On October
October is my favorite month. I love chilly weather and Halloween and warm, earthy colors. When I tried to visualize the timeline that I’d be living here, making it to October seemed like the first significant, albeit arbitrary, milestone.
This year, October presents differently— the warmth lives here all year round, the palm and banana leaves remain on their branches, making it harder to signal that the year is almost over. Now suddenly I crave a cold wind and frosty grass in the morning. I indulge in my most obnoxiously American of yearnings: the pumpkin spice cold brew from Starbucks. I’ve tried to stay away from places like Starbucks as much as possible. I have this superstition that to grasp too often for the familiar things would be to cheat myself or prove some naysayer right. About what exactly, I’m not sure. Still, I’m curious to see how the body, mind, and spirit adjust to an unending summer in tropical Chennai as the world I’m physically in tune with begins its winter descent.
October is also the month where we finally get to venture beyond Chennai thanks to several major holidays scattered throughout the month. As the month rolled in, I found myself in the north for a celebration on a scale of which I have never experienced before: Kolkata, the City of Joy. Then, as the month came to a close and the country plugged its ears for Diwali, I went south to see Pondicherry, an individual territory on the coast. In between my treks were my students; insightful, ridiculous, exasperating, and bright. They were, it’s becoming clear, always meant to be the heart of this whole thing and they’ve weasled their way into mine with astonishing ease.
On the City of Joy:
I began the month in the northeast. Kolkata, West Bengal— home of theatre, colonial-era trams, coffee houses for literature lovers, and Durga Pujo (the reason for our visit!). Having not been together since orientation in July, the Fulbright ETAs of Chennai and Delhi descended upon Kolkata to stay with the remaining third of our cohort during the city’s busiest and most notorious festival. And my experience was true to the “City of Joy” moniker— it brought me back to life after such a dreary September. Spending time with a group of peers in a bustling, festive environment was just what the doctor ordered.
During Durga Pujo, art dominates the streets. The city becomes a giant, outdoor exhibition for its 15 million residents plus another 300-400 thousand visitors from India and abroad. These exhibitions take the form of pandals: temporary structures of enormous stature that pay homage to the Goddess Durga— mother goddess, representative of good defeating evil. Often these stages show Durga in triumphant poses (having just defeated the shape-shifting demon Mahishasura), victoriously perched with her deity children (Ganesh, Lakshmi, Saraswathi, and Kartikeya) by her side. Each pandal is designed by visionary artists from around the country, constructed over several weeks or months, and often contain visual elements that are meant to comment on and critique modern society. According to a British Council report, Durga Pujo is worth 2.5% of West Bengal’s total GDP and plays a hugely significant role in the creative economy of India.
So we pandal-hopped. Wading through unfathomable crowds (having war flashbacks to college party dance floors), Fulbrighters and Friends walked miles to see as many installations as we could, stopping only for Bengali food (the fish fry stole my heart) or Mishti (famous Bengali milk sweets). Some pandals showed Durga in pure gold, like the sun. Others looked heavily influenced by the neon lights of Las Vegas. Some evoked religious imagery, Crosses beside Star and Crescents beside Aums. Others referenced moments from India’s history using black-and-white images of Partition or Freedom Fighters. My favorite one was a sprawling evocation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, made entirely of twisted colored paper, where Durga seemed to be lifted upwards by an ocean-like sky or a sky-like ocean, her divine children holding out their arms in awesome presentation. All week, the atmosphere buzzed and I started to remember once more how special it was, how improbable and yet how very real, that I was here, in this moment, in this city, at this time.
More life-giving than pandal-hopping was something that I didn’t have the word for until reaching Kolkata. The Bangla word: Adda. Meaning having conversation, hanging out and chatting (certainly not a totally substantial definition but the one I picked up on nonetheless). Something that sounds so simple one might wonder why there is even a name for it. But I learned that adda is a cherished Bengali pastime and a distinct part of their culture. To meet up with friends and strangers alike for no other purpose than to speak to one another about practically everything, perhaps with a cup of tea or coffee. And speak we did: about our pasts, our relationships with religion and with our respective countries, the female experience in India versus the US and how those shift along geographic, political, racial, and other demographic lines, and what on earth to do with our silly little lives. I got to know my fellow ETAs a lot better and also met some of their remarkable Kolkata friends. I love the idea of ritualizing conversation in this way. Giving it a name and regarding it with cultural weight, as a necessary form of social nourishment. Organic connection that is not meant to yield anything in return. Anyways, long live adda, networking is dead.
When I got home, I got COVID. Sickness immediately following any kind of travel outside of Chennai is becoming a pattern for me here, no matter how masked up I am or how much Rasam rice I eat, so I just try to muddle through. My “stubbed-toe” moment came when, in the midst of a wobbly, feverish attempt towards the kitchen, I dropped my only mug on the ceramic floor and stood there as I watched glass shards go everywhere. A low moment for sure. But like they always do, my friends saved the day— home friends coordinating with India friends to get an Amazon shipment of new mugs to me before I even tested negative. Shout out to Sequoia and Rina. <3
On Pondi & Deepawali:
Once fully recovered, I was barely back at school before there were more holidays. This time, it was our turn to host some ETAs in Chennai. So three became six for a long Diwali (or Deepawali as we in the south say) weekend.
