Oh Calcutta!
When traveling to a city for the first time, everyone has a preconceived perception of what they expect to find. People expect Paris to be romantic and possess an almost pastel quality, New York you assume will be fast furious & fashionable, and Detroit…well, no comment. Before arriving in Calcutta, my only perceptions of the city were images of Mother Theresa helping the dying and destitute, the documentary Born into Brothels, and the population hovering around 17 million seemed unimaginably daunting.
The city we found completely blew us away. Tree lined boulevards dotted with busy cafes, marble shopping malls with state of the art theatres, and street food vendors shelling out hot plates of noodles and warm chappattis. Compared to other Indian cities that were a quarter of the size, it seemed like Calcutta’s volume was turned down a few notches. The pollution wasn’t noticable and navigating the city as a pedestrian much more forgiving. As soon as we arrived we knew that our three days would not be long enough. (especially when one of those days involved a visit to Pizza Hut and Babel on the big screen. Again, something I shouldn’t reveal)
The night before we left, celebrations began for the following day’s Hindu holiday of Holi. Based on a few street interviews, everyone seemed to say that Holi was just a celebration of color…although I’m sure some specific reincarnation of Vishnu or Shiva was the patron saint. The Holi celebrations that we saw were basically people in the streets, dancing to rhythms pumping from a group of drummers, and spreading powdered dye all over eachother’s faces. It was also an opportunity for Calcutta’s youth to wage an all out assault via water pistols on any lucky passersby.
The night before Holi a huge crowd had assembled outside our hotel, dancing to the drums around a bonfire. To make a long story short, I managed to slice open my foot on a broken glass beer mug. (the second time I’ve been a victim in my life to broken beer containers) With the help of a few 5 year olds I hobbled over to the sidewalk in front of our semi-sketchy hotel. I removed my sandal and blood started spurting all over the sidewalk. The children were screaming “Madame! Blood Blood!”, and soon a crowd had assembled around me. Some old bitty must have removed her pantyhose, because out of nowhere a pair of nylons were thrust into my hand to compress to my blood-pumping toes. The kids wouldn’t let me do the compressing, apparantly they were interested in playing an active role. It was determined by Dr. JR that I needed stitches, which meant a good ol’ trip to the Calcutta hospital. Luckily JR had just minutes before met an Aussie named Susan, luckily Susan had met a group of med students from Madrid an hour before, luckily those med students were dancing in the streets 20 feet away, and luckily those med students happened to have dissolvable stitches in their brand new doctor’s bag. Within minutes a Spanish girl was cleaning off my Calcutta-street-grime-bloody foot with antiseptic and applying the stitches, with her bare hands of course. I thought about making a joke about AIDS, but decided that perhaps it wasn’t the best time for sick demented humor. All in all it was a very humbling experience and kind of makes you wonder how events and people fall into place so perfectly sometimes.
Leaving India was sad. I think it’s a place where you have to shed a layer of your Western society skin and go with the flow. As soon as we threw away our nerdy hand sanitizer and grew accustomed to the cows walking around taking dumps everywhere, we truly began to appreciate how beautiful this country is. As wild and crazy and loud and chaotic it can be at times, the people manage to maintain a calm resilient attitude. I always thought that stress was a result of the environment you’re in and the pressure put on you by outside influences, but if these people can remain calm as a peach in a 90 degree flesh packed bus as high-pitched Hindi music blares full blast and the driver appears to be auditioning as a stunt driver…then perhaps stress is created by oneself and not the environment. Not that I’ve become some newly reformed stress free love child, I asked myself daily “How the F can these people be so damn calm?”, but the Indian people definitly provide a model to work towards.
We met an Irish guy in London who said India was his favorite place in the world, and called it an “assault on the senses”. He couldn’t have more spot on, something about the country is so intoxicating and addictive…I can’t wait to return.
Click “Calcutta” to view photos below.
Tags: India, Photos, Travel
brooke.pearson8
Brooke you’re a witty freaking writer. But I’m sorry for your injured tootsie.
xo
Brooke,nrThis trip sounds like the most incredible adventure anyone could imagine so far. I often find myself daydreaming about what it must be like. Keep the journels coming girl! This is good stuff!nrYour Anixter friend,nrMichelle
OMG i just saw your chakos covered in blood! I can not believe how you lucked out on that one!!! Miss you
Detroit… people knifing each other on city streets is what I think of!nrThanks for the posts, enjoying every word!