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Published: August 3rd 2008
Sorry, for lack of pictures again.
At the risk of speaking too soon, I feel like I may finally have turned a corner in this past week. Everyone has been saying for months now that I just have to get over the hideous settling in period at the beginning and all will be shiny and gorgeous - I’ve not found this easy to hear and have found it even harder to believe. However, for whatever reason, I am now feeling more positive, generally at ease and I continue to be very comfortable. Work is still a major concern, but outside of work, I’m starting to actually enjoy myself! Ok, so I’m aware that my feelings are fluctuating widely and it’s more than possible that next week I’ll back down with the angst, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy my newly recovered optimism. It’s certainly a major shift from last week.
I hit my lowest point so far about two weeks ago when I came to convince myself that the work I’m doing is not and will never be sustainable development and so why stay? I decided to return home. I got as far as telling VSO and some of my friends that I was leaving and I’d even planned my route home (via Bangladesh and the Himalayas - just for the record!). However, after a week of turmoil and beating myself up about the fact that I was leaving when the going got tough and leaving all my colleagues to fight on, I came to a realisation that actually it was my responsibility to make of the work what I feel it needs to be. Of course, I’ve been very aware of this responsibility since I arrived, but had somehow expected some kind of guidance and support from me boss - the understanding that it is I who need to be guiding and supporting is what has enabled by emotional revival. Ultimately, I still need to be realistic, and bare in mind the huge barriers I face at my organisation, but I’ve decided to take a fresh look at my objectives and realign my expectations. It seems expectations are the key to how this experience is internalized - though I guess that’s not new learning, surely that’s true for all experiences? There is still a real risk of finding the work I do over the coming months completely unsustainable, if this is the case I’ll be heading home (well, off travelling at least), but I’m now back on track with the motivation to give it a go.
BNP+ currently resembles a small fishing boat pulling in a catch that is too large for its diminutive stature and thus is on the edge of being pulled under. It is led by a board of seven people; the same seven people who helped set up the organisation, and the same seven people who also purport to be staff and manage the day-to-day running of the organisation. Now I’m not an organisational development specialist, but that strikes me as shocking governance practice. Certainly in practice it means that staff have absolutely no opportunity for innovative input. They are the board’s pawns and are sacrificed at will - since I’ve been here, one post has been occupied by three separate people. Staff turnover is shocking to say the least. We currently have just four staff, two accountants, one secretary and Bimal. Bimal is a hero; the man knows everything and slogs himself to death for that organisation, in return he faces brick walls and silence and ultimately is completely sat on. After nearly 2 years of this, he too is now leaving the organisation. His knowledge and connections are the only things keeping BNP+ afloat at this point. I definitely get a sinking feeling! I’m actually a little scared that Rose and I will be drafted in to patch up the holes and mop up the mess when he’s gone. Ultimately, the work carried out at district level is phenomenal and absolutely a life line to many, it is therefore all the more frustrating that the umbrella organisation just doesn’t have the capacity to support its grass-roots staff and certainly not to help them grow. I guess it’s my job to help BNP+ reach that point, but daunted isn’t the word! I visited another district level network on Friday and got a real sense of how ‘worth it’ my attempts will be. Particularly interesting was this phenomenal doctor who has been working for us for some time. Then in December we lost funding for the clinical work that he was doing; nevertheless, he’s continued to provide us with 2 hours of his expertise unpaid everyday since. This is the only clinical care that many of his HIV-positive patients get. Unfortunately, it seems that we now can’t even afford the drugs he needs. At the moment, the money for HIV work is out there in West Bengal, phenomenally it’s a priority area for the state. Great, but I’m convinced we are only getting money that is left at the end of the budget after all the effective organisations have had their share - and rightly so I guess. Convincing the board that we need to be making the most of this time of plenty while the opportunity exists is proving fruitless; they remain perpetually cruising to not a lot. In the meantime all of our projects face the uncertainty that they may have their funding pulled at any point. In any normal situation, there would be hope on the horizon as September brings our AGM and board elections. Sadly however, it seems the current board have decided to re-nominate themselves. Until the elections take place we have the additional problem that the board are very definitively not interested in doing any piece of capacity building or organisational development work as it’ll only rock the boat and risk mutiny. My immediate solution to these frustrations is to work directly with the districts. This is all very well, but really it needs mandating by the board and I still have the language issue to overcome.
