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This week I’ve at last started to see what Kolkata has to offer. Rosalyn and I have been on the search for fun. The most gorgeous thing we found was an evening of dance put on by a wide variety of people with mental and physical impairments. It was a collection of about 8 pieces of really very impressive contemporary dance. Almost as wonderful as the dancing was the ceremony of thanks at the end; Bengalis love formalities. Each and every one of the 60 odd participants received a gift from the organizer and of course they had to be introduced to the audience and receive this gift individually. At this point they have to return the respect by touching the organiser’s feet (as she was an older women), she then has to fain modesty and stroke their jaw line - a sign of affectionate familiarity. It was quite a rigmarole, but beautiful to watch. On Wednesday we went to see a stunning wildlife photography exhibition. Really extremely impressive photos of local wildlife, which was very tiger-centric of course (us living in the heartland of the Tiger), but it was no less interesting for that - quite a treat. That evening, I have to admit, we were feeling very over-India’d and so we managed to find a Western Cinema. Forgive me… we watched Iron Man! It was the only English speaking option - what could I do! Yes, it was every bit as awful as you’d expect, do not go and see it. Having said that, I enjoyed it massively; such a great release - a complete overdose of easy, hysterically bad mulch, exactly what I need to turn my brain off.
I’m beginning to meet a whole load of locals now which is great. I think basically that people are seeing me around more and more and feeling braver to come and say hello. I’m under no delusions that they find my conversation riveting and my political beliefs inspiring… I’m ultimately a White person, a friendship with whom affords them kudos from their mates, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. Well, I say that, but there are limits even here. A few odd characters have introduced themselves which is all a bit tricky because of course everyone in our neighbourhood knows everyone else and so you can’t be rude. Anyway, I have 3 new mates which is cool, and also a couple of guys who are clearly collecting white friends as trophies though actually seem quite interesting - I’ve still not quite decided about them yet. In order to be sociable however, I really do need to be mastering this travel to Kolkata lark. It’s not just the time involved it can also be a massive hassle. I can’t afford the taxis so that’s out, the buses are fine to travel in to the city, but their routes differ on the way out of town for some reason and I still am yet to find a single bus from town back to TPB - they will of course exist somewhere, but this may take time to discover. Then there is the Tube and the Auto Rickshaws. The Metro (Underground) is amazing and really quite cheap (15 pence to travel the whole line), but unfortunately we live way further south than the end of the line, so once there we then have to take two separate Auto Rickshaws before we are in walking distance of home. The first of which is an absolutely shocker. It is not unusual to wait over and hour in a loosely defined queue of very tetchy commuters who have no qualms about wangling their way to the front of the queue by hook or crock and then by the time you have eventually secured your place on the next Auto, its happened twice already that it is then too late because they stop running after a certain time (around 10pm), thus it’s a mad scramble to find other people going the same way in order to try and share a taxi, that is, if you can find a taxi that will agree to take you! Our area is so remote that unless you pay top dollar, taxis are loathed to pick you up as they won’t get a return fair. Oh the joy. Thankfully, if you do have success on that journey, the final stretch isn’t too stressful, but the whole experience is really quite nippy and another reason why it’s rare that we head to town. I’m putting all my hope on finding a return bus route.
So our Global AIDS Week of Action Rally happened. I’m not quite sure what more to say about it, its such a jumble in my head. It was actually a complete shambles, but somehow in good old Indian fashion, it kinda worked out. Ultimately we had over 600 people march through the streets of Kolkata and we made the national newspapers so really it wasn’t so bad, but the process of getting to that point was quite something. One of the key issues was that in order for people to come from across the state we needed to provide food, water, a t-shirt and travel expenses for each and every one of them (poverty is a major issue), a pretty massive logistical task for the 5 or 6 of us who did this. What made things especially amusing is that one of the national TV channels was hosting auditions for a TV talent show in the same building that we were in. The two merging crowds made for difficult administration until the TV channel got annoyed with the confusion and took charge. Unfortunately Rose and I were actually not allowed to join the March. VSO have a policy that we can’t engage in anything that could be seen as overtly political and which attracts media coverage as it may affect our visas - the fact that my job is inherently political seems to have washed over them! Anyway, so there we were avoiding the press, by going to a press conference - go figure! The advantage of not going on the march was that we did at least get the afternoon off, but really I feel like we let a lot of people down by not being by their side, it was such a shame. As for the ministerial advocacy meeting we held the following day, it very rapidly became simply an advocacy meeting as all the ministers that had agreed to come cancelled one-by-one as a result of the election violence that they had to go and ‘sort out’. So a pretty pointless occasion without the decision-makers, but it was vital to save face - there’s none of this ‘sorry everyone, its all gone pear-shaped, go back and get on with your work’. Rather, there followed a whole plethora of embarrassingly fumbled speeches and discussion pieces to fill time and try and convince people that it was all worth it after all. Really this happened because BNP+ had spent a lot of money on buttering up these MPs and so felt they needed something to show for it - didn’t really come off though! We did all spend a lovely hour in the AC meeting room having a ‘posh’ packed lunch, and Rosalyn did get a lovely bunch of flowers that were going spare, so it wasn’t a complete loss. I say posh, but really the Indian definition is indistinguishable from the English one - tie-dye effect plastic washing-up bowls are posh here! By the way, this ‘saving face’ thing is also very Indian. The classic example is when you ask for directions. If you ask a question here, no-one will ever say that they don’t know - it would be just too embarrassing - so instead, when you ask where something is, you will always be told, but very rarely will those directions find you where you need to be. This can be maddening as you’ll imagine.
