Kolkata/Culcutta, India
The Train Station
I
jump out of the car, insist that I’ll be safe on my own and Suren, my
in-country co-leader and friend from Nepal, reluctantly gives me a
final hug and jumps back into the jeep and leaves.
I turn around and, for the first time on the subcontinent, face India alone.
Froggerstyle,
I hopscotch my way across the street: jumping in front of a decrepit
bus with limbs hanging out the windows, sliding between two green,
honking moto-rickshaws, patiently waiting for a man-drawn rickshaw to
pass, and then making a final dash through the zigzagging taxis driven
by swearing and fist-throwing chauffeurs.
“RICKSHAW Madam?!” “RICKSHAW Madam!?”
The
rickshaw wallahs (drivers) have seen that I have just arrived but, as
soon as I hit the sidewalk, accost me anyway. I wave them off and find
my way to the underground channel that will take me to the central
train station. I enter the subway and am immediately HIT the scent of
one of the world’s largest human populations, brewing and stewing in
the heat of a boiling Calcutta soup.
There’s no shade in this city, but if there were, it’s be over 103 degrees sittin’ in it.
As
I descend down the shallow steps (that couldn’t possibly have been
devised with human feet in mind), an endless line of bag wallahs (men
moving passenger luggage), slowly and strenuously make their way up.
They wear blue and white checkered linen clothes wrapped expertly
around their slim waists and red turban-like towels snaked around their
heads for the purpose of padding the pounds of weight they support on
top.
One of these men is holding up the flow of people filing
up the right side of the stairs. I guess his age to be 60, although men
of his caste and occupation, despite (or because of) the fact that they
are constantly flexing their life-muscle, can not usually expect to
live to an age that’s able to climb past this number. He might weigh a
little over 100 pounds. The load on his head probably weighs 200. His
whole body trembles as he defeats one more step, perhaps wondering with
me, if it’ll be his final. His eyes ache. They plead for the mercy of
relief. In slow motion I watch a bead of sweat, like a tear, roll
desperately down his arm. And then someone's hit Fast Forward and he’s
gone -- lost to my vision by the hoard of people that have impatiently
overcome him.
Having spent the last three months continually on
high alert of the eleven people of whom I was assigned the duty of
protecting, I suddenly realize the sheer SELF-comfort that comes with
being able to watch, care for and instinctively shelter another. For by
doing so, we take cover ourselves. (Is this why we have children?) Now,
naked of both distraction and duty, the rawness of life shouts out at
me and expects an answer.
I am silent but observant as I step
over the bodies strewn across the floor; naked men passed out and
pushed to corners, skinny 14-year old boys sleeping in men’s trousers
cinched together with string, mothers holding out their malnourished
newborns begging for backsheesh (tip, change). Although it reminds me
exactly of the place, this is NOT the Mother Teresa House for the
Destitute. This is the Calcutta Train Terminal. And this - is India.
At
the heart (and lungs) of the terminal, where the whole world seems to
be either exiting or entering, I stand under an enormous billboard
that, in red, flashes the numbers and platforms of the trains arriving
and departing. I look up and wait to see mine. Not hundreds, but
thousands of people file past me. I’ve never seen so many people in my
life. Their mass is so thick that they do not see me until they are on
top of me, whereupon they take one quick side step around me, and
reconvene with their prior path. I look back up to the board and
suddenly I am looking down; Down on this silly white girl, this odd
looking and jutting pale-colored pebble in a dark river of rushing
beings. “What you doing here?” I shout down, laugh at myself and
wonder.
(I’ve been doing this a lot lately -- stepping out of
my eyes and taking a place in the audience, distantly and without
personal attachment viewing my personal life-movie in the making.
Perhaps, like many in the profession, the actor (that is my ego) has
grown tired of its character casting and wants to know what it’s like
to work in production, behind the scenes of consciousness...)
A
university student in a crisp, white shirt and pressed slacks (always
good for help in perfect English) looks at my ticket and gives it back
to me. “Mam. You’re at the right platform. But you’re crazy not to have
gotten a seat with A/C.”
When I arranged the ticket, based on
everyones' advice, I actually had requested an air-conditioned cabin.
But the agent notified me that because of my late reservation, no such
seats were available. The “Surrender to Life!” slogan that I constantly
champion to students, friends and self suddenly raised a motion in my
mind and, in accord, I slapped down my 800 Rupees ($18.95 USD) on the
table and declared, “I don’t need A/C. Book it!”
Now, on the
train, in temperatures that would melt metal, I look around and come to
the realization that not just over-privileged Western women (me), but
even your average Indian women are decided either too delicate, decent,
or deserving to sleep (at least in this kind of heat) in any of the
cars other than those reserved to the upper three air-conditioned
classes. For there are NONE of them here; Women, that is.
What
there ARE in this car is a whole lot of sweating and staring men. They
are all wearing white tank tops and have changed into skirt-like
sarongs to better breathe the heat. Complying with female clothing
traditions in the East, I’m covered from top to toe in modest clothing,
but even the skin showing on my neck feels exposed and indecent. I
don’t feel particularly threatened or unsafe, but I do squirm under the
relentless and unblinking gaze of the dozen men watching every move of
the strange white woman who for some reason has been left here alone.
(“Where is this woman’s husband, brother or otherwise male relation?!”)
In India, it is quite untraditional for a woman to be travelling
without the company of a male escort, and without one, she might even,
herself, be identified as a, “female escort.” And judging by the fact
that I haven’t seen a single other foreigner since I left my hostel,
I’d say a westerner or white person, in general, is a pretty rare and
stare-worthy sight. I don’t blame them and am not about to set out on a
quest to impose Western courtesies on the Eastern world...
BUT
when the Rail Official comes to collect tickets I politely and quietly
ask him if, by any chance, there might be an open seat left in 3rd
class AC.
His ears immediately perk and then, in a glance that
judges the thickness of my moneybelt in accordance to the cost of my
clothing and luggage, looks me into the eye (for the first time) and
says with a hint of hinge, “Why, yes Mam. We just MIGHT have a seat for
you in A/C. ”
Oh! How could I have forgotten! No matter the
"no", in this country, there is always, (always!), a baksheesh
(tip/bribe) backdoor!
For this is India!
****
(The
train has yet to move, so the story, in the next blog continues. We
have yet to get personal with the wonderfully warm people that make
India what it is!)
