Under Angels' Wings: Kolkata (Calcutta), India
Stories within this chapter:
Calcutta Scenes (posted October 11, 2011)
Empower The Children schools (posted October 16, 2011) Life in a slum neighborhood (posted October 25, 2011) Cauldron cooking and other enterprises (posted October 30, 2011) India and America: different or similar? (posted November 8, 2011) Dalai Lama and Tibet in the news (posted November 22, 2011) God's children in Kolkata (posted December 25, 2011) Diverse religious holy days: Hindu, Islam, Sikh (posted January 17, 2012) A Sunday walk in the park (posted January 27, 2012) Cross-cultural plumbing (posted February 28, 2012)
Calcutta Scenes—Kolkata, India; September 17 to 19, 2011
"Thank you for sending your wonderful stories of your travels and experiences. I know that I will not be traveling where and as you do, so I relish these stories.
I do my virtual travels reading about the engaging people, places and your life adventures wherever you are." —J.G.
I do my virtual travels reading about the engaging people, places and your life adventures wherever you are." —J.G.
Saturday, September 17: In this city of 16 million (2001 stat), Howrah Train Station contains 24 passenger platforms. Easily 20,000 people are coming and going at any given time. Rosalie and I wait 25 minutes for a prepaid taxi, which is cheaper than riding with regular taxi drivers who negotiate fares rather than use a meter. Traffic is normal: more stop than go. It takes an hour to travel five kilometers to her flat.
Sunday, September 18: The population density in Calcutta is an astounding 25,000 people per square kilometer (2001 stat). Shoulder-to-shoulder people are shopping for Durga Puja, the most major Hindu holiday, which starts in two weeks. The sidewalks are impossible with pedestrians and vendors. People stream in all directions with no sense of order. Even on roads, we can’t walk side by side for more than three steps.
The New Market contains thousands of tiny shops packed together in a building as large as most shopping malls in America, but the aisles here are one-fifth the width. Signage is minimal. Goods are piled high. Exits are out of sight. Turn around and get lost. For a baksheesh (tip), wallahs (people of a particular work) will help us find whatever we want. This is their job. They hover like hawks. Browsing is impossible.
Later, we sit in lounge chairs in a luxury hotel. It’s a different world here: plush, air conditioned, quiet. The restaurant serves beef. Rosalie says, “Some Indians have money.”
Monday, September 19: The monsoon dumps rain for nearly two hours. The water on the narrow street around Rosalie’s flat is ankle deep. The open-air public toilet, used by most of the people in this ‘hood, regurgitates previous deposits. Trash floats. Rosalie has an appointment. Rather than risk infection, she hails a rickshaw wallah who, by hand and (perhaps bare) foot, conveys her to the main road where Mr. Kahn, the taxi driver she’s hired for years, waits. She says the water is more than knee deep there. After four hours, the water recedes.
Walking even on dry concrete is a challenge. “Watch your step” is the watchword. Cookers with propane-fired stoves, buckets of charcoal, and vats of boiling grease force everyone to single file or risk burns. Sidewalks are broken and partially repaired with loose bricks. Little construction projects and low-hanging wires abound. Beggars’ legs protrude. Toddlers play in small piles of sand while their parents labor. Babies lie unattended. At night, dozens of people sleep here on cots or sheets of cardboard. It’s easier to walk in traffic. But cars and motor scooters “horn” (honk) their presence, and the pulling forks on a hand-drawn rickshaw are silent menaces to the chest, back, or face.
Sunday, September 18: The population density in Calcutta is an astounding 25,000 people per square kilometer (2001 stat). Shoulder-to-shoulder people are shopping for Durga Puja, the most major Hindu holiday, which starts in two weeks. The sidewalks are impossible with pedestrians and vendors. People stream in all directions with no sense of order. Even on roads, we can’t walk side by side for more than three steps.
The New Market contains thousands of tiny shops packed together in a building as large as most shopping malls in America, but the aisles here are one-fifth the width. Signage is minimal. Goods are piled high. Exits are out of sight. Turn around and get lost. For a baksheesh (tip), wallahs (people of a particular work) will help us find whatever we want. This is their job. They hover like hawks. Browsing is impossible.
