First Night in the City by the Hooghly 27/09/06

After a fretful night's rest in a deliciously comfortable bed in London, we awoke to the frenetic beep of Jonny's watch alarm at 3:30am. This is surely the most hellish time of all to wake up. It's far too late in the morning to warrant staying up for and far too early to lull yourself into a deep sleep only to be rudely dragged out a few moments later. The latter, however, seemed more sensible.

William kindly drove us to Heathrow and gave us the fond and teary farewell so welcome on these sorts of occasions. The flight was unremarkable but for the fact that we were two of only about six non-Indians of the entire occupancy of a 737, the flight stewardesses were in full traditional Indian dress and instead of poached salmon and soggy sautéed potatoes for our in-flight meal we were treated to tandoori chicken, mini chapattis and vegetable curry.

We touched down at 10:15pm Kolkata time. It’s worth stating at this point that after months’ worth of talk, vague imaginings and approximate descriptions, the full force of the actuality of our situation made our hair stand on end. What lay beyond those cabin doors, as we’d read and heard so many times, was a very different world to ours.

The first thing we noted was the film of hot moisture that clung to our skin in an instant, giving the immediate sensation of heavy sweating. The putrefied stench of an open sewer- a smell we were often told was the most shocking sensorial assault when disembarking- was not apparent. More an inoffensive blend of spice and perspiring bodies.

After passing through customs, we made our way through the alleys of awaiting Indians eyeing us curiously and caught sight of our representative, a young Bengali woman with shoulder length hair and a broad grin clutching a sign saying SMILE. We did, gratefully, and followed her to her car.

It was at this point that we met the man with whom all correspondence had previously taken place, the president of the organisation, Debarabata Chakraborty. He sat in the driver’s seat of a small, five-seater van beside his wife, Ramu, and in front of the representative who we later learned is Ramu’s sister, Kemala. He said nothing as we entered and only revealed his identity when prompted with the question: ‘You must be?..’

We’ve experienced many different kinds of driving in our journeys abroad, both together and individually, from Thailand to Tanzania, but Indian roads are by far the most impossibly chaotic of all. There are, quite simply, no rules. Each driver follows the path of least resistance and remains acutely aware of approaching vehicles which could veer in from any side at any moment. This requires a great deal of peripheral awareness and, quite sensibly, the Indians hoot their horns whenever they think they might come into imminent contact with one another. Rather tryingly, this happens to be every few seconds or so. Consequently, any road travel is like the moment of alarm in an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea to the accompaniment of a hundred-piece car-horn orchestra playing hopelessly out of time and tune.

We’d learned on the flight from the Rough Guide to India that our arrival in Kolkata directly coincided, unbeknownst to us, with the Durga Puja, a Hindu festival whose nearest Christian equivalent is Christmas. From the van windows we could occasionally catch fleeting glimpses of the various preparations being made for the celebrations. Strings of coloured bulbs strung between the walls of narrow crowded alleys and silhouettes of wiry men scrambling up bamboo scaffolds to hang neon-lit patterns from elaborate, makeshift structures.

Upon arrival at our destination- SMILE HQ- we were briefly shown our separate rooms, the toilet and washroom and then encouraged to get to bed as quickly as possible and with minimal disturbance as our three other female co-volunteers had a 4am start the following morning.

The amenities, we knew, were always going to be basic. Quite how basic we discovered they were on our arrival came as a little shock. The bathroom was quite literally four walls, two buckets, a cup and a tropical-sized spider tucked inertly in a corner for company. The toilet: a bucket and a ceramic squat-hole with ridged foot rests either side. There was also the source of water so essential to all activity which came in the form of an old-fashioned hand-pump.

The bedrooms: Lucy was sharing a four-bed/two bunk room with the above-mentioned volunteers and Jonny a box-room all to himself, being the sole male volunteer at present. Lucy’s bed was situated on the floor and consisted of a thin, futon-like mattress laid upon a wooden base. Jonny’s consisted of the same mattress but instead was laid upon a green, thin metal bunk measuring no more that 5ft 10” in length.

A couple of problems resulted in a poor night’s sleep for the pair of us. Unfortunately for Jonny, the width of the room only just accommodated the metal bunk which resulted in him being unable to stretch out without splaying his feet as wide as the bunk would allow and inclining his head at an improbable 45 degree angle. The beds were also covered by a box mosquito net. Unfortunately for Lucy as she lay down to sleep in the dark, fearful of turning lights on and waking anyone up, she discovered with a few exploratory pads of her paw that the net had not yet been erected and lay instead in a messy heap upon the mattress. Consequently all she felt able to do to was curl up into a corner like a little mouse and cover her face with a corner of the net.

Thankfully, the second day offered some solutions.