Visiting the Ghoshes

 

I am posted at the BSS School along with  Sarah Schneider, a young Math/Science teacher from Chicago; Ratnabali Ghosh is the History teacher there, soon to be retiring. She is one of those teachers who has a school-wide authority and respect, not just by virtue of her experience, but because of her personality. She is a very outspoken person, very dry and witty, and very observant. Mrs. Ghosh had invited us to her home after school today for high tea. Her mother-in-law's driver picked us all up and we drove through the Ballygunge neighborhood to Mrs. Ghosh's marble-floored 'flat', as of course she calls it, which we also of course reached in a lift. I have seen some photos of apartments for sale here with a similar layout, which is an interesting one and is very Indian, I guess. There is a long, wide hall all the way down the center of the apartment, which is kind of the main space, with small bay room spaces opening off it, some with a terrace. Mr. Indranil Ghosh, her husband, was so nice and lovely, but he made me sad, because he was very much like Eric in manner, interests, and even appearance. Mr. Ghosh is an Indian Merchant Marine captain on big tankers. Mrs. Ghosh and their two children have been able to travel a great deal, both to meet him and to do parts of voyages on the ship. They had so many amazing stories to tell and were just fascinating. They have a cook who has worked for them for 25 years, and she made us some  Bengali food, including an excellent cauliflower dish. They gave us lovely brocade bags with sandalwood combs inside, which I will use and treasure, and also garlands of incredibly fragrant flowers when we left. It was a very good night. We got to look at all the pictures from their son's 7 day Indian wedding in April, their recent college-graduate daughter introduced us to her friend from Nepal, and we enjoyed all the art and artefacts in their apartment. Mrs. Ghosh rode with us and the driver on the way home, and unfortunately, according to Mrs. Ghosh's translation from our driver, "a motorcycle had combusted and  caused a jam", so we had to take a detour, and that was my first time riding in a car down some smaller allies here at night when people's lights are on, when you can see into the backs of all the lean-to shops where people live, and also where you can see the curtains open which separate from the street some of the small single rooms where large multi-generational families live, and lots of older people are out taking their evening baths from buckets or the neighborhood pump. Also, a small procession appeared in the street with lots of loud yelling and a flower-coated shrine on a pallet, which Mrs. Ghosh referred to as "Some local day-ity", and then on the next block an entire house was on fire, so we had to turn around again and go another way, and that's how you get home from high tea in Kolkata.

I put my garlands on my pillow