This week the schools have reopened, so it meant that the Nurse's other mobile clinic in Dhapa district has also re-opened. So off we went. Yellow brooming beeping taxi to Howrah train station, dodging past the foot rickshaws and walking piles of building bricks into a auto-rickshaw. Backpacks of medicines loaded onto the tiny backseat and then chugging through the traffic, far more refreshing with its nearly 360 degree air conditioning than the suffocating taxi. We arrive in a field of rubbish and unload the auto rickshaw. Gopal appears. The Nurse's loyal assistant who cycles around Kolkata preparing the clinics – and the patients. We walk over to a shell of a brick building - the community school. The team proudly tell me that they funded its completion. The school is quiet and once again communication was mis-interpreted and the school will re-open next week. But it is not a wasted trip as word will quickly spread about our arrival. The clinic is open air, although sheltered from the rain by an extension from the roof of the school. A red plastic table and chairs, the mirror of the ones at Tapsia Clinic, are waiting to be loaded with bowls of disinfectant and syringes. My job today is not to clean bones or remove parasites, but to wash little bodies!
The history of the village is unique and also founded on a potential health hazard, which is why the Nurse decided to base one of his projects here. Only five years ago the land which the village is built upon was a massive rubbish dump, filled with all the waste from Kolkata city. In a unique effort to reclaim the land the government literally created a mountain, by pushing the rubbish into huge towering piles, which from a distance appear to be made of rock and soil rather than refuse. The local people filter through the piles of waste to find anything which can be resold, reused or recycled. Glass is sold, cardboard is collected, plastic bottles gathered. And whatever is left is then ploughed back into the soil; a sort of rudimentary and very artificial fertiliser. Fields of refuse – soil which seems to grow medical waste, pieces of plastic and broken brown chai cups, which stands upon meters of archaeological rubbish from decades past. What is even more amazing is that fields of waste are Kolkata's main agricultural land. All of the fruit and vegetables which are sold in the markets, cooked in the restaurants and digested by my stomach are grown here. Apparently fruit and vegetables are have highly efficient waste filters; according to studies conducted by West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB), “no traces of metal have been found in the city’s ground water” and “the vegetables grown around the Dhapa dumping grounds have been found to be free of toxicity.” I still find it fascinating that the soil can handle such levels of rubbish; when I express my fears to leaders of the community I am told, “it's ok because the plastic does not biodegrade” - my concerns precisely.
A combination of concern and curiosity took me to recent reports from locally based environmental groups – and my findings are pretty alarming. According to the a study conducted by the Centre for Quality Management System (CQMS) at Jadavpur University as much as 2,600 tonne of solid waste is generated in the city every day which consists of non-biodegradable substances including plastic, electronic waste, batteries, metal cans, glass, paper, medicine foils and construction waste. Such substances do not degrade – with the plastic taking about 1000 years to break down which batteries will eventually break open releasing the carbon and adhesives into the soil. Now this is the same toxic waste which is being ploughed back into the fields around Dhapa. The CQMS argue that this not only destroys the soils fertility but toxic substances seep into the ground water, while the sheer quantity of the amount of toxic waste dumped is enough to contaminate the crops. The solution is for a system of waste segregation to be implemented. However, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation have no such immediate plans and if they did it would most probably consist of the creation of a second dumping ground at Dhapa. Another major concern is the disposal of medical waste. In 1998 the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules made it mandatory for all health care units to set up treatment plants including either autoclaves or incinerators. However, only 12 city hospitals have waste disposal units and two have incinerators – this is out of a total of 649 units. Then in 2002 Kolkata opened its first commercial medical waste disposal unit in Howrah. Under the system, all healthcare units had to contract private operators to collect the daily waste in order for it to be incinerated. However, this has yet to be regulated, and according to the National Medical Journal of India biomedical waste is still finding its way to the dumping ground of the vegetable fields of Dhapa. However, the Nurse has more immediate concerns than the condition of the soil and contamination of Kolkata's vegetables.
