I have so little time to blog… though I want to a lot.  So I’ll try to make this short so I can finish it and send it… and maybe add pieces later.

Yesterday’s The Sunday Statesman had three articles on the editorial pages, each one having a lot of meaning for me.

The Dual Danger, part 1 by Sandeep Pandey.  I know of Pandey because he was the founder of Asha for Education in the US, a volunteer organization of mostly NRI’s with a commitment to education in India.  I’ve been a part of ASHA for several years.  He writes of seeing a "face of Left fascism" in the operation of the current government.  For me, having grown up in the era of McCarthyism in the US, the spying on individuals, the persecution of communists, Leftists, and the general atmosphere of fear — "Loyalty Oaths" as entrapments – these are familiar but ominous.

On the next editorial page, the headline read, "CPM’s parallel Governance" which proposes there is a "government inside a government" that is actually ruling in West Bengal.  This is exactly what we are discovering as we try to make our way through this nightmare over the licensing and the security of our children.

The last of the three is "Taslima and the Bengali Literati" questioning why the "intelligentsia" of Kolkata were silent when she was hounded out of Kolkata by fundamentalist mobs whose "sentiments she hurt" by writing about women in Islam.  The intelligentsia were not the only silent ones.  In fact, even the liberal left caved in to the mob violence.  That was what upset me most, that people in the government who I assumed would protect her instead conspired for her removal.  She was spirited out of Kolkata by the "government within the government" which was the theme of the first of these three articles.

Well, this is the political atmosphere of my life in Kolkata.  One would think we were removed from all this, but the politics and alliances carry down to the smallest units of governance.  If we had simply gotten our license, and then the renewal, all this would be of interest, but would not feel so critical or relevant to my life.

I am reminded also of Academia in the US and what can happen to Ph.D candidates if they find themselves with a recalcitrant or hostile or jealous adviser.  Their degrees and careers can literally be ended; the truth will be buried under the guise of "non-interference" which is a way of everyone else avoiding responsibility.

Saturday evening Gibi and I passed a small group of women demonstrating on behalf of Taslima Nasreen.  They were standing as a group on the corner of Rash Behari and Gariahat Aves, only partly blocking traffic.  We parked the car and went back just to say hello.  They invited us to join the demonstration.  I said I couldn’t as we were on our way to meet someone.  But I can’t be in a demonstration.  I am vulnerable myself.  My children are vulnerable. 

Three recent major events have shaken the surface calm of Kolkata:  1. the police complicity in the death of a Muslim man married to a Hindu woman, each educated and professional.  For this the city banded together across religions.  2. the second is the CPM (socialist party) murder of farmers in Nandigram who were fighting to protect their land from forced seizure for industrialization.  This resulted in splits across political parties, but with general non-sectarian alliances in support of the farmers. 3. Taslima Nasreen, exiled Bangladeshi writer, who has been living in Kolkata.  A fundamentalist group was able to stir the passions of some Muslim groups, and this created a split along religious lines and boosted the power of those committed to violence in the name of religion.

In the end, and in a very reductionist way, we have a city torn by police and government brutality, but the only issue that can be "safely" raised is persecution of a woman for what she wrote.  Murder is less crime than truth.  For this, Kolkata was burning last week, to punish the truth.

We are walking to school.  I am in the front, Seema in the back.  We no longer walk in line, except if there is traffic.  Rather we become two groups, some of the girls in the front with me, some behind with Seema.  It’s a process of natural seclection.  I am a fast walker, so the girls who walk fast are with me.  A chill has come in the mornings, but the girls are dressed as if it were late Fall in the Northeast USA.  They have red sweaters, red head scarves, and red leggings under their uniforms.  This is the custom now.  And our girls, who never had any uniforms before, are certain to put every possible accessory on, whatever the weather.  They love their uniforms.  some of them wake in the night and slip into the other room, dress for school, sweater, leggings, uniforms, scarves, and go back to sleep!

On this morning, as we are walking, we see just off to the side of us, at an intersection, two women and two children, boys about 7 or eight, climbing out of a fancy gray Tata Sumo.  We all stop, looking back transfixed…. the women look discheveled; the boys look weary.  I see one man get back into the car.  it all just looks bad.  Then the car passes us, with four well-dressed men grinning, grinning at us.  I learn later that the group in the back heard the woman protesting to the man, as he gave her money, "Is that all I get?"

