Life In Pailan

Pailan (pronounced as ‘Poilan’) is 2 hours away from Howrah and Sealdah Train Stations. It is 3 hours away from the Airport and 1.5 hours away by bus and taxis from the City Center of Kolkata.

In other words, Pailan is located in the outskirts of the City of Kolkata!

It is where cows and goats and dogs and other animals travel freely along the narrow village roads. It is where one can find ‘M-I-S’ (Men In Skirts) confidently walking in pairs or in groups, holding hands and fingers intertwined. It is where village women wearing old and torn sarees and small children walk briskly to fetch water from the deep well and carry big water jars over their heads. Finally, it is where my campus called CINI is located. CINI stands for Child In Need Institute. As the name implies, the organization is into Health, Nutrition, Protection, and Education for Children, Adolescents and Women in ‘need’. Been around for 35 years has made the organization an institution in the NGO world. Creating an impact to the organization as HR Consultant, I presume, would take years to notice or would be having minimal visibility due to the huge size of the organization with several branch/projects offices all over some states in India, which requires me to take official trips. But off I work creating some small ‘changes’ to the organization’s HR.

Life in Pailan is very laid back and peaceful, the same as the people around. Morning walk to Dayam Ashram (A Jesuit Meditation Center) of 20 minutes was never boring in Pailan. For many months I have been here, walking the same road going to Dayam Ashram, I still receive unfamiliar stare and gaze from the people I passed by. While some greet me out of nowhere and smiles at me, saying ‘Saw you again’. After many months I have been here, I am still being asked, “Are you from Korea?”, Nope. “Japanese!”… Duh???!

Every morning, this laid back volunteer (me!), tried so hard to wake up at 5:30am and do her 20-minute morning walk to Dayam Ashram. In 10 months she had been here, she managed only one week of complete morning walks from Monday to Friday to the Dayam Ashram chapel to attend morning mass with Jesuit seminarians and priests. In most of the weeks, it was 2-3 times morning walks. Funny, these seminarians and priests wonder where she is when she’s not around for long periods. At first, these guys were skeptical why this lone female specie keeps coming to their exclusive and peaceful morning prayers. Trips to Delhi, Seminars and Tours prompted them to ask her where she had been and why she was gone for too long…hmmmmnnn, missing me already!

Yoga, Music Lesson, and Language Lessons often brought me out of Pailan a few evenings in a week. Bengali music lessons were done only 3-4 days in a month while language lessons are every Mondays and Fridays/Saturdays. Yoga class is more flexible, one should attend 12 times in a month any day of the week, once in a day. Other nights in Pailan were spent dinning in neighbors’ houses and eating out with some friends in some food shops near Pailan. My Indian classical dance lesson (scheduled every Friday) was stopped after my first few lessons due to the successive trips to Delhi and other parts which caused my teacher some headaches and blood pressure why I am always not around…My teacher asked, ”Verona, are you really interested to learn Indian dance or not???”…ah…err…maybe we’ll talk when I get back from my yet another trip to Delhi. My teacher never called me again.

Every weekend is a Market Day for me. I keep my diet on fish and vegetables. I only eat Chicken when I didn’t see how it suffered just to be eaten by hungry humans. Buying chicken in Pailan is a gross experience. It is killed in front of you by wringing its neck or banging its head on the stone wall and slowly peeling off its skin out with its head and feathers (urrrrghhh!). This is how they show that your chicken is fresh and good to eat. Hmmn… I’d be happy eating fish the whole year! Fishes and shrimps are quite tasty and very fresh in the market. Enjoy so much buying prawns and tasty fishes. One can get so much for a 100 rupees weighed in a manual and metallic and rustic and old fashioned weighing scale. I never thought this type of weighing scale existed at this day and age. But I like it a lot seeing it for the first time, the symbol of Justice came to life!

Cooking is another wonderful experience. I found out I could cook tasty food by myself or maybe it was just an imagination because nobody’s here to cook for me. Anyhow, cooking and experimenting recipes was such an exciting and novel thing do in this ever peaceful environment. Never knew that my Pasta would taste heavenly with just loads of tomatoes and a few pieces of shrimps. Thanks to Andy and Vincent’s recipes of culinary arts of cooking pasta.

By and large, living in Pailan had showed me how simple a life can be. Simple things always bring joyful thoughts to my ever joyful soul. Will miss Pailan and its laid back daily life dearly.