College Street

My best day in Kolkata yet. Went into lab to check on some cultures and met up with Moumita, Sreeerupa and her sister (? I forget her name.) We get into a taxi and go to College Street. They are so fun to be around, loud and excited and very talkative. I don’t even mind when they speak in Bengali, it’s just comforting to be a part of a group of women. They pointed out everything in the taxi ride. I was very surprised to find Sreeerupa’s sister was my age. She is obsessed about getting the new Twilight book on College Street, loves Avril Lavigne and in her free time likes to draw. She was very innocent and refreshing. College Street is crazy and beautiful. Academics sit in densely packed stalls barely looking behind them as they find the book you want. Each stall has a specialty: engineering, medicine, test prep books, western lit, children’s lit etc. 

 Loud Bengali music plays from loudspeakers attatched to light posts and sets the mood. Moumita got biology books for the students she tutors, Sreeelupa a book on Physical Biochemistry—for funsies, Sreeelupa’s sister got the second Twilight book, and I got two books written by Tagore; India’s greatest modern poet (from Kolkata!) who won the Nobel Prize for his work “Gitanjali” (which I bought.) We stopped to eat lunch/drink coffee at the very famous Indian Coffee House. College Street is the heart of revolution and intellectual thought and the Indian Coffee House is the meeting ground. Many of the most influential revolutionaries and existentialists alike have sat in the huge warehouse under the fans high above ordering coffee and Chow Mein. So we did that. The cold coffee was delicious and refreshing and the food sucked and the conversation was brilliant. We talked about Indian politics and political action, about my slightly warped view on the Indian woman’s position, about their experience with the Muslim-Hindu conflict and about dance. I promised I would teach them ballet and they would teach me Indian dance! 

 We stopped at a stand to buy green coconut milk. A man with an unnervingly large machete deftly made a cup out of the milk, stuck a straw in it and handed it to each of us. It was very refreshing (but I thought I was going to die with some sort of water poisoning the entire time so I didn’t really enjoy it) and then he scraped the coconut for us to eat. 

 A tiny almost naked boy tugged on my skirt and held his hand open for me to give him money. The women shooed him off before I could do anything. I stepped over men and women in the middle of the sidewalk who fell asleep with the flies all over them. I saw a man with polio whose leg was as big as my arm. A very destitute blind man, who was smiling, was led by a woman asking for money. 

We passed the medical college’s hospital and men, women, and babies were lying on the steps crying and waiting to get in. Moumita came to my apartment after exclaiming how much she loved it and how she was going to come back very often. We sat on the balcony and talked for a few hours. I had the “Chelsea has 2 mommies” talk with her. She was less shocked about the gayness and more shocked I was artificially inseminated. Her jaw dropped. She said 2 people in India had that done (the husband was sterile) and both times it made front page news. I love being shocking and cutting edge. Quick update on the robbery thing: We found my knife in my desk drawer (which I didn’t even knew existed) and the USB internet connection and Michael’s phone is still missing. Dr. Ganguly is going to put in a police report, and the leaser will refund us the money. In the meantime Dr. Ganguly took the leaser’s copy of the key so he can no longer let workers in without us being there. Oi.