Songs from Kalighat

Two years ago this May I visited Nirmal Hriday. It was Mother Teresa's first of many homes, and known as her 'home for the dying and destitute' in Kalighat . What I remember of those first days as a volunteer was seeing a mirror for the first time of a reality which I could not handle. I saw the sheltered aspects of what I had arrogantly presumed to be a worldly life. The suffering of the patients; their pain paired with a defeat born from acting out their roles that came with their free cot, filled my mind with confusing justifications. I was forced to question what I was doing and why I could not do it. I lasted only a few days at Nirmal Hriday, and event though at the time I felt defeated and humbled, it was ultimately intelligence which made me leave. I left and moved to Sishu Bhavan where I uncovered another secret – a skill set which I had not realised that I possessed, and of course I met one of my most powerful life mentors - Deepa.

But thanks to Kolkata, in the past two years many gaps have been filled. My naivety has been dulled, and although important questions may not have been answered, at least they have been asked. And as life has a habit of doing, the very reason why I ever stopped in Kolkata is now working by my side.

Two years ago while I was living one of my many lives, my friend – an Angel diguised as a mermaid - and I were working under the sea with the ultra rich and a lifestyle which I had the privilege choosing. She told me about her previous work in Kolkata and told me to visit. It just so happened that the cheap flights from Bangkok to India were to Kolkata, and it just so happened that the first volunteer I spoke to once I arrived was a friend of the Angel's, who took me to register at the Missionaries of Charity. Now our paths have crossed again, and the Angel is volunteering at Nirmal Hriday and has asked my advice for how to work with the blind women confined to their beds. Using this as an opportunity to face a previous trauma I went back to revisit what I had once walked away from in nauseous tears.

Now I walked into Kalighat and saw a very different picture. I saw rows of women who had forcibly had their heads shaved. I saw rows of women who did have families, but for whatever reason were separated from them while no effort was being made to soothe that wound nor rectify that deep and raw separation. I no longer saw helpless victims or "bags of bones"; instead I saw very weak and sick ladies, sucked of energy by the asphyxiating atmosphere and devoid of options by a failing society. All of the volunteers, with the exception of the Angel, were drinking their afternoon chai on the roof, which even if the patients had the strength to climb the stairs, they are forbidden to. The Angel was beaming out her contagious energy; a natural nurse with an innate comforting presence. She led me through the rows of beds to a very old women who is living with cataracts. One of her eyes was totally glazed over with a thick milky layer, while the other was fighting the invading and unwelcome skin. She was almost totally blind. I introduced myself and she motioned for me to sit on remaining space left in her little cot. She was one of the ladies who astound me with their grasp of the English language, providing a key to a past lifetime away from their deserted and poverty driven reality. I asked her if she liked music, as I had come armed with my karimbu, but she was not interested in being entertained. Instead she quickly found out we had a favourite poet in common, and she began to recite songs by Rabindranath Tagore. She sang beautiful melodies in her native Bengali before translating them into English, moving her hand from side to side as she conducted her own renditions. Her voice was incredible, perfect, and her songs blacked out the rest of the ward, killing the discomfort and occasional moans of the women laying all around us.

The singing blind lady had actually studied at Santiniketan – Tagore's world renouwn school and unverisity. She recollected the concerts which her and her freinds would perform, allowing a smile to capture her face and take her back to a colourful happy time safe under the guard of her memory. I left her humming to herself as the Angel motioned me over to another cot, on which lay a much younger women – a women only twenty years old, but also living without sight.

The woman had been picked up at the station after being severely weak and malnourished. After a short stay in Kalighat she was much stronger and the Sister's are searching for somewhere else for her to go. The options are few – she can either return to live at Howrah train station, begging in her darkness, or perhaps the Sister's will move her to Shanti Dan.

Shanti Dan is one of the Missionaries of Charities homes for mentally disabled women. I have never visited, but I have heard several accounts of the ancient treatments used on the women. I know a volunteer nurse who was asked to leave after she began protesting about the use of electric shock treatment, including on epileptic patients. I stayed for only a few minutes by the side of the young women who I did not know. She lay still, with her legs curled into her chest under her uniform night dress. She remained rightly uninterested in my presence and besides all I could do was listen to the alarm bells ringing inside my head.

It will not be long before Deepa will be a young woman still under the care of the Missionaries of Charity. This is my motivation; for a different future for Deepa other than the one which is already laid out.

Eyes still Opening

I hardly sleep. I have packed my sleeping bag and the Indian Winter which claims each night is cold; even in my bed, my own room, its still cold. Someone is playing a guitar badly on the roof top of the hotel opposite. The happiness of the singing is annoying me. I am sad. Every time I feel the sting of the salt in my eyes I chastise myself. Grow up! I tell myself. You will be back. You are going because you booked the ticket so accept responsibility for your decisions! But my advice does little to soothe my self. The voice of my father echoes in my ears. 'So why are you going if you are happy there?' So simple. So true.

In the morning the communal alarm clock wakes me from a crazy dream. Faces of India appeared to say good bye to me. The most bizarre of all was Vijay who poked his head around the door wearing his yoga shorts and sports cap, looked uncomfortable and confused and then turned around unable to wish me farewell. The echo of the muezzin call fades into vibrations mixing with the disappearing creations of my subconscious. My eyes open and I contemplate a hundred thoughts at once: The height of the ceiling, what I still need to pack, that today has arrived and today I will leave India. I debate a final cold water bucket shower, and despite the luxury of 24 hour running water I am not in the mood for its icy fingers to kiss my skin and numb my bones.

