Of Squalor and Red Tape and Wide-Eyed Culture Shock

Oh boy, where to start. This is day 3 in Calcutta, and if I tell you that my nerves are frazzled and my eyeballs searing from unbelievable sights, I would be only scratching the surface. So, let me scratch a little deeper. I need to get some of this off my chest.

We arrived late, very late, on Monday night. Driving through the city at midnight, peering through the windows, we were greeted by a city asleep. Rollers down on shops and bars, empty streets, not much going on. Calcutta looked a bit grotty – granted – but not that much worse than many other cities at night.

Oh, but then. Then, we reached the zone where we were going to be staying. You know, living in a big city (like, say, London), you get used to seeing homeless people, you see things at night time that you’d rather not see, and you feel thankful that you have a roof over your head. This, however, was something else. This was homelessness on a scale I have never imagined. This was not just the odd person or two in a doorway or on the corner. The whole street, entire footpaths were covered with sleeping bodies; man lying next to wife, babies next to big brothers and sisters. Some had a thin mattress. Some a blanket. Some nothing, just themselves curled up directly on the footpath.

And then during the day. In daylight, how can I describe this city? Imagine a 1960s stylistic sensiblity meeting a level of poverty and filth that you would imagine only existing in the 1800s. And then twist that surreal dial up another notch or two.

At the train station, in restaurants, guesthouses, offices - the decor is caught in a 60s time-warp of plastic furniture and peeling wallpaper; the waiters are over-solicitious but incompetent; bureaucracy is slow-witted and written down in triplicate. When we have dinner, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m caught up in an Indian version of Fawlty Towers – head waiters shouting at their subordinates, orders mixed up, endless fiddling and rearranging of cultery and crockery. On the streets, in the guesthouse, in fact everywhere, people yell at each other in order to get their point across. And everything, absolutely everything, takes forever.

Yesterday, for example, we achieved the following: we bought our train tickets for today; we posted a parcel back to England. That’s it. Buying the tickets took a good few hours – joining the queue, filling out forms, sitting patiently while the men in the office shouted at each other, filling out more forms, looking at the 80s computer, asking questions and eventually getting an answer, and of course the taxi trips back and forth for money and passports because we still have so much to learn about how things work in this country.

Sending the parcel, though,  was the highlight of my day. In front of the post office are men who help you to organise your package. Sending stuff through the mail in a box (which is the norm, right?) is not permissable. Yes, you put your things in a cardboard box, but then the box itself must be covered in fabric and then the fabric sewn together. A customs form is filled out, and copied in triplicate. The copies are rolled up and also sewn onto the package. A wax seal is stamped along all the seams and corners. A ‘to’ and ‘from’ address is then written onto the fabric (our ‘from’ address is our guesthouse, it’s not really going to help if the parcel is returned as we will be long gone, but these are The Rules, and they will be followed). The man explained to us that all this is necessary to ensure that no-one in the postal service is able to go through the parcels and steal things. The parcel has to leave India with all the seals intact.

Packages are only accepted at the post office until 4pm, and as we of course were doing all this at 3.55pm, a certain amount of pushing was done on our behalf at the counter.  Amazingly, we sent it off at 4pm on the dot. I can’t wait to receive that parcel when we get back home, it’s going to look so exotic. Assuming it arives, of course.

As a foreigner, I get stared at - unashamedly – when walking down the streets. Beggars see us coming, and practically run to us – plucking our sleeves, following us for a while. Last night, a woman tried to corner me on the street. She approached me, I murmured a no, and went to the right to step past her. She blocked me. So I stepped to the left. She followed suit and pushed against me. I think I feinted a move back to the right and then slipped past on the left – I can’t quite remember – but I did manage to get past her. However, don’t get the impression that it was threatening, I didn’t feel intimidated. She was just being persistent.

I buy milk powder for a woman with a small baby. Half a block later, I’m approached again, but this time I say no. Each refusal is a little easier than the one before. We are sitting in a taxi, caught in a traffic gridlock. The taxis are old 50s-style vehicles – they are beautiful – and all the windows are rolled down to get a small breath of air in the stifling 36 degree heat. Sitting at the traffic lights, engines turned off (to reduce pollution?), the foreign girl is a sitting target for the women and their babies. They always come to me “Sister, sister, buy milk my baby, baksheesh, sister, sister, my baby, milk, sister…” but leave Mat alone. I am learning how to say no. Turn my head away, don’t look them in the eyes.

Crumbling. This city is literally crumbling. Buildings are falling down, there are piles of rubble and bricks in the streets, I look around and see decay and decline. Everything is filthy. Men piss up against walls, people bathe under the water from pumps on street corners. The smell is a mixture of Indian food and spices, stagnant water, grime and rubbish. My nose is getting used to it now, but for the first couple of mornings the smell of this city was difficult to wake up to.

The cacophony of horns is overwhelming. Buses, taxis, tuk-tuks, rickshaws; all drive along blasting their horns; overtaking, undertaking, passing each other with only a inch to spare.

It is chaos for they eyes, chaos for the ears, chaos for the soul. I’m not sure how I feel yet – I certainly don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. We are acclimatising. I still feel very wide-eyed and naive, and as much as the locals stare at me, I can’t help but stare back. I’m not ready to take photographs yet. I stand out enough already – walking around with a big, fancy camera feels like it might be asking for trouble. I’m sure I’ll get over it though, I desperately want photos and reminders of this experience.