It had to start somewhere and it started even before the first train ride of the trip even began. My first “what the heck” moment of the trip.
We boarded the Coromandel Express at Chennai Central train station and waited for the train to start moving. Meanwhile Indians streamed into the cabins and unloaded their various baggage, stuffing them into any corner they can find.
Then it/he/she came on board. It was dressed in a sari, but had the broad shoulders and the deep voice of a male. He was soliciting for donations around the cabins and soon came to our cabin. Everyone in the cabin ignored her in a bid to send the message that we will not be donating anything. I followed the crowd.
But instead of just leaving me alone like she did to everyone else, it decided to get something from what is otherwise a fruitless attempt to wrestle some cash from our small wallets.
She pinched my right cheek. I was too shocked to reply with some abuse or punch her, and I felt like Camus after he was shot. She then swayed her manly hips and left the train cabin.
She was not the only beggar to engage in some degree of bodily contact with me. While Tim tends to attract touts selling all kinds of nonsense (e.g. statutes of Kali, cashmere etc), I was a beggar magnet. Somehow EVERYONE begs from me. I think it is because I look fat and rich. And when they don't get what they want, they start to get a little more bold and pushy. They start to tap my kneecaps, grab my arm, stand in the way, and of course, pinch my cheeks. It is amazing.
And the fact that Calcutta is filled with beggars and the destitute on the streets didn't make things better.
The little kids were particularly heartbreaking. They live with their mothers on the streets, often staying outside air-conditioned supermarts. When their mothers see tourists like us walking their way, they send their children to pester and cling on to us. I want to give them some money, but knew I couldn't because this will only spark off a begging frenzy. When we walked along the streets at night, we had to take care not to step on anyone who happened to be sleeping on the sidewalks, just inches away from the crazy traffic that congests the narrow roads of Calcutta.
The contrast was stark. And this is just another example of the lob-sided economic development that is currently happening in India. Sporadic bursts of signs of economic growth is met with beggars digging into stacks of rotting garbage just metres away from tourist ghettos.
I guess I can always burst into the usual drill of extrapolating what I saw to what I have in Singapore and feel blessed for about 5 seconds that I am staying in comfort in a safe country like Singapore.
But that would be to draw away attention and focus from Calcutta to Singapore, in a rather self-centred way.
Calcutta is really a phenomenon in itself that should stand for what it uniquely is. It is impossible to explain, but possible to describe.
Calcutta is a place where the squallid and desperately destitute coexists and blends with the sparks of emergent prosperity. The everpresent, indifferent and suffocating heat disinfects and kills at the same time, reflecting a harsh and trying existence. It seems to melt everything together into one whole that somehow maintains its cohesiveness despite the miasma of smog, brightly coloured saris, aromatic curries, sweating old men pulling young couples on rickshaws and thousands of yellow taxis jamming their horns and belching black smoke.
Calcutta does not attract many tourists for obvious reasons, but whoever comes here will be humbled by being privy to a peek of a city where the overpowering heat and pollution undergirds an existence that is never guaranteed, which is somehow met by the warmth and courage of a people that somehow manages to trudge along and met the arduous demands of eking out even a simple existence.
May 9, 2009 at 1:56:00 AM GMT+8
You don't look fat.
In fact, you look....more rugged. Thinner I suppose.
Stay strong emotionally so that you can share more stuff with us!
May 9, 2009 at 4:06:00 PM GMT+8
If cannot take it fly back.. u r most wellcome home. u w treated like a king at home! Dont ever be soft hearted to give $$ or the beggars will flw u wherever you go! You seems to enjoy & seems to suffer as well. goodie experience for you guys!!
May 11, 2009 at 6:40:00 PM GMT+8
life is not about being a king. it is about living with the beggars in calcutta. sorry auntie i have to do what a man must do.
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