Fortunately in the intensity of an India city Kolcutta has a nice little backpacker/traveler bubble will you feel like you are part of a little neighborhood with your basic needs and comforts readily available. Sutter St. not only offers a variety of guesthouses that each have their own unique living energy of people, smells, animals, themes, and breath. It is also mildly populated by city residents in need of some help and are willing to help. You can get your stuff washed, have a good meal, use the internet, and so forth
The way spaces and places and people are in India is so strong and powerful that you can taste it when you turn each corner, feel it through your body, and instantly your spirit, emotions and mind has an oppertunity on how to take on your experience: positive or negative. YOu dance through all that India carries by however you are feeling in the moment. It is very raw here and very real here. There is no organizastion, no boundaries, and no right from wrong. It is pure survival. Everything is how it is and there in no covering it up. And the people of India can see right through you!
The first few days in this city we wondered out a few times beyond the comforts of our bubble where we have become friends with the Chai man and the local cafe owners. You are quickly attacked by beggers and sellers and rickishaw drivers. The more tired and uncomfoprtable you are the more they come at you. Needless to say our first day was a little challenging since we had no sleep and it was easy to get bent out of shape as a women carrying a baby with little teeth, worn down cothes, and weathered skin is following you for blocks begging you to buy milk and meanwhile the rickishaw driver is wringing a bell in your face offering a ride to a tourist site and the man selling scarves is pulling your arm into his shop. OH MY INTENSE!!!!!!
Above it all, of course I was a bit more use to this than Kurtis so I put an extra hard shell on for the both of us, took on the duty of protecter while trying to let the local voltures know that they cant trick me into buying anything. Its hard to be so hard and closed off...but a neccesity at times when you are exhausted and trying to ease someone you love into a world that is completely flipped around and backwards and insanely stimulating.
SO thoughtful me eased Kurtis in by taking him to a place to eat that seemed familiar to me. An environemnt that I am use to and feels like an authentic India experience. We went to a local eatery where there were no westerners or men. The owner throws a plate of Tali (Small bowls of Vegetable Curries, Dal, and RIce) in front of you and a dirty water pitcher to wash your hands. We were sitting directly in the middle of the dingy resteraunt that looks like it hasnt seen a womens touch since it was built 1885 and we shared our table with the locals. OK SO BAD IDEA TO BRING A FIRST TIME TRAVELOR TO A PLACE LIKE THAT - especially after walking the povertish streets of Kolcutta where we are approached and I am looked up and down at every step of the way. WHOOPS! Thank goodness for Hotel Ashreen...and the practice of forgiveness
Our next few days we took our time easing into India and traveling together. Slowly I had to let go of by backpacker penny pinching no fear mentality to create patience and compassion for this brave man who came accross the world to see me. I remember how scared and shocked I was when I arrived in Bangkok and how no matter what people said or showed or gave me I had to still figure it out on my own.
We took our time as we poked in and out of the big and small markets, at times we swam with the people in the chaos of the streets, sat on the side of the road with poor families, mingled with other travelors, visited the Victoria Memorial, was awed by the garbage and filth, found smalls havens of coffee shops and craft stores that help homeless children, ate food in travelors cafe, sipped chai on a bench watching the madness, dodged out of the way of traffic that has a large variety of transportation but no order and most importantly talked with one another as we rediscovered ourselves, eachother, and these new dynamics in our relationship: India and Traveling.
And just as traveling goes, just as you get settled into a place and know the neighbors names, run into to old friends from other places you visit and feel safe and secure and start to get into the it is time to move on to the next place....but first a train ride!