Later, we sit in lounge chairs in a luxury hotel. It’s a different world here: plush, air conditioned, quiet. The restaurant serves beef. Rosalie says, “Some Indians have money.”
Monday, September 19: The monsoon dumps rain for nearly two hours. The water on the narrow street around Rosalie’s flat is ankle deep. The open-air public toilet, used by most of the people in this ‘hood, regurgitates previous deposits. Trash floats. Rosalie has an appointment. Rather than risk infection, she hails a rickshaw wallah who, by hand and (perhaps bare) foot, conveys her to the main road where Mr. Kahn, the taxi driver she’s hired for years, waits. She says the water is more than knee deep there. After four hours, the water recedes.
Walking even on dry concrete is a challenge. “Watch your step” is the watchword. Cookers with propane-fired stoves, buckets of charcoal, and vats of boiling grease force everyone to single file or risk burns. Sidewalks are broken and partially repaired with loose bricks. Little construction projects and low-hanging wires abound. Beggars’ legs protrude. Toddlers play in small piles of sand while their parents labor. Babies lie unattended. At night, dozens of people sleep here on cots or sheets of cardboard. It’s easier to walk in traffic. But cars and motor scooters “horn” (honk) their presence, and the pulling forks on a hand-drawn rickshaw are silent menaces to the chest, back, or face.
Above: A man with an umbrella walks in ankle-deep water in the neighborhood commons outside Rosalie Giffoniello's flat. Monsoon rain that fell for an hour required four hours to recede.
Above: A toddler plays in sand that will later be used to mix concrete for a sidewalk repair project. Two women laborers, dressed in colorful saris, watch.
Below: A Calcutta laborer stands barefoot to mix concrete. The blue structure is a food stand, partially blocking the sidewalk, at which Indian meals are prepared and served.
Below: A Calcutta laborer stands barefoot to mix concrete. The blue structure is a food stand, partially blocking the sidewalk, at which Indian meals are prepared and served.
Empower The Children schools—Kolkata, India; September 20 to 30, 2011
Rosalie and I visit six schools and a children's orthopedic hospital. Her organization, Empower The Children, operates and totally funds three of these schools and partially funds the other facilities. The children range in age from three to teens. Some are physically or mentally challenged. Some are talented and determined to escape the slums in which they live.
Rosalie tells her teachers, “Love the children first. If you love them, they will learn.” Striking a child is forbidden in an ETC school.
Durga Puja, a major Hindu holiday in which most people participate, is a few days away, and Rosalie’s mission is to distribute new clothing to each child. Some of the clothing is fancy, some practical. The beautiful, charming teenage girls in ETC’s vocational school choose to receive yards of fabric from which they will make their own salwar kameez clothing. Plans are under way to, soon, introduce them to computers.
Two of the ETC schools are decent buildings. The third building is slated to be razed and replaced within the next few months. This is a major accomplishment.
The hospital provides free orthopedic surgery and treatment. It’s a great service to hinterland children who, otherwise, would live a disabled life.
Two of the schools not under ETC care are poorly maintained with broken floors, poor electrical wiring, and leaking roofs.
Class sizes are about 40 students with one to three teachers. Ninety-nine students, age preschool to teens, fill a 20-foot by 20-foot space at one school on the day we visit.
Obviously, there are no desks. The chalkboards are only about 3 feet by 3 feet. There are no individual student textbooks; they wouldn’t survive the humidity, dirt, and mice. Storage cabinets, whether wooden or metal, deteriorate quickly and are replaced annually. With no toilet, children use primitive, public facilities in the surrounding neighborhood.
Ventilation comes from open doors and windows, which are very few, and ceiling fans, some of which hang precariously, held by twine, to rafter poles.
Schools are open year-round. “The parents want them in school because they get one hot meal a day and they're in a secure environment,” says Rosalie. “In the summer, the temperature in here is above 100.”
The adjacent buildings are slums, some of concrete and some of wood scraps and tin. The population density is intense. Schoolyard? Playground? No way. No space. In front of one non-ETC school, women wash clothes at a public pump and clothesline; the closest home is two steps from the school’s front door. Within a few feet of the ETC school that will soon be replaced, a man keeps cows in a corral.