Instead I fight my dive gear back into my rucksack, pay the Old Man his tip of fifteen rupees and wake The Man Outside.

Fortunately, The Man Outside is laying in his usual sleeping spot but I was still reluctant to take him from what I know to be a sleep scattered with car headlights and the ache of rock hard concrete. But on my last morning I wanted to give The Man Outside a gift of my Clouds in the Sky Yoga Mat. I knelt down besides his mummified body – a donated sleeping bag engulfing him with the added security of his blue blanket sealing his head from The World. He peeked through the edge of his covers. Like an undercover agent I passed through the rolled up mat. Long fingers extended and lifted the corner of the mat to inspect the Rainbows and the Clouds it contained and then slowly continued to pull it into the safety of his bundle of sleeping possessions. I handed in another bag of unwanted trivialities: An apple (to keep the doctor away), batteries (so I didn't have to throw them away), socks (to fit snuggly under sandals), candles (in case the street light pops) and an assortment of papers and magazines (to provide a mornings entertainment, stimulation and recollection.) I said a 'Good Bye' but I did so quietly, aware of how intrusive I have already been walking into someone's bedroom uninvited, and at the same time surrendering to my innate aversion to farewells.

A new friend appeared. Her smiling eyes absorbing a little of the sinking feeling flooding my body. She took a bag from my collection and together we woke up a taxi driver who was sleeping in the back of his shiny yellow Ambassador. For the privilege (or rather luck) of being the first customer of the new day, only seconds of bargaining were required to ensure the use of the meter, and my dive gear and yoga books were deposited. And then finally - for the final chai – a staple of my time in India, a tribute to the friends I had shared a chai with, friendships which had even been secured over a chai; to all the early mornings at the Mother House where I would pour a triple serving of chai and try to tempt my eyes wide open; to the incredible morning chais at Sishu Bhavan where I would leave Gita for twenty minutes and actually meet those who I was working alongside – the doctors, the students, the mothers, the social workers, the poverty tourists; the utopic, the committed, the shocked, the brave and the naive. In memory of the night buses which would screech to a halt in the middle of nowhere-chai heaven; and to all the chai wallahs and their boy servants across the country, who I have watched as they expertly boiled tea leaves, added just the right amount of sugar and then a whole heap more, and then who pour a hot sweet comforting cup of chai with a taste which was always totally and utterly unique. As I sipped my last chai on Sudder Street, and rolled the clay pot between my palms, feeling the chalky residue and then tasting it between my lips, I heard the depth of my breath as my senses pulled within; a self protection to the tears which would undoubtedly fall if the mind kept thinking as much as the eyes kept seeing and the ears listened. I spoke distractedly with my new friend of her planned work with children in Kathmandu, and I felt the echo of my own indecisions reverberate through my thoughts. A ting ting ting snapped me back to the present as I stared into the face of a sadhu. I smiled in response and he reached up to paint my forehead with a red dash adorned with a white dot. A dash to symbolise the so-called 'third eye'; the eye to see deeper then everything which is superficial. A dash invisible to me but which will accompany me across the ocean – a textured physical mark of this morning, this chai, this country; this potential memory and so much more.

I hugged my friend as she left to work at Nirmal Hriday- the House for the Dying and Destitute which had shaped my first days in Kolkata, intensified my reactions and held a cracked mirror up to my own fears and inadequacies.

I pulled the taxi door shut. Bang, Click. My mind whirled through the past, present and future. I chatted – relaxed, reluctant, anxious - with the taxi driver as I remembered my first – nervous, excited, wide eyed - journey into the city. As we drove through the slums I spied Prem Dam and thought of the severely disabled children who I had watched perform a Christmas musical. I remembered how they had smiled and swayed and singed and drummed with a diligence which had proved their potentials. I realised how familiar these once alien streets were, and how much I have learned and understood and how much I have still to learn and to understand, to see within this myriad of a country – this maze of cultures, contradictions, poverty and riches.

The taxi left the illicit rickshaws and decrepit buses of the road and pulled into the cultivated concrete car park of the airport. I watched as waiting relatives played cricket to an audience of taxi drivers, while Muslim men held their heads high, intricately crotched white kepiah shining out their recent pilgrimage to Mecca. Another click bang click. My spontaneous smile betraying my emotions as the taxi driver insisted on finding a wobbly trolley to transport my luggage. I would see him soon I told him and then I followed the wobbly trolley as we both wandered aimlessly into the airport. Mixed emotions, confusion, weighing down my heavy footsteps. Willing my ticket to be cancelled again, wondering if fate were strong enough to pull me back to the middle of the chaos I did not want to leave. I spoke a of 'Namaste's' as I filed through passport control and back again. And then finally the wet ink stamped down on my precious Indian visa and I walked into the departure lounge. Filled with business men, rich families and a scattering of typically dread-locked tourists I zoned out of the no-man's land around me and stared through the soundproofed thick glass windows. I submitted to my senses and as I did, I almost felt my iris's dilate as they tried to absorb a final image of India.