An Accident of Birth [Jim]

Happy Puja! ‘Tis Durga Puja here in Kolkata; the biggest Holiday of the year in a land which knows no end of Holidays (the month of October alone has three other major holidays—all with days off work, naturally). The most exciting part of Durga Puja lasts from Thursday night until Monday—picture four straight days of Christmas Festivities and you get something like the picture.

But, a full report of Durga Puja needs pictures. And thus, Dear Reader, you will have to wait.

So let us move quickly to the Mold Report. First, we must Journey Back a bit into Time (not literally, of course). [By the way, I read Wells’ The Time Machine this week—clever, to be sure. The last time I read it, I was too young to see the anti-Capitalist undertone. Ah, but now I am surrounded by Communists and Socialists; I am not sure if Modern Day Kolkata would make Wells happy or not. But, I digress. (Shocking, to be sure).] Long-time Readers of this space will surely recall Our Dear, Dear Lily’s Pathos-Inducing Tale of Woe regarding a Stroll through water. What Long-Time readers were not informed was that the next day Our Dear, Dear Emma (who seems to have inherited Janet’s proclivity toward the morally questionable activity of blogging [as an aside, there is one key difference between Emma and Janet in this respect; Emma is required to write blog entries as part of her school work and sometimes they rise to the level of postable (the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth accounts of how she went to the coffee shop and got a chocolate shake and it was really good were deemed otherwise); Janet, however, being (well) past the Years of Mandatory Schooling, has no such compulsion])—as I was saying Our Dear, Dear Emma went out on the Day Following with Your Humble Narrator to the British Council Library. Emma insisted on a taxi ride, rather than a stroll through Streets Most Flooded, but alas, the Taxi could not reach dry land when we arrived at our destination, necessitating making two steps in ankle-deep (not, Lily would be quick to note, thigh-deep) water. I was wearing my Top-siders, leather shoes one can wear without socks and thus beloved of people who don’t like socks. {I am not unaware that you are presently wondering why my footwear is of interest. It isn’t. Nothing in this blog is of Interest, and yet, you Dear Reader read it anyway. Go figure.) When we arrived back home, I put said footwear in our shoe holder—a two foot high cabinet that sits in the hall. Fast forward to Last Night. I was departing for the Durga Puja Activities downstairs in the apartment complex and I pulled out my Top-siders. Until now, said shoes were black; Last night they were green. A sort of a moldy green. And the new color was both inside and out. Upon closer inspection, I realized said Shoes were actually Alive. [I hasten to add for anyone who is worried, that there are no mold spores or bacteria at all on Mars, so the new growth is surely of Earthly Origin. I learned this in Wells’ War of the Worlds which I read this week. Clever story; Socialist undertones; déjà vu all over again.] At that point, (the point in which I discovered that my shoes were alive, not the point at which I read War of the Worlds); I was faced with a horrible dilemma. Should I slay the mold growing happily on my shoes or should I rather give it a name, adopt it into the family, and provide something for the Newest Addition to the Hartley Household portion of the Annual Christmas Letter. The decision was too weighty. So, I went barefoot to the Durga Puja Festivities, this being the Land where people using their God-given Footwear are not Out of the Ordinary.

This morning, I committed Genocide or Speciecide or Moldocide or something like that. A bit of water and Lizol did the trick (I think, but more about hat anon). Lizol should not be confused with Lysol; only the latter is available in America. The fine product Lizol is unavailable presumably due to pernicious Trademark Laws in the United States. Said shoes are now resting on the window ledge, drying out. Only Time will tell if the Mold was entirely eradicated. So, for those of you Rooting for the Mold in this story, consider it a cliffhanger ending.

In other non-Durga Puja News:

1. Wednesday I was on a panel discussion organized by the US Consulate. The topic was the Future of Retail Business in India. I talked abut Wal-Mart and Economic Growth. The audience had quite a few people who sounded a lot like Marxists—one complained about how hypermarkets paid artificially low prices to their suppliers. This was News to me—until now I though all prices were artificial, but apparently the Marxist Vision includes Naturally Occurring Prices—perhaps they evolved like the cheetah. IT seems there is a good section of India who believes they will be able to attain Western levels of wealth while simultaneously maintaining everyone in exactly he same job they currently have.

2. My class on Thursday was cancelled. It was due to start at 12:30. I had heard rumors from the students the day before that it was cancelled, but it wasn’t until 11:30 that I received official notification. Such is India.

3. We hired a cook this week. She comes in to make dinner whenever we want. Since making dinner here takes between 90 and 120 minutes, this is no small saving of time for the Previous Cook.

4. The Fantasy Baseball Championship ends on Sunday. I am ahead, but it is very, very tight. After a stunning first week, my batters seem to have forgotten how to hit a homerun; my pitching recovered, and at present all 8 of the pitching categories could go either way. This thing is closer than St. Louis’ potentially epic collapse. And, by the way, I am revising my World Series prediction in light of Recent Events—I am no longer so sure of the Mets. The Yankees still go in the AL; but the NL is up for grabs. Lest I be accused of waffling, I will make a prediction once the playoff field is settled.

5. I have heard a strange report that this year the Mount Holyoke News has become...readable. Can such things be True? Has the World turned upside down? Can anyone confirm this Report?