Day 12

It is astonishing how quickly one can adapt to a foreign environment. We have been here for a mere 16 days but feel not the least bit uncomfortable or anxious about the environment or people- something I wouldn’t have thought possible for at least a month or two. For example, I’m now equally happy to use the tricky squat-toilet and standard Indian (satisfyingly waste-less) left-hand procedure as I am to kick back on Western sit-down one with a roll of tissue hanging conveniently to hand.


Upon first arriving, I remember being gripped by a mild fear, a sort of animalistic alertness to all the foreign faces, curious eyes and alien goings-on around me, as any human must feel in a similar situation to a greater or lesser degree. It’s a social instinct, I suppose. When dropped in an unfamiliar area, whether it be the centre of a densely-populated Indian city or a remote south-western village in Wales (assuming you’re not from around there), you have no real idea as to how you’ll be received.

Thoughts that arise tend almost always to be, in retrospect, alarmist and ridiculous: ‘Do they hate people who look like me?’ ‘Will they try to take advantage of my good-natured naivety?’ ‘Why are those people laughing?’ ‘Do they make a habit of tourist-stabbing in these parts?’

I’m sure however that the majority of all human beings are universally vastly similar in nature. Most people, beneath the variable cultural crust we form in our respective countries, share likes (good food, music, laughing, games) dislikes (bad weather, traffic, arrogance, smelly feet) and encounter very similar emotional experiences through friendships, family bonds and partners. Through these shared experiences, we cannot help but form a similarly strong set of moral sensibilities. These will obviously prevent the average Kolkatan, as they would you or I, from, say, stabbing someone for asking directions to the train station.

Obviously there are going to be a few sociopaths, knife-wielding robbers and carjacking murderers but where in the world are there not? Cities will have more than their fair share as the number will grow proportionately to the size of the population, the concentration of which in turn can cause some to go a little loopy. However, all things considered, I can honestly say that I feel less threatened here than I do in most major English cities on a Friday night.

The other understandable presumption- one that I distinctly remember thinking the night before we flew here- is that the poverty of people would be such that they’d think nothing of forfeiting their freedom or even their lives for whatever is in your pocket, or that they might be overcome by some pent-up resentment for your swaggering western wealth and turn on you like a pack of vengeful wolves. Also- the worst of the homelessness and destitution that we know at home (and so imagine elsewhere) is a boozy business with the extreme cases being bearded, ragged, reckless old men and toothless, greasy-haired hags spitting obscenities at passers-by and stagger-swigging from bottles of cheap cider.

It is apparent however that people here (speaking specifically of Sealdah), even when huddled pathetically on a pavement with their three children and nothing but a grubby blanket to lie on, retain a level of dignity and simple human civility that allows them to shrug off their status within a few minutes of sitting amiably with you. I suppose it would most certainly be different if there was an off-license across the road and a bit of money to buy some Special Brew.

This morning at Sealdah was particularly vivid. For some reason, on a Friday, the quantity of people- and their pace- seems to treble. Added to which, most of the people in question are carrying wicker baskets on their heads the size of large satellite dishes variously loaded with fish packed in steaming ice or bananas or terracotta pots or god knows what. They are inclined, quite reasonably considering the improbable weight that some of them carry, to be in more of a rush than most to get where they need to go. Consequently, walking across the concourse is much like walking head-first into a plague of human-sized insects wearing large and occasionally smelly sombreros.

As you approach platform 10A, the chaos- the noise, the smells, the incessant bustle and jostle- subsides, as if emerging from a crowded jungle, and there, directly in front of you, corpse-like and inert, lie surely some of the sorriest-looking people ever to have existed.

A collection of crumpled bodies lying on or around stone benches have festering wounds on ankles and feet that seep pus into week-old bandages; some are without limbs- train accidents often cited as the cause; others have the atrophied legs or arms of three-year olds hanging uselessly by their sides or over their crutches. Others, all intact, are simply comatose sleeping off the effects of the heroine that’s smoked prolifically and openly all over the station.

Each morning we walk past a couple, a man and a woman, in their 30’s or 40’s (it’s really quite difficult to pinpoint their age when they have such ravaged faces), calmly huddled over a sheet of blackened foil, deftly preparing the contents with the precision and attention of someone diffusing a bomb. As we pass them again on our return home an hour later one will be laid back in the other’s arms as they pick lice from one another’s matted hair. They never look up at us. Contained in their own little cocoon, shielded from the vileness of their environment, they look rather happy together. It’s rather beautiful in a tragic way.

Today, a group of four children that we’d previously never encountered walked over to our site. The apparent leader looked like the big sister. She looked no more than seven. The whites of her eyes were entirely red- bloodshot with a consistency that made her look almost demonic. She held her brother in her arms, a baby of perhaps four months wearing just a rag of a shirt round his neck. The reason for this was that his tiny torso was covered in weeping red sores- maybe twenty craters the diameter of a pea that had the appearance of burst boils. The two other children, a boy and a girl of perhaps three and five, wore nothing shirts and had flies busily circling their exposed lower halves. On closer inspection the sores that I'd seen on the baby had developed around their feet and ankles but were mostly concealed by a thick layer of grime that I assume must have been a paradise for infectious bacteria. These two children were disturbingly vacant and submissive. Cleaning open wounds with alcohol swabs causes children to usually squeal or cry or at least suck in air though clenched teeth but it was almost as if the foot belonged to someone else. The only one to speak was the elder sister who gestured to the baby’s chest when the antiseptic cream was drawn out of the medical bag. The poor little mite wept and wailed when his wounds were wiped, his toothless gums showing in his open mouth. The other two still just stood mute, eerily distant. When finally they had finished their milk, bread and bananas, they rose with their sister and followed her meekly into the rubbish-strewn distance beside the tracks. Watching their pitifully tiny bodies carrying away the weight of such untold, undeserved suffering, was infuriating. So deeply and horribly unfair.