The aim of the clinic is to gradually improve the health of the community as well as to provide basic hygiene education. Like Tapsia Clinic, the Nurse established the clinic in response to a need – there is no other health care facility in the area. Also like Tapsia, when he first opened the clinic, people were arriving with infections and illnesses which were fatal, whereas now he is mainly treating minor infections, thereby preventing their development into something much more serious. However, there is an additional challenge which the village faces and that is of the water supply. Compared to the centre of Kolkata, the village looks like a rural dream; spacious houses, green fields of manicured rubbish plots and surrounded by ponds. Take a closer look and it soon becomes clear that the ponds are stagnant with green sludge.
The run-off from the mountain of rubbish collects in the ponds, turning the water into filthy pools. People are washing pots, pans and their own bodies in a liquid which is green and balancing on top of a thick black silt. However, there are fresh water pumps throughout the village, so I asked whether these were restricted for drinking water only because of a limited supply? But this is not the case: people continue to wash in the ponds because they always have. The ponds are convenient – you just have to jump in, and there is no hard work in pumping the water. So this is why I spent the day washing little people under the fresh water pumps. The weekly wash is not just to clean some mucky faces but to initiate a change in behavior, encouraging people to wash with fresh clean water rather than the green pond 'water'.
A group of small children arrived to greet us at the clinic. The tiniest ones viewed us with a suspicion which was dispelled as soon as the older diddy grabbed my hand and grinned a “Nameste Uncle” to 'Uncle' Gopal. Our little tour leaders guided us down to the main village pump and washing began – shampoo, boxes of soap and bottles of Nivea moisturizer were lined up alongside the water pump. Uncle Gopal and I take it in terms to jump on the pump, filling up our small collection of tin containers and buckets. Soon we have a small group of helpers. Tiny children who expertly assist us by running and jumping, landing on the handel of the water pump and then swinging from it, sending streams of frothy cold water into the waiting buckets. The children are laughing but restrained by shyness. They want to be washed, but wait for us to motion then forwards, some accompanied by older siblings. The tiniest have no apprehension to strip off, leaving a pile of dirty shirts and pants in the mud, but the older ones (who are still tiny) are already mimicking their mother's modesty, and insist on being washed still partially clothed. We empty buckets of gushing water over little heads, creating temporary waterfalls and tense bodies which relax into toothy smiles and the production line of washing children begins.
A drop of shampoo rubbed into hair and followed by the lathering of pink bars of soap against black coloured brown skin. A scrubbing pad and the black is quickly removed, another bucket/ waterfall later and the washing process is nearly complete. I grab one of the three towels. A length of brightly coloured cotton which is wrapped around expectant bodies. Arms strapped close to chests and dripping faces smiling up at me, unsure of what will happen next. The towel absorbs the excess water as I rub little arms and legs. Occasionally Uncle Gopal will chastise me for missing some soapy patches and throws some water at the offending parts, creating confusion from the child in question, who thought the 'washing' process had finished.
The more I work with Gopal the more I realise the degree of his dedication. Younger than me but with the wisdom of a person twice his age: taking peoples concerns seriously, communicating with the young and old with equal sincerity, and totally committed to the projects – whether it be the food program at Tapsia village (Gopal runs a parallel program to the one I work on at Sealdah train station), dressing people's wounds or washing little heads. While we work he discusses his frustrations with his country. He speaks passionately as a dalet who has converted to Islam in an attempt to escape the racism of the caste system. Gopal blamed 'corruption', 'consumerism' and what he termed the 'Indian mentality' for the ever increasing poverty gap. I am still building the confidence to share my own views. Ever aware of my position as an 'outsider' as someone who remains outside of the caste system, outside of the gender divide, outside of the poverty trap and outside of the violence of community politics.
I motion for the little body in front of me to hold out his hands. He quickly opens out his palms expectantly. I shake the bottle of moisturizer and tip is upside down, squirting out a small squiggle of white cream. He looks up waiting for more guidance. I motion for him to rub his palms together and then spread on his body. He splats the cream over his palms and then gingerly dabs white spots over his arms. I smile inside and out as I give him some more hands on instruction by rubbing the cream firmly over his arms. He continues the process on this tummy, and I shake out a few more drops to paint on his face. I comb his hair, aware that I am definitely not up to date on the latest local Bengali hair style.
