Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday

Women bath at Varanasi in the Ganges
Maria Bartet (mariandrea)

Many people come to die here. They want to rest in this river. Daily you can see corpses being cremated by the river and then thrown into the water.

theteach

Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday

Photo: Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Indian car culture

Rush hour in the old city of Delhi. Officials in India's capital issued more than 300,000 driver's licenses last year. At one city licensing office this week, the test consisted of turning on the ignition and driving in a wide circle that took about a minute.

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So don't complain next time you get stuck in a traffic jam. :)

theteach

Durga Pujo

Photo: Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Every year around this time, the awesome figure of a woman, with three piercing eyes and 10 arms splayed, appears in every nook and corner of Calcutta.

Half Mardi Gras and half Christmas, Durga Pujo, a five-day festival dedicated to the Hindu goddess Durga, is the most important religious event for Hindus in this part of India. Worship is only one part of the ritual.

Durga herself represents both martial prowess — spear and club in hand, she is portrayed as slaying a demon (half man, half buffalo) at her feet — and benign motherhood. The festival celebrates her homecoming with her four children in tow. Her story represents the oldest fable: the victory of good over evil.

downtown Calcutta

Read more.

theteach