Suddenly Howrah

**Jenna snapped some great photos on our trip to Howrah and put together a slide show. View at the end of this post.**

It has been several days since the last post but not from want of material. Due to last week's strike, we had class on Saturday. It went kind of long; then, to celebrate, the members of the class went out for some dinner. We ended up going to Kolkata's premier (read: only) nightclub Tantra. Jenna and two other girls from the class actually got snagged by a roving interviewer for Indian MTV and got asked some questions on camera. The club was small, hot and loud, filled with preening Indian men in all manner of Western-style attire. A sort of DJ contest was going on, and each contestant's partisans made loud rackets at the end of each "set". We left just as the winner was being announced. We were not really pulling for one.

On Sunday, Jenna and I and two of the girls from our class--Colleen and Summer--trekked through a large swath of northern Kolkata. We took a taxi to the Victoria Memorial and then hiked through the Maidan, a sprawling urban wilderness populated by goat herds and malnourished horses. A few soccer and cricket games were going on and men lazed about suspiciously in the tall grass. We eventually made our way to BBD Bagh, a square at the heart of old British colonial Kolkata. Around the square were imposing architectural gems like the General Post Office and red-bricked Writers Building (which was once a main hub for workers of the British East India Company). Since this area is presently home to much of West Bengal's state government, stern-looking army guards repeatedly told us not to take any pictures.

As we left BBD Bagh we encountered what you always seem to run into: a curious Kolkatan. He introduced himself as Ranu. He was smartly dressed in trousers and a button-up shirt. He had a finely trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache and wavy gray hair. He immediately told us he used to work for the local tourism bureau but was currently out of a job. He wanted to practice his English, so would we mind if he gave us a short tour of the area? Knowing this would cost us some money in the end but adventurous all the same, we said yes and dutifully followed as Ranu lit out at a calf-burning pace.

He headed north along the Strand Rd which abuts the Hooghly River and kept motioning to us impatiently with his arm. "Come, come. You look tired," he winked and nudged me in the side. "I am 56. How old are you?" I told him my age. "Ha! I am old man. You are young. You should keep up with me," and he quickened his pace further as taxis and buses screamed within inches of us.

As we stepped further north, the care of the buildings receded and the population living on the street increased. No part of Kolkata that I have been in yet has appeared pristine: that is, after all, part of the city's gritty charm. Yet this area seemed more dilapidated still. I glanced at Ranu and wondered where exactly he was taking us. He soon answered my question: "We are going to see the flower market. Only Sundays. Come! But make sure your camera is away. Not good to be out around here."

We turned a sharp corner towards the river, and we found ourselves on a street of mud lined on each side by shacks made of rotting wood and bamboo poles. Tarps and soiled cotton sheets served as roofs to these structures. In each place huddled families, some as large as a dozen individuals. Naked toddlers played in the alleyway. Ranu took us further. "Almost there. I take you through back door," he smiled, certain he was doing us a favor.

After a time, we reached a crowded area that was, as Ranu told us, the flower market. We passed under a steel pedestrian bridge and walked into a teeming den of barking vendors. Stalls and baskets of flowers filled every inch of available space. A narrow walk way of sludge served the impatient buyers moving from stall to stall. Strings of electric orange marigolds hung from rafters. Magenta hibiscus bouquets caught the eye. Heaping mounds of raw tea leaves filled the putrid air with an evanescent scent of the Himalayas. The aroma of flowers mixed with the typical Kolkata odor of sweat and garbage. A rank mess of mud mixed with the pungent pulp of crushed flowers beneath our feet, making the market's thin boulevards a slippery obstacle course. Ranu took us down what had to be considered the "main" path of the market and then he veered into a yet more-crowded maze of interior stalls. We pressed into other buyers and had vendors literally in our ears, plying their wares.

After several turns, we stepped through an archway and found ourselves suddenly and unexplainably on the banks of the Hooghly, right underneath the famous Howrah Bridge. A mass of half-naked Kolkatans bathed not 100 feet from us at the end of a concrete jetty. A naked boy ran up to us yelling "Hallo! Hallo!" and then he sprinted back to the brown water. Across the churning river we could see the crenellated edifice of the Howrah train station--busiest in India after Mumbai's Victoria Terminus. Lines of people crossed the bridge above us in an unending stream of humanity. Ranu had taken us through chaos and brought us out onto a spot that was, if anything, the most sought after view of Kolkata.

We snapped several pictures and then followed Ranu back into the market. "Everyone happy?" he asked. We nodded in wonderment. Whatever he would charge, Ranu's tour had been worth it.