Perceptive Travel

Bridging the Gaps in Calcutta
Story by Jim Johnston

A traveler returning to Calcutta encounters contrasts between the individualist culture of the west and the devotion and traditions of India.

When I found him, he was sound asleep. Stretched out on a bit of crumbling cement sidewalk in the middle of the bridge, he looked as if he hadn't a care in the world. The color of his wrinkled skin and his ragged clothing blended into a dusty sepia tone, like in an old photo. He was surrounded by the tools of his trade—a can of Sterno, a few metal files, some miscellaneous scraps of leather and rubber—seemingly unconcerned that anyone might run off with them. Several other vendors had also set up shop on the bridge, so pedestrians had to make their way through the steady flow of cars, trucks, rickshaws, horses, bicycles and buses as best they could. It was mid-morning, and the heat of the day was starting to rise from the pavement.

I'd encountered the shoe repair man on this same stretch of bridge in the gritty northern part of Calcutta (as most locals still call it) on my first trip to the city, almost twelve years earlier, and had sought him out on subsequent trips. Now I was back for a fifth visit, and there he was, still in the same spot. He was sleeping soundly as the traffic rattled by, horns honking, exhaust fumes mixing with the odor arising from the acid green stream meandering below. It was a sad, but somehow reassuring sign that some things never change.

In the midst of all that chaos, he managed to curl up and sleep like a baby. What might he be dreaming of? The relaxed look on his face as he took his midday nap caused some unnamed tension within me to ease. I felt inspired by the ingenuity of his simple labor, and by his endurance of such a hardscrabble existence. The minor problems of my privileged life suddenly felt insignificant.

This man makes his meager living repairing simple footwear, such as rubber flip flops and worn-out sandals. The first time I'd seen him he was busy at work, fixing a flip-flop whose toehold had broken. He heated up his metal file over the Sterno flame and carefully melted the rubber to reattach the broken bit. I remember how startled and ashamed I felt, watching him mend an item that anyone I knew might buy at Walmart for a few dollars, and, if broken, toss into the trash without a second thought.

Although I'd visited the shoe repair man numerous times, we'd never spoken, and he indicated that he did not want me to take his picture (very unusual in India). My meager attempts at speaking Hindi using Google Translate were met with silent, blank stares. But even with the immeasurable gap separating our lives, I felt strangely drawn to him. Perhaps it's a way of measuring my own role in life, of appreciating the vastness of human experience, of noticing the incredible privilege I was born into as a white, American male. I can't say I've felt pity for him—nothing in his manner suggested he needed it. Perhaps there's a bit of envy in the apparent ease and acceptance of his lot in life—he knows where he's supposed to be, whereas I am constantly searching.

A Place in Life

Back at my hotel, I met Lars, a young Danish man visiting from Mumbai, who had worked as an urban planner in that city for nine years. I told him about the shoemaker, the seemingly dire circumstances of his life, and my surprise at his calm, resigned manner. I'd approached the shoemaker with the expectation that his life was one of continual misery, but nothing in his behavior confirmed that.

"I imagine you've seen a lot of misery in India?" I asked Lars, expecting a horrific litany of the impact of poverty, disease, and lack of education. He sat silently for a few moments before answering: "I see a lot of hardship here, but I don't see a lot of misery," he said. Separating those two states of being suddenly expanded the context of my shoemaker's life. I thought of a few miserable rich people I knew, and felt more confused than ever about what I had seen.

In India, one encounters people at work—often drudgery—on the streets, in open stores and in small workshops. The hardship, the rough labor of life, is on full display. On a previous trip, I'd seen two young men whose job was to make silver leaf. They sat cross-legged on the ground in a small room, open to the street in the busy marketplace, facing a wooden block with a walnut-sized lump of silver placed in the middle. Each man wielded a heavy wooden mallet. Alternating strokes, they pounded the silver until it was tissue thin, then the process was repeated, over and over. The synchronized pounding of wood against wood reverberated up and down the street. My bones rattled with each crash of the mallet, and I wondered how long someone could do such physically demanding labor. "Their fathers did this work, and their sons will probably do it as well." our young guide told us, seeming perplexed at my concern. "It is their role in life."

The silver leaf was destined to be used to decorate small pastries, which are popular hostess gifts. I imagined someone licking their fingers in delight as the hammers slammed against the hard wooden block.

The Gilded Age of Kolkata

A few days after my encounter with the shoemaker, I was invited to a gathering at the home of Shiladitya Chaudhury and his charming wife Rupa, whom I'd met on a previous trip. They live in Bhowanipur in south Calcutta, a neighborhood that Rupa referred to as "posh." Indeed, the Chaudhury family home, built in the 19th century, once hosted King Edward VII as a guest. It's one of the few family-owned grand houses still maintained in "the old style."

