Astronomical!

Down the street, there is a crowd of raging political protesting types with a big sound system and multicolor banners and slogans. when they marched past us earlier this afternoon, they seemed carefree and in good humor. Teenage boys in the crowd waved and stared at us before they began to laugh and insult a traffic cop. Now the guy with the microphone is working it like a cross between an auctioneer and bootsy collins... astronomical! This is the Dhaka that we find ourselves in.

George Clinton and Mr. Wiggles, the rollerstaking worm, never acheived the funkentelechy of our AC-bus driver from the Bangladesh/India border. We giggled and squirmed through rolling highways, broken bridges and crowded one street villages. The china-made bus resembled an elephant more than a worm on a rollerskate. Fancy race NASCAR graphics with images of "Bus Stop" and speeding cars across the sides, we did little dodging. We owned the road. We were the biggest and swiftest player so the bicycle rickshaws, smaller cars and motorcycles scattere to the sides when our driver hit the horn and we rolled through. The only swerving was when we occasionally approached oncoming busses of equal mass and velocity. M and I had front row seats to the action. It was reassuring to know that if we did hit anything, or had to stop fast, we would be the first through the windscreen... Better to go quickly.

Our last day in Kolkatta was filled with excursions in the muslim sections. I bought new glasses, and some new lenses for my old frames, as the old lenses were fractured and kept popping out. There was some worry as the glasses-wallah didn't have everything for us at the time we planned. We sat in the midst of teaming Rabindra Sarani and bargained with bangla speaking dry fruit vendors over the price of cashews , almonds and mango chunks. I served as an advertisement for the pomagranite juice guy, who gave me a chair and kept feeding me seeds after we enjoyed a glass of juice with garamsala. M didn't like, but it was like a sweet bloody mary. If only we had vodka...