Santoshpur Lake

Santoshpur, the place I am staying.
There is a landmark - Santoshpur Lake. The lake is a wonderful place, a recreational park for the residence here!
In the morning (5-6am), people walk (but no jog, perhaps I can be the first jogger here since I always wake up so early, as usual) around the lake. Some even jump into the lake and have a swim in the hot afternoons. The water is being taken care, filtered and not that bad.
Talking about water, the water here is not really what we used to have in Malaysia. Perhaps there are still plenty of rooms for improvement in the efforts of water treatment. See, even after taking bath, after the water vaporizing from skin, the stickiness comes. Besides, when brushing teeth, I could even taste the saltiness in the water. Some people said there are much mineral ions left in the pipe water here. At first, I was really cannot bear with it. Now, it is irritating still, yet acceptable. Whatsoever, I miss Malaysia water.
I'm not really complaining, you guys should know getting water supply in the house is already something very fortunate in places like this!
Picture of beautiful Samtoshpur Lake...sharing...

Lovely weekend

It was a wonderful weekend. We spent time in shopping. You bet, girls are just getting excited whenever time arrived for shopping!

Finally I have bought those Khurti which i wanted to buy so much before coming to India. While shopping around the shoes stalls / shops, some indian ladies even watched my shoes in awe and wondered where did I buy them! (Perhaps I should be considering to start up some wholesaler business here!) lol!

Some souvenirs caught my attention - ANG PAU! haha! Well, the shopkeeper told me that was the paper packets. These are made up of hand-made paper. There were various kind of them - crushed paper, weaving paper, and leaf paper. The leaf paper is something the images of leaves are stamped on the papers they are dried up.

Indian is really famous for its spices. As food service student (again..!), interest in spices and some authentic foods is something deep rooted inside me. There are a lot of digestive stuffs (sort of dried plums) available here! You guys must be interested! I am so addicted to one kind of them - called AJWAIN. I bought some to bring back..

Then we followed Aiesecer Raj back her home. It was a nice windy place! Perhaps it is located in the 7th floor, so the room is just sooo ventilated and COOL! Her parents were very wise and warm persons! We had our dinner at about 10.30pm (sounds like my supper!) We were served authentic Southern Indian food in the northen India! How cool it sounds! See, we were trying to make the rice noodle! This is 100% home-made rice noodles: from boiling the rice into paste, adding salt and moulding it like kind of kuih, then stuffing the kuih inside the equipment to push the noodles out! Guess what, the rice noodles (or can I call it bihun, sounds more familiar to you guys) are being fried and accompanied with lemon dhal. Imagine the flavor...come on, use your imagination!

Besides bihun, we have something called dosa (which is what we called thosai in our country). The dosa is stuffed with onion potato. Really nice it was, I tell you!

Spending night sitting by the windows, listening to the wind.

The breakfast was cool! Cheese and butter toast! Raj is really a great host!

Sunday, this was the day our another Malaysia intern joining us. His name is Arun. Well, now the house is getting more lively, I guess.
Still hot...people are just wanting to lock themselves under the roof in the afternoon. You know, to prevent sun burn...

Election

Election! Election!

The election is coming in India. In Kolkata, the voting day is 13th May. Everyday the people are talking about it. Various campaigns have been held all over the city. Every night, there are talks given by the party leaders in various parts of the city. Posters are flying everywhere. 

India is a democratic country. People here are given utmost freedom politically. People here have high interest in political issue. They talk about the parties, schemes, and even make jokes of them! About 75% of the adults (above 21 y/o) are coming out to vote, including those ladies who always stay at home. 

Politic is something which can excite people here (like the cricket match, songs and food!) Multiple colors of flyers and posters and even wall paintings of the party logo have added the conviviality of Kolkata. 

P/S: I heard there are some funny things happened again in Malaysian politic again, aren't them?

Listen to Your Heart

Today, talking to my mum, as wishing her Happy Mother's Day.

I am glad she has finally joined her old friends in climbing the mountain yesterday and reached the peak in little effort (according to my aunt) . Well, I am really proud of you, mum! This again, proved that Dr King was right. She said my mum's body is even healthier than mine! Seems I still have a long way to catch up...sigh...

Look, I feel peaceful when I am here, Kolkata. There is no any hectic deadline or assignments. I believe few more days later I would be able to enter the field which I always want to be involved - social / community service. Perhaps there will be more contentment and satisfaction once I really start my job. So far, there was only one training session on HIV/AIDS and the other time, we used to online and reading the previous reports of the organization, kinda bored, I should say.

