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The Calcutta Diary: A Volunteer’s Experience

October 5th, 2008

The heat and humidity have killed off any desire I have to eat anything. It is so humid that I find it hard to drag myself out of bed and get dressed.

Added to this is my frustration that I am paying too much for my hotel..I’ve known for several days that I had overpaid for my single room, but didn’t feel motivated to do anything about it.

Today I finally tried to do something about it by talking to the manager, but it was to no avail. Part of this is because any moment the big Puja Festival–the largest Hindu festival in this area of India all year–is about to take place, so rooms are crowded. The other reason that I can’t lower the price is because I am a single, white woman. Women traveling alone here have told me that bargaining for a lower rate on a hotel room is impossible( If you are traveling alone, and not with a man), and it turns out to be pretty true.

The other frustration I have today is the corruption here, which is everywhere. Everyone is making money off of everyone else. A little bit is skimmed off the top for this person or that one..and when it finally filters down to who oever is supposed to receive it it’s become a mere pittance.

Even beggars have to pay for their spot on the street, and turn over a certain amount of their earnings to a big boss. Street childen often turn over all of their earnings in return for very little.

So although the people of this city are very kind, they also are full of corruption and people trying to take advantage . Even the smallest transaction has a middleman–or ten middlemen.

Tourists are no exception. When I overpaid for my room, part of the money was given to the taxi driver who brought me there, who gae some to his boss, and so on.

In the States, we have all these middlemen, too–but somehow it does not bother me so much, probably because I can’t see it affecting simple tiny transactions, like a street child’s earnings from begging  on the street.

My only two goals today are to eat something and find a new hotel. If I can accomplish only these two things, I will be happy. As happy as one can be here.

But that’s the strangest part about this place…in spite of it’s terribleness, I like it. There’s something about this city that draws me in and holds me here, whether I want it to or not.

Right now, a man is sitting and playing a sitar and singing in the internet cafe I am writing this post in. The music is entirely foreign to me–and yet, I feel like I’ve heard it before. It so fits in with the environment that it’s hard to notice it.

The experience yesterday, of the man dying in the street, it was something like this–like a sitar being played, the whirring og the fans overhead, the overwhelming smells raging war in my nostrils..it happened so quickly that it was literally hard to notice it.

I noticed it, of course, but passerby didn’t. It was not foreign, it was everyday. An everyday occurence, mixed up with thousands of other everyday occurences, in a city so packed that you can’t move without bumping into someone or something.

Out the back window of my hotel room there is a large building being built, out of concrete. Men shimmy up ladders made of bamboo that are shoddily put together. I watch them out my window, as they perform acrobatic feats of leaping off the bamboo ladders onto the building they are constructing and then shimmy down again.

At night, they sleep in the half shell of the building they are working on, on bits of cardboard. Their few clothes hang on a line, their cooking pots cook a simple meal over a fire of cooked trash…they work every   single  day, from 5 am until 10 pm.

Today a man fell off the scaffolding and hurt his leg and ribs. He did not even cry out. I watched it all happen as I was brushing my teeth and staring out the window.

All I could think of was that he must be so worried about his loss of livelihood–his family was no where nearby, perhaps he was sending them money, or perhaps they were living somewhere in this city. Money is such a commodity here–even a few ruppees–that people are willing to take work that kills them. They have no choice.

A rickshaw was brought and took the man away. The rickshaw was a human powered type, the kind that are pulled by men. These serve as the ambulances of the poor here.

They are trying to outlaw these types of rickshaws, saying that “they are not the face of Calcutta”. This is the last place on earth to use these types of human-horse types of transport in the world.

From what I have seen so far–in spite of a great concentration of industry and tourists and luxury goods in this city–these human powered rickshaws are the face of this city.

gigi



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18 responses to “The Calcutta Diary: A Volunteer’s Experience”

  1. jim says:

    Alas, I fear the corruption in the U.S. is the more frightening and insidious because we tend to hide it, sweep the unpleasantness under the rug so we can pretend it does not exist. Why else would we be so shocked when some high profile case comes up. It is like roaches; for every one you see, hundreds are all around, just hiding.
    We don’t react well to unpleasant things shoved in our faces, but maybe if they were, we, as a society might decide to react, to change them. With compassion, patience, and understanding. Not with fear and force as is normally our wont.
    It really inspires me to read your entries, as you re a clear example of the former.
    :o)

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  5. I completely and utterly relate to this. I see it in myself and its nice to know someone else gets that! I work hard. I dont always get the results I want. But I keep trying.

  6. dog pain says:

    We mustve started running at the same time. My younger self wouldve had the same reaction as yours. I remember in high school wondering why in the heck anyone would want to run 7 miles. Oh how perspectives can change!!

  7. With the potential for voter fraud in the MA election, I wonder if Jimmy Carter will show up to assure fairness. He travels all over the world for that purpose. This time, he could cut travel expenses by get ting on the bus with the SEIU or Acorn crowd.

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