End of Course, Part One

The coming of Spring brought about the long-awaited final month of the course. To celebrate, almost the entire month was dedicated to end-of-course parties. First up was the final party at my own house. We had a packed house of over 50 people, and it was great to close the year with the good friends I'd made throughout the course.

Me, Jeff, AJ and Jose

Standing: Dorji (Bhutan), Naeem (Afghanistan), Riva (Indonesia), Dung (Vietnam), Jerome (Lesotho), Ali (Oman) and Ruwan (Sri Lanka); Seated: Celestine (Nigeria), Michael (Zambia), Ahmed (Saudi Arabia), Zul and kids (Malaysia)

Vikas, Jeff, Steve, AJ, Alex and me

Gangs, Rohit and Neetu, Jeff, Phady and me

AJ and Alex smoke cigars--they'd both be sick within the hour.

Other assorted parties followed shortly thereafter, including...

Naeem and I enjoying cocktails at Anurag's house.

Me, Naeem, Ali, Anurag, Mohammed and Amin at dinner.

Bangladesh National Day and Alim's son Arik's birthday. L: Alim and Lia hold Arik; R: Alim, Dung, Celestine, me, Michael and Santosh

Posing with the Bangladeshis...Siddique and Alim

Party at Jeff's: Me, Tim, Jeff, Mohammed and Ruslan

Another highly-anticipated end-of-course event was the Mounted Gymkhana. This exhibition was put on by the riding club and showcased the many equestrian events at the College. Though I didn't participate in the riding, it made for an interesting morning and no one fell of their horse.

L: Mounted ceremonial guards R: Regimental pipers...who knew there were so many Scottish Indians?

Polo exhibition

Tent pegging--basically, charging down a line and spearing a block on the ground...preferably without falling off of the horse or turning yourself into a pole vaulter

Equestrain team parade

Show jumping

The College still holds traditional fox hunts...here they display riding to the hounds.

Calcutta

The end of the fifth term at Staff College brought about our final term break. My friend Alex (UK) and I decided to head north to the city of Calcutta, or Kolkata as it's now called. Calcutta is a city of around 15 million and the third-largest city in India (behind Mumbai and Delhi). Calcutta also has a storied history as the one-time capital of India during the British Raj-era. Calcutta is polluted, dirty, over-crowded and full of poverty. But it's also a vital part of India with a vibrant culture, loads of colonial architecture and intense spirituality. After settling in at our hotel (the Oberoi Grand, which I now highly recommend), we took a quick walk around the old British administrative part of town.

The Writer's Building, now an Indian government office building.

The General Post Office, built over the site of old Fort William and the Black Hole of Calcutta incident.

L: Posing in front of the memorial for the victims of the Black Hole.
R: In the cemetery at St. John's Church...lots of memorials for British colonials who died of exotic diseases

View of a small boat crossing the Hooghly River at sunset.

The next day we hired a car and driver and took a half-day guided tour of the city. First stop was the Motherhouse, the house where Mother Teresa lived and still the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa's living quarters are still maintained as when she was alive...a very simple, small room with just a cot and a desk.

L: Mother Teresa's tomb
R: Grotto in the Motherhouse

Door to the Motherhouse.

Next we visited the Pareshnath Jain Temple. Jains are an offshoot of Hinduism that stress the sancitity of all living things. The whole temple was decorated with mirrors and semi-precious stones, and to be honest, gave off a bit of a garish Velvet Elvis vibe.

L: Front of the temple, R: Posing with a statue of the temple's builder

An easter-egg colored museum attached to the temple.

We also stopped at the Victoria Memorial, a huge classical stone building filled with statues of famous British figures from India's colonial past. Alex felt right at home.

Calcutta's vibrant culture can best be seen in the cities markets. College Street is right near Calcutta University and is full of stall after stall of used book sellers.

The flower market is located underneath the Howrah Bridge along the banks of the Hooghly River. This market is filled with vendors making and selling flowers for religious rituals.

After checking out the markets, we moved to the south side of town to visit the Kalighat Temple. This temple is dedicated to the goddess Kali, and is responsible for the city's name. Like most Hindu temples, Kalighat was packed with worshippers straining to see the goddess idol. Kali is a goddess of death and destruction. There was an altar behind the temple where worshippers could pay to sacrifice goats to the goddess. Interesting. Unfortunately, photos weren't allowed inside the temple.

The streets around Kalighat with the temple in the background.

Right next to Kalighat is Mother Teresa's Home for the Sick and Dying.

