Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Going Places

After a looooong but perfect journey, we made it to Kolkata! Our connections in JFK and Delhi worked perfectly and all of our baggage (miraculously) made it from Rochester to Kolkata without a hitch. The most beautiful moment thus far:

We were standing at the conveyor belt waiting for our luggage when a group of Muslim people, as part of the annual pilgrammage to Mecca, moved through our horseshoe-shaped crowd to the next conveyor belt to our right. More people continued to join them until the whole space turned white. Between the hazy atmosphere, our travel exhaustion, and the florescent lights, the contrast between our space and theirs was heightened; our space defined by endless colors of black and theirs by white, glowing light that appeared to radiate from within. A buzzer went off and someone from the primarily Muslim group realized that the bags from their flight were coming through on a different conveyor belt. Within seconds, those dressed in long, white, flowing clothing weaved through the stable darkness of our crowd and quickly reorganized on the other side, creating a new, radiating white space. It could have been performance art.

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