Delhi - Calcutta

We are now in Calcutta, the last stop of the tour and there are only three pages left in this notebook. I will limit myself to those last few pages for now.
March fifteenth, the day of my fiftieth birthday, dawned early. I was awake at three a.m., not out of excitement because of my birthday, but because we were leaving on the three day bus drive to Calcutta at five and loading our bed rolls and bags started at four. Before leaving, Kaivalya came into my "room" and to the tune of Happy Birthday to you, gave me a simply wrapped present. Touched, I opened it there and then; it was a small mozzarella! I rolled on the floor laughing. I had often talked about making a mozzarella and tomato salad. Nancy gave me what here they call a house dress, a lovely long cotton dress/nightdress. And when I boarded the bus, those who knew, gave me hugs and wished me a Happy Birthday. I knew that my family was also thinking of me, and though far away, I could feel their good wishes.

At lunch we stopped at a monastery, and together with the food, Amma gave everyone one of the four hundred candies I had bought for the occasion. But imagine my surprise, when one of the swamis came up to me and told me that Amma wanted a little piece of mozzarella! "But I've given it all away. And how did she know about it anyway?" The swami laughed and told me not to worry. I was amazed. When she left, Amma took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. The squeeze was gentle, but I was deeply moved. Other than stopping again for dinner, we drove on for twenty-four hours. When we arrived in Benares, it was five thirty in the morning. A Wedding Hall was our base. I quickly found my "room" and showered. I hadn't slept much during the twenty-four hour drive, and I was very tired, but we were in Benares, a place I had been dreaming of visiting for ages- and the Holy Ganges was only one mile down the road. Mary and I walked out of the wedding hall and jumping into a bicycle rickshaw, we headed East to the Ganges.

"Oh this poor man! It is going to give us bad karma having this man work so hard," Mary said. It had been the same in Faridabad when we had got on a bicycle rickshaw to go to the internet. "Look Mary, we've been through this before. This is how they make their living.""We should just give him the money and walk," she said. "It's just your inborn Irish guilt, Mary. We are not doing anything wrong," I reassured her. Our driver went as far as he could, then we walked. The streets were crowded with people going for their morning bath in the sacred River. I was so excited. A few more steps and the Ganges was before me. It was as I had always seen it in pictures. Beautiful, majestic, teeming with people, boats, Brahmins, Poojaris, vendors of flowers and sandal wood paste. On our descent to the ghats, Mary and I bumped into one of our group, Priscilla from the Bronx. Every now and then I would stop to take pictures until finally I took one more step and my feet were in the holy water of the Ganga. Wow!! And then my friend Mira from Milan, Italy joined us and without stopping went right in fully dressed in her travel clothes. I looked around me and all I saw was beauty manifest in many forms. I felt happy but wished my family had been there to share this precious moment with me. Next time.

After a while we moved on and walked the short distance to Benares' crematorium on the banks of the river. Several funeral pyres were lit. I stopped to photograph a tree that seemed to grow out of a wall, monkeys were jumping from branch to branch. Poised to snap with my camera, I was startled when a goat jumped from a nearby wall and landed at my feet. I thought it'd broken a leg, but he got up and walked away. Further along, I first heard then saw the snake charmer. Two cobras were slithering out of a basket at his feet. As well as the Ganges, Benares is also home to some of the finest silks in the world and, spiritual seekers though my friends and I were, we also wanted to do a bit of shopping. We walked the narrow alleys crowded with small shops, barbers, hole in the wall tea shops, cows and their sacred offerings. Turning a tight corner, I squeezed myself against the wall to let a funeral cortege with flower-covered body pass by me on their way to the cremation ground. Holding my breath I watched for a while before moving on.

Thinking of my own children, I let a twelve-year-old boy sell me a few scarves and two cotton shirts for my boys, before following another of our group to the German Bakery. What a place! I have pictures of it, it felt like an opium den. It was fun and I did enjoy the croissant with butter and jam, the first sweet breakfast in almost two months. Soon it was time to go. Mary and I jumped onto another bicycle rickshaw and after a while it became apparent that we were lost. "I knew it was bad Karma," Mary said."Oh Mary, don't start that again."It took almost an hour but eventually we got back to the wedding hall in time for a shower, before getting on the bus again.

Calcutta is hot and humid and the mosquitoes are out day and night and they bite left, right and center. Nova arrives tomorrow and I'll move into her air-conditioned hotel.
Bye for now,

Esmeralda