For the rest of the way to school we talk about it, and the girls talk with Seema.  They all know what is going on.  They lived on the street.  We tell them this is why they are with us, so this doesn’t happen to them; this is why we educate them, so they do not live on the street; this is why we watch them all the time and don’t let them out of our sight.  One of the girls tells Seema that the night before she dreamed about her mother and cried all night.  "Is she safe? Is she hungry?"  Seema tells her, and all of them, that they must work to make their mothers proud, wherever they are, here or with the Gods.  She tells them that they will grow up to help other children like themselves, because they know how much pain there is.  Always she/we tell the girls they must make their parents proud.

A poem I wrote some years ago:

There are Cobwebs in my Heart

There are cobwebs in my heart

Where mama used to be,

A room preserved…

Frozen in the moment of her

Leavetaking.

The growing strands of thin floating filaments

Encroach,

From the corners of

Her room,

And gather over time to mark the emptiness.

Enshrouded,

An alter of love remains,

Built long ago to call for God,

— Just in case he was listening –

A dainty layette,

Delicately embroidered

White on white

Awaits the newborn,

Booties, hand sewn in some distant land,

Where women feed their own

Knitting for the children they’ll never know.

A lullaby plays, the needle jammed —

The cradle will fall.

The cobwebs soften the harsh notes of the broken music,

They blur the searing loss,

And comfort the dying infant

Like gentle shrouds of lingering memory.

Oh mama, if only you had stayed.

This is a revised post about Cyclone Sidr.  I didn’t get a chance to finish writing about the morning we woke to a clear sky, a light breeze, and no sign of the hurricane force winds we had been expecting.    We all had fun laughing at my preparations — but our moods changed over the course of the day, and then over the next several days as we learned about the devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh.  Kolkata was braced for the storm.  As of midnight, trains were still canceled.  Much of the Sunderbans was evacuated.  But then sometime after midnight, Sidr shifted East.

I grew up in the US when "atom bomb drills" were common in school, and when people built underground shelters stored with food and water.  Part of my childhood was spent on a farm, where we were often snowed in for days at a time.  So getting food in, making sure we had enough coal, closing windows and shutters against hurricanes, making sure the animals were safe — these are ingrained routines for me.

My preparations:

1. We brought in food supplies for a several days.  We had plenty of staples, but added vegetables, eggs, and bread — flexible foods.

2. We made sure we had enough kerosene for the generator in case electricity stopped.

3. Bijoy and I went hunting for warm clothes for little and big girls.  It was raining, and this was the day when local stores are closed.  But we found a lone hawker selling from under a tarpaulin, and bought him out.

4. We got out the wool blankets from last year.

5. Our building is part old, and part new.  I moved us to the newer part, 2 story and a very strong roof.  Most of the girls slept upstairs with massis.  I stayed downstairs with two of the little ones — Poomina needs her crib, and Ganga just wants to be with me.  The others are happier with the big girls.

6. I had staff stay overnight because in bad weather they couldn’t get here in the morning. 

7. Bijoy’s wife was sick at home so we brought her here so she wouldn’t be alone, without electricity or water when the storm hit.

8. I simply didn’t consider the possibility that the weather would be clear, with NO wind or rain this morning.  So I didn’t get up to wake girls, check, etc.  So, they missed school today.

I’d shown the girls the red colored cyclone on the weather.com map.  And I’d made all sorts of sounds to describe thunder and rain and wind… making them all laugh, but teaching about Bay of Bengal, and Bangladesh, and Kolkata…   We followed the weather map as late as 8 pm, and the cyclone was still coming our way.  Lowland villages and islands nearby were evacuated.  The next day we looked at where the cyclone had been…. It was all an experience in Time, Place, and Person — essentials of consciousness, and anchors to reality —

I slept so well knowing I’d prepared.  A few times I woke, aware of the LACK of sound of wind or rain, and fell back to sleep.  I slept right through what should have been the time to go to school, which of course was open.  I felt really stupid.

p.s. Cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons are more about where they are located geographically than about their properties.  This is my conclusion after Googling "hurricane vs cyclone."

We are all fine.  We had a beautiful Diwali/Kali Puja/Lakshmi-Ganesh Puja.  I am consumed with work regarding our battle with the government.  I’m working around the clock to prepare a formal history of the difficulties and harassment.  We are still knocking on doors, still trying to find someone who will match their outrage with action on our behalf.

It’s exhausting and painful, painful because of the extent of the lies and betrayals.  None of this is about the children.  Everyone knows they are fine and that we are taking excellent care of them.  It is a warped and perverted game of control, in a system that perpetrates abuses of power.

But, we have the children.  That is what is most important.  They are with us instead of living in a government institution.  This is just ‘stuff’ we have to go through to keep them.

I love thinking about this blog, writing in my head, but until I get all this work done, I may not have the time to make the leap from thought to post.