Shiladitya is understandably proud of it. Standing before his seated guests, he had the air of a lord of the manor just returned from the hunt. The down vest and faded blue jeans gave him a sporty look. His simple, scuffed sandals looked like they'd crossed over a lot of bridges.

"The glass stair railing—there's only one other like it—at Versailles," he boasted demurely. "The stairs used to be connected to a piano on the ground floor. As one ascended, a note would sound with each step up, so each guest was announced with a bit of music." His tales of the illustrious history of his home evoked a world long gone, a pre-Independence Calcutta (now officially renamed Kolkata) of indulgent wealth, a rigid caste system, the privileges and responsibilities of an aristocratic way of life.

As he was talking, Rupa glided up the stairs. She was stunning in a parrot green top and tangerine silk sari, with just a few golden bangles. Over tea, discretely served by one of the sixteen servants who attend the eleven members of the extended family who live in the house, Rupa spoke of her art. She is a classically trained singer of Indian music.

"I've been studying singing since I was very young," Rupa explained. "Sometimes my children think I'm a bit dizzy, as I wander around improvising ragas in my head. Music is with me constantly. It's like the air I breathe."

© Kabir Cheema

Samosas appeared—the flakiest and most delicious I'd ever eaten. One could get used to this lifestyle, I thought as the manservant, bowing ever so slightly, offered seconds. The domestic scene spoke of privilege, culture, refinement and luxury, a world apart from the shoemaker on the bridge. I adjusted my posture to help balance my teacup.

As Shiladitya stood in front of several large family portraits, he regaled us with stories of the past. He can trace his aristocratic Brahmin family back 1400 years. "This only shows the main lines," he said, pointing to a large painting of his family tree. "If we included everyone, it would be too large to hang on the wall." I marveled at that fact, and recounted the story of my paternal grandparents, penniless immigrants who had come to the United States as young teenagers, meeting on a large estate outside New York City, where they worked as gardener and chamber maid.

Binds to the Family Past

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have such an illustrious family history, so different from my own humble background. All four of my grandparents died before I was five years old, and there's been very little talk of genealogy in my family. A desire to erase history, to start life anew, was part of the American Dream I grew up with. A feeling of envy welled up inside me. I conjured the power of that immense family support, of belonging to an important tribe, of being imbued from birth with a sense of purpose to continue one's illustrious family legacy. What a relief it must be to know your place in life, I thought.

"But there are times when it can be quite a burden," our host continued. "There are days when I wish I could just be all alone and forget the whole thing. Keeping up this house costs me a small fortune, and as the eldest male I'm ultimately responsible for a large number of other people's problems. But this is the life I was given and I must fulfill my duty. I must uphold our family traditions." A look of wistful reflection appeared on his face, for just a second—and then it was gone.

I was raised in a culture where 'finding oneself' and 'fulfilling one's potential' were repeated like mantras. Duty, tradition, destiny—once again, in India I was confronted by questions about who I am, where I come from, where I am going. My thoughts, which were lost in the thrall of a 1400-year connection to life, suddenly came down to earth. My envy faded. I felt myself, my uniquely insignificant, yet totally important "being," hovering somewhere between Edward VII and that shoemaker on the bridge, and wondered, once again, why I've been placed on this planet. 

Calcutta is a city where time seems to stand still, where the modern world reaches only as far as the new suburbs. A sense of faded royalty hovers over it all. The bulbous '40s era Ambassador taxis, the hand-painted signs on many storefronts, the disposable clay teacups used by street vendors—these remnants of the past color my perceptions of time and place, disorienting me.

As I walked home through the strangely quiet, dark streets of residential Calcutta, I thought of the gap that separates me from the lives of the shoemaker and the aristocrat, and the humanity that joins us. For a moment I felt perfectly lost—that kind of wonderful lost that travel offers. "Lost in India! Perhaps this is just where I'm supposed to be," I thought.

Or perhaps, it's best not to think of such things at all, to simply ignore my questioning Western mind. Maybe I should just put one foot forward, and then the next, trusting the gods to lead me down the correct path, to guide me over the gap from one side of the bridge to the other—and hope that my rubber flip-flops hold up for the journey.

All photos by author except where indicated.

Jim Johnston, an artist and writer, is the author of Mexico City: an Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler. He divides his time between Mexico City and rural Malinalco. You an find him on Instagram @mymexicocity or @jimjohnston.artist

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One in a Billion in India - Jim Johnston
India of Light and Darkness - Anja Mutić
A Reluctant Pilgrimage to Varanasi - Camille Cusumano
Finding Gandhi - Kelsey Timmerman


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