Whenever I am free at home, I would take up the book - The Alchemist and flip on it. This is a really nice book. To follow your destiny and pursue you dream. Listen to your heart and the whole universe would just conspire to help the dream pursuer. One part really touched my heart : once you get older and leaving your dream far behind, your heart tend to get silent and would not speak again, to prevent any sensation of regret and depression. This is just how our society look! See, people have dreams, wild dreams. But most of them never try to realize them, just following the track people tend to think it is NORMAL and PROMISING.

Today mum told me, Uncle Luobiao have been trying to reach me in the few past days but failed. Of course, my hotlink sim card is totally abandoned when i am here. She told him i am in India and doing what i really want to do. In fact, what i really want to do in my life is to get to see all around the world and experiencing the different living cultures of different people. I am always happy when i get to see new things and meeting with new people who used to be so strange for us. Uncle Luobiao confessed that he was always wanting to do something but now there are just too much burdens which he cannot put behind in order to realize his dreams.

This is what I am afraid of. I was wondering whether I would end up like everybody else, graduating from the universtiy, getting into a job, repeating the routine everyday. Even worse, locking up in the house once married and taking care of the children and always in the hoping that the children would grown up faster. This is basically the route a woman will take. Yes, this is the route ROUGHLY! There are still plenty of things can happen!

My dream keeps me going. I am not going to abandon it. Listen to my hearth truthfully as it always tell who and what I am!

The City of Joy

This is the 10th Anniversary of the establishment of Banglanatak.com (the organization I work for) Founder of Banglanatak.com, Mr Amitava. A nice person and extremely knowledgable!

Ms Gorgeous of the night, Ms Sayantani. Very enthusiast, smart and kind person!

After the working hour, all staffs were invited to the party! wow!
The whole party was entertained by the folk songs (Baul Fakiri) singers. They played the tradisional instruments and sang. This is a heritage culture of Bengal. Firstly, like normal performance we have watched, they played in the centre on the ground, audiences are listening.

With folk song singers.

Then the atmosphere heated up! People were getting high. Starting, few staffs were joining the playing and dancing. While talking to Sueren, i mentioned i was feeling want to join the joy! He was the one encouraging me to join! So, that's it - i was dancing on the floor!
Seriously, it was fantastic! Everybody was singing and dancing. A scene emerged in my mind: the hobbits in the Shire are dancing innocently and gaily!

Kolkata, as people say, a city of joy, I would say: nothing more true!

Jaiguru! (cheers)

Slum

First visit to slums. Finally the day has come. Heard of the word - slums for thousand times but never really took a look on it with my own eyes! This was a nutritional campaign to increase the awareness of the slum residence to take care of their diet, especially to the children.
The program is called GALLI GALLI SIM SIM, it is a tv show by sesame street characters. The children there were gathered and the field co-ordinator will explained the messages behind. Activities were done by our great field co-ordinator, Nando to reinforce the message to the children.

The children were listening to the explaination by our colleague, Nando.
However, instead of paying the attention to the tv, the children and residence here looked like more interested in Elaine and me. They offered us chairs to sit (this is very rare as chair is sth very seldom-seen furniture there!) I felt awkward. Supposingly we should let people like woman carrying the baby to sit, not us, people who are young and healthy! I do not wish to be served like this in fact. Well, deep in my heart, i am still appreciating their kindness and warmness anyhow.
Some pictures of slums. Guess you guys must be interested.

This is the food stall in the slums. The residences tend to buy the food and eat at the road side, standing.

There are still many pictures...once you are here, you will definitely be glad of where you are and who you are. So guys out there, don't take everything for granted...even a drop of clean water is just so PRECIOUS!

First Eating Out

As a food study student, how can i forget to post anything about the food?!

Last sunday, dear aiesecer Raj brought Elaine and me to an air-conditioned food court to have our lunch. I ordered Indian Thali where as Elaine ordered Masala Dosa.

The staple food in the Indian Thali is the Rumali (similar to naan, yet thinner than naan), with some accompanion dishes. This is authentic North Indian food. 66Rps (RM 5.20)

The Masala Dosa is what we called Thosai in Malaysia. But take a look, there is nice potato stuffing in the Dosa! 50Rps (RM4) (so sorry didnt have the picture of stuffing with me now...will take from Elaine later...)