Anyway, enough work nonsense already; I’m boring myself. So last weekend we continued our quest to explore the Kolkata area and headed south for an hour or so to Diamond Harbour. It used to be the port of the East India Company and thus one of the biggest in the world. Today it is a small but bustling provincial town with a very small fishing fleet and a long coast line. It’s a popular spot for Kolkatans to go for a picnic - thus, not to be outdone, we made ourselves a pack-up and went to join the throng. We arrived bedraggled by an arduous bus journey to be welcomed by the first drops of an impending down-pour. Of course we had no idea where we were in relation to the beach so we hopped on the back of a cycle-cart (a flat-back three-wheeler cycle used for carrying goods around town). He took us somewhere; who knows where though, as his interpretation of the word ‘beach’ clearly didn’t match ours. We were pretty lost, but of course with a bit of persistence we soon found our way and arrived at what was very clearly the picnic spot. There were still sporadic bursts of rain, but it was really hot as always, so it wasn’t such a problem. We found a bench to sit on and picked through our coagulated soggy sandwiches (with Marmite!). It really wasn’t long before the inevitable crowd gathered. They poked and prodded us with their eyes, they interrogated us, criticised our world and then tried to sell us anything they could get their hands on - just like any other day. Having finally negotiated ourselves a breathing space and moved our groupies on, we were finally able to relax and enjoy what was a lovely view. It was so nice to hear the roaring sea in a storm, especially having felt so numbed by the concrete of our city. We sat for some time in the dribbling rain watching a group of about 25 young women paddling in the sea. It was actually another of those moments when I chastised myself for not having a camera. The sea was a dark grey and the clouds above were a light silvery mass leaking slowly into the vivid blue of the distance sky. The Women were all wearing full sari; the colours were utterly spectacular and contrasted dramatically with the aquatic canvas. Why women insist on wading in a sari is beyond my comprehension, but as they jostled and splashed one another they played out a magical scene that might very comfortably adorn the pages of National Geographic. Finally the rain really did arrive and with conviction! One of the old ladies who’d been looking askance at us from a distance for some time finally had the perfect leverage to prise us into her char shall. She invited us to shelter under the tarpaulin, but clearly there would be Rupees to pay. Regardless, it was a lovely spot on the waterside that was sheltered enough to feel only the most gentle of the storm’s strokes while the rest of the bay was battered into submission and people embraced their soggy fate. The whole day was generally peaceful and gave fantastic headspace. What I enjoyed most was the Britishness of it all. We headed to the coast for a picnic, it rained. We ate mangled soggy sandwiches, drunk tea, watched people wade in the sea, avoided the packs of young boys loitering by the playground and even finished the day off with an ice-cream - well Rose did anyway. To top it off, the bus was late on the way home; I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried!
So its WOMAD weekend and I think I feel even more upset about missing WOMAD than I felt about Eurovision! This is the first one I’ve missed for 8 years. Though to be fair, the mud and rain are both in plentiful supply here, so I just need to throw a tarpaulin over a tree and the illusion is complete. I’ve got ‘1 Giant Leap’ playing on my laptop so I’m all very global. The acoustics in my lounge are phenomenal so I’m hollering along to my favourite tune on that album; ‘The Way You Dream’ and smiling broadly, though I imagine my neighbours are less chuffed! If anyone is at WOMAD, please have a Leon’s for me, I hope you have a gorgeous time.
Rosalyn and I have got in to a routine of going to the cinema once a week. It makes a really nice break from our worlds and can be very amusing. The English-speaking movies are all on in town and so are too far away for regular visits, thus we go and see the Bengali and Hindi movies. It’s amazing how much you can understand with only body language to guide you. I know literally only 4 words in Hindi, but have no trouble following the films, clearly we’re not talking inspirational art house dialogue here; Bollywood isn’t known for its complex plots, but nevertheless. The Bengali movie was fascinating as it was filmed in and around Kolkata so it all felt very familiar and the actors’ accents were the same as I’m used to and so I could understand a little more than expected. The big downer about Bengali movies though, is that they lack the song and dance which is such a large part of my love for Hindi movies.
