India part 1 – Calcutta
I returned a few days ago from a two-week trip to India, taking in Kolkata, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. As is often the case, I led a small group of friends who are keen photographers through markets, places and customs that I know well enough to try to capture, first in our eyes and mind, even before the camera’s sensors, the kaleidoscope of colors, faces and activities that India is so rich in. Let’s start by giving credit where credit is due. I must thank the Indian coordinator and my local contacts who organized our trip. It was an “almost” perfect organization. I add the “almost” because perfection is not of this world. But I must give credit to Pankaj and Meet, whom I had met a few years earlier at the World Travel Market in London, for their swift and effective daily communication whilst the itinerary was being drawn up. Every query or doubt was answered almost immediately. This is something I greatly appreciate in business, no one has time to waste. Responding straight away, and often with the solution to the problem already in hand, is a sign of respect, even more so than of organization. And at Distant Frontiers they certainly know their stuff, not only in terms of solutions but also in real-time communication, despite the time zone differences. So, thank you once again to the whole Indian team who helped us with advice and solutions. I had asked for a preference for elegant, charming hotels, trying, where possible, to avoid the anonymous international chain hotels which, however beautiful, would not have captured the local flavor. And I must say that all the hotels fully embodied that sense of colonial elegance that many of us have in mind when we think of the East India Company or the subsequent period under direct British rule.
For the sake of brevity, and also to include a few more photos, I will divide this ‘Indian’ blog into three parts. The first, this one, is dedicated to Kolkata. The second to Rajasthan and the third to Holi, the festival of colors that deserves a separate article.
Our journey begins in Rome, where, on the evening before departure, as a guest of my cousin Ettore, I bid farewell to Italy with an excellent dinner prepared by a chef from Vietri sul Mare who has now made his home in the Capital. I’ll miss Italian food, I know that already. I’m not a huge fan of Indian cuisine, though I’m well aware that this is simply a personal limitation. It is a cuisine rich in spices, flavors and colors, and one that changes radically depending on the region you are traveling through. The next day we find ourselves at Fiumicino for the first leg of the journey from Rome to Abu Dhabi, with no inkling whatsoever of how close we would soon be to finding ourselves in the midst of a theatre of war.
Just the day after arriving in Kolkata, we discovered that the Emirates had been targeted by Iranian missiles and that flights to and from that part of the world had been suspended indefinitely. Anyone passing through or due to depart from there found themselves stranded, unable to go either forwards or back. Not a bad start to the trip.
Kolkata welcomes us with its usual air of a somewhat “run-down” big city, the usual humid heat and the usual blanket of white smog that renders everything colorless. But Kolkata’s charm lies precisely in these things. It’s certainly not ideal arriving from Europe, especially for those visiting India for the first time in their lives and immediately having to face Calcutta. Perhaps the most challenging way to approach India. The Calcutta I find today is not the one I saw for the first time in 1995, but perhaps I am not the same person I was back then either. And memories play on the mind. We arrive at the hotel late at night. It’s 4 am, though our body clocks are still on Italian time, so it’s “only” 11.30 pm. The hotel is on a narrow street, deserted at this hour, and it seems there isn’t enough space for any building, let alone a hotel. Instead, once we’ve driven the minibus into the driveway, a beautiful colonial-style building comes into view, its walls covered with photos of illustrious guests from days gone by.
We check in and head to our room. As we’re getting ready for a few hours’ sleep before heading out again to start exploring Kolkata, the muezzin’s call to prayer at dawn startles us. It sounds as though he’s right in the room, and this is going to be a problem, unfortunately. It’s the month of Ramadan, and now the observance of Islamic rules, including the five daily prayers, is even stricter. A few hours later, it’s already morning. There is one urgent thing to do before anything else. Actually, two. Change our euros into rupees. And buy a local SIM card that gives us internet access on our mobiles without spending a fortune on roaming. The first is quick and easy. The second, however, is much more complicated. India is a highly bureaucratic country; for every single formality, there are stacks of papers to sign and authorizations to obtain. So, buying a SIM card, multiplied by six, turns out to be a “job” taking several hours, from installing the SIM card in the mobile phone to activation, which can only take place after an endless series of steps to verify that the SIM card, the mobile phone and the legitimate owner all match. Easier said than done. Once the system has confirmed that everything is in order, you then have to physically call an agent from your chosen network and confirm verbally that I am indeed the owner of the mobile phone in which that SIM is installed, and so on and so forth.
For the record, we bought an Aircell SIM card with an unlimited 5G data package for a full month at a cost of €4.50. India is the country where mobile data is cheapest in the world. And it works well, too. The whole SIM card process takes us half a day. At last we set off, in the humid, sticky heat, heading for the flower market, the Mallik Ghat market held beneath the Howrah Bridge. An iron bridge, a symbol of the city, spanning the Hooghly River, one of the branches into which the Ganges divides – indeed, the westernmost of all in India. Grey and muddy, just like the sacred river from which it originates. The Kolkata flower market is one of the largest in the world, open 24 hours a day, though it’s best to visit in the morning. Colors and scents stimulate sight and smell. Every other sense fades away. It’s just a first glimpse, we’ll have time to return at a leisurely pace. We leave the market and head towards one of the railway stations, Howrah Junction Railway Station, not far away. We have to cross the entire bridge on foot, however, amidst the incessant blare of tuk-tuks, cars, lorries and anything else with a horn. Let me digress for a moment. The horn, in India, is life. There isn’t a moment of the day, a place, or a situation where there isn’t someone sounding their horn. It’s a way of life; the back of lorries bears the slogan “save a life, honk your horn”. And this applies throughout India – there are no “horn-free” cities or places. Z E R O. If you’re looking for peace and quiet, India isn’t the place for you. Let’s get back to us and crossing the bridge. As mentioned, it’s hot and humid, with smog from cars and even more so from lorries, and private bus touts calling out to customers for various destinations as an alternative to the official buses. In short, chaos. At the end of the bridge, we see what will turn out to be the mistake of our trip. Looking back now, it’s easy to see. At that moment, the only thing we wanted was a thirst-quenching drink to relieve that feeling of heat, dehydration and tiredness. What could be better than a sugarcane juice vendor with his little stall at the end of the bridge? Nothing. Just the quickest route to dysentery. But we’re so thirsty that the risk takes a back seat. Our guide, a gentle Indian man, offers to pay for the juice himself. And with that, he pays for the next few long days spent sitting on the loo, crying in Chinese. We don’t know any Indian… Not even Chinese, but it comes more naturally. Our tours of Calcutta follow one after another. By chance we pass Mother Teresa’s centre, where I had the opportunity to meet her right here in ’95, two years before her death. She was very kind when she was told that an Italian journalist wanted to ask her a few questions, but she asked me not to take any photos of her. Although it was a painful request, I respected her wishes. Today the place has changed, but I couldn’t say exactly how or in what way. My memories of that time are hazy; I’d need to look at the photos again, strictly slides. The following morning, as we were heading to photograph the vegetable market in the Koley Market area, we happened to pass by the fish market. An incredible, absurd place: crowds of people, tonnes of fish on the stalls, shouts, people waving their arms, pushing, sweating. We were in the middle of it all, taking photos. There isn’t much to explain in a situation like that. We snap away, trying to catch faces and expressions, fractions of a second before being swept away by the crowd for whom we foreigners are just a foreign body causing a disturbance. They’re working. We’re having fun, in their view. And they’re not entirely wrong. We leave the fish market after an hour, though if I’d been on my own, I’d have stayed there all morning. Or rather, perhaps all day. We emerge caked in putrid water but with countless images in our eyes. And a few good ones, perhaps even on the sensor. Only to enter, a few metres further on, another market, this one darker, almost a cave of some obscure brotherhood. It is the vegetable market. Just as picturesque as the fish market, but with a completely different “mood”. Kolkata continues to reveal itself to us thanks to our guide, whilst the bacteria we’ve unwittingly allowed into our bodies are wreaking havoc on our immune systems. We head to Kumartuli to watch artisans in the Govind Dev Temple area crafting and decorating giant idols. It’s quite a sight. Kolkata continues to surprise us. And it surprises us even more when, one after another, we have to throw in the towel, at least for a day, as the E. coli or whatever other bacteria were wallowing in that sugarcane juice that had seemed like nectar to us at the time. After a nightmarish night, the following morning I set off early with the sole survivor who was still feeling well, to watch the training of wrestlers practising “kusti”, a 3,000-year-old form of combat. The “Akhara”, the training arena, is not far from the flower market, right beneath the bridge over the Hooghly River. Young and old alike warm up with rudimentary equipment, stretch, jump, and then simulate a fight in the “akhara”. They are all covered in dirt. Their diet is strictly vegetarian and they follow strict guidelines for purifying the body. As I watch this spectacle, I break out in a cold sweat, my head is spinning and I only have the strength to stand up for a few minutes, take a few shots and sit back down. Watching these people pushing themselves to the limit, lifting weights, jumping, wrestling, however admirable, only makes me feel even more exhausted. As we make our way back to the flower market, just a few metres from the wrestlers, even the last of us to have survived the bug throws in the towel and we have to head straight back to the hotel. Unfortunately, the following day, which is packed with things to do and see according to the itinerary, turns into a “sick bay” for the six unsuspecting tourists who, despite the fact that every self-respecting guidebook and brochure on India states in bold letters not to drink anything other than sealed bottles of water, have done exactly the opposite. And they’re paying the price. The problem is that as long as we’re in the hotel with a bathroom to hand, it’s manageable. But the flight to Delhi, the journey to and from the airport… will we make it? All of us, or just some of us? Good question. We’ll find out in the next chapter! Please, be patient
