11-22-09 Kolkata India: 2148 hrs. I got here yesterday evening. This is my second time to this city. The last time I was here, it was called Calcutta. On my first trip here, no place I had been to previously prepared me for India. This time around, things a different. I have been to a few places and seen a few things. Thing being said, I have never experienced a place remotely like Kolkata.
Before I got here, I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I have wanted to go there for some time. I spent most of my days on the streets. Most of the time I spent was in a place called the Karail slum. It wasn’t far from the hotel I was in. I was told by two Europeans who are living there to go over the bridge behind the hotel and go left. So, I did. After a few zig zags, I walked down one road that opened up into the slum. It was like walking into another world. There were two main roads going through it but if you made a left off the roads, you immediately found yourself in an incredible maze of narrow paths, crowded with people, animals, shacks, rickshaws, everything. You make a left and then a right and then you?re lost. Well, at least I was. So, I went with it and just walked deeper and deeper into the thing. It reminded me of the time I wandered through a huge souk in Casa Blanca a few years ago. I got a lot of long looks as I walked but never anything aggressive but very curious. I passed two people taking apart i.v. tubes from their bags and a few feet later, men cutting the needles off hundreds of hypodermics. I took some photos of the men and asked them if they were being very careful. They laughed and said they were. I watched for awhile and kept moving. I was inside this labyrinth for a couple of hours. I saw that the sun was going down and this probably not the best place to be without light, so I started trying to figure out how to get out. I saw some distant buildings and I kind of aimed for them and after several minutes, I actually found myself on the path I used to get into the place. The next day, I went right back and explored a different part of the slum. The people were great to me, asking me where I was from. They sure like president Obama there. He’s very popular with the people I talk to in all these countries. I get asked where I am from and when I tell them, quite often, the person’s face will brighten and they will say, “Obama!” or something like that. Funny, no one expressed that kind of enthusiasm to me about America’s last president when in foreign countries.
On one of my days there, I tripped, fell and broke my 16-35mm lens. I had another one shipped out to me that I should connect with in a few days. I sure miss that lens.
So, like I said, I got here yesterday evening. It’s almost an hour drive from the airport to city center where I am now. The most amazing traffic jam, it never ends, it just seems to be the way it is. It was traffic chaos the entire way. The quality of air was appalling. By the time we got the hotel, even the driver was spent and you gotta think he’s somewhat used to it. That’s Kolkata. We are on winter hours here and by 1700 hrs. it’s pretty dark out, so you have to get your day going early if you want to see things. I went out and walked until I stopped seeing westerners. This is a tourist destination and that’s cool but I wanted to get to the streets less tread upon by them. I lose concentration when I am around them and especially when they talk to me. So, I walked for quite a long time, took photos until I lost the light and then came back here.
Kolkata is an audio/visual experience. I have never seen or heard anything like this city. Almost every surface has been beaten, worn, repaired, begrimed, cleaned, over and over. When the setting sun hits the buildings, the walls, the people, it all looks beautiful, no matter how broken down it is. I want to photograph almost everything I see here.
I have only hit one record store so far. I had no idea what any of the music was n the place. I bought a couple of cheap CDs that looked interesting. One is pretty good, the other one, not so much. Hopefully, I will be able to find some music stalls where everything’s open and I can get the vendor to let me hear some stuff. I want to do a broadcast from here I like I did from Indonesia. The ambient street sound here is too good not to record. I recorded quite a bit today, just walking around. I will probably take the digital recorder out again later tonight and see if I can find some more good noisy spots to record.
I am out on this travel thing for about another month. I have a few more countries to go and then back to America for a minute and then onwards. I believe we are going to post the show dates for the first North American leg of the tour. There will be two, on either side of the Australian, New Zealand and South African dates. The tour will go and go, places I didn’t get to the first time around, I will hopefully get to later in the year. You know me, I’m always ready to go somewhere.
Ok, it’s about 0921 hrs. Sunday PST. I will see if I can get the internets to obey me and get this sent to the other side of the world and out to you. I will beam in again next week. Thanks for reading this. Henry