Kolkata and the Best Zero Waste Event Ever!

We are a bit backlogged on our blogging, but we wanted to write ab0ut K0lkata before our 10-day vipassana course that starts TOMORROW!!! Scary, 10 days of silence and about 10 hrs of meditation each day. If we can get through this though we think we can get through anything. Right now we are sitting in an internet cafe in Bodh Gaya escaping the tourist traps and little kids trying to get money out of us. I think we both have a hard time saying no to people, especially kids, and we have been swarmed the past couple days here from every angle.
Despite that, I think both of us can truly say we would rather Indians be over friendly than not friendly at all. We have been extremely lucky in terms of meeting people and being invited to events and homes everywhere. Our last day in Kolkata this worked to our favor when a Sikh friend we had made invited us to accompany him to the birthday party of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, a central figure in Sikhism. I made the mistake of thinking he was still alive and that we might see him, only later to find out he was born around 1469?! I think we both agree with the Sikh form of celebration, 3 days of continuous free food for everyone! We walked in to literally thousands of Indians shuffling in and out of the celebration and quickly covering our heads with makeshift cloths and hiding our shoes in a corner. Our new friend, Upender Singh, showed us around to the cooking area and we were allowed to "help" make chapati bread for a few minutes, which involved them correcting our mistakes more than anything!! It took me a bit, but after my second cup of chai in a reuseable mug, I asked Upender where the trash can was. He pointed to a tiny empty basket, which moments later was just filled with reuseable mugs (later handwashed for more chai).
How incredible, literally 50,000 people+ and over three days of continuous eating and NO TRASH!!! Not just was there no trash, but no recyclable bottles only, just compostable dried leaf plates, food and mugs. The food was made in huge tubs jointly, with the richest and poorest Sikh alike cooking side by side. The food was eaten with your hands and the plates taken into a huge pit and later fed to livestock and composted. The most incredible part for us was that not one event goer realized the significance of what they were doing, no one was touting their environmentalism, there were no Zero Waste signs, people just did it. It was like, of course, why should there be trash. This is not to say the hygenic standards (if any) were spectacular, but Ashley and felt good and the vegetarian food was pretty damn good! The welcome we received was very warm from everyone there as well. Hopefully throughout our trip we will keep falling into events like this and learning from the simplicity some have to offer.