Memento

Some photos of my time in Kolkata I wish I had taken. I was there, saw the sight, but wasn't able to capture it in anything but my malleable memory. So I'm going to write them down.

A man with a large goatskin water bag. He was dressed in the usual shirt and longhi, or maybe trousers. He held the mouth of a large triangular leather bag up to the spout of a roadside water pump, and pumped the handle with his other hand. Water spilled over the bag causing darker streaks to appear on its surface. I saw another man with a similar bag walking down a road, I don't recall where. This bag was full, its thin leather straps wrapped around it and slung over his shoulder.

Late at night just on the corner of Sudder street to the internet cafe, the door to the off-license that was usually open by day was closed by a metal grating. Two men stood inside surrounded by shelves full of bottles of alcohol. A group of men gathered outside bustling up and down the two steps from the pavement up to the door. Each one pushing to be head of the queue where they would shout their order and hold out a note through the grate in exchange for a bottle. Everything a grubby brown. Very little light evident within the shop which instead was lit by the lights out in the street.

A man, sat cross legged on the pavement, a wild stack of white hair on his head. Completely naked save maybe a thin leather necklace of some kind.

The group constantly washing at the New Market Slum water pump. One man crouched, covered in soap suds, still wearing his longhi scrubbing at his back with a bar of soap. Two lads stood chatting, likewise scrubbing themselves with soap. Children running around the wash area with nothing on, splashing in the water as it spills out of the small knee level cubicle in which a man squats washing some clothes at the pump. The dog nearby looking for scraps and a little further on three children crouch in a circle and watch new born chicks under the bicycle wheeled metal cart.

The five men sat cross-legged in a circle on the pavement. One lent up against a parked car. Playing cards for several days in the same spot.

The family consisting of a woman, an elder daughter maybe, and two young children, settling down to sleep for the night on thin jute mats laid out on the pavement not far from the card players. On another occasion, the same group I think, but the child was storming off with a tantrum as the mother sought to calm him down and deal with the offending sibling. A scene played out in many kids bedrooms all over Britain. It's just that this was taking place on the pavement.

That'll do for now.

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Peoples is Peoples correction:

I've recalled some instances of bullying in the Kolkata groups, which is making the memories more real. Peoples is, after all, peoples. It would be frankly odd if street kids behaved with perfect manners. I'm trying not to allow my memories of Kolkata to become idealised, imagining the kids to be perfect human beings, the teachers to be full of consistent grace and compassion and never loosing it a little. The kids didn't always listen to me in the Bible studies, though of course I wasn't able to talk in Hindi so one can give them some slack with respect to the ignorant foreigner. The lads laughed at Shombu on occasions because he wasn't that bright. I recall seeming some argey-bargey in the New Market group. Bristol youth club tonight and the kids were all trying to be cool. I do think the Indians were more able to be themselves. Not sure if that's culture or relative wealth.

Peoples is Peoples

Lots of things keep coming back to me from my time in India.

For example, a silly little detail, I was on an aircraft this past week and got a hot refresher towel. I was reminded of the incredulity with which I took the frozen towel on the flight to India and the joy with which I greeted the frozen towel on the flight out of India.

I was chatting to someone on the plane with a relative in the States. She said that many families in Phoenix Arizona install real fire places into their homes as a feature but need to switch on the air con whenever they use them because they live in a desert which is already too hot. Ahhhhhh! This reminded me of trying to explain to the Anandaloy lads that I don’t have a fan but in fact have to heat my home on occasions.

I had a pub lunch on Friday and the burger + onion rings were delivered in 10mins. “Incredible!” I thought, and then “well no, that’s about how quick it should be.” And again met up with friends for a meal on Saturday and we all got our meals at the same time.

I saw a neighbour’s cat the other day: a fat western pet cat. Doesn't know he's born.

And finally today on the way home from church traffic was a little busy (Bristol half marathon slicing the city into two with an impenetrable line of cones). We all followed the car in front. As I crossed a roundabout I heard a car beep its horn, the owner clearly getting frustrated in the mid day sun, with someone cutting him up. I smiled and remembered the traffic in Kolkata, where it sounds as if the horn is used for echo location.

I'm trying not to fall back into previous mentalities. I'm trying to change my culture away from a western task-driven approach to everything to one where the relationship is the focus. Not to get frustrated when things don't happen quite how I thought they ought, or the day doesn't go as planned, or something isn't done that quickly. The world is a beautiful place. God's in control.

Friday Club started at church last week. Lots there.

In some ways the same, in some ways different from the groups in Kolkata. Relationships are high on the agenda once any group gets to a certain age, but... there's a difference in the opportunities to express it. I can't recall anything I'd term bullying in the groups in Kolkata, whereas it can be a battle to quash it here. The Indian kids seemed to have a better, more healthy, self image and they are better at relating to and enjoying the company of everybody in the group. But it is definitely true to say that much is recognisable between them. "Peoples is Peoples" as a wise man once said in the Muppets Take Manhattan. These are all generalisations and I need to think a little more about it to see if they're really true.