A father walks by holding a tiny tot in his arms. The baby is wearing kohl around his brown eyes and a faded floppy yellow hat. The father turns his body so that his son can observe the washing process. I look up and smile. The baby looks down and cries. Other little children are queueing to be dried, combed and moisturized, with bigger sisters loitering nearby hoping to garner some excess cream from the little ones palms.
Two hours later and our washing session has finished. Gopal spreads the three towels in the sun to dry and we pack up our small but coveted collection of cleaning potions. “Aunty Aunty one photo!” A group of young girls return, looking fresh, shiny and full of smiles. I accept their demands, showing the photos and creating a cycle of “one more – one more!” as I take different combinations of girls with babies and brothers and sisters and mothers, all wanting to see. I make various promises, which I must remember to honour, of printing copies and distributing to their 'owners'. We walk back to the clinic, hands full of smaller hands. I pass an open door to see my last little customer. The little boy who had such fun exploring the softness of Nivea Moisturizing Cream. He was sitting on the mud steps inside his house, mirror on his knee and a look of intense concentration on this face. It is an image that really showed me how special we had made some of these little people feel. Making them feel pampered and extra freshly clean, and hoping that the feeling will be so good that it will be addictive.
We join the Nurse who has packed up his clinic and walk down what can only be described as a country lane while Gopal pushes his bike. The lane is surrounded is covered in straw making a soft padding for our feet. The padding is actually 'mustard seeds' laid down in the morning to be crushed by travelers in the day and then collected in the evening. We find a cycle rickshaw and load the backpacks onto its cart, but we need to wait for more customers before we leave. So we sit on the cart and wait. Gopal is teasing one of the assistant nurses for looking like a “Bengali Woman” - the assistant nurse has opened an umbrella to provide protection from the sun – the assistant nurse is also a man, and this is a practice reserved mainly for women. I watch Bengali women working at the side of the road. They are lifting bricks onto a roll of cloth placed on their heads and walking/ jumping the tower of bricks to the other side of the road. Their is one male in their group – a serious young boy, bending and lifting and carrying and depositing.
The cart is full and we are ready to leave. Gopal protectively tells me to move my legs around to the back to avoid overtaking cars, and he cycles slowly behind us until the first junction. The journey is quiet. Just the momentum of the rickshaw, interspersed by the sound of its wooden wheels lifting and falling over inconsistencies in the road. As we leave the rural landscape of the fields of rubbish we approach the newly constructed residential complexs: A bubble of new apartment blocks, surrounded by fences, security guards and cameras. The inhabitants of which will never set foot in the nearby Village of Rubbish, and whose closest contact with the local markets will be via their servants. I already know that I have experienced far more of Kolkata's slums than many of the Bharmin I have met here, who listen to my daily accounts of poverty and destitution with surprise. It is reminiscent of my conversations with Israeli's from Tel Aviv when I would talk about life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And yet my conversation by the water pump with Gopal told me that my view of reality is still too optimistic. Gopal told me that his mother is a domestic help and her monthly salary is 1500 rupees (22 Euros, 18 GB pounds, US $35) He told me that he knows of many people who will work a full day of 12 hours for 50 rupees (0.74 Euros, 0.58 pounds, US$1.17) In this scale a bottle of Nivea Moisturizer is the equivalent of two days work, and a Barrista Coffee far too much for me to ever again drink guilt-free.
For more information of the Village of Rubbish and Kolkata's Waste Disposal see the following:
“Master Plan on Solid Waste Management” Kolkata Municipal Corporation
"News from Here and There”, National Medical Journal of India
“Promoting Sustainable Consumption in Asian Cities”
Pollution Potential of Leachate from East Kolkata Solid Waste Dumpsite
West Bengal Pollution Control Board
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