Around the world in 15 mails - No.4 (Kolkata)

Kalcutta's Bloody 'Ot

Kolkata, February 16 2005

Hey there my band of brothers (and sisters).

Well, I've made it to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). I've only been here 36hrs but first impressions are good, it's certainly less manic than Delhi and the Bengali people, seem, on the surface, to be more friendly.

Before I go on, I've got a new excuse for typing errors - the keyboard I'm using has had all but three of the keys letters rubbed off, so it's a bit of a lottery. Of course, it doesn't excuse
punctuation,but,Ive,always'.been,one,for:throwing',in,unnecessary<:commas! I want to talk a little about cattle. When I was young, I was an avid reader of Herges Adventures of Tintin (ah, Capt Haddock, the Thomson twins (not of Doctor, Doctor fame Nigel), Professor Calculus etc...). In one of his adventures, Tintin found himself in the Himalayas and when chasing the evil baddie, lost him when a cow decided to sit in the road and no traffic could
pass. At the time I thought that must be poetic license (actually, aged 8, I'd doubt I knew what poetic license was), however, after 2 weeks in India, I can confirm that it's absolutely true! I could sit here and tell you numerous bovine related tales but you haven't come here for that (What have you come for?). One though must be reported:

Waiting at Varanassi train station (a long wait, my train was 2 1/2 hrs late), I watched a cow cross three platforms and settle down to eat the litter on the tracks of platform 6. 5 minutes later the Bangalore express coming in to platform 6, with horns blazing, grinds to a halt in front of
the cow! No attempt was made to move the cow and the train just sat there, waiting for it to move. Ten minutes elapsed, the cow having eaten it's fill of rubbish, moved off to pastures new (platform 5), the train entered the station and life resumed as normal (although, I think what had occurred was normal, so can't be certain what normal is anymore).

I lied when I said only one cow story - in Varanassi, herds of cattle roam the streets and one has to be very careful. I walked round a bend the other day and was pinned against the wall by a very large buffalo type. The entire length of it's very leathery body dragged across my arm and it took two days to scrub the dirt out. Given that Varanassi is not a only a dry city but is also veggie, it's very unfair on us omnivores. I had my swiss army knife to hand at the time and was close to carving off some rump there and then and eating very fresh carpaccio.

Ok, back to Calcutta (you can take the man out of the Raj but you can't take the Raj out of the man). Two interesting facts (interesting to me, boring as hell to you no doubt). I always thought that the phrase 'the black hole of Calcutta' referred to it's notoriety as a dirty, poverty stricken city. Well, I'm not ashamed to say I was wrong. The more erudite (that's not a typing error, I just don't know how to spell the word, actually, I think that's right - I'm waffling aren't I? It's the heat). I'll start again: The more erudite among you probably know the real meaning of the phrase but for those of you who've spent many a long night wondering just what it means,
let me lessen your burden:-

The black hole was actually a tiny guard-room in the fort (Fort William), and, according to the British version of the story, 146 Brits & other European were forced into it on that fateful night when the city fell to Siraj-ud-dual (oh him, I hear you cry). The next morning, only 23, were still alive. Historians suggest the numbers of the prisoners and fatalities were exaggerated in a British propaganda exercise (spin didn't start with A Campbell Esq); there were probably only half as many incarcerated and half as many deaths. Today the building is a post office and there's no
recognition of the events.

The weather here today is 34 degrees and in an effort to pay my respects to the dead and understand what they went through, I've booked myself into a 300 rupee (about 4 quid) a night cell, with no window, a very slow fan and hot water by the bucket!

Calcutta is a Marxist city and the government has started re-naming the roads. The guide books give the new road names but the taxi drivers use the old ones!. The renaming has lead to some funny map references. Victoria Terrace (named for the Queen), leads into Ho Chi Min St (She would be amused) and Shakespeare Road, leads into Lenin St!

That about wraps it up for now folks - there's a two day cricket match going on, on the outskirts of Eden Gardens (yet another mail with a cricket reference - get used to it). I watched the last hour of it last night and it was an exclusively leg-spin attack - eventually, India will have to opposite problem to England (two or three of you will know what I mean, I'll leave
the rest of you guessing!)

S'long and thank you for the fish (to all of you who've read the Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy).

Lot's of love.

Johnny

P.S. One last thing - in Greece last summer, I read William Thackery's Vanity Fair (a book I'd recommend to all of you). Well, (cliche alert) it's a small world. The hotel I booked into last night is next to WT's birth-place! No wonder his book was amusing, he had to have a sense of humour if he started life here!