Oh Calcutta!

If the title teases you to read on, let me tell you now, there is nothing risque in this piece.

Of all the cities in India, Calcutta in particular suggests unbearable poverty to me. I remember my father recounting his visit to Calcutta in the very early 1970s. Coming from a third world nation, we Filipinos are not new to poverty being around us; however, his recount was so vivid, and his feeling of desperation at the poverty he saw stayed with me. Though decades might have changed or even reincarnated India, I was prepared to see the deprivation of poverty in Calcutta.

Calcutta, now known as Kolkata is one of the world's greatest cities. From an obscure village on the banks of the Hooghly river, it evolved as the capital of Great Britain's Indian empire. Over the 200 years after the establishment of an English trading post by Job Charnock in 1690, Kolkata flourished, a commercial city with Victorian Gothic buildings, churches, and boulevards. In 1911, the capital was shifted to New Delhi and coupled with the urban decay of the 1960s, Kolkata's affluence diminished, but as I have witnessed, not its vibrancy and color.

We made a smart decision to stay outside the city though the commute into the city office was 40 minutes, through dusty and bumpy roads, twisting and turning, vegetable & fruit vendors with their merchandise laid out on the sidewalks, people milling about busily, bicycles boldly darting in and out of traffic. I must applaud Rajendra, our super driver for navigating these streets expertly twice a day. I dared not watch the road and as usual, I took my nap en route to the city or hotel. I only know that Rajendra got me there!

We arrived Kolkata with time to spare before David's first meeting in the afternoon. Our hotel was a Vedic spa so we took the lead of its peaceful surrounds and took the morning easy. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at their restaurant. Vedic, yes...we attempted to order a couple of very healthy sounding juices only to be cautioned by the waiters that the juices probably would not taste very good. Nonetheless, we ordered them and instantly felt rewarded by the many good things it was doing to our bodies. I ordered a "sprout route" which turned out to be a delightfully nutty sprout salad with a ginger and lime kick to it. (I recreated the salad to go along with last night's dinner, it was equally tasty). Lunch was wholesome, healthy, and actually tasty.

Magic Rajendra drove us to the city that afternoon. I visited the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata's most celebrated landmark. This domed classical structure, completed in 1921 was made with marble from Makrana which also supplied marble for the Taj Mahal. It is now a museum and houses 25 galleries which feature Raj memorabilia. Again, as with all public buildings and parks, the museum was full of people, some tourists but many locals as well eagerly perusing the exhibits. There were numerous paintings and sketches depicting life during the Raj. In particular was a series of sketches with commentary--a British family of four needed 110 people to attend to their needs! We've certainly come a long way! Every other family I know in Delhi today has one or two in their staff (outside farm houses) so I do wonder why I am having such a difficult time finding my apprentice! There should be thousands upon thousands of available help!

Many years ago, I had the privilege of spending one night at a convent in Rome. In that evening, I experienced joyous tranquillity. There was a complete absence of distraction and discord. The kindness and love were palpable and intense. This is the same feeling that greeted us at the door of Mother House. We entered the little chapel, Mother Teresa's final resting place. It was free of all ornamentation save a Bible on her grave with a scattering of marigold petals. The walls of Mother House contain stillness and peace while outside Kolkata is in motion.

Next day's agenda was full. My first stop was Marble Palace, listed as one of the 1,000 places to visit before you die. It was like entering a military zone! A khaki uniformed man stood at the gateway. After a brief exchange in Hindi with Rajendra, we were granted entry. Rajendra asked for R100 for the guide. It is obvious to me that there are no rules here. This is not a public monument governed by India's laws. My guide and I walked through room after room of ostentatious display. If you closed your eyes and tried to imagine ostentation, even for European palaces, it would not come close to the contents of this place. It made Imelda Marcos look frugal! Bronzes, marble sculptures, carpets, paintings, Venitian glass chandeliers, four, five or six in a row, enormous mirrors on both ends of a room, this is only the beginning of a list of things that are housed in this estate. It is not the state of disrepair that shocks, it is the sinful extravagance and and almost vulgar display of wealth, a seemingly compulsive desire to acquire all things western! This, I read, is how rich Bengali families lived in the days of the Raj!

I was most interested in visiting Jorasanko, the ancestral home of Bengal's favorite son, Rabindranath Tagore. But things in India are, if anything, reliably unpredictable. It was closed for no reason I could fathom. We drove through old Kolkata, through mazes of streets with every imaginable storefront. Old Babu houses, grand Victorian buildings, rickshaws, the slow tram, all these are Kolkata, unique, colorful, frenetic, annoying, yet awesome.

Saturday was a Vedic day. David booked a foot reflexology session. I booked a treatment with the works. I awoke at 530 in the morning to brush my teeth with a neem bark and some herbal toothpaste (yuck, I am not giving up my sonicare for that!). I downed a 300 ml herbal drink which really was not that horrid. Next I was to take a brisk walk before heading to the yoga studio for a session at 630. I had a face massage. I headed back to the room for breakfast and a brief nap before my full massage at 11 a m. I was awoken by the ringing of the phone. It was 1110 a m ! I wondered whether it was the face massage that helped me sleep so deeply or whether it was the waking up at 530 that did me in! I am all for trying massages and facials and all that. I was not going to miss my chance at this Vedic spa. However, I doubt that I would book myself for another one of these Ayurvedic classics, at least not for the next month or so. A lot of oiling and rubbing was involved culminated by warm oil dripping on my forehead. Relaxing, I will give them that.

It might well be that Delhi has dulled my senses to poverty. But I did not see in Kolkata the deprivation and poverty that my father told me about. What I saw was vibrancy and color, a people educated with a good command of English, unbearably gridlocked, tangled traffic, masses of people, and yes, even dim traces of Kolkata's glory.

Please visit this link below for some of my photographs of Kolkata.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6316&l=b929b&id=686591597