back in Kolkata (again)

Well, it's nice to travel and see new places, but Kolkata has called me back to her warm embrace. Arrived in Howrah station at midnight, slept on a bench until four, when the place started getting busy. After an hour of waiting, took a taxi to New Market and walked to Sudder Street.

The Best Guesthouse in the Universe was full at six AM, and the friendly staff told me to come back in a couple of hours. I grabbed my two backpacks and headed to the Street to watch the sun come up. Soon the professional touts who sleep rough found me, and asked me warmly how I am and where I went. Kolkata is way relaxed in the morning, it's interesting to see where folks sleep, who gives small morning presents to whom (beedis, newspapers, tea, snacks). Chai and cake were brought to myself and my local friends by a friendly Spaniard. After watching the morning routine for an hour or two, I went back to my favored guest house and checked into "The Bunker", a small 80rs room. A bed, a window, a windowsill, a fan and a light bulb. What else do I need?

Food. Cheap street food. Oh how I missed the 10rs French Toast, 8rs Egg Sandwich, 17rs Egg Chow Mein. Been eating lots of eggs today. Need to fatten myself up on cheap sources of protein before I head back to the West to seek my fortune.

It occurs to me that not only do I love this city, but I love the fact that I love this city. If any (principled) corporation or NGO or perhaps even a GO needs a man in Kolkata, I am well qualified. I get along well with these people.

In general, I enjoy the ferangi around these parts more than the general lot one sees in touristy villages. Lots of good folk here to volunteer, and lots of crazy-heads going up to Darjeeling/ the Seven Sisters/ Wherever. A great mix. Sure I met lots of cool foreigners in Hampi, mostly Israeli and Austrian. One day I actually got the vision that the restaurant where I was eating was a bit like my vision of heaven. Folks speaking Hebrew Hindi Nepalese Kannada English all chillin' out and getting along wonderfully. Hindu Jewish Muslim Christian Buddhist Whatever shanti shanti. Lots of the Israelis smoke chillums all day every day. I was speaking about this with a European tourist, who complained of the way that some Israeli tourists choose to spend their time in India. I came in their defense, pointing to a hill across the way and saying "Imagine you just spend the last two years or so living on that hill with fifty of your friends occasionally trading small-arms fire with the residents of the local village."

I'm not saying it's right, I just want to imagine things from a human point of view. Meeting and talking to Israeli tourists here has given me an entirely new perspective on their country's plight. I now take a completely non-political approach to the conflict. I met one lass who told me she has recurring nightmares of her younger brother's funeral (she just finished her mandatory military service, he is just entering his).

It breaks my heart to see cousins killing each other, especially over a scrap of (admittedly sacred and politically-charged) land. We could all learn something from the Kolkata-vallas. If this little city is big enough for 15 million people of all sorts of political religious and linguistic persuasions, isn't the stretch of land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan big enough for 12 million cousins who share almost identical theologies and languages?

It's not like Muslims and Hindus never killed each other in bouts of major wars and communal madness, but an outsider ignorant of this history would never imagine it walking the streets of Kolkata.

I met an Austrian man in Hampi who has spent the last nine years in University, and spends his fat European welfare check traveling in the "developing" countries. I could live like a king off of 11 Euro a day here. Hell, I could start my own hustle off of that kind of money. He was not the first I met living like this, there was a French woman working on a film basically doing the same. Doesn't bother me that some European countries are subsidizing the tourist industry in India, except of course for the fact that the increase in effective demand raises the prices for everything. Yes perhaps America's system of "sink or swim" has is advantages in that we haven't created a horde of lazy spoon-fed infantilized young adults (well, ok, only the rich). Perhaps there could be some sort of middle-ground? Again, I am not condemning individuals who take advantage of the systems that they are born into, but if it was up to me I would make their continued life-subsidies contingent on learning the languages/history of the places where they spend many months. Could someone be kind enough to send this idea with Mssr. Sarkozky and whoever is the Prime Minister of Austria?

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