Our Belfast to London flight left us with most of a day to spare so we took the children for a spin on the London Eye. Needless to say they loved it. They took aerial photos of Big Ben etc. Dara kept pretending to push Toraigh off. Thurs morning early we boarded for Kolkata, a long haul but hassle free.
Naveen met us at the airport at 3am (Indian time)and we were taken to temporary accommodation in his mother-in-laws, a beautiful old 'colonial' house (Naveen is Director of the Seagull Foundation and is the cultural leader that Shona will work with while we are in India). Jet-lagged we headed down Park St. for an afternoon stroll, omelettes and ice cream in Flurrys. In an effort to get the kids used to all this new spicy food - Toraigh ate a tiny piece chilli for 100 rupees. It was like an image from Scooby doo with shaggy and the dog drinking buckets of water to quench burning volcanic mouths! At this point we are still acclimatising and getting over the jet lag.
The two girls will be attending their new school next week which should be an event. We have contacted Sister Cyril and she is expecting us. A message for Sister Grace - I have purchased 20 tin whistles, and a couple of music CD's and a great music book; the two girls hope to be able to teach a few tunes and hopefully learn a few tunes, from their new class mates.
Toraigh and Dara have some things to say to their friends:
From Dara: I AM HAVINg a very good time here it is vary nice p.s i miss you's.
From Toraigh: I am having an extremely great time!! I miss you very much! And I went on the London eye, it takes half an hour to do one circle! I am starting scool in India next week!!! I am looking forwood to seeing you again, but that will be in four months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First input from Shona. Hello to all who care to visit our blog. It is great to be back in Calcutta again and it is a very beautiful time of year to be here. We left the frost and rain and winds of ballycastle and london for the hazy January sun of india. It is just about right for us now, though they tell us it will seriously heat up by the end of Feb and we may be running for the shade. No cries of sympathy out there I'm sure.
Vinny, you asked about the fellowship. I was nominated for and successful in the assessment process for a Nesta cultural leadership award. The main premise of these awards is that not enough people from the cultural sector in the UK and Ireland work in an international context. The award supports the fellow to spend up to 6 months working with a cultural leader in another country and all the learning and expanded thinking that this entails. I chose to come to Calcutta and work with Naveen Kishore who is both Director of the Seagull Foundation and an individual artist (photographer, theatre designer, writer). The Seagull Foundation is a contemporary centre for the arts that has three separate locations and includes a multi-media resource centre, with an archive of nearly 5,000 films and a specialism in documentaries; a publishing house called Seagull books with a wide range of art-focussed books, journals and catalogues; a library and bookshop.
Seagull is an interesting place, on the surface a small venture, but punches far above its weight. They have a great ethos and a genuine commitment to developing work and projects that challenge the status quo and encourage us to think about what it means to be human in the 21st century. They remind me of the Nerve Centre in Derry, in many ways, not limited by definitions, open and responsive to creative ideas and viral. Anyway, there are many ideas for ways that I can work with Naveen and his team over the next 4 months. They have been amazingly warm and welcoming to all of us, and for these first couple of weeks I will take more time to get to know the team and all that they are aiming to do. I've brought over books from Belfast's Lagan press, a selection of films related to Ireland (north and south and examples of work in the arts from NI. At the very least we will make this the beginning of an exchange of knowledge and contacts and networks.
I'm making a documentary film piece of our experiences out here, so we promise to bore the pants of all of you with our films and photos and tales of Calcutta as the weeks go on. This is a sprawling, hectic, colourful, noisy, city of contradictions with an energy and rhythm that is very much its own.
Hope to hear from some body out there who has time to tell us something in return.
Good luck for now
