Mother India

Being back in Calcutta was just the blast of hot air and energy that I expected. Things happen fast here but somehow, at the same time, they happen really slowly. Everything is a challenge, a battle, a test of temper and of nature. My plane arrived at the airport in the middle of the hot afternoon, our pilot advised to expect a temperature of 38 degrees. I met some other travelers on the plane, and together we spent an hour looking for an ATM in the city around the airport. There were cows on the streets stopping traffic, hundreds and hundreds of yellow cabs that all assumed we had been waiting for them, cycle rickshaws, and most amusingly, a guy getting a cut throat razor shave on a barber’s chair in the middle of a swamp.

The traffic in India and the driving has to be experienced. An Indian guy said to me yesterday that he thinks the problem with traffic in Sydney is that Australian’s don’t know how to use their horns. One of the American’s I met commented that there are so many horns tooting all the time that everyone may as well quit using them altogether. I am inclined to agree with the American. I think if drivers here started using their indicators and rear vision mirrors they wouldn’t need to use their horns so much. I have been walking the streets here trying to imagine a public education campaign to stop tooting and start blinker-ing, I haven’t come up with much yet.

We headed to the grungy backpacker area of Sudder St, through peak hour traffic and bustling city life. I headed in the direction of Paragon and Hotel Maria where I had stayed last time I was here with Dan. I opted for a dorm room in Hotel Maria, paid my eighty rupees, had my photo taken for the Calcutta police records, and headed up the loopy stair case with my friend from the plane.

The room was frighteningly chaotic. I loved it instantly. There were at least fifteen beds along the wall and mine ran down the centre, leaving me to smell the backpacker feet positioned on either side of my face. Strings hung in all directions around the room with washing hanging to dry at eye level. The floor was littered with garbage and luggage. It was a clean freaks nightmare, and I was proud to be staying amidst the chaos. When it came to sleeping though, it was a different matter. Armed with my recently purchased ipod, laptop, mobile phone, beloved camera and an inch thick wad of cash in three currencies I wasn’t sure how I would pull off both sleep and material security. I strapped it all to my body in various bags and pouches, put my computer in my pillow case (unfortunately they couldn’t find me a pillow) and slept fitfully and frightfully, freaking out about the monsters made of laundry hanging over my head all night. 

We were befriended on our first night by a cute kid who crawled all over us while we drank our 15 rupee fresh juices in the street. She crawled all over our laps despite the heat and took my camera from my clutches. Clinging to the cable, determined not to lose a second camera, I let her take photos of us and the world around us. She was surprisingly good and very funny. When I finally peeled her off my lap for the last time I realized I was covered in dirt and dust from a kid who had been rolling around in Kolkata all day. 

I took a tram ride around the city with my new American friends and later explored the market and an awesome wedding procession, nearly getting bitten by camera shy rabid dogs on the way. Sudder Street life is an amazing thing. Usually backpacker and tourist districts are shady (which it definitely is here) but there is also the addition of immense poverty and people living very public private lives. Every day I see people here bathing in the gutters, cleaning their teeth, their ears, sleeping, playing with their kids in the dust and litter. I love the retreat of a hotel room to be away from everything, an oasis in the turmoil of wherever I am. It’s hard to imagine that so many people here don’t have that. My experience at Hart taught me a great deal about homelessness, the lack of privacy, the lack of rest, the relationships that people have, but this entrenched normalcy of homelessness is really confronting. The guys walking around all day pulling the rickshaws without peddles or motors then sleep in the seats or under them at night. The kids begging for food sleep on the pavements with their families. The scary old men shooting up heroine in the streets, syringes in hand, sleep and live right there where I see them, day and night.

Calcutta inspires me as much as it confronts me. I’ve let my guard down in this city and I’ve done some pretty silly things in the few days that I have been here, taking risks I shouldn’t be taking, talking to people I shouldn’t be talking to. I’ve decided to screw my head back on and leave before the momentum and people take me somewhere I really don’t want to go. I don’t know what it is about this place but it is really under my skin.

There is a big community of volunteers here working for the Mother Theresa mission doing great work with some very poor and sick people here in the city. I’ve tried to go and join in on three occasions and each time really strange things have happened that have stopped me from getting there. One day I woke up with the most incredible chest pounding anxiety, another I woke up more than two hours before I intended to, got dressed and showered and realized it was four am, I have been lost, distracted, confused, possibly mislead by some nuns… and today, I just knew I had to leave this city and that Motherhouse isn’t for me this time. I’m safe and sound, and I feel forewarned.

Tonight, another city, another adventure…