Rosalie tells her teachers, “Love the children first. If you love them, they will learn.” Striking a child is forbidden in an ETC school.
Durga Puja, a major Hindu holiday in which most people participate, is a few days away, and Rosalie’s mission is to distribute new clothing to each child. Some of the clothing is fancy, some practical. The beautiful, charming teenage girls in ETC’s vocational school choose to receive yards of fabric from which they will make their own salwar kameez clothing. Plans are under way to, soon, introduce them to computers.
Two of the ETC schools are decent buildings. The third building is slated to be razed and replaced within the next few months. This is a major accomplishment.
The hospital provides free orthopedic surgery and treatment. It’s a great service to hinterland children who, otherwise, would live a disabled life.
Two of the schools not under ETC care are poorly maintained with broken floors, poor electrical wiring, and leaking roofs.
Class sizes are about 40 students with one to three teachers. Ninety-nine students, age preschool to teens, fill a 20-foot by 20-foot space at one school on the day we visit.
Obviously, there are no desks. The chalkboards are only about 3 feet by 3 feet. There are no individual student textbooks; they wouldn’t survive the humidity, dirt, and mice. Storage cabinets, whether wooden or metal, deteriorate quickly and are replaced annually. With no toilet, children use primitive, public facilities in the surrounding neighborhood.
Ventilation comes from open doors and windows, which are very few, and ceiling fans, some of which hang precariously, held by twine, to rafter poles.
Schools are open year-round. “The parents want them in school because they get one hot meal a day and they're in a secure environment,” says Rosalie. “In the summer, the temperature in here is above 100.”
The adjacent buildings are slums, some of concrete and some of wood scraps and tin. The population density is intense. Schoolyard? Playground? No way. No space. In front of one non-ETC school, women wash clothes at a public pump and clothesline; the closest home is two steps from the school’s front door. Within a few feet of the ETC school that will soon be replaced, a man keeps cows in a corral.
Preyrona 1 is an ETC vocational school, where pre-teen and teenage girls learn to sew and will soon receive computer training. The word preyrona means "inspiration."
Below: Preyrona 1 exterior with green plastic covering above a large rooftop area for theater practice.
Second: Girls in one of two desk-less classrooms.
Third: The girls express delight with fabric to make holiday clothing.
Fourth: A residential building adjacent to the school.
Below: Preyrona 1 exterior with green plastic covering above a large rooftop area for theater practice.
Second: Girls in one of two desk-less classrooms.
Third: The girls express delight with fabric to make holiday clothing.
Fourth: A residential building adjacent to the school.
Atmaraksha is a one-room school for which ETC pays teacher salaries, provides hot food, and buys holiday clothing for 50 children, ages 3 to 5.
Below: The school is the pink building. Women wash clothes between the street and the school. Inside, the children receive lessons on the floor.
Below: The school is the pink building. Women wash clothes between the street and the school. Inside, the children receive lessons on the floor.
Preyrona 2 is a one-room school, attended by 99 children ages 5 to 15, that ETC will soon raze and replace.
Large left: The children, teachers, and staff in the schoolyard adjacent to the school.
Far upper left: Man washes a cow in his corral adjacent to the school.
Far lower left: Interior with teachers and children.
Near left: Children being served a daily hot meal of rice, vegetables, and a banana.
Large left: Rosalie with some of the older girls modeling their new holiday salwar Kameez.
Below: Rosalie with one of the boys in his new holiday shirt and shorts.
Large left: The children, teachers, and staff in the schoolyard adjacent to the school.
Far upper left: Man washes a cow in his corral adjacent to the school.
Far lower left: Interior with teachers and children.
Near left: Children being served a daily hot meal of rice, vegetables, and a banana.
Large left: Rosalie with some of the older girls modeling their new holiday salwar Kameez.
Below: Rosalie with one of the boys in his new holiday shirt and shorts.
Life in a slum neighborhood—Kolkata, India; October 25, 2011
Rosalie's apartment is in a relatively nice slum. The buildings are made of concrete as opposed to scraps of wood or tin—and I've seen those too. Yet, neighbor families of eight to twelve adults and children dwell in a single room that might measure 12 x 12. Some rooms are sleep-on-the-floor dormitories for, perhaps, a dozen men who lie on thin blankets or pieces of cardboard. The intense heat in these rooms motivates many men to sleep on sidewalks and building steps.