The other facet to my night-time shenanigans is the bar and club scene of Kolkata. Again this is mostly in town, but I try and go every Saturday night. The bars here are filthy little hovels for want of a more eloquent phrase. It may be something to do with the fact that drinking is frowned upon by many and of those who partake, only the men may do so in public - apart from in the odd exclusive hotel. These bars are generally then; very rundown and uncared for, rammed to the rafters with very drunk men, and choking under the weight of cigarette smoke - they are also pretty few and far between. Thankfully my friends are usually persuadable to leave after just one drink, but then we arrive at the clubs way too early and everyone moans about how dead they are. Peculiar really, as most places here close by 10 or sometimes 11, so to have anywhere open after that is something of a treat. Anyway, there are some really excellent clubs around, not quite sure why this discrepancy, but its all good. I have a couple of favourites, but I’m endlessly frustrated on my evenings out due to the lack of anyone to boogie with. It seems Bengali’s aren’t really up for bopping; I guess it’s the lack of rules and systems that makes them nervous! For a change this week I went to a live music venue which I was well up for until I realised that the concept doesn’t cross cultures too well. It was actually a pseudo-pub rammed full of people waving they’re arms (cigarette-lighter style!) to a cover band’s pained rendition of a few rock classics… and they were lovin’ it! I have to say it was a toughy to explain to my mate exactly why I found the whole situation absolutely hilarious. He just couldn’t see that butchering a Scissor Sisters’ song, waving your arms in tune with it and then taking this seriously is nothing if not hysterical.
No doubt, like me, thanks to global media, you have snapshot images in your mind of a whole range of different countries that you may never have been to. Before I arrived here, my images of India were the Taj Mahal, a poor Women carrying her child and wearing full Sari, and a long meandering train travelling through lush green hills with passengers clung to the roof, hanging out the doors and even clutching to the outside of the carriages. This last image always struck me as being about freedom, particularly a freedom from over regulation, which I understandably romanticised. For whatever reason, I never placed my self in the position of any of those people hanging from the train and asked how they felt, why are they willing to risk these dangers. Last week I got the opportunity to not only think about this, but to experience it!
On the way back from our visit to the district level network, we were changing trains in Ballygunge, a large station in South Central Kolkata, there are two busy lines which converge there, The North/South line that we had just left and the Westbound line that we needed for the remainder of our journey. Nothing especially complicated except, for all the greatness of the Indian Railway System - after all it, is the world’s biggest employer, by far the most used rail network in the world and still manages to run regular services extremely cheaply - it does continue to suffer from the ubiquitous Indian conditions of over complicated systems and a complete ineptitude in terms of giving directions. We spent some time searching for our train, over optimistically asking other passengers, desperately searching for a sign, any kind of sign, but to no avail. We finally resorted to the back up plan of joining the immense rush hour queues at the ticket booths and after much exasperation eventually discovered which platform we needed from the reluctantly helpful teller. Arriving at platform 2 feeling confident that we were about to draw our journey to a close, we watched the previous train draw out of the station utterly aghast. All we could see was a wall of limbs. The train had been swarmed with such locust-like intensity that you could literally struggle to make out the doorways of each carriage. As the clinging masses left on their journeys home we stood on the platform digesting what we had just seen, my heart sinking with a heavy dread of the journey to come. As the next train rolled in, I drew a deep breath, raised my shoulders and prepared for the tussle. Rose went off in search of a ladies carriage which can be a little less hectic. Way before the train was stationary, people were throwing themselves off the train at the approaching platform, none too few people were in their way trying the opposite manoeuvre in order to beat the rush, barring a few bruises no doubt, they all seemed to make it. That left the fearful, the infirm, the women and me on the platform to fight it out for the few square inches of capacity the carriages had left once they’re finally drawn to a halt. At that instant my image of Indian Railways came alive in my head and I was not going to be the one hanging on the side of the train as we speeded over aquaducts and round mountain edges (not that there are any of either in Kolkata, but you get my point!). With asinine determination I managed to break through the wall of limbs and land, not the other side of it, for there was no ‘other side’, but within it. Finding your position in these circumstances reminds of the concept of ‘necessity’ that I briefly mentioned before. Indians will elbow you, push you, stand on you - whatever it takes to get the best position, it is everyone for themselves and there is absolutely no love lost. There is of course a necessity for this to be the case, spending the next umpteen hours standing uncomfortably would be hideous enough, but clinging to the side of the train? Not likely. Once this necessity abates, people return to there normal amiable selves and will help anyone they can, given that it doesn’t risk their own position. So anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, firmly landed a knot of humanity. I landed, as is unavoidable, on the back of someone’s shins, grasping at peoples shoulders for stability and very conscious that me knees and elbows were defiantly doing someone an injury! It took about ten minutes to finally reach