Quickly in Calcutta

Here's a short update from gorgeous, curious Kolkata, where I've spent the past week with A., one of my best friends from college, and the 15 some-odd members of her immediate family.

I get the sense that my trip to Calcutta was *not* that of the average tourist. In the past seven days, maybe one full day (split between two half-days) was devoted to traditional sightseeing. The other six days went to two noble pursuits: visiting family, and eating.

I really can't emphasize those enough. I've met so many Bengalis and eaten so much Bengali food that I feel as if I've been here a month. I've witnessed so much good-natured shouting and gesturing that I might even be starting to understand the Bengali language itself. All of A.'s family thinks of me as a sister, daughter, cousin, niece, grand-daughter. In the great Bengali naming tradition, I even have my own family nickname -- "Nelli". I've received presents and compliments and slaps and reprimands. A.'s little cousins sit on my lap and call me "Didi" (elder sister), and A.'s aunt Maima (so-called because she's the wife of A.'s mother's younger brother) literally pops sweets into my mouth with her right hand, feeding me like a baby. This is the biggest, kindest, craziest family into which I have ever been welcomed. Every day there's so much morning bustling and fussing that it takes hours for everyone to shower and leave the house; every evening there are so many relatives to visit that it's midnight, or later, before we return home again. In between, there have been endless traffic jams, nights at the disco (and don't think we left the family behind!), mall-hopping, a Hindi pop-rock concert, the nicest hotel in Calcutta, washing our feet in the Ganges, darshan of Kali Ma, and a magic show.

And everywhere -- *everywhere* -- there's food. I've been stuffed to the brim with elaborate home-cooked meals, spicy Indian-Chinese fusion food, dainty French pastries, rich and flavorful snacks, and mountains of Calcutta's famous sweets. I've probably gained about 10 pounds, each one a token of the way A.'s family has deeply cared for me over the past week.