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June 01, 2009
Weekend
It's been a little more than a week since I left for my trip. And today was the first time I have been able to go outside the small area of land between the hospital and the house where I am residing.
While going to the bank to cash some traveller's cheques, I also visited small shopping centers to pick up some small items and non-essentials. Durgapur's claim to faim seems to definitely be its towering steel plants that can be seen from quite a distance aways. And it makes sure its residents are well aware of the fact. There are signs plastered all over the city touting Durgapur as India's Steel City. The signs make it out to seem as if it's some big tourism attraction that a visitor to India would stop by on his/her way to Agra.
Other than checking out the steel plants there aren't too many touristy things to do. One or two people in the office have actually left early for the weekend to go to Kolkota or other parts of the region for the weekend, visiting family and such. I'll try the same. It's a tad difficult to go explore parts of Durgapur unassisted because there aren't too many rickshaws near the hospital and there are no street signs.
The guest house I've been residing in seems to host a wedding party almost every other day - even in the middle of the hot summer people host wedding parties almost every weekday. These ceremonies have been my first time witnessing a Hindu wedding. It has been nice to be able to wake up to the smell of incense but difficult to try to sleep when songs and renditions of 1970s Bollywood soundtracks are being played on the floor below me. Almost every other day I come downstairs to a smoke-filled room trying not to trip over someone's kids running around the ground floor.
Communication hasn't been an issue either. Everyone at the hospital and guest house speaks Hindi and varying degrees of English. But there are those times where I try to communicate with someone on the street and he speaks only Bengali (and some broken Hindi). There haven't been too many cases, but it's come up a few times.
Let me know what's new with any of the readers of the blog. I have access to the internet whenever I'm at the hospital. So I'm pretty good with responding to emails during business hours.
aalamgir@umich.edu
Until the next post,
Adam
Posted by aalamgir at June 1, 2009 07:03 AM