a position in which my size-tens could finally rest on the floor rather than someone’s toes. About five of those were taken up with rounds of embarrassed apologies in various languages, four with second guessing all the other newly boarded passengers and the final one with spent smiling nicely and co-ordinating a military style shuffle of feet that eventually gave sight of the floor boards and allowed me to stand on my own two feet. At this point I was utterly exhausted. No body had minded my unceremonious entrance; after all, they’d all entered in the same manner. What struck me was that most of them will have to do this journey daily, no wonder there are so many work-a-holics in this country, they’re probably petrified of getting the train home. You might wonder why I didn’t wait for a later train, but it seems that rush hour here can be over fours hours long and it had only just begun, waiting wasn’t an option. Finally on our way, I began to realise how many aches and bruises I’d suffered, but I was pleased to be nearly home. The difficulty now was that being stood up, I couldn’t actually see out of the windows (they’re very low). I was therefore on a train route that I’d never travelled before, going to somewhere that I struggle to pronounce and can’t even read the signs at the train stations as we pass. The train carriage had so many people in it, it would have been impossible for me to imagine (I’ve been on the Central Line of the London Underground in rush hour, I know how crazy it is, believe me, this was a whole new realm of ‘crowded’). With the ultra hot and humid climate and a range of clean and not-so clean people under my arm pits, clinging to my back and holding on to my legs, you can image just how rancid the air around me was and that getting oxygen was tough. So many people looked ill, that I half expected fainting to be the next issue, but I was grateful to be wrong. After 25 minutes of indescribable discomfort, I began to suspect we were close to my station. I asked around and started to get a sense of ill-ease as people were looking blank, not a usual response. Eventually, I understood enough of the Bengali hubbub that swiftly radiated throughout the carriage to realise that the station I’d been asking for was not actually on this line - we’d got on the wrong train!! About 30 people in my corner of the carriage were then engaged in finding a solution to my problem, there were laughs, whispers, pointing and general debate around the stupid saheb’s (foreigner) incompetence. Finally, someone shouted at me to get off at the next station and there were many nods. This is as close I was going to get to clarity and so I resolved to do so. Of course getting off the train was then my next lesson. I did already know that preparation for leaving a train takes some minutes and you should head towards the exits at least 5 minutes before the station as it may take this long to get there, but however much I smiled at people, asked them nicely, pushed gently or even not so gently, no one budged, of course they had no where to go and until they moved, I couldn’t. People were frantically encouraging me to push harder, but it was fruitless, by the time the train pulled in I had moved forward one step. I started to panic, could almost hear my heart beating its way out of my chest and was desperate for air. As the train pulled to a stop however, the champagne cork popped and people poured on the platform with absolute fluidity and at great speed. I barely moved a limb, yet in a fraction of a second I was in the carriage doorway having been carried by the torrent of humanity. After fighting the final few people from my way, I stepped from the train with such joy and gratitude that I could think of nothing else. As the train pulled away I finally got with the programme again as Rosalyn hollered my name. Unbelievably, she had had a remarkably similar experience and although tried to exit at the station before me, she had failed to do so and eventually we found ourselves ejected at the same desolate spot. From this point on; our return to Ballygunge and then our connection to our destination station, were forgivingly smooth. We discovered that we were actually on the correct platform at Ballygunge, just the wrong of train. We also discovered that the Westbound route that we should have taken, rather than heading back South was actually almost empty, so there was never any need to experience all that we did. Regardless, we chalked up yet another very Indian experience; one which I will never forget and one which I never wish to repeat.
It’s difficult for me to know how much Indian news you’ll be getting there, though knowing Western media, I imagine; very little and very biased. You may well however have heard about the recent terrorist attacks so I figure I should allay some fears, as is my filial duty. Clearly terrorist attacks are happening all over the world, all the time. The ones in India at the moment are nothing exceptional. They have made the news only because of the new nuclear deal with the States. The targets have all so far been in modern, wealthy BJP- run (that’s the main opposition party) cities. Although, VSOs have been put on warning, Kolkata is neither wealthy nor BJP-run and is considered a no-risk city at this time. Unfortunately, the situation in Darjeeling has worsened however. The campaign for an independent Gurka state has intensified and it all got a bit messy last weekend. I have now cancelled my trip up there which I was due to take in 2 weeks time. There is hope that after Independence Day (15th Aug) the situation will subside and I will still be able to get up that way for a holiday in the near future. VSO are pretty good at updating us and so I’ll be following their advice. OK, job done.
Can I just say one more time how gorgeous you all are? This week I have received so many letters its unbelievable. I’m sure this is part of the reason why I’m so smiley at the moment. Thank you all so much! For now, it’s time to get on; I have some letters to reply to! Glad to hear you’re having a proper summer at last, long may it last. Enjoy. Lots of love, Me. xx
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