hotels, the toilet drains get blocked, and a constant drilling and hammering in the morning is a universal thing. We change rooms, overeat in the complimentary high-tea, drink in the happy hours, and by the time we are out, we are so full and tired, we might as well go to bed. But we don’t. We head out one night at 11 pm and return at 5 in the morning. Another day we leave as early as seven, missing the happy hours, and return by 11.
The Durga Pandals and the energy of the Kolkata people blow our minds off. They say that as long as one can remember, Durga Puja has been a big celebration in Bengal.
The Durga, the goddess, the destroyer, the most fearful and the fearless, and the most beloved. We see her in unbelievable avatars. Every other lane and big and small neighborhoods have their own pandals made by pitching in money. There are sponsors, too, and I am sure money comes in other ways too. Now each pandal has a unique concept. The Durga and her companions are, of course, uniquely done, but the whole assembly of this pandal is a thing of art. As I said in the last letter,
These camps are wildly ambitious and take a form, a theme that they manifest. I saw underwater worlds, ships, mountains, spatial galaxies, alien worlds, wars of freedom, temples, palaces, hang out hubs, schools, lamps, and so on being rendered real by these pandals made of wood, bamboo, plastic, paper, cardboard, thermocol, pipes, mud, charcoal, water, iron, brass, betel nut husks, pots, and so on.
Each pandal is a unique construction, made from scratch, following a theme, and houses a Durga each. Imagine a universe, if you will.
You might not believe, but this is how this pandal looked when it was under construction.
Now look at this one.
The video should be seen with the sound on. Only up to 8 seconds is useful but my computer refused to cooperate and let me cut it. They have built an entire world, haven’t they? So eerie.
Now here is another.
The pandals and the Durga are stunning, eloquent, overpowering. Families, men, women, and children pray to the Durga, decorate her, ornament her, clean her, feed her, touch her, color her, carry her, sing to her, love her, dance to her and with her, cradle her, and then they dump her in dirty water and return home, crying. The men who are doing the job don’t go down into the lake or the river to give her a proper submersion; instead, standing up on a bamboo platform onto which they had carried the Durga, they throw her down into the water.
Ouch.
Sagar grimaces and turns to me. “Really? That’s how they are saying her goodbye? That’s not how they do it in Mumbai. They are not even walking with her into the water.” He is talking about Ganesh Visarjan, the lord Ganesha being released into the water after the biggest festivity of the city.
I am not religious. I don’t pray. When we got a new car or my book came out, we didn’t break a coconut or go to a temple. When we are in trouble, which we often are, we don’t say, “Hey, please God save me or give me this.”
I understand why people do it. At the end of the day, we want to be able to say, “Hey, I am going to sleep. Now you stay on guard.”
We are hurt seeing the Durga, the Durga which the whole city was following around for a month or so, being dumped like that. The people probably have no choice. All the water is dirty. How will the men go in and come out? How will the immersion be managed with thousands and thousands of idols? But it’s still the goddess they believe in.
If you have such a large statue in front of you, colorfully dressed and jeweled, in a hundred shades and colors and themes, with rice grains sticking to her mouth, her black hair swinging all around her, and her large beautiful eyes staring at you, you would believe in her. And if you see her growing up every year, and every adult and everyone around you thinks she is right here, you would believe she is real and right here.
And what is real?
Slowly, I am starting to understand that real is not tangible. Physics need not prove something as real. The belief that it is real makes things real. In that sense, Durga is real; she is everything in Bengal, everything for the locals, and she is the king and the queen and the mother.
Of clay and hay and not much else.
There is more to be seen. But when we return to our pre-booked Airbnb, things don’t go as well as the previous time or as expected. We find the house dirty, the toilets dirty, many of the things that were not working before and those we had requested to be fixed still not fixed, and boxes of personal stuff crammed in every corner of the house and cabinets. The host doesn’t care as she is tired from the pandal hopping and partying.
Aaah!
