Our first stop on our whirlwind adventure over the next three weeks was Kolkata - which is a city that is pretty hard to sum up because it is full of so many opposite extremes. We took a long lay-over (2 full days) in Kolkata on our way to Dhaka primarily because there were several tabla maker shops Allen was interested in seeing.... our impressions are probably best described through a pros-cons list:
Very visible signs of public sanitation: PROAmazing what simply adding garbage cans on street corners will do. Also there really weren't any cows wandering around the city (only in the suburbs). The open sewers were still sort of there, but because there were long and wide sidewalks everywhere, you really hardly noticed it.
Blurred line between public and private:
CON The sidewalks, as I said, were a plus and easily managed foot traffic --- as long as there weren't whole communities taking up residence on them. We've seen families living on the streets of large cities before -- maybe it was the presence of the sidewalks, I don't know, but here it had the feeling of being inappropriate ... or maybe it was just the sheer numbers of people living, eating, bathing on the streets that made it different this time.
Lots of Pretty Old buildings: PROThe Victoria M
emorial (pictured) is just one of the many examples of some amazing architecture. The city has little jewels scattered here and there - it is worth the look up every once in a while.
Lots of Pretty Parks: PROHold-overs from when this was the British capital of India - but there was a very clear attempt and creating lots and lots of green space in this city
... that are over-run with goats: CONI should mention that actually most of the parks were almost impossible to get into and out of because they were fenced in, in many cases with barbed wire ... the parks overrun with goats (and garbage) were the ones most like open (public) fields ... and accordingly they were treated as such.
Like any big city, traffic was a nightmare: CONBut not only for the reasons you might expect ...firstly, streets can have upwards of three different names (governments have changed many of the names for there own ends). Secondly, many of the major arteries were made one way streets ... OK ... but they change direction at 2pm... but the trolleys that are on the same roads do NOT change direction ... try keeping all that straight.
Public Transportation: PROI mentioned the trolleys but they also have buses, a metro, and a fixed-route auto-rickshaw system. Yellow ambassador taxis were definitely the most identifiable form of transportation, but the existence of the metro, in particular, was an out-of-towner's dream.
Existence of tana rickshaws: CONI personally find riding in cycle rickshaws pretty hard sometimes (particularly when I need to go uphill) ... but imagine a rickshaw without the cycle - this gentleman is just pulling you by foot (not to mention that he's counterbalancing your weight so you don't go flying backwards). Just seemed like a seriously bad idea given how much gas-driven traffic there was in this city.
Motorcycle passengers were wearing helmets too: PROI even saw a family, father, son, mother, all wearing helmets on one motorcycle. Amazing!
Being accosted by begging children and grown men alike: SUPER-CONTwo memories that will be burned in my muscle memory for quite some time are literally pulling my clothes out of the fingers of small begging children and being touched by an adult man on the street. The heartache I felt at having to push
a child away ... there aren't really words for it. Plus the embarrassment I felt at being touched -- I whirled around and shouted "Hey! @*%$ YOU!" --- and to have
no one respond, and the perp just walk away as if I had just said a polite greeting. I want to believe that New York would be different (Allen disagrees) ... I want - no, need - to believe that in the United States if a woman confronted a man by shouting in his face, even if it was in a foreign language, someone in the surrounding crowd would at least have the response of
looking surprised!
I'm still pretty jaded about these experiences if you can tell. Kolkata is probably the hardest place I've ever visited, period - let alone for India. You'll notice there are really no pictures - mostly because I was in shock all the time or was really uncomfortable about taking out my camera.
Was everything terrible? No, of course not, but it never is all terrible. This city was just so extreme that it was hard to get your bearings: you would find a little oasis, like Victoria Memorial or Park Street Cemetery --- which were relics of the Raj, mind you --- but once you stepped out onto the street again this city and its people were immediately back in your face.... begging, groping, washing, sleeping... Your 5th Ave and your Bronx were mixed up together on Park Street... it was hard to keep straight because many of the images you saw were troubling.
Is it better for these things to be hidden? Is that what they are in the US, just hidden? I'd like to think that we have better safety nets for families in trouble - but the truth is I just don't know. I don't think the US is perfect, but there is something so radically different about how people
live on the streets here.
But maybe too this is just a part of the culture that I just haven't learned to wrap my head around: this difference between private space and public space. Americans (Westerners, if I can be so bold to presume) have a strong belief in protecting one's own and respecting other's privacy. We use sayings like TMI (too much information). We close our bedroom doors. We expect our children to want their own rooms and to eventually want their own homes --- and in some cases, this is a welcome relief to their parents
so they can have their own space back. Yes, we're gossip hogs too: but we justify those tendencies by saying that celebrity's have given up their right to privacy by entering the
public sphere.
One's own space... what does that mean, what can that mean in a country where multi-generational households are still the norm? But some things are private - breasts should be covered by duppatas .... and others are not... but minuscule blouses under your sari that shows your middrift is fine.
I don't really know... Kolkata really sort of messed with my head. I'm going through a moment of pretty extreme culture shock --- which is so unfortunate as we've got another two weeks of traveling to do.
