Calcutta 1965
which reminds me of the fabled olivier faxxx, a frenchman who walked and hitchhiked from paris to india in 1965. total expenses–one dollar a week on average. in those days the hospitality in the islamic countries was wonderful. i made about half that trip with olivier. we were especially well received in syria where i learned of palestinian longings for the first time. had to feel a zionist bullet still deep in the leg of one old man.
at nighttime we would sleep by the road, or behind a bush to avoid the cattle trails. olivier had a sleeping bag while i just put my jacket over me. in the mornings he would wipe the side of his hand across a patch of grass and wash his face with the dew.
from haunted woodlands
to the banks of the howrah
mystical murmurs
at the surface of the unintelligible
in calcutta we had an english friend who walked about bare-foot with a large black umbrella. always wore a red t-shirt; had no luggage whatsoever. he ate virtually nothing but bananas, and the even cheaper blackened bananas would you realize. third-class steam trains–nobody bothered to buy a ticket.
then so, and somewhat later than forthwith, i decided to rent a small room near the howrah river bridge where we had been sleeping with the cows and other beggars. on two sides the walls were made of cardboard and stopped at about three feet below the ceiling (the marvelous ceiling which was made up of old egg cartons). an hour or so on, after having killed twenty fleas, i observed a fishing pole with line and hook entering my abode over the soggy cardboard. the hook headed toward my pants which then rose up til i cut the line with a large knife i always carried. i crashed through the cardboard wall but nobody was in the cubby there.
in the morning i noticed the englishman and olivier washing clothes at the shady side of a lowly puddle. near them a sikh was cleaning his false teeth in the muddy water. at the other side three beggars were fighting while a fourth took a leak in the middle of the puddle.
what rambling fever of a young siddhartha
what half-contorted dream
could prod the wanderer to enter
the various passing planes of a calcutta
a crust is asked amid the sneers
where the proud parade their vanities
yet then a vagrant, homeless entity
slow drifting in a non-existing nothingness
“if this planet has a history, the history is india.” wonderful kolkata–one of the world’s great cultural centers–with its fabulous mixture of tibetan, parsi, chinese, tamil, and marwari.
Tags: india, mali
parmer