So happily, the weather has broken here. We’ve been so lucky. Usually, I’m told, the weather gradually gets hotter and stickier throughout May and until the Monsoon arrives in the second week of June. Thankfully this is not the case this year. We’re having immense storms every night, which are not only beautiful, but bring the temperate down by around 10 degrees. The evenings last week were all really lovely, it was very like a good summer evening in the UK actually, though a little more humid, it’s actually been really comfortable, and looking forward to these storms has made the days more bearable. I’m sure there’s a meteorological reason why the storms only come at night, but that’s beyond me I’m afraid. What I do know though is that the night skies make for breathtaking storms. I find myself just standing on my veranda (does that have an ‘h’?) watching them pass through. First you can see them approaching in the shifting and gathering of the clouds, then comes the smell, curious how your world can smell of storm, but it most certainly does. You then see the approaching on-slaught with the cracking lighting which brings with it a feast for your ears as the thunder roars all around you. Just before the rains are welcomed with open arms, your final sense is enlivened with the stroking of the wind as it builds from zero to baton-down-the-hatches in a matter of minutes. The rain itself is heavy, dense and extraordinarily plentiful, though usually only for a short time (20 mins or so), thus you drop everything and go outside to enjoy it. In actual fact, the chances are they’ll be a power-cut at that point anyway, so there’s little else to be doing comfortably. One of my favourite things to do at this time is to go in search of the fire-flies. There are thousands of them round my lake and so they make a phenomenal site, it’s almost like staring at the stars, but even nicer as these ones will slowly move around making ever new patterns of illumination. Their light is also a phenomenal greeny-yellow which has quite an other-worldly affect which all adds to the magical moment. One of the few drawbacks of the storms is that if you’re out, you can’t do the necessary in terms of protecting your home. I came back one evening and found my hallway flooded and a think layer of silt covering the floor! Not pleasant to clear up, especially as it was this moment that my landlady decided that I would need a lesson in how to clean floors - less than amused! The problem is that I have no glass in my windows in the flat, just bars, thus I’m pretty open to the elements to put it mildly. I could of course close the shutters before I leave, but if there was no storm, it’d be unbearably sticky in my flat that night, and so you see the issue. Indeed even when I am in, although I can shut out the rain, the wind is another animal altogether and can be quite scary as all my things fly everywhere. One of the other issues with the storms is the flooding of the streets. Thankfully, this is a major plus of living in TPB as we don’t get flooding due to the huge number of lakes, but the CBD of Kolkata suffers big time. I was out shopping this week and we had a major storm, to the point where it made the newspaper the next day. Unbelievably, with just 30 mins of rain, all the city’s streets we completely under water. Apparently the city’s drains are all blocked from the rubbish and so its pretty inevitable. Of course no one is carrying flood equipment with them so people just get on with life as normal, literally, people hardly seem to flinch at the idea of wading through knee high water with unidentifiable content, carrying with them their children, shopping and so forth. As it was my first time, I found it very amusing, but I can imagine the novelty wearing off very quickly. All of this, and really, the monsoon season hasn’t even started yet! Can’t wait…
One of the additional jobs that the storm creates for me is having to clear my storm drains of flowers every day. Sounds alright except the other day I came across a new addition to the wildlife on my lake shores. A vast rat! By vast, I mean absolutely unbelievably vast, almost surely-that-can’t-be-a-rat vast. But sadly it was. Oddly the cats that I allow to shelter on my porch were no deterrent, indeed the kittens legged it and the mother, who admittedly was only just bigger that this rat and much skinnier, decided better of attacking it and just moved on, needless to say I left it well alone as well. What made me more uncomfortable than the presence of the rat however, was the fact that whenever you have rats, its usually not too long before you get things that enjoy the taste of such rodents… namely snakes! Let me tell you, it would need to be a decent size snake to swallow that rat and the vision of such a creature in my head as I looked out from behind my wide-bars/no-glass window, did not fill me with joy! However, all the time the cats are still around, I figure there are definitely no snakes in the area, so I’m trying not to freak just yet.
Today has been gorgeous. Rosalyn and I went to a private club in an area called Tollygunge - the TollyClub of all things! It is a members-only club, but like most rules here, it’s bendable if you have white skin. We went to see the bursar and smiled nicely, after a good seeing over, we were approved as official visitors. Clearly we had to pay, and really quite a lot, but the joy being that you get the use of all their facilities for the day. The club basically has golf, horse-riding, tennis and swimming, but there are also the odd extra treat like massage, a sauna and steam rooms. It’s a very happy place indeed! Excluding the occasional trip to the subsidised restaurant, Rose and I spent literally the whole afternoon, swimming and laying by the book with a good book and a newspaper, it’s only been low 30’s celsius today, but the sun was out so its been completely lovely. After the obligatory sauna, we went to meet Eamon in the city for a meal and managed to find a really good restaurant at last - they’re very thin on the ground. We then went for a few drinks with some of our new friends and went boogying in a club. Hurrah for that. I spent the whole day feeling really normal. Possibly an odd thing to say and definitely an odd ambition, especially for me, but nevertheless I was relishing it. It felt like I stepped out of India for the day and found myself in the English summer. What was most especially gorgeous was to get some exercise, it was such a wonderful swim, not only for being a lovely pool with almost no-one in it, but also for being the first bit of exercise I’ve managed since arriving in Kolkata.
So lovely people, who watched Eurovision? More to the point, who had a Eurovision party? I need to hear details with blow by blow account of the scoring. I don’t even know who won… its tragic! I was asking around but sadly I couldn’t find anyone with satellite TV, so I had to forgo my dose this year and I’m very sad about it. I expect to hear stories of joy and hilarity, especially from you Catherine - Eurovision Birthday Girl - how special are you? (Hope it was gorgeous lovely!).
Anyway, must shoot, need to find myself a hearty meal before everything closes. Stay well. Lots of love, Me. xxxx
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