West Bengal, India: The Darjeeling Mist and Slums of Kolkata

I ended up going to Kolkata (Calcutta) and Darjeeling for my study abroad's ten day travel period. Didn't end up going to the Bodhgaya Buddhist Temple or into the jungle in Jarkhand. Oh well. They'll both be there for at least another decade or so. I had hoped to see some of the Himalayan peaks, but it was bad weather and so we just shivered in the cold, greyness of Darjeeling. It was kind of like Juneau really in that respect. Still, it was an interesting time. From Kolkata, we took a 12 hour train ride, traveling by way of the mouse and cockroach-infested sleeper class to a Northern West Bengal station called NJP. After waiting for more than an hour for our four-wheeled vehicle of people to fill up, we left NJP for Darjeeling. The five hour trip careening on up through muddy roads was quite serene, even though we couldn't see out of the blanket of white clouds. A little after the five hour mark, we finally entered into the Darjeeling area and were immediately greeted by a massive protest. We had known there were peaceful demonstrations going on the area, but we definitely were not expecting them to be our welcome into Darjeeling. A few hundred old women followed by a smaller group of older men filed passed our now-stationary vehicle shouting "Gorkhaland! Gorkhaland! We want Gorkhaland! Justice! Justice! We want justice!" Then they repeated these chants in their Gorkhali language. Apparently, a lot of people in Northern West Bengal want their separate state of Gorkhaland, separated from the rest of West Bengal. I don't really blame them as the two regions are separated completely by climate, culture, religion, ethnicity, and language. Additionally, Indian people can be quite racist towards the more East Asian-looking people. I've heard Indians describe people from the Northeast as being "chinky-eyed." So this was all new to me.

Anyway, because of lack of visibility, our options for trekking went out the door and it was probably for the best anyway as I really shouldn't have tried to put pressure on my newly operated on leg (that's all gone along fine just so ya know). So we instead visited local sites: Buddhist and Hindu temples, Tibetan Refugee Center, Gorkha War Memorial, and others. Also, we stuffed our faces with Tibetan momos (dumplings with veg or non-veg: chicken or cabbage, and a spicy-red sauce and a broth). After four days of waiting for visibility and spending way too much time and energy buying gifts for people, we said goodbye to Darjeeling. It had been nice to get out of the heat for a while, but the place had become quite lethargic overtime, which is what all that gray does to a person.

We went back to Kolkata quite disappointed that we hadn't had the time of our lives in Darjeeling and were adamant on going somewhere sunny and nice. I was really kicking myself. It seemed I had wasted this one opportunity to really travel India by going to a place that just seemed like a Tibetan version of Juneau. I've always considered myself to be more of a beach and jungle kind of a person. Because of mountains of schoolwork, I had not given enough thought in the planning. Thus, I was quite disappointed with my rash decision to head to Darjeeling.

Safely back in sunburn territory, we sulked over our plates in a small Kolkata diner called Super Chicken. Behind us, two other foreigners (one British and one American) were having a discussion on volunteering. The girl said something about Tanzania, and I found this my opportunity to meet some new people. "What were you doing in Tanzania?" I spun around and blurted out. Turns out she really wasn't the interesting one. The American guy, Hemley Gonzalez was born in Cuba and was raised in Miami. He was a real estate agent in South Beach, but came to Kolkata to do charity work. He started up his own NGO in a small area of the slums there. He currently helps 19 families. On a previous trip, he had volunteered with Missionaries of Charity (Mother Theresa's charity) and had a very negative reaction to what he experienced there. He witnessed nuns washing needles with cold water before using them again, using expired vitamins, electroshock therapy as punishment on women and mentally handicapped people, no experienced medical staff on hand (a doctor reportedly shows us once a month and doesn't touch patients) and people lying around for hours on soiled cots prevented from learning or doing anything so that, in Hemley's opinion, the charity could maintain the shocking appearance to visitors in order to continually gain donations. Additionally, the nuns refused his offer to install hot water for showers for the sick and denied him to bring in playing cards or games or books to entertain the dying. The organization also refuses to disclose to the public any financial details of their operation. He has a bunch of disturbing photos on his facebook along with disturbing stories. He and others with similar experiences were interviewed by Forbes of India. I know this is a lot of detail about this thing, but it was quite eye-opening to hear all of this.

So, in response, he opened his own charity, Responsible Charity, run mostly by donations from facebook friends in which he offers complete transparency. We went to the slums with him on our second day back in Kolkata and helped him in distributing 14 fans to 14 families. Its just so amazing how warm people are in these kinds of living situations. There was a point where we entered into a shack, stooping because of the low ceiling (which Hemley has raised the roof of many of these shacks in donation-funded construction ventures in just three short months) to give a Muslim family a fan. They had a celing fan that was rickety, and slow, and it was abysmal in that shack. The grandfather, an grey-bearded Muslim man, burst into tears as he hugged us and kissed our cheeks (the common greeting in this Muslim area of the slums). I truly had to hold back tears myself. Hemley informed me later that the man was most likely in his dying days because of lack of available funds for surgery. Outside the shack, Hemley pounded on a heavy cement and brick wall topped with barbed wire, "This is where the Missionaries of Charity keep themselves locked up, in this compound. "They throw biscuits out of that door right there, like they were feeding animals."

That night, we settled on a rooftop bar to watch the momentous Cricket World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka. As you may or may not know, India won. The streets of Kolkata subsequently went insane. People were shouting "India!", throwing fireworks, dancing in the streets, waving Indian flags whilst standing on top of speeding motorcycles, it was insane. The week prior to this had been a Hindu festival called Holi in which celebrants throw and smear colored powders on each other. So now, in celebration, the people Holied one another and us all over again. And so we, now four Americans and two Frenchies, smeared with red and yellow war paint, stumbled through the throngs of wild Indian cricket hooligans. And for a while we half-shared their excitement. And then we noticed, "hey, there's no women here." And then the girl that was with us started to get grabbed from all directions by all ages of men. So, we got out of there before our own masculinity would create an international scene.

Also, within these Kolkata days, we met some boys that played cricket with us (I played poorly, as I do in most sports) and we went to the Kalighat Temple where they sacrifice goats daily (we gt to see that morning's row of decapitated goat heads . . . mmmm)

Two days later we arrived back in Pune. And now I'm doing my internship work and that is a whole other blog.