They all need Jesus Christ.

Emmanuel

I've been thinking about some of the people we met on the streets of Kolkata.

Some of the young lads who would come up to us and play and do all those street handshakes, smile and chat then switch into the beggar just as we passed the snack shop. The lad who we got to know and took to KFC, who looked genuinely sad when I explained we were getting onto a minibus to go to the airport and back home, and who hung around for a good while to say goodbye and also ask for a few more rupees. I've been thinking about the rickshaw puller I used a couple of times, the second time only because he was so pleased to see me walking down the pavement intending to walk. I've been thinking about my attempt to show him respect with a hearty handshake and then when I passed him for the last time and said goodbye. I've been thinking how he simply seemed disappointed once he realised that my smile was one of goodbye and brought no promise of earning a few rupees more. I've been thinking of the old lady I gave a couple of bread rolls to. I think of the lad who spent an evening with the girls colouring-in on the door step of the "Y", being a kid for a short time up until his mother took him off to earn something. I wonder what impact we had on him. Does he remember that evening? Maybe it's slipped into his subconscious. I pray he at least remembers that it was the girls who were with the Christians in Rippon St who gave him some simple love. It was Jesus.

I wonder how close we came to making a relationship with any of these that extended beyond the rich benevolent westerner patting the head of the poor. When they saw us on the street did they smile to see someone who cared or someone who gave? I confess to being a little offended a couple of times when one of the lads would switch to the beggar, pull the pitiful face, and rub his stomach in the show he gave everyone.

Maybe I'm being naive to think a relationship could form beyond that of rich-man beggar-man. There was a week or so when I forgot I had a white face, I forgot I looked like a visitor. I started to remember when all the European backpackers arrived. I recall the sudden realisation walking down Park Street heading for the Metro and the Anandaloy home that I looked as out of place as these pale wealthy space invaders. Perhaps that's why I resented them being there.

But how on earth could I expect to form any kind of real friendship with these people whose lives are lived in the equivalent of my wheelie bin? At the end of the day I went back to a bed in a spacious room in the "Y". In the end I flew back to a land dripping with money. My trip to Kolkata airport alone could well be further than some of those kids have ever travelled. Back in the UK on my walk home that Friday I could almost see the currency just spilling out of the mortar and down the walls of the regular British houses I was passing. I recall seeing some family on the Downs just walking along with a pushchair or playing football on the Bank Holiday Monday and suddenly such leisure time felt like yet another rich man's luxury. I can't exaggerate the difference between our lives. The universe is infinite demographically speaking.

I'm still working through the "City of Joy". It's an easy read but I spend little time reading it. A Catholic priest settles into a Kolkata slum, lives how they live, eats what they eat, suffers as they suffer. It's just a story and I don't know how it turns out yet! But I guess that's what it would take. If one wants to step beyond a simple charitable relationship to show a deeper love for someone you need to sit along side them wherever that is. In other places I've defined love as "giving yourself to someone", and there's a sense in which material giving gets in the way, is a distraction. Greatest thing I can give is time, my attention, myself. Then, afterwards, the gift is more.

So my role-model is God who became man. He came to save and so doing enable a genuine relationship with us. A genuine relationship, not one where we just look up to heaven pitifully and rub our belly, but one where our joy is in the giver not the gift. Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus Christ who though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, so that we by his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). God is love, love par excellence, and knows how to do it like no one else.

Whether in Bristol or Kolkata that's the standard he's set.

Only remaining question is do I have the guts to follow his example?

Little Angels

It's hard work settling into the old routine. Sterile and Dull are my words for this week so far. New term of Youth Club at church starts up soon. That should liven things up!

Some pictures:

A kid from outside checking out the New Market club. I've got no idea how they recruit new members, but there's always a crowd of kids outside wondering what's going on inside. They are usually ushered away pretty quickly.

Now I don't want to idealise these people, and I got to know some street kids well enough to know they weren't angels, but these slum kids were always happy. Apart maybe from one who often seemed to be in tears with some little huff. Sat down waiting to start on one occasion and the girl in the front of the picture below started to sing some of the songs with her friend, doing the actions by themselves, unprompted (Let me tell you about my Jesus, I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him, yeah yeah yeah yeah). On other days as we gathered these girls and the lad would challenge me to a thumb wrestle. The one at the back in the middle cheats, little angel.

The girl at the top of the ladder is going home for the afternoon. Her friend is popping round to watch tele maybe. Note that: she's not climbing up to her bedroom, she's climbing the ladder to her home. I'm sat in my living room making the most of the wireless broadband and I'm going to have to reassess my estimate for how many families my house would take. I reckon this living room alone would house four families, cooking in the corridor and washing facilities a little way down the alley at the water pump.

And finally the kids at the Serampore club. Not one of the most polished performances we saw, but then it was just for fun and didn't follow days of preparation to welcome the 'Transform Team'. Still, it makes me happy to watch it.

One of my favourite photos of a shop. Leave your sandals outside please.