PNPC Bengali Style Part 1

I'm starting a new series called PNPC Bengali Style (PNPC means poro ninda, poro charcha, or roughly translates to Gossiping and Bitching about others) for the odd random things I hear around town.

The other day I was swimming and this random lady (RL) comes up to me and this is how the conversation went.

RL : Are you Indian?
Me : No, I'm American.
RL : Where are you from in the US?
Me : New York
RL : What do you do here?
Me : I'm married to a Bengali.
RL : What's his name?
Me : Told her DH's name
RL : Really? I am a Sengupta too! We're in the same caste.
Me : (thinking in my head) Lady...I don't really care about caste...you're mad!

Seriously?! It's a good thing I didn't let on that I speak bangla too! I came home and told this to DH and he just about busted up laughing and had a huge ole grin stuck on his face for some time!

Swimming is going good, I'm sore and that's a good thing, as it tells me I'm pushing myself instead of just letting myself "get by" with the bare minimum effort.

Legal or Illegal? Someone tell me now...

So...sorry I've not been posting lately. We've been going through some hard times. I was told by a friend of mine that because of the change of police jurisdictions that happened last year that he had been transferred from the Bhavani Bhavan FRO (in Alipore) to the Kolkata FRRO (on AJC Bose Rd). So, like the 3rd I go to the Bhavani Bhavan FRO by myself only to find out that yes, I have been transferred and I need to bring in my original Residence Certificate / Residential Permit (RC / RP) and they would sign it.

So, I go home and report this information to DH, and he says ok, and I said I will take it tomorrow and have them sign it. Well, I'm waiting for him to figure out what he is doing, and then he ups and gets ready and tells me to get ready, and all of a sudden he says we are going to the FRRO. So, we go to the FRO to get them to sign it and then we report to the FRRO.

Here, they tell us that my RC / RP is illegal because I have been registered on a 10-year tourist visa. I get pissed and they tell us that we have to go to New Delhi and go to the Ministry of Home Affairs for them to regularize my overstay and convert my Tourist visa to an Entry visa. So, feeling all pissed because now the government has made me a criminal (I have never gotten a ticket in my life...) and I just want to go home and cry.

So...I go home, and then later that week after we had been getting all our paperwork together we go and speak to the Commissioner of Police (who is over Kolkata Immigration) who says, "This sounds like a complicated and long story. Let me send you to a patient listener, I am a very impatient listener." We go and talk to the Assistant Commissioner of Police who then verifies that even if I have been wrongly registered I am still registered, and therefore I *HAVE NOT* overstayed and am not here illegally. Thank Goodness!

So, now we have to get our marriage certificate apostiled (I have no idea really what that means, except that they will verify that it is real...) and then we will head to Delhi. :-)

I am sure we will be told a few different things there, so I'm hoping our luck holds out.

He hung up on me???

Sometimes I answer DH's phone, today was one of those days. I answered it the first time and then I heard the hanging up sound, so I thought whatever. Then the same number called back, let it rang like once and hung up. Then...they called back. At this point, I was quite annoyed because DH was trying to sleep.

I answered the phone and the guy asked for DH, I asked him where he was calling from to which he replied "Reliance" (Reliance is who we have our internet through). I then asked him why he was calling, to which he replied bill payment.

Now...our bill is usually due on the 13th or 14th of each month, or it was, before they changed the billing cycle last month. So, I knew something was fishy...I was pretty sure the bill wasn't due by the 4th because DH would have gotten the e-mail and sent me to deposit the check.

So, then sensing something is up, I ask the guy when the bill was due. He replied, the 9th. I know today's date was the 4th, so I tersely asked him why he was calling if our bill wasn't due. I informed him that the bill would be paid before the due date, and again asked him WHY he was calling before it was even due. His response??

Instead of giving me a satisfactory answer, or an answer at all, he hung up on me!!!

Shouldn't I, the irritated customer, be the one hanging up due to the fact I wasn't given a satisfactory answer? Is this the kind of customer service people they are training these days, and pushing upon us. Seriously, this guy got lucky. I was a bit snappish with him, but he's very lucky he didn't get DH, or he would have gotten an earful before he hung up. *sigh*

Zoo, Me? No!

Seriously people, do you think that I'm some sort of animal that lives in a zoo that you can just take photos of whenever you want?

This is the response that I had when earlier this week I was running some errands in Gariahat. I was walking down the street to go back home, and some idiot is trying to be inconspicuous about snapping a photo of me.

Dude, you have your cell phone held up to your side, with the camera pointed to the sidewalk, and then when I walk past, you push the snap button, and it makes a noise. Do you really think I'm stupid enough to not realize what you just did? Be grateful I just muttered to myself and kept walking on, because I was not in such a good mood.

Seriously, I DO NOT LIVE IN A ZOO FOR YOU PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU FREAKING VOYAGEUR PLEASURE!! KTHNXBAI

Dadu and snapping

When I'm at Gariahat and I want some cold water or a cold drink, I usually stop at this one little stall.

There's an old man, Dadu (meaning grandfather) who works there. He's a frail skinny, old man, who is a bit slow in his moves.

Normally I will bring back like 2 cokes, and 1 or 2 bottles of water. Normally if I just get 1 bottle of water he will end up bringing me 2 bottles of water and 1 coke, and I just laugh and ask him to switch it.

Now, the other day I had gone and was picking up my drinks, and there were 2 or 3 people behind me. They can all see that this guy is already helping me, and therefore busy, right?! Well, you would think so, but now, they kept calling to him.

