Lets play catch(up)! Friday July 14

On Friday morning we enjoyed a long detour (I think we were detoured since we were 6-8 hours late). We got to see the Ganges river, the largest and holiest river in India... It was some Indians that we were sitting with that told us which river it was, Indians tend to be really helpful and friendly, though like everywhere there are the bad ones.



Like everywhere else in India, we saw the juxtaposition of povert and wealth, of necessity and of technology...

I was also convinced to take out a new loan...

So that I too can marry off my sister... Get ready Brittany!

Eventually we did arrive back in Kolkata, to the noise, pollution, traffic and cab drivers that want to rip you off... how I missed it all!
When I got back to sudder street, I bumped into my New Jersy Hare-Krishna Monk friend... Piteta (or something of that sort). He invited me to lunch so I joined him... This is their basic cosmology summed up in a poster...


We arrived early so the room for lunch wasn't filled just yet, though it would be rather soon.

Apparently they have astrologers and other types of priests which can't really be distinguished from other Hare-Krishnas, unless you ask them.

My New Jersey friend and I.
Part of my lunch... my plate was actually quite large... about 1 foot diameter. They kept coming bye with food and if you wanted more you would just said yes.

I then went to the actual temple part and saw them awaken their Gods... (I think that's what they did) and they also offered them gifts. These two sets of statues are the same Gods in different forms... the second set (the cartoonish looking ones) are the trance forms of the first, when they were away from their homes and missed them, they went into a trance recalling all their childhood fun.


one of the monks making an offering.
This is a form of Krishna known amongst devotees for protection(you can't see it well but he's tearing apart an enemy).

And this tree is actually a spiritual being... one of Krishna's good friends.

Oh how much I learn, and how much I'm streched being in such a foreign land!