Oh! Calcutta

CALCUTTA - Middle of the day at cafe on Sutter Street (tourist ghetto)

Easy getting here except for the up at 4am bit but oh, my holy HELL. Calcutta is a disaster. No one told me, guide book alluded to fraying around the edges, glory days past, but this city feels ready to fly apart into a destructive, sucking tornado of rags and starving dogs and rotting who-knows and beleaguered skeletons.

Bombay's slums - by the very virtue of being somewhat contained - make it feel first world compared to this. Poor Calcutta. And the backdrop - if you pull away the debris and clear off the posters and imagine a paint job - is really gorgeous. Beautiful buildings, regal - everywhere - much more handsome underneath it all than Bombay.

But whereas the ride in from the Bombay airport to city gets better as you get closer, this drive never looked up. Was embarrassed for the taxi driver as we took another destroyed road to pass through another bombed out intersection - kept waiting for the cleaned up part but, so far, hasn't come.

Did I get that across clear enough? Going to have to get the photo thing figured out so I can communicate this better. Did manage some pictures this morning but far less camera cocky than in Bombay - the mood here feels more dire, don't want to be a vulture but it's terrifyingly mesmerizing. Folks in Bombay gave an easy smile and head wiggle when I raised the camera. Here, when I feel it's correct enough to lift it, I get hard stares and people turning away.

And yet - like all of India - people are hanging on, going about their business. Getting shaves and cuts on the curb, full families soaping up in a puddle, ears being cleaned, masala and rice weighed out, shoes repaired etc. And people, for the most part, have made themselves utterly presentable. Except for the very very poor - and they are in rags, or nothing at all, or so one with their wrappings it's hard to tell what ends where - except for them - maybe 10% of the street scape here - the rest are tidy and even the plainest, most threadbare cotton saris are bleached clean and pressed.

Whereas I currently require hot water and an outlet to emerge each morning sane, downloaded and presentable (my day room is the "economy" room of a more upscale hotel, facing the lot where the drivers kill time - $20 with hotwater + outlets to recharge all my stuff), the citizens of Calcutta emerge from waterless, light less who-knows-what-hells in bandbox neat form.

I need to get out to the more major sites so I can temper this with some prettiness and praise. Now in shock; feel like I missed the article that declared Calcutta a disaster zone.

And this eve I head for Darjeeling - another world altogether unless I've romanticized it entirely.

(Sorry about the font change - fewer master blogger controls from this cafe. Will standardize soon. Also - self spell checked...)

From the once great Calcutta, but a pretty nice cafe.

c