Finally one guy behind me said, "Dadu, aapni ki korchhen?" (Grandfather, What are you doing?"

I snapped at their blatant disrespect of this gentleman, and said, "Kaaj korchhen. Ki aapni dekhte parchhen na?" (He is working. Can you not see that or what?" The guy looked at me, shocked and then shut up. :-)

I don't stand for disrespect of elders, maybe it's not disrespect in their eyes but to me it was, and I had had enough!

Seriously, did that just happen to ME?!?!

Sunday and Monday I had the pleasure to meet Sharell who also blogs about her inter-cultural relationship. Monday we went out and around and we got accosted by little beggar kids. At one point we were in a taxi, and there were these 2 little kids who came up and were like, "aunty, aunty, chocolate!" and "money". After the kids became enough of a irritation, Sharell rolled up her window, and then they proceeded to the other side of the cab. Then the other window went up, and then they went to the front window. Hmm, I've never seen them like this!

But today I was walking around at Gariahat today running my errands when I stopped to buy something at a corner stop, nothing abnormal about it. I paid and as I'm putting my things in my purse, the storekeeper calls "Hey!" to this bunch of 4 beggar kids. I just hold on to my stuff, and keep walking, ignoring the calls of "aunty, aunty" and other things meant to make me give them money.

Well, the next thing that happened completely shocked me. I felt this little hand grope my **ASS** and I mean hard enough for me to feel that he had cupped his hand and did it. I thought in my head, "Did that really just happen?" Not knowing whether the appropriate thing to do was to slap the kid upside the head, or whatnot I glared at the kid and sped away, especially since I wasn't sure which kid was the culprit.

After this I came home and discussed it with DH. Next time, I will smack the bugger and drag him to the police station. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I'm easy prey. So, if you grab my ass without permission again, you better watch out!

Noise, Loud noise, and just a ton of noise!!!

Well, apparently yesterday the elder son of one of our neighbors got married, and per the custom brought his bride home to his parents house today.

Well...OMG NOISE!!!!!!!! The house seems suddenly FULL of people!!! Not only are they constantly blowing on the conch shell (which in and of itself is quite annoying) but the ladies were making some howling sounds, ok, DH says its more a "woooo, wooo, wooo" sound, and its called ululation!

Then!! OMG, they were yelling over and over and over and over! grrrrrrrr

Then DH and I went out for dinner tonight and we were sitting by a group of young annoying (somewhat drunk) teenagers. They weren't so bad, but OMG, about 5 minutes before we left, some chick comes in with this horribly huge thick black rimmed glasses! UTTERLY UGLY!!!!!!!! She happened to come right when they were saying, "last orders", so she quickly placed her order. The waiter came and poured the drink, and she was like, "ooooohhhh, yummyyyyyyyyy!!!" over and over, as each peg was being poured, every time getting a little louder. Then she started to sing to the drink, at that point I told DH to get his ass up we were leaving, because I wasn't subjecting myself to that.

That's my rant for the night. Maybe I'll post some tomorrow if we go to the neighbors son's reception.

Have you ever...?

Seen something that infuriated you the second you saw it?? Well, let me tell you today that happened to me. We went to the Lower Circular Road (Christian) Cemetery. Well...first let me upload the photos, and you can see for yourself before I go off ranting and raving (which I fully intend to do!)

This is what made me furious! You can see in the lower left corner the state of some of the graves!!!

 And here! The state of the grounds! :-(

 This is a sign dedicated to Charles Freer Andrews. He was a English priest for the Church of England. He was one of Gandhi's closest friends and confidant, and a Indian freedom fighter. Incidentally, he is also buried in this cemetery, which we didn't get to see because I was done. I am hoping to go back and visit his grave at a later date.

 And here, you can see an old man laying on a blanket listening to an english cricket commentary! ON A GRAVE!!!

This is the sign that leads to the final resting place of yet another famous man named John Elliot Drink Water Bethune (and yes his name is really Drinkwater!!!) He was a Anglo-Indian lawyer who promoted women's education in India. In 1849 he founded a school that would later would become the first women's college in India - Bethune College.

We went here today, for the architecture and a sense of history of Kolkata. Now, I will grant the cemetery this, there are some nice memorial stones, as you can see from the above pictures. However, there are also some that are in COMPLETE RUINS!! I am talking about graves from the late 1800's! This is history my dear friends! The letterings on the graves, although this is probably due to the acidic rain during the monsoons, is eroding and is getting hard to read. There are some grave sites that are completely shattered, where you can see the ground (and in some parts 1/2 - 1 foot) under the cement blocks that are placed under the headstones!

I am astonished! The way that these dead people are treated! Grant you, and I thank my DH for pointing this out, that many of the descendants of these families have migrated away, and are not here to care for the grave sites. But the way this cemetery hit me with a force, the force that here are people's loved ones, who are NOT being taken well care of. There are some that are being taken care of and are in very good shape, even some dating some 160-170 years ago. I am quite positive that by the elaborate headstones that these people were well loved and cared for while they were alive, but now they are not being taken care of. Also, the fact that some of these graves are of well known and famous people of India!

I will give the cemetery this one positive note, they did provide indigent burial plots. I was surprised at this and the fact that the people buried there had a very nice, although not as ornate as the rest, large white cross for a headstone. Much more than one would have gotten in the US.

Who is supposed to be maintaining this graveyard? And why are they not? I am horrified at the state of this cemetery.