Kolkota, rambling serious post
Kolkota (Calcutta), Tues, 2 Oct 2007
I arrived this morning at Howrah Station by train, AC-2, after a comfortable and nap-filled journey. The trains here run on time, which I always associate with fascism.
Checking into the local youth hostel (Rp 150, 10pm curfew), I promptly napped for three hours. Sleeping in a train is hard work. One of the few disadvantages to this hostel is its out-of-the-way location, but it is near a metro station. I engaged in my favorite way of exploring a new city, walking, for two hours and almost made it to the shopping/tourist district before I found the MG Rd metro station and rode back. There were lightning and storm-clouds threatening.
I keep thinking about the sheer magnitude of the day-to-day poverty I see. It is the daily life of deprivation and homelessness I associate with the mentally ill in the US, but here it is an entire underworld of shanty-towns and subsistence living with its own economy and, I suspect, codes of behavior. At first I kept thinking "Oh, this is like New York's worse areas," which is true, but on a nearly unfathomable scale. Kolkata has a population of 15 million.
The city people are not as friendly as rural people, which may be a constant of human nature, but I am not sure. The Kolkata residents I have encountered have not been overly friendly even by urban standards. I can't help thinking Britain's brutal and bloody history here may have contributed something to that.
As I walked down a normal, crowded, brightly-lit (by Indian standards) street, passing children and families, a pretty, painted woman cleverly recognized that I am a white man traveling alone. "Fucking?" she offered. "Nice girls!" I'm sure they are lovely but I declined her kind offer. AIDS incidence among prostitutes here is high, in addition to other unpleasant possibilities. (Additional note: I'm told Kolkata is a destination for European sex tourism.) Prostitution is illegal, and it is not unheard of for an opportunistic police officer to associate white people with a large "fine".
I doubt humanity as a whole will ever respect and honor a profession engaged in mainly by poor women.
I finished John Irving's "The Cider House Rules" today. He is a good writer, at times sentimental, but he is not kind to his characters. My eyes were moist several times while reading, as well as at the end.
It sometimes seems that even non-writers used to be more eryudite, in their journals for example. Maybe we have lost something in our ability to instantly transform thought into word on typewriters and computers. Perhaps we are meant to write at a slower pace. Or perhaps it's just that the good stuff endures.
I arrived this morning at Howrah Station by train, AC-2, after a comfortable and nap-filled journey. The trains here run on time, which I always associate with fascism.
Checking into the local youth hostel (Rp 150, 10pm curfew), I promptly napped for three hours. Sleeping in a train is hard work. One of the few disadvantages to this hostel is its out-of-the-way location, but it is near a metro station. I engaged in my favorite way of exploring a new city, walking, for two hours and almost made it to the shopping/tourist district before I found the MG Rd metro station and rode back. There were lightning and storm-clouds threatening.
I keep thinking about the sheer magnitude of the day-to-day poverty I see. It is the daily life of deprivation and homelessness I associate with the mentally ill in the US, but here it is an entire underworld of shanty-towns and subsistence living with its own economy and, I suspect, codes of behavior. At first I kept thinking "Oh, this is like New York's worse areas," which is true, but on a nearly unfathomable scale. Kolkata has a population of 15 million.
The city people are not as friendly as rural people, which may be a constant of human nature, but I am not sure. The Kolkata residents I have encountered have not been overly friendly even by urban standards. I can't help thinking Britain's brutal and bloody history here may have contributed something to that.
As I walked down a normal, crowded, brightly-lit (by Indian standards) street, passing children and families, a pretty, painted woman cleverly recognized that I am a white man traveling alone. "Fucking?" she offered. "Nice girls!" I'm sure they are lovely but I declined her kind offer. AIDS incidence among prostitutes here is high, in addition to other unpleasant possibilities. (Additional note: I'm told Kolkata is a destination for European sex tourism.) Prostitution is illegal, and it is not unheard of for an opportunistic police officer to associate white people with a large "fine".
I doubt humanity as a whole will ever respect and honor a profession engaged in mainly by poor women.
I finished John Irving's "The Cider House Rules" today. He is a good writer, at times sentimental, but he is not kind to his characters. My eyes were moist several times while reading, as well as at the end.
It sometimes seems that even non-writers used to be more eryudite, in their journals for example. Maybe we have lost something in our ability to instantly transform thought into word on typewriters and computers. Perhaps we are meant to write at a slower pace. Or perhaps it's just that the good stuff endures.