Deepawali/Diwali is generally regarded with the same festive spirit and cultural significance as Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years combined in the States. As the holiday drew nearer, I sourced much of my information about the occasion from my students. (There are no blunter information sources than middle school students with no filter and opinions a plenty). Many were impassioned by the holiday, excited to share their culture with the clueless American teacher, while others were strongly ambivalent (and did an excellent job of expressing complex ideas about the day might I say!). I gauged that this was because Diwali is not as widely or homogeneously celebrated throughout the subcontinent as an outsider might think. Here in Tamil Nadu, the festival is only celebrated for 1-2 days as compared to 4-5 and many of the rituals that are associated with Diwali in the north and worldwide are not performed. There’s a bunch of reasons for this. Some of it has to do with the different sects of Hinduism and how they differ regionally. I’ve noticed colleagues and students act (respectfully) resistant towards customs and festivals that aren’t regarded as southern or Tamil. My students refer far more to the Tamil lunar calendar as a guide to which days are important and which are less so. Nonetheless, kids are kids and they can’t resist a few days off or loud, slightly dangerous fireworks displays, or as they corrected me— crackers (note: among my older boys, it seemed to be a rite of passage to get injured by setting off crackers on their balcony or street and many indeed returned with bandages on their hands or feet). Therefore, while Deepawali may not be the most prominent festival of the year in Chennai, crackers are set off all day long (with or without parent supervision), special meals are prepared, and workers get a nice few days off to relax with their families.
Meanwhile, the three Chennai ETAs and our three guests took advantage of this long weekend and decided to head to the beach. In a way, Pondicherry is to Chennai the way the Outer Banks is to Virginia. If you can afford to go, it’s the most convenient beach-y vacation destination (only a 3 hour drive). Every person I’ve ever spoken to about exploring Tamil Nadu has said “you must go to Pondi, but don’t stay for too long; it’ll get boring”. They cite the architecture and food— both notably French— as reasons for visiting.
Before arriving in Chennai, I had no idea that a French colony had ever existed in India. Yet here Pondicherry stood, a Union Territory surrounded on all sides by Tamil Nadu or the Bay of Bengal, still very much French in nature. And while it was cool to order a mushroom and brie crepe for lunch, the fact that I was eating it in a part of the city called “White Town” signaled just how French it still was. (If you’re at all skeptical about this or wondering if this was simply named after a totally benevolent and not at all ill-intentioned French colonizer named White, just know that there is also a part of the city called “Black Town”.) Pondi was, of course, beautiful— perfectly curated flora-lined streets, pristine beaches, French-style avenues with shops and restaurants. It certainly felt like dipping a toe back into Euro-American culture again— restaurants served alcohol and beef, they hadn’t yet renamed places like “white town” and “black town”, late-night bars and clubs seemed more dominant, there were white people, etc. However, it was a bit of a shock to the senses to someone who had spent 99% of their time in Chennai. It made sense to me then why some of my older, more politically-minded students wrinkled their nose at the mention of Pondi. While the rest of the region had seemingly been diligent about disengaging or recontextualizing colonial influences, Pondi seemed to not only cling to them, but loudly boast them to the world.
The weirdest part of Pondicherry was a place outside the city called Auroville. Due to my experience and superstitious nature, I’m just going to give you the objective facts of this place and leave you to make your own conclusions. Auroville is a moneyless, experimental township or commune. It calls itself “utopian”, “progressive”, and “an experiment in human unity and transformation in consciousness”. It was founded in 1968 by a French woman whose face is plastered all over Pondicherry and who people continue to refer to as “the Mother” (her name was Mirra Alfassa). She is regarded as “the Mother” because it was partly her philosophy on human unity that provided Auroville with its ideological foundation. Additionally, her image has seemed to become deified over the years. Anyone can join Auroville, though the process is vague and comes with unspecified fees and probationary periods. Residents come from all over the world, though most are Indian and European, seeking an alternative lifestyle where they can let go of all personal possessions and achieve enlightenment. From what I gathered during my time there, most of its funding comes from the Indian government and tourism— indeed, it seemed to be a crucial destination to every white person with dreadlocks.
Tourists are only allowed in a fraction of its campus, and can follow a fenced-off trail that leads to the Matrimandir; a huge, gold sphere that may or may not resemble the Epcot Ball. It exists as a place for meditation and “a symbol of the Divine’s answer to man’s aspiration for perfection”. Tourists can only stand about 100 yards away from the Matrimandir and they are absolutely not allowed inside of it, though the visitors center was kind enough to provide a miniature replica of the inner-design, which reminded me of a set from Star Wars. Residents and residential areas are not visible to tourists, though we did see one man on a bike beyond the fence (white and old) who refused to speak to us when we called out but did glare at us in a way that made me want to get Jordan Peele on the phone. Overall, I left not feeling much need to ever return and strangely complicit in a phenomenon that I still can’t quite pinpoint.
We returned to Chennai in time for Deepawali and were invited by school colleagues of ours to their homes for lunch and dinner. This was lovely and a favorite memory of mine so far: sitting on the floor of someone’s home, eating food that is delicious and healthy and complicated to make off a banana leaf, practicing my Tamil with their children, laughing along at how badly I speak it until my stomach hurts. These are the moments where I feel most satiated, most grateful to have somehow made it all the way here. Coming from such an individualistic culture, each instance of generous hospitality that I experience here (and there have been many) reminds me of how critical communing, feeding, caring for others can be. How it stays with you long after the meal is gone.
The month ended with Halloween mania-- thanks to the generous donations of you all, I brought in about 300 Hershey Kisses for my students (not cheap in these parts). Based on the absolute hilarious upheaval it created, I can safely speak for them in sending their gratitude. (They acted like they’d never tasted chocolate in their life, something I can assure you they have since it is tradition for students to bring the whole middle school chocolate on their birthday). We had a ball discussing ghosts, superstitions, and practicing past progressive tense and conditional clauses when describing our dream Halloween costumes. A lot of horror movie fans in the house. Good vibes.
Thanks for being patient with me and reading about my October! Time is flying and it’s becoming more evident how fleeting this experience will truly be. I want to reiterate how special it is to me that you all read and engage with my little posts. Sending love to you all <3