Thursday, December 01, 2011
Non-Chalant Defiance
It's wedding season in Kolkata. The bridal car is often decorated
gloriously with flower garlands and other props including styrofoam
cutouts naming the couple and wishing them a happy life together.
These cars, like our cab, get stuck in traffic where street beggars
work the captive cars amidst the brutal honking and diesel fumes. As
one girl, about 10 years old, begging, was being shooed away from the
bridal car, her partner, perhaps a younger brother, broke a large
chunk of the styrofoam center piece of the grill off with great malice
and satisfaction, out of sight of the passengers, and threw it down on
the ground non-chalantly, and went on to the next car to plead for
food and mercy, putting on his masterful hapless victim act.
gloriously with flower garlands and other props including styrofoam
cutouts naming the couple and wishing them a happy life together.
These cars, like our cab, get stuck in traffic where street beggars
work the captive cars amidst the brutal honking and diesel fumes. As
one girl, about 10 years old, begging, was being shooed away from the
bridal car, her partner, perhaps a younger brother, broke a large
chunk of the styrofoam center piece of the grill off with great malice
and satisfaction, out of sight of the passengers, and threw it down on
the ground non-chalantly, and went on to the next car to plead for
food and mercy, putting on his masterful hapless victim act.