Overall, the chaos of Calcutta seems uniquely Indian and is worth the trip if you can deal with the filth and masses of humanity. Some final scenes of chaotic Calcutta streets...

Streetcar traffic jam...the tram is coming towards the camera, but no one's in any of those cars...

Busy intersection, count the different types of taxis...regular cab, auto-rickshaw, bike rickshaw and foot rickshaw.

March Happenings

As March rolled around, it had been many weeks since our last Happy Hour. Since Texas Independence Day was on March 2nd, I offered up my place to host a mid-exercise Happy Hour. It was also a great chance to expose my foreign friends to some Texas culture. Unfortunately, my access to Shiner Bock and Tex-Mex was a bit limited; so we settled for cold Kingfisher and some good Texas tunes on my iPod.

Jazna, Hilde and Lisa discuss world politics.

Jose demonstrates the power of his new iPhone knock-off.

Posing with the ladies of the party.

The fellas...

The following week was the celebration of Holi. Holi is a Hindu festival of color which marks the coming of spring. The festival is traditionally celebrated by walking from house to house and bombarding everyone you meet with water and colored powder. It makes for a fine mess and pretty good fun. I spent the day hanging out with my friends, and the evening trying to scrub the powder out of my body's every nook and cranny.

Dave, Karthik, Ali and Shamim have drinks.

Enjoying the sun and a nice layer of tikka powder.

Steve, Lanka, Ali, Shamim, Alex, Jeff, Dave and I show off our colors.

At the end of the fifth term, all of the foreign officers got together in their best uniforms to take a picture. These guys really did make the year tolerable, and now I have friends to visit all over the world.

All of the foreign students.

Air Wing foreign students: Riva (Indonesia), Michael (Zambia), Ki-Nam (Korea), Celestine (Nigeria), Lanka (Sri Lanka), me, Alex (UK), Chris (Singapore) and Shamim (Bangladesh)

Party Catch Up

February was the month for catching up on foreign officer partying. First up was Sri Lankan Independence Day on February 4th. We have three Sri Lankan officers in our class, and they threw a party at Lanka's house (the SLAF officer).

With the Sri Lankans...Ranjith, Lanka and Ruwan

On the balcony with Ali (Oman) and Zaw Oo (Myanmar)

Sri Lankans cut the cake.

The next weekend we had a birthday party for my US Army compatriot, Jeff.

Vanessa (Australia) presents her custom-made "boob cake" for the birthday boy.

The Southeast Asian contingent: Chris (Singapore), Zaw Oo and Lin (Myanmar), Riva (Indonesia), Dung (Vietnam), and Zul (Malaysia)

Smoking cigars with Tera, Shamim (Bangladesh) and Chris

L: Playing guitar with spoon accompaniment by Ruslan (Ukraine)
R: Zaw Oo leads the campfire songs

The last party in February was for my friends Siddique and Nishat from Bangladesh. They hosted a party to celebrate their wedding anniversary and World Mother Language Day.

Siddique and Nishat with their daughter Nureen get ready to cut the cake.

With Siti (Fiji) and Ali (Oman)

Assorted other February pics...

Watching the monkeys dig through trash during our daily tea break...me, Tim (UK), Siti and Alex (UK)

Enjoying lunch at our favorite garden restaurant...Claire (UK), Lisa (Singapore), me, Alex and Chris

Each sunday the Sikh temple hosts langer, a community lunch. This particular Sunday our friend Jasween invited me and the Chews.

Another Aussie B-Day

With the IDT now safely behind us, it was time to get back to the real business of my one year in India...foreign officer parties. The next event to celebrate was Dave from Australia's birthday. If you recall (or check back to the August entries), Dave's son Tommy had an India snake/fire dancer as entertainment. Dave decided that it would only be right to bring him back for an encore performance. Unfortunately, the fire dancer broke his arm the day before the party, so the fire dancer's brother had to step in as a last minute minute substitute (though the original couldn't be kept off the stage for long). Regardless, it was nice to get all of the foreign officers back together after the long mid-term break and the IDT. Snakes, fire, fireworks and Indian beer made for just the right mix of danger and alcohol to have a proper Aussie birthday.

Jeff, Tim (UK) and I celebrate Dave's birthday.

Group chaos.

Dave's brother-in-law Ben mans the fireworks display.

Nepalis get started early.

The birthday boy shows off his Aussie barbie skills and new Nepali topi.

And back by popular demand, more homo-erotic stylings of the Indian fire dancer...with opening act by his brother.