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I got the idea of visiting Calcutta while reading “The City of Joy” by Dominique Le Pierre, and I decided to go as my own present for my birthday.
As long as I went on reading the story of Hasari, a poor Indian peasant and the description of the buzzy daily life amid which he moved during his daily heavy trailing along the boulevards, alleys and bridges, I felt eagerer and eagerer to set out to the discovery of Calcutta, perhaps the poorest and most mysterious city in modern, industrialized India where the sunbeams shine glorious over affluence, industrialization, electronics and welfare.
Soon after landing at Calcutta I was struck by the dimly lit airport facilities including the old fans which unsuccessfully tried to move the heavily damp night air. A surreal quietness and the airport staff seemed to welcome me silently when, outside the airport itself, I was kindly though informally approached by local people offering me their help to find accommodation in town in order for me to have a pleasant stay.
At sunrise the city was dramatically chaotic with millions of people leading a sort of frantic life, a broad place plunged into dimness, smog, humidity: an artificial atmosphere, indeed. Half deafened by the hooting of horns, nearly tumbled over by rickshaws, bicycles, mopeds, or run over by cars, lorries, buses and coaches I really perceived I was moving in Calcutta.
At the crossroads, on the fly-over, and along the outskirts roads the noise was even louder; everywhere there was a hectic hustling of vehicles to find room where to march or stop, a continuous jostling of means of transport trying to overtake each other all along the streets and roads of Calcutta.
In spite of that, Calcutta did not appear to me as a scaring city to walk through or have a drive in an Ambassador, a typically Indian means of transport still to use and not only to take photos of. On the whole I realized the meaning of Le Pierre’s joy as I got nearer and nearer to the rusty, huge Hovrah Bridge spanning the river Hoogly, locally named Ganga. It links two worlds, two different ways of living: richness and seediness.
The muddle was thicker and thicker as I approached the bridge: smog, acrid, sharp smell, exhaustion gases, busy traffic made the air unbreathable, not to mention the goats wandering across the streets. Actually, goats are slain as a vicarious sacrifice to Kali, the terrible goddess reincarnating Siva’s first wife, at the Temple of Kali, the symbol of India, on the darkest night of November.
At the other end of the bridge there were peddlers, beggars, tiny shops in dark, sombre grottos or caves excavated in the foundations of old houses. There were poor Indian workers earning a handful of rupees by their day-labour. At that moment I realized I was stepping into the Calcutta I expected to see. It was a real city that was reaching out to me with its urban decay and millions of homeless people living and sleeping on cardboard pieces, or rugs, or on a couple of wooden boards or just on the earth, unaware of their misery. I got going, looking at the scenes around me and stopping from time to time. People looked serene in spite of their needy condition, because of the beliefs of their religious faith based on the possession of nothing. However, in my Western eyes, they were utterly and extremely poor. I would have stopped a little longer, but the foul smell mounted unhealthily and seemed to spread it below my skin and imbue my clothes with its sticky pungency but life scenery was softened by the sight of the flower market, a few yards ahead where big baskets of multicoloured flowers and blossoms carried on the improvised sellers’ slender or bent shoulders seemed to go walking along the road. By the river bank, a maze of alleys stretched like a grid, and there, flowers were weighed on scales and sold by the kilo. I was really struck and had the impression that those “vendors” were selling their heavy labour together with those bunches carefully tied according to the hues of the corollas and inflorescences. The different colours made a sort of harmoniously painted plot around the man offering his fragrant goods to the passer-byes. All I could do was to take notes of that real world and walk on step by step carefully avoiding the large puddles, witnesses of the rain of the night before. Nor could I have a look at the sky above as I had to stride over the old railway tracks which men, women and children were going along.
It seemed as if none of them knew whether a train would pass or not, a train of hope waited for by many of them for perhaps a life-long time. Clotted on both sides of the rails I could see wooden, dark, would-be dwelling places, which gave me the impression that the dwellers expected a train to pass at any moment so they would be ready to catch it and go somewhere else.
Then I crossed the bridge and quite another sight was in front of me: beautiful Victorian buildings and historic temples stood there imposing and elegant. It was another Calcutta offering the visitors restaurants, museums, botanic gardens to embellish that quarter of the city. Every wall of the many luxurious palaces bore the signs of the past British colonization. In particular, the Marble Palace with its gardens surrounded with marble statues left me agape. I was shown into the building by a door-keeper who took me around the many halls explaining to me the artistic beauty of the precious ornaments.
In the dimly lit rooms I could make out furniture, statues and tapestry, all loose covers, in my opinion could not attract many visitors. I had to lift the cloths centimetre by centimetre if I wanted to see what the covers concealed from my sight. So I espied Victorian antiques, busts, golden clocks and big, luxurious candlesticks. It was great fun, indeed.
Besides Calcutta reminded me of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, that minute, persevering woman who created in the city a home for the outcasts and orphaned or street children. While visiting one of the homes a wave of sensations rose in my heart and since that day I have been more and more aware of the enormous value of the services she provided regardless of destitute people’s religious creed. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity have been bearing their fruits: a host of collaborators, co-workers and volunteers help continue the work started by the Mother many years ago.
Something else attracted my attention and impressed me in Calcutta, at Nintala Ghat. That is a lonely place on the bank of the Hoogly, one of the many branches of the Gange, where every day corpses are cremated. When there, I was wrapped by a sort of mist covering the view of the sky and my nostrils were swept over by the pungently smelling vapours from a burning funeral pile although the fragrance of the flowers seemed at times to prevail over the sharp fumes. Bystanders and mourners seemed to deeply share that traditional ceremony , almost enjoying it though in silent tears. I perceived I was in front of an event belonging to the traditional Indian culture of death quickly overriding life. Yes, the dead man’s relatives were mourning and rejoicing as their dear one was passing to a luckier world.
It was there, in Nintala Ghat that I realized what was the meaning of La Pierre’s “joy”. In a flash I inferred that I had found the key to understand the spirit of Calcutta and inside myself, at that very moment, I called the city with her ancient name of Kolkata. |
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