For a few days, we stay patient, get the cleaning done, open the house, and leave it for hours for the host while the things are fixed and some boxes can be taken away, but when it feels non-stop and the host messages us again that the work could not be done and yet another visit is needed, our alarms go off. Experience has taught us not to go by words and judge by actions. A host who doesn’t understand a guest’s privacy and repeats, “This is how I would do it, this much I need to earn as you should see the bookings I am getting,” keeps mentioning money even after everything is decided, and doesn’t ask you if she can come or send someone for a chore but rather tells you, you should run with haste.
So we do. And it is rather a hurried departure, and one that causes us much stress.
Well, we should have seen it coming. The host is sending us messages of the kind above, but it is all okay as long as we weren’t replying. When Sagar can’t take the incessant messages anymore and thinks we should send a reply, and we say, “You know what is not cool is to keep having us coordinate, to do these things you have been planning to do even when we have requested specifically to let us be, and so on…,” things go downhill. The host replies that we either need to pay for the entire stay and stay or leave immediately.
We decide to leave. A full payment of twelve days in that house with an untrusting host is not the right thing to do. We request two hours. She gives us one.
As the washing machine hums and drums, the cooker whistles, and I chop vegetables for our lunch, Sagar gets ready and packs. I get ready quickly, throw our food in packs, bags, and paper cups, hoping it will all stay and not leak. We have to leave some cooked food too. We put the wet clothes in a big plastic bag. We don’t have time to book a place, and none of our friends are at their homes. So while we had thought we would go to a friend’s house for a few hours until we could find a hotel for a day, we book a cab to a cafe with large sofas.
“We would be able to keep our bags and sit, for a bit.”
And there in the cafe we book a hotel for a day, drink the much-needed coffee and ice tea, share a plate of french fries, and just sit.
It would need us two more Airbnbs, another hotel, and eight days before we would arrive in the house of this special friend of a friend whom I had briefly mentioned in the last letter. The special friend is my dear Mathematics professor from IIT Delhi, my alma mater, and his friend from Kolkata has an apartment which they have not lived in for many, many years, and which has been given to us in good faith and on rent for as long as we like to use it.
This is the house we celebrated Diwali in, and which we have been cleaning and fixing up for the past thirteen days or so. I write this letter from our new house, which has sheltered us, whose kitchen has already seen many hot delicious meals, and where, when I go to bed or wake up, I don’t have to think where I will go tomorrow. Where if I am feeling down, I sit and take a moment to breathe. Where after ages we have bought a kilo of lentils, as compared to the much lesser quantity (so we didn’t have to pack it as we hopped to yet another guesthouse).
I find it hard to believe that we lived in ten different accommodations in Kolkata before finally coming to this house.
Our travel lifestyle is both a gain and a loss. It is both an opportunity and a hardship. That we don’t have a permanent address is a blessing and a harsh truth.
No way we would have been able to enjoy Durga Puja as we have if we had a home to return to. We wouldn’t be enjoying the hawkers yelling every morning, “Maach, roi maach, katla maach, bhetki maach, jhinga maach, kekda maach, maach, (this one is for all kinds of fishes)” or the familiar call of the coconut guy, “Daaaaaaaaab, Daaaaaaaab, Daaaaaab hobe? (daab is coconut, as perhaps you can guess).” No way we would have enjoyed so many neighborhoods of this glorious, ancient city that has served as the port of India for I don’t know how many centuries. Most of all, we wouldn’t have met Shankar Da (Da is short for Dada, a loving moniker for big brother), in whose house we are, who is the utmost gracious, and who sent us sweets on Diwali.
“We lit lamps in your house, Shankar Da,” I told him over an overexcited phone call.
“After many years lamps must have been lit there. I haven’t lit one since my wife died,” he said softly. He hasn’t lived here for at least ten years, and I am not sure in which year his wife passed away.
I consider this serendipity. As if my partner and I were sent to this home, to clean it up, air it, bring in some light, and make it a home again, and this I do thankfully.
This is life. This is my life, our life. It is far from perfect, but the universe keeps extending its finger to us all the time. It says, “Go on, try your luck. Give it a chance. Reach out. Trust me.” And Sagar and I say, “Okay, just this one time,” and we wrap our little fingers around the warm one.
The universe smiles, knowingly, before we find ourselves on an adventure again.
Sagar and I fight, we squabble, struggle, and squeal, but never do we sleep hungry, never do we lie on the road, and never are we ashamed of ourselves.
