Travel Day 879 – Kolkata, INDIA
After yesterdays great Tablaphilia performance and concert in Burdwan, today was starting as a slow day while sleeping until noon…
Plate of Sweets in Family Home, Kolkata
This was mainly due to the lack of organization or rather the lack of logic during the return of the trip. Once the concert was over and we had everything packed up and stored in the bus, it was about midnight. Nothing happened when the work was done and everyone was just standing around. When I asked a couple of people if we would be leaving now, the answer was: No, we are waiting for a while…
Waiting? What were we waiting for? Better weather? I didn’t get it and when I finally found the leader of our group, he explained to me: There is no metro in Kolkata until 7am. So we wait 4 hours and then drive back with the bus… What? We stand around and wait until 4am, that was the plan? I didn’t need a metro to go home and probably some other people lived close by as well or could take a taxi home, but no, the order was for everyone to wait for 4 hours. What a crazy irrational plan I thought while I asked permission to at least wait in the bus while trying to have a nap…
In the end neither the time in the freezing bus nor the ride back proved to be a great opportunity for a good rest so I needed the entire morning to recover. But then in the afternoon we were off to first meet an old friend of my teacher and afterwards we had a nice dinner invitation at the home of our Tablaphilia group leader…
While the visit of the friend turned out to be a great opportunity to learn something about Tagore, the dinner then was an even better opportunity to visit a local home and observe a few more of the local customs. This time around everything just happened right on the floor while sitting on the carpet. For dinner some newspaper was spread out and then everything was served by the host family…
Photo Opportunity with Host Family, Kolkata
First we had a round of sweets with water and then we had coffee with slightly salted crackers. We then had some really nice musical entertainment by the host and his daughter. While he was getting the best Tabla out of his large display case and started playing some nice groves, the daughter was singing along and making our stay even more enjoyable. Afterwards we had a main course of dinner with roti and a second course with rice, followed by a large plate of sweets that were unfortunately much too tasty to resist…
Overall it was once more a great evening with a local family, only that this time around we were not successful to convince the host family to eat with us. They insisted to eat later, once we had left and even if it appeared strange to me to be looked at while eating, I was assured numerous times that this was the proper conduct in an Indian family home…
Leave a Reply