People bathe and get their water, pumped into buckets or bladders made from goat skin, from community hand pumps. A large bin, made of bamboo poles, holds hundreds of other bamboo poles that people borrow for construction scaffolding. Several outdoor toilets dot the area; the one I can see from my window isn’t enclosed. An uncovered garbage wagon sits between the pole bin and the toilet. Crows and cats scavenge as do a few men with dirty clothes, scraggly beards, and burlap bags over their shoulders. A Muslim mosque uses loudspeakers to call people to prayer five times a day, starting at 4:30 a.m.
Rosalie's apartment is on the second floor of a four-story building with a flat roof and half wall for parties. Compared to homes in neighboring buildings, her place is luxurious: two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bathroom with Indian-style toilet and showerhead, terrazzo floors. There’s no shower stall and water from the showerhead wets the entire floor, so we squeegee the excess into a drain under the toilet. The kitchen appliances are a water filter, electric pitcher to heat water, and a toaster oven but no stove. The fridge, bright red, is in my bedroom. The six other apartments in this building are comparable or larger. No one has screens on their windows nor carpet, which would mold quickly. Live-in geckos and spiders keep insects under control.
The wide ledges on the living room windows hold a jungle of houseplants that live outside year-round, watered well by Mother Nature in the summer monsoon season and by Magdalene, Rosalie's cleaning lady, in the winter. The ledges are plant-sized only, serving to hold decorative wrought iron security grills and not human weight. The grills are immovable, which makes escape from the inside impossible. For this reason, when we're in, we padlock the deadbolt on the door's outer side in its open position so mischievous persons can't entrap us.
Our water supply comes from the community system. Someone uses an electrical pump to lift it to a cistern on the roof. The landlord pays a woman in the neighborhood to open valves once or twice a day to allow water to flow by gravity from the cistern to storage tanks in individual apartments. Our tank, which holds 40 gallons, sits on a platform over the bathroom door. On any given day, this woman may or may not resupply our tank. If she doesn't, we ration. If she gives too much, the tank overflows and floods the bathroom. Until yesterday, when I patched a hole in the bathroom wall, it would also flood the living room. Water heater? You’ve got to be kidding! Fortunately, the water is partially warmed from solar absorption, so it's not too cold.
We eat most meals in restaurants. At expensive places, we pay the equivalent of $15 for a pair of fine meals. Most of the time, we eat in smaller places for about $2 each. The food is descent and the service half-hearted. If a meal isn’t prepared properly, the waiter won’t take it back but simply says, “Tomorrow, sir.” (Translation: We’ll get it right next time—maybe). The lack of sanitation at small cookeries that block many sidewalks with charcoal-fueled woks for rice and cauldrons filled with boiling grease makes that food totally unappealing. And we drink only filtered or bottled water.
This is Rosalie’s eleventh year among these people, living here six months at a time. For the first three-and-a-half years, she lived in a guest house, furnished with only a bed, on Calcutta's famous Sudder Street.
The women and children of Sudder Street sleep in tarp encampments on the sidewalk. They're experts at picking lice from hair, a service for which Rosalie once employed them. Many have homes in their native villages. She asked them, "Why don't you live there?" "The village is boring! Calcutta is exciting," they replied.
She knows many in this 'hood: her landlord, his older brother who lives upstairs, and their families, the men who gather on marble benches in the neighborhood “commons” outside her windows to discuss politics and religion long into the night, the dhobi wallah (laundryman), the tailor, the cobbler, the frame maker, the man at the international courier stand, the Internet café operator, the wandering flute vendor, the man who sells women’s yoga pants from a single rack by a tree, numerous rickshaw wallahs, waiters at many restaurants, beggars, and, of course, her favorite taxi driver, Mr. Kahn, who has come to agree with her that horning only makes noise and doesn’t make traffic move.
All of these people greet her lovingly. “Aunty, Aunty,” they say, using the traditional term when addressing a foreign woman. “The West Bengalis are very friendly people,” she says often.
