I'm home, a week in Calcutta

Priyanka on a bus in Calcutta

As my plane circled and Calcutta came into view a wave of calm swept over me, not pure calm, it was tinted with nervous anticipation and an intense excitement, but calm none the less. After months of planning I was really about to arrive back in Calcutta, a city I both love and struggle with. A place I lived 2 years ago, under very different circumstances, when I was a different person. A city that has helped to shape who I am and confront my own assumptions about right and wrong. As this wave of calm swept over me, a phrase came with it, resonating from within "I'm Home." So as I write to you, four days after my arrival I write to confirm that I in fact am home.

At the airport I was greeted with a great hug by Priyanka, my best friend from when I studied abroad here two years ago. Along with her was her father, a ships captain who is home on holiday. They helped me wrestle my luggage into the family car, then we set out for Salt Lake, the North Eastern suburb of the city where Priyanka lives. I had stayed awake for the entire 9 hour layover in Bangkok, and had not slept more than an hour or two in the last 48 hrs. but as I settled into bed at Priyanka's house, my mind was bubbling full of excitement at the sounds and smells that confirmed 'you are in fact in India!' It was all I could do to keep my eyes closed and try to rest for a few hours, before heading out to meet up with friends for dinner at Peter Cat, my all time favorite restraunt in Calcutta.

The last few days since my arrival have been a blur of old friends, new friends and logistical organizing. I have seen Anindita and Rianne, two of my other close friends from when I lived here last. I also was introduced to a whole group of kids who Priyanka works with in a local theater company called Tin Can, they are amazing, like the liberal arts graduate crowd of Calcutta, smart and cynical, creative and often calculatingly quiet. We went to a Hindi movie without subtitles and Priyanka narrated the necessary plot twists for me. My Bengali is coming back, slowly, one word at a time, but its there in the recesses of my mind. One of her friend turned to me in the car after the movie and asked, curious "you follow Bengali?" While my ability to follow a conversation is all based in the context, I guess I am starting to follow a bit, and that observation is the best compliment I've recieved in a while.

Tomorrow at 6am, we board a bus for Dhaka, Bangladesh. We will be staying with my friend Farzeen's cousin Sanjan and his wife who have welcomed us into their home. From there Priyanka and I will begin our planning for the next 10 days of traveling. And all I can hope is that the next 2 months are even a pale reflection of the joy and adventure I have experienced this week. There is so much to come!

Man with amazing glasses, and he had a comb in his back pocket!