Week ending January 26, 2020

Folk Art by Lepers & Kolkata (again)

At the India International Centre, an exhibit of works by students of the Bindu Art School in Chengalpattu, down near Chennai.  Its an NGO that teaches and sells art created by leprosy victims.  We visited the school last March and were excited to see the exhibit here in Delhi and pick up a few more beautiful paintings.  We visited with Werner Dornik, an Austrian artist and founder of the school.  He noted that the art they produce is colorful, bright and positive and that the instructors have never seen expressed in it any anger, pain or frustration.  The project is self-sustaining and promotes self-reliance.

Street scene - cut sugar cane to be used either for a festival of to grind to make a sweet drink. 

 Anita Pyne choosing some delicious guava and a couple of other unknown fruits.

College Street, the location of The University of Kolkata (1857), the Presidency University (1817), Kolkata Medical College (1835), Sanskrit College and University (1824), the Hare School (1818) and the Hindu School (1817).   The street is lined with hundreds of book shops and stalls making it India’s largest book market.  We stopped for a snack at the Indian Coffee House.  Established in 1942 in the historic Albert Hall (1876), it became a meeting place for poets, artistes, literati and people from the world of art and culture.  People come for adda, the cherished Bengali pastime of debate, discussion, and intellectual exchange. 

 Us at a street in the Kolkata Book Market

 Presidency University

 India Coffee House: long-time college hangout

 Anita Pyne, Jeanette & servers

 Grant & Anita Pyne

 Looking down to the main floor from balcony - Tagore on back wall

 Us with server

 We took a cab dating from the 1950’s back to Salt Lake which lost its clutch after just a few blocks.  Grant and the driver had to push off  the trolley tracks. We caught another big yellow behemoth which got us back to the hotel.

  

 Old Ambassador taxi (like the one in which the clutch went out)-this one endorsed by Nike!  Jeanette and Anita on the right.

Dinner  at the Fantasea, a restaurant serving tribal food, with Soumya Kambhakar, Grant, Jeanette, Palmer Das, Rachana Kambhakar (Soumya's sister) and Rinki (Soumya's wife).