Journey to India

It's hard to feel anything some times. Part of me wants to b e proud of my father's heritage, of my childhood, and the other part of me wants to take a large heavy duty power washer to the whole city, to buildings,  sidewalks, bridges,  shops, everything. I love powerwashers.  They use water and electricity to clean, clean and clean. I am no clean freak, but the layers and layers of soot, diesel exhaust, dirt, grime, is unbearable at times.

 

I try  to be philosophical, but it's hard. I wouldn't know how to work here and have hope. Not even the little things I do give me hope. They are less than a drop in the bucket. The beggar children may be poor and malnourished, but they aren't stupid. They know how to play the game....  beg,  pester, badger, delay you,  pull on you, do the woe-is-me routine, "food auntie, auntie!', till you are sick of it.  My cousin says he doesn't give money, but may buy them some food, such as  a wrap (known as a roll here and avaiblable everywhere as  fast  food) , but even as I did that , the boy stuck the wrap in his pocket and kept asking for more money. I had seen him frisk a younger boy,  perhaps  6 years old, and almost had him strip naked in do wntown Kolkata, lest he be hiding and keeping some of his begging earnings. Real operators. Amidst $6000 surround sound  systems in Bose shops and the Grand Hotel, and $10,000 wedding sarees,  limbless beggars, old men, lying studiously on the sidewalk, strategically placed between hawkers of cheap shirts and global dollar store junk. It's all too familar.  I feel angry that nothing has changed.  I talk to everyone, to the Oxford book shop coffee shop employees (like Starbuck/Chapters ), to the traffic cops, the chawallahs, our security doormen,  the little kids who I teach how to shoot a photograph and to family members.  They are all aware of the problems, but I see no one expressing any vision or enthusiasm to change things.  I know they are out there, but they must be in the minority. I saw some young Greenpeace volunteers handing out pamphlets once but when I told the optician, who was preparing glasses for my son,  about their efforts, he said they were all "garbage".  He was a most educated and affable man, and he announced that all the food in the city was "garbage'. When I asked him what he was doing to change things, he changed the subject.

 

I see people preening themselves to look beautiful as they step out for the evening. Great attention is  paid to matching earrings with the clothes,  well coiffed hair,  surrealistically beautiful clothes,  cavalier and dashing looks amongst the men, but  then they step out on a sidewalk  that is broken and treacherous with potholes, dog  crap,  plastic bags,  and all manners of  fruits and vegetable peels and many other assorted debris. And they don't notice the absurd dichotomy as they pursue what Romeo and Krishna have pursued for thousands of years: romance, love, glitter, the momentary seduction.