Her neighbors in the adjacent building across the narrow alley that separates us certainly are. Living on the same level, we often greet each other through open windows as we prepare cold food in o
People bathe and get their water, pumped into buckets or bladders made from goat skin, from community hand pumps. A large bin, made of bamboo poles, holds hundreds of other bamboo poles that people borrow for construction scaffolding. Several outdoor toilets dot the area; the one I can see from my window isn’t enclosed. An uncovered garbage wagon sits between the pole bin and the toilet. Crows and cats scavenge as do a few men with dirty clothes, scraggly beards, and burlap bags over their shoulders. A Muslim mosque uses loudspeakers to call people to prayer five times a day, starting at 4:30 a.m.
Rosalie's apartment is on the second floor of a four-story building with a flat roof and half wall for parties. Compared to homes in neighboring buildings, her place is luxurious: two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bathroom with Indian-style toilet and showerhead, terrazzo floors. There’s no shower stall and water from the showerhead wets the entire floor, so we squeegee the excess into a drain under the toilet. The kitchen appliances are a water filter, electric pitcher to heat water, and a toaster oven but no stove. The fridge, bright red, is in my bedroom. The six other apartments in this building are comparable or larger. No one has screens on their windows nor carpet, which would mold quickly. Live-in geckos and spiders keep insects under control.
The wide ledges on the living room windows hold a jungle of houseplants that live outside year-round, watered well by Mother Nature in the summer monsoon season and by Magdalene, Rosalie's cleaning lady, in the winter. The ledges are plant-sized only, serving to hold decorative wrought iron security grills and not human weight. The grills are immovable, which makes escape from the inside impossible. For this reason, when we're in, we padlock the deadbolt on the door's outer side in its open position so mischievous persons can't entrap us.
Our water supply comes from the community system. Someone uses an electrical pump to lift it to a cistern on the roof. The landlord pays a woman in the neighborhood to open valves once or twice a day to allow water to flow by gravity from the cistern to storage tanks in individual apartments. Our tank, which holds 40 gallons, sits on a platform over the bathroom door. On any given day, this woman may or may not resupply our tank. If she doesn't, we ration. If she gives too much, the tank overflows and floods the bathroom. Until yesterday, when I patched a hole in the bathroom wall, it would also flood the living room. Water heater? You’ve got to be kidding! Fortunately, the water is partially warmed from solar absorption, so it's not too cold.
We eat most meals in restaurants. At expensive places, we pay the equivalent of $15 for a pair of fine meals. Most of the time, we eat in smaller places for about $2 each. The food is descent and the service half-hearted. If a meal isn’t prepared properly, the waiter won’t take it back but simply says, “Tomorrow, sir.” (Translation: We’ll get it right next time—maybe). The lack of sanitation at small cookeries that block many sidewalks with charcoal-fueled woks for rice and cauldrons filled with boiling grease makes that food totally unappealing. And we drink only filtered or bottled water.
This is Rosalie’s eleventh year among these people, living here six months at a time. For the first three-and-a-half years, she lived in a guest house, furnished with only a bed, on Calcutta's famous Sudder Street.
The women and children of Sudder Street sleep in tarp encampments on the sidewalk. They're experts at picking lice from hair, a service for which Rosalie once employed them. Many have homes in their native villages. She asked them, "Why don't you live there?" "The village is boring! Calcutta is exciting," they replied.
She knows many in this 'hood: her landlord, his older brother who lives upstairs, and their families, the men who gather on marble benches in the neighborhood “commons” outside her windows to discuss politics and religion long into the night, the dhobi wallah (laundryman), the tailor, the cobbler, the frame maker, the man at the international courier stand, the Internet café operator, the wandering flute vendor, the man who sells women’s yoga pants from a single rack by a tree, numerous rickshaw wallahs, waiters at many restaurants, beggars, and, of course, her favorite taxi driver, Mr. Kahn, who has come to agree with her that horning only makes noise and doesn’t make traffic move.
All of these people greet her lovingly. “Aunty, Aunty,” they say, using the traditional term when addressing a foreign woman. “The West Bengalis are very friendly people,” she says often.
Her neighbors in the adjacent building across the narrow alley that separates us certainly are. Living on the same level, we often greet each other through open windows as we prepare cold food in o