While Protima spends her days on Sudder Street asking people for money and spends her nights sleeping at Sealdah train station, her real home is in "the village." Many people in the poorer, lower class come to Calcutta from the rural villages of West Bengal, Bihar or other states to find jobs and make money . . . in order to go back to village life. Few are successful; most, as far as I can tell, are lucky if they have enough money to travel back to their villages once every eight months. Some are even less fortunate: hard times can require taking on debt . . . paying back that debt can mean bonded labor for children, sweatshops or even selling a woman's body. Others simply beg, some more successfully than others.
Most of the women who live on Sudder Street do fairly well by begging, relatively-speaking. Jora, Sirah and Protima, for example, spend weeks or a few months on Sudder Street, then travel back to their villages to spend several weeks with their families there. Protima's husband Shwadep and youngest son Narayan live in the village, while baby Shopna travels with mom to Sudder Street. Two weeks before Protima's next trek back to her village, she invited Trever and me to come along. Trever is a good friend of Protima's and he's been to her village before. I was the new-bie, and boy was it an eye-opening experience.
First was the hour ride on a local train. This ain't the Orient Express, folks. The local trains are packed to the gills with people; if there is one square inch of space to be had, an Indian will find it and fill it. It used to be that if there simply were no space left, people would climb on top of the train and ride outside; that is against the law now. Vendors manage to squeeze through the crowds to sell fried sugary food or crappy plastic toys.
Second was a 30-minute auto-rickshaw ride. Normally four people can fit into an auto-rickshaw comfortably. We had seven. When there was no road left, we exited the auto-rickshaw and walked another 30 minutes into the village.
The first thing I noticed about the village were the colors. Everything was grayish-brown clay (the ground, the huts, cows, goats), pale-yellow straw (hut roofs, grain), or vibrant green (palm trees, rice paddies). The air was not polluted. It was not noisy. There were no crowds. It was calm, I had room to breathe, I could actually see the stars at night. In a word, it was beautiful.
With that said, small-town America these villages are not. The people in Protima's village are very poor. Villages are populated with mud huts; literally, huts made of mud. Not very sturdy, but easily built with the large quantities of mud around. There is no electricity and no air conditioning. "Stoves" were two to four holes in the ground: one for the cooking pan, and one right below it to stuff with straw and other materials for fire. The same pond is used for cleaning clothes, washing dishes, and bathing. Protima's mud hut had two very small rooms, one no bigger than my bathroom at home. Our beds were to be mats and blankets on the ground, protected by mosquito nets. But it all works.
Almost everyone is a farmer, whose livelihood and existence is dependent upon nature. In India, nature can be benevolent or cruel. From the looks of the lush green acres of rice paddy fields, this might be a good crop. Shwadep used to drive a cycle-rickshaw, but he has been suffering from tuberculosis, and can no longer operate the rickshaw. The family's only income is from Protima's begging in Calcutta.
There was really nothing to do there but talk. I used up the nine Bengali phrases I know pretty quickly; consequently, I just smiled and nodded a lot. The village children were thrilled with the two tall white visitors, and wanted us either to play with them or let them sit in our laps. We took naps during the heat of the day, and then played with the children again. I circled up the kids to teach them some Texas swing dance moves: some of them picked it up quickly!
Protima was a wonderful and generous hostess, always asking if we were enjoying ourselves and were comfