Sunday 29th October

Day 32

This last week saw us finally give in and with beers in our hands we joined the “others” for a drink on the rooftop of our guesthouse. The “others” being a collection of folk from all around the world. They included a young, skinny French boy with a ridiculously furry beard who burnt a 10 rupee note in front of us to make his point. His point being that money was a bad thing, a source of corruption and we would never be able to unite the world if we carried on giving money as much importance as we now do. He was particularly hazy about what he was actually doing in Kolkata, said he was working for an NGO which “sought out the problems and then made them better”. He couldn’t specify which NGO it was and when we asked which sector it was that he was involved in, whether it is education, health care or community work he couldn’t say either. He just said that he was there to make the world a better place and maybe one day he would write a book that would unite Europe?!! He left the next morning for the Andaman Islands where he proposed to spend the next three weeks lazing on a beach. I won’t mention him again.

We were also introduced to Eric, a 6ft 5” Canadian rugby player who has been travelling the world for the last three years. He studied just about all of the religions whilst at home in Canada and Buddhism struck a particular chord. Since being away he has devoted his time to Buddhist practices and reading as much about it as possible. He still plays Rugby along the way (he’s just finished a stint in Australia and New Zealand and his next stop is South Africa) and he’s hoping to be able to happily combine both Buddhism and rugby into his lifestyle on returning home. He is big, brash and often intimidating but if you catch him at the right moment (when he’s just finished reading something like “The Monk Who Lived in the Mountains for 25 Years”) he can be a calm and interesting young man.

Nadine from Vermont was also in the group, she seemed rather sweet at first with a fairly decent head on her shoulders (although she did rather irritatingly keep mentioning the fact that she was very well educated) but she lost her chance when we realized that she’d been completely taken in by (I know I said that I wouldn’t mention him again) the furry French boy and all he had to offer the world. So much so that she also left for the Andaman’s the next day.

And then there was Jordan. I don’t want to go into too much detail and give him a big head (he may be out there reading this, hello if you are) but Jordan was a lovely bloke, albeit a bit ginger, who spoke sense, was refreshingly unpretentious and also very silly. He’s been working in a town just outside of Kolkata since August for Boston University where he’s undertaking research on malaria. He left to travel back there this morning but hopefully we’ll see him again for Christmas and New Year in Goa. Awesome.

Along with all the socializing we managed to squeeze in a few tourist sites, our first stop being the India museum. It’s the largest museum in Asia but not the best thought out. A very impressive white monster of a building with three floors crammed full of fossils and stones, paintings, carvings, stuffed animals and many, many, many more fossils and stones but not a great deal of information about each one. (Except the impressive “Full Term Human Baby” which needed no other explanation). The range of stuffed animals was particularly extensive but we felt that the quality left a lot to be desired. Moth-savaged monkeys, lions, bears, rhinos, otters, flying squirrels, orangutans, macaws, porcupines, Indian buffalo and four horned sheep gazed sadly at us through the glass, longing for a decent burial I’m sure.

The Victoria Memorial was our next port of call and this time we really felt like we’d got our 150 rupees worth. Other colonial monuments and statues throughout the city have been renamed or demolished but the popularity of queen Victoria seems to endure forever as thirty years of attempts to change the name of the building have come to nothing. It’s set in the Maidan, a huge expanse of grassland in the heart of the city and with its formal gardens and waterways, it’s definitely Kolkata’s pride and joy. The extraordinary building was conceived by Lord Curzon to commemorate the Empire at its peak. It was designed by Sir William Emerson and completed in 1921. There’s a somewhat somber looking statue of Queen Victoria on a pedestal looking out towards the Maidan as you enter through the main gates and the building itself is capped by a dome bearing a revolving five meter tall bronze figure of victory. Very impressive.

There was just no stopping us by the end of the week and we managed to mix together socializing and tourist attractions by visiting Roxy’s, one of Kolkata’s hottest night spots. I didn’t say that, the guide book did. It belongs to The Park, a luxurious five star hotel and it proved to be an interesting evening. We started the night with a few beers in the bar next door where a local band was playing. Their own sound being a mixture of reggae and rock, which we rather enjoyed especially when the female singer took the lead, (Val and John if you’re reading we thought of you and Santiago) but their covers of old sixties and seventies classics didn’t quite hit the spot.

We then moved next door to the plush, trendy and sickeningly hip Roxy’s to drink vodka and orange and dance to cheesy western hits (would you believe they even played Robbie Williams?). After a few hours of jigging and drinking we left the others too it and headed for the doors. Now- one forgets after a comfortably smooth and air conditioned night like this where one actually is and after stepping out onto the pavements to stagger home our hearts sank. We’ve now become used to the incessant begging, the tugging at our clothes, the constant, “Please sister, please uncle, some milk for my baby.” And it doesn’t really bother us. It is part of the daily routine and a sharp and firm “No” with a raised arm usually ensures they move on BUT to step out of the cool and suave Roxy’s at two am a little drunk and see these usually persistent pesterers laid fast asleep and vulnerable was painful.

The twenty minute walk home was silent as we walked past and stepped around sleeping body after sleeping body. Half dressed children and babies sprawled out on the pavements, a boy no older than eight who’d followed and hassled Jonny for about four blocks earlier that day lay asleep on his own clutching his box of chewing gum to sell the next day. Rickshaw drivers (Kolkata is the only city in India which still allows hand pulled rickshaws) curled up like sleeping cats on their carts and taxi drivers dead to the world with their legs hanging out of their back doors. We almost wished for everyone to wake up and begin harassing us again as the irritation is easier to bear than the sorrow.