Impressions of Kolkata

I'm sitting in a tiny booth with four computers and a small fan, just 20 feet away from Park Road in Kolkata, India. I'm so relieved to be off of the street, away from the incessant honking, smells, dust, putrefying piles of garbage, constant stares, and the frequent heart-wrenching begging. Kolkata is nothing if not intense. I've been here for 2 1/2 days and it's been a constant assault on all of my senses. Frequently, I find myself walking down the street, silently thinking to myself, "Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap..." It's not fear, it's that it doesn't stop. All the time, every where I look, there's something I've never seen before, and it's overwhelming. Neither good nor bad, just overwhelming.

Then there's also the squalor. The buildings are scared by black stains, many of them covered by layers of dirt, dust and grime that look like they've been building up for the last 1,000 years. The streets are lined with gutters, filled with brown, toxic-looking liquid (much of it probably pee) and choked with debris, garbage, and human feces. I've been wearing flip flops, but I'm very careful where I step. There's no where to sit except amidst the dust and the crowds of people. In comparison, New York is a pristine oasis of neatly organized calm. After wandering around the streets of Kolkata, I have a new found appreciating for the glass-covered, urban jungle, and I think I might just have to go kiss the ground in Central Park - in desparate gratitude for its existence - upon my return.

I arrived in Kolkata after a 14 hour flight from JFK to Mumbai (Bombay), a six hour layover (from 12:00 to 6:00 am Mumbai time) in Mumbai Airport, and a two hour flight to Kolkata. From Kolkata airport I took a taxi to the organization for whom I will be volunteering through the end of next week. The cabs here are kind of awesome. They're bright yellow cars in the style of 1920s Rolls Royce's and they're everywhere. There are also tuk-tuks, but I've stuck to the more reliable, quicker, cabs so far.

The people I'll be volunteering with are amazing. From the moment I met them, they greeted me with warmth, excitement, and genuine pleasure to have me here. The organization itself is focused upon stopping another generation of young girls from entering prostitution. To that end, they have reached out to adolescent girls living in the red light districts of Kolkata and in a few other areas in India, and have provided them alternative housing in shelters, education, health care, and skills training - all aimed to give them a viable alternative, other than prostitution, for supporting themselves. Because their mothers are prostitutes, and because they themselves have grown up in the red light districts, they are a high risk group in terms of the likelihood that they will be pressured into prostitution.

A word on the red light districts. Never have I seen such intense poverty. People are living on top of each other, crowded into decaying stone buildings or under lean-tos, with only ragged cloth as a roof covering or door. There's garbage everywhere, as there is in most of the places I've seen so far in Kolkata. Some houses seem to literally rise up out of the garbage, almost as if they are part of the garbage heap upon which they are situated. The girls who live in the red light districts are stigmatized and treated with disdain. Some go to school, but other girls who are not from the red light district are told not to speak with them because they are "bad girls." I'm talking not about the prostitutes, but their children.

I learned a little about some of the children's lives when I met 5 teenage girls yesterday at a shelter, ranging in age from 13-16. They were amazing! Smart, funny, open, and bubbling with questions for me. The girls reside in a shelter run by the organization I'm volunteering with. All of the girls said their mothers support them living outside of the red light district; they don't want their daughters forced into prostitution, they want them to have a different life. During our conversation (in Bengali and Hindi but translated into English for my benefit), the subject turned to violence against women. When I asked whether they had seen violence in their community they described in vivid detail the death of a woman who had been burned a live by her John just a few days earlier. The girls said "husband," because in the red light district that is how the Johns are referred to. It's less shameful then admitting that your mom is a prostitute.

Apparently, her John became angry with her and, after dousing her with alcohol, set her and her sari on fire. Just before dying, she lunged at her attacker, saying that if she died he would go on to do this to other women and that he should die to. She hugged her John and they both ended up being burned alive. The five girls had seen the whole altercation happen inside the cramped quarters where their mothers live. I can't imagine growing up in that reality. I was stunned and inspired by their resilience. They've grown up with abuse and unspeakable horror, such as seeing people burned alive before them, yet they could animatedly discuss their love of dancing, talking to new people, carpentry, and their hopes for their future. One girl wants to be a math teacher, another wants to be a doctor. It's overwhelming to me how many girls there are just like them who deserve so much better than the reality that they were born into.

Speaking of injustice and clashes between worlds, out of necessity, I walk past mothers with children, children alone, the elderly, and the crippled, staring fixedly ahead, ignoring their pleas for money or food. A fellow traveler that I met my first night here, Sarah from Scotland, told me how guilty she feels when she does the same thing and refuses the pleas for help. Having just arrived, I waxed philosophical, and said I didn't feel guilty because supporting begging runs the risk of supporting the trafficking of persons for begging, and suggested that a better route would be donating to a local organization. Ha! That was after only 3 hours in the city.

Two days and many, many poor souls later, of course I feel guilty. I'm sickened by the poverty, not by the people who are poor, and not by their way of life, but by the fact that they have so little. In comparison, I have so much. I come from a world so different, and so filled with privileges it's incomprehensible. Walking on the garbage covered side walk, navigating between skeletal bodies huddled against the sides of the path, many of them without even a piece of cloth to cover them, I feel sick to my stomach at the injustice. But, what can I do? Giving out rupees would accomplish two things: First, it would get me mobbed, and second, it would in fact support the trafficking of people for begging - a practice which results in, among other things, the forced maiming of children for sympathy points. As I don't want either, I'm holding on to my rupees, but, yes, I feel guilty, but mostly I just feel sad. I feel sad that I have so much where they have so little, and guilty for giving them nothing. It feels cruel to walk past them without even a glance. I try to be firm and gentle, and to treat each person I encounter with dignity and respect. But, it's not enough. People should not be living like this. It's horribly sad.