Back to the Salt Mines--Transcribing and Finalizing Calcutta Conference Presentation

Monday, December 10, 2018
Bombay

Back to the Salt Mines--Transcribing and Finalizing Calcutta Conference Presentation 

     Namaste from Bombay!
     Monday rolled around again, but as I had no interviews or assignments in the city, I could take it easy. I awoke at 5. 30 and began blogging, checking out Twitter and downloading The Times. Determined to get to the gym for a workout this morning, I ate my breakfast--finishing up the bread I bought--so two slices of bread (that I have learned how to toast without burning using my microwave--yipppeee!) with Nutella, peanut butter, honey cream cheese. And two cups of coffee to wash it all down.
      I was reveling in the delicious weather (especially in the mornings and evenings when the clear cool air feels like are oxygen in the lungs) as I made my five-minute walk to the gym.  One hourly workout later and a chat with a gentleman who made conversation with me and I was done. He recognized my name from my byline in The Examiner--fancy that! and he has a daughter who lives not far away from us in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Then I was back home for a shower.
     I began working right after that--although attending to email responses took a while, I also found some time to finalize our annual Christmas greetings--which I shall soon start to send out as I am traveling in North India next week.
     Transcribing my interview with Khushroo Suntook, Director of the NCPA, took the rest of the morning. I realized what a joy it was to chat with him--he is so full of fascinating anecdotes about the performing arts in Bombay and is such a genial personality that it was great to re-live our conversation and also, simultaneously prepare myself for our continued meeting tomorrow when I shall return to his office at the NCPA. I shall also use the opportunity to continue my reading in the library there.
     I stopped for a late lunch at 2.00 pm--a new tiffin had been delivered and I enjoyed a pan roll, a cutlet, chicken curry and cabbage fougad. During lunch, I watched The Two Fat Ladies--to whom I have become very attached again! This time they were in the university town of Cambridge cooking for the rowers of Cambridge Eight and somewhere in Warborough setting up Afternoon Tea for a Cricket Club's Eleven. Can you think about anything more English that that??!!
     I took my 20 minute power nap and then awoke to start the second phrase of work--based on items on my To-Do List. I went back to the conference paper that I will be presenting in Calcutta just before Christmas and added and edited a few bits and bobs to finalize it. The conference on Anglo-Indians will be held at the Derozio Library of the University of Calcutta. I am very much looking forward to the joy of meeting some of my research-oriented colleagues and global scholars in Calcutta and of rekindling connections with many of them. It should be fun.
     Also, since Calcutta and the state of West Bengal are just next door to Orissa (a state in which I have never traveled), I am also looking forward to my week-long sojourn in it. It is chockfull of gloriously carved Hindu temples plus it has a gorgeous Lake (Chilka) and a world-class beach at Puri--where we will be staying in a sea-front hotel. My friend Nafisa (who had accompanied me to Italy in July) and her husband Hosefa will be my companions on this trip--so it should be a hoot. I am looking forward to riding in the Indian trains again (so romantic and so evocative of colonial India--those beautiful trains) and of taking in the sophisticated Bengali class and culture of Calcutta.
     When I was done with my paper and had cut it down to presentation size (no longer than 20 minutes), I worked on the accompanying Powerpoint presentation--adding and subtracting visuals as necessary. I am going to speak on Female Migrant Labor in Imperial Britain--specially the role of 'Ayahs' (child-minders or 'nannies') and the possibility of Anglo-Indian women being part of the mix of Asian women who played this role during the Raj. My paper will be based on research that I carried out at the British Library, two years ago, while on the Global Research Institute Fellowship that I had received from NYU which had kept me in London for the Fall 2016 semester. A much-longer, more detailed and less personal version of this presentation had been made by me at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 2016 and will be published shortly in an anthology on Gender and Migration, edited by Crispin Bates of Scotland.
     I finished the Powerpoint presentation and went on to assemble all the items I need to photocopy for my upcoming trip--flight itinerary, travel itinerary--and pages from my Lonely Planet India for our sightseeing in Orissa. I emailed all this to myself with the idea of getting it all printed out after Mass this evening.
   It was 5.00 pm when I stopped for a pot of tea and biscuits and then I dressed and set off for Dad's. I spent about half an hour chatting with Russel and then Dad and I left for 7.00 pm Mass. After Mass, I went off to Jay, my photocopy man, and armed with my printouts, I returned home.
     It was time for dinner--a repeat of my lunch--and a movie. I began to watch Hot Fuzz--which is on the list of most popular British movies on Netflix.  It has a funny side, I have to admit, and it has a real star cast of actors...there are so many I recognize from the loads of British entertainment we watch including Jim Broadbent, Tim Freeman, Bill Nighy, Alan Partridge, Olivia Coleman, Anne Reid, Lucy Punch, Bill Bailey--all doing silly cameo roles--but I did not finish the entire film as it is 3 hours long. I stopped to wash up my dishes and then brush and floss my teeth. I did a bit of reading before I fell asleep (feeling so thankful for this opportunity to live here so happily in Bombay on this Fulbright Fellowship), after what had been another hugely productive day.
     Until tomorrow...