Life with Hilary Flockhart
The number of gods worshipped in Hinduism ranges from 33 to 330 million depending on what source you read! Suffice it to say that there are a lot of them and it follows that there are many religious festivals. In Bengal, Durga Puja, the biggest festival of all, takes place in the autumn and this year the bank holiday starts today, 27 September. Continue reading “Bengali Festival – Durga Puja”
Some friends have visited India on holiday and others have had extended stays studying yoga, working on parasitological or humanitarian projects. When describing their visits, the conversation inevitably mentions the dirt, poverty, garbage, lack of toilet facilities and other grim realities of life in India. Why are these issues unresolved in the twenty-first century and what is being done to improve the situation? Continue reading “Shit happens – Swacch Bharat Mission”
My little idyll of trekking around the foothills of the Himalayas for 4 months was brought to an abrupt end by the political unrest in Darjeeling District and I escaped down to Siliguri by jeep and took a plane to Kolkata. I arrived disappointed, disgruntled and disillusioned in a city I knew nothing about but was pretty certain I didn’t want to be in! Continue reading “Kolkata – beautiful destination?”
My recent travels in the north of West Bengal took me to Rimbick, Darjeeling District where I came face to face with the actions of the Gorkha Peoples’ Liberation Front (the GJM). Continue reading “Gorkhaland”