India: Kolkata, City of Contrasts

[excerpted from, Asia & Caucasus: Stories across Cultures ?2023 ]

All new visas cancelled. One-month ban on foreigners. Recent arrivals mandated to a 14-day home quarantine.

Sound familiar?

I awoke to breaking news on my first morning in Kolkata: India had cancelled all travel visa applications in progress and would entertain no new ones.

I’m all right, then, I thought; how lucky that I entered the country yesterday. After all – there were only 27 known Covid cases, all quite far away in New Delhi, and within a single Italian tour group. (A few days later, Kerala initially refused to accept me, then a visit from the health ministry on the following day informed me: 14-day mandatory quarantine. Am I allowed to go to the airport? I was, and departed that afternoon for Mumbai, the following morning out of India entirely.)

This was not my first visit to India. The previous one, 13 years earlier, had also been cut short as I was unexpectedly called back to Korea. I hadn’t been able to return until now. A troubled relationship between us, India and I, it would seem, all due to the Fates.

Kolkata. The Calcutta of my youth, when it was the very symbol of extreme poverty and hardship. Mother Teresa was very much a part of that symbol, too, though the Albanian nun renowned for her humanitarian work at that time has since become a rather more controversial figure. Even so, a memorial to her stands in the center of the city.

It was during my 2007 trip to India, in fact, that my host in Mumbai, responding to my query about Bollywood movies, told me all about the film industry of Kolkata. Far more serious themes, Vandana said, documentary and history and the like, a mature industry – as opposed to those wildly popular, over-the-top musicals.

Not having considered a visit before then, it had been in my sights ever since. I didn’t quite know what to expect, though, as those images of profound poverty were still entrenched in my subconscious. Yet, even amid an unfolding pandemic, I found much to love.

Foremost, Kolkata is Bengali culture, distinct from much of India.

A place of spiritual pilgrimage for many, the city is utterly filled with temples. Kolkata remains primarily dedicated to Shakti, however, in her many forms – an especially powerful goddess figure manifesting alternately as Kali, Lakshmi, Parvati, Durga, and others, all of whom resonate strongly with me. There are also numerous folk deities unique to Bengali culture. And, as in both Thailand and Hong Kong, tiny religious shrines used for daily worship dot the urban landscape.

To get to my hostel entrance, I had to traverse a back alley onto which numerous restaurant kitchens spill. Kolkata is renowned for its Bengali cuisine, and I loved this atmosphere – the back window, as it were. (The kitchens were spotless and highly professional. I was tempted to enter and ask to cook there.)

Street food stalls are also ubiquitous, as was common in Mumbai and New Delhi during my first visit to this country, and likely throughout the nation. I’m a lover of street food, over haut cuisine any day. Even so, I did visit an elegant tearoom, c.1927 – a holdover from the days of British Empire.

Ah, empire. Not a fan (to put it mildly).

Nonetheless, I went first to the Maidan – the green lungs of the city, including the Victoria Memorial and several venues -- as one does. (The green bit works especially for me.) The Victoria Memorial is architecturally beautiful -- if a reminder of India's long colonization by the British, during which 'Calcutta' was its capital. (Better the Taj Mahal, built for the love of an Indian princess rather than a distant British monarch.) One cannot ignore this influence, however…even if one does not approve.

Speaking of which, it didn't take long before I stumbled upon a cricket match. Just a week or so prior to my visit, the national women's cricket team had made it to the finals (a first) of the International Cricket Championship Women's T20 World Cup held in Australia, ultimately losing out to the host team -- and well celebrated at home. Posters in their honor were easily spied.

Despite at least 7 neighborhoods identified as affluent, a business center complete with tall modern buildings, luxury shopping centers, and the city’s modernization overall, Kolkata remains a place of contrast. An old man was sleeping on the street’s surface, a thin cotton blanket tucked around him; nearby, a middle-aged rickshaw wallah (with an enormous potbelly, it must be said) was taking an afternoon nap sprawled across the long poles of his tana (pulled) rickshaw, this city one of the few remaining to have human-powered such. Elsewhere, adjacent to a post office as expected, there was an old man working as a letter-writer, a time-honored profession, who for a small fee will write (and presumably read) for those who cannot.

The city is not only known for its film industry but also for art, including 5 forms unique to the West Bengal state. There are several fine arts colleges and academies in the city. In fact, this City of Joy is called such in part for its enthusiasm for the arts and literature.

And sometimes, art and human rights issues collaborate.

Kolkata-based artist Leena Kejriwal launched her Missing Girls public art project at the 2014 India Art Fair [Delhi], to raise awareness of the millions of Indian girls and women who are trafficked. Hundreds of artists have used her stencils, black silhouettes of girls to represent a hole in the fabric of society where they once stood, to replicate her images, and they appear all around Kolkata as well as in Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai. The group has worked with 10 NGOs throughout the country, and the project has won multiple international awards.

My time in Kolkata was insufficient for such a culturally rich city; I was also eager to get on to Kerala, another long-awaited destination for entirely different reasons (matriarchal, history of snake worship, India’s only communist state) – yet by my arrival there it had become clear that a pandemic was unfolding and the world’s gates shutting, and so I was compelled to depart.

Again soon, India, I trust.

Asia & Caucasus: Stories across Cultures, by Anne Hilty, ?2023