Are your proud of yourself at the end of the day?
My 1st book, a travel memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within… is out in all bookstores in India and on Amazon globally. I’d love for you to read the book and tell me what I did right, or wrong. Journeys is not only a travel memoir, it’s a true account of me making my own path despite all the odds.
Here’s the 59-sec book trailer:
All Amazon links are here, or search for the title on your Amazon.
Here are some links,
Amazon India — Amazon USA — Amazon UK
Amazon Germany — Amazon Australia — Amazon Canada
These two independent bookshops ship the book pan-India and internationally:
Pune’s Pagdandi book shop and cafe and The Midland store in Delhi
I’m sending signed copies within India and outside through our beloved post offices. Reply to this letter to order yours :)
Pssst: There’s a special gift story too. Email me your order details to claim it :)
Or, read a Chapter first. Claim your completely free first chapter here.
For this week’s letter,
Some of my past writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
and
things to watch.
4 Years of Our Nomadic Life
The essential behind-the-scenes of my partner and my nomadic life with all our stuff in our car, Scooby. Right now, though, we are without Scooby, managing with public transport and our two backpacks. It is also close to five years since we gave up our tiny place and got on the road.
Grab the candid narrative now. Or Pocket it for the week.
My tried and tested 47 Bright Ways to Make Someone Happy (or Smile)
Exactly like the title says!
Find the methods now. Or Pocket them for later.
Quotes I Love
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Walt Disney
When did we stop being friends and turn into girls and boys? Did everyone know about it?
Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past weeks so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
The Sea Wolf by Jack London — This is another classic. As always one of those man against the wild kind of fight, and really well done. I recommend it to those who love nature reads, old style of writing, and need a simple plain book to go into the depths of life.
Chickens, Mules, and Two Old Fools by Victoria Tweed — A hilarious, candid, and sort of a must-read travel book for those who want to know more beyond their home boundary and, perhaps, also love to travel vicariously.
When Your Parents Are Dying: Some of the Simplest, Most Difficult and Redemptive Life-Advice You’ll Ever Receive by The Marginalian’s Maria Popova: “Being with a dying parent is a way of honoring the fact that they will soon be gone, and with them will go your experience of being their child in the way you have known, a fundamental way in which you have known yourself.”
Living a Nomad Life: My interview with Boss Nari, a platform that empowers Indian women, discussing my alternate choices, giving up a corporate career for writing, and now traveling around the world sharing stories.
They sum up my words well: it’s not about escaping responsibilities but creating a life that feels true and right for you.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
Okay so it is really time for the movie Nishant which I was scared to share more of the last time. What a movie! It had everyone going on at the same time. So much cruelty and blind use of blind power! This is cinema at its hard core, not an easy movie to watch. Nishant still keeps coming back to me every day, haunts me, and I still recommend it. The movie shows that the poor and the crushed can win if they decide to not bear the torture anymore and put up an intelligent fight. Nishant makes it plainly obvious that sometimes we bear suffering because we get used to it. I am not disclosing more because it is excruciating for me to speak of the story. Sorry!
And for all adventure lovers!
Sorry no photos today as there are many above and any longer and this letter will grow into a book.
Okay, just one.
Thank you for reading! I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.
As I said above, you can read a complimentary chapter of my travel memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within…, here.
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Yours,
Priyanka
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sorry to hear about the unfortunate Airbnb incident. I hope now you've got a better place (the rental house of the friend of the IIT alumni)to stay now. And by the way The immersion from the boat was stopped few years ago,due to environmental issues. As it would pollute a larger portion of the river,so just after throwing the idols into the river, those backhoe loader collect it immediately. And people use this river regularly to take bath everyday. I guess it is cleaner than the Jamuna river.
Sorry to read about your Airbnb struggles. Surprised, becoz I had okay experiences each time. Maybe I was just lucky. The last trip, I stayed at a place in Lenin sarani, which was basic but clean and the host was very helpful. Guided us to some little known eateries. No AC though, which was a bummer coz kolkata gets humid. Anyways, loved the article and amazing pics of Devi. Did you eat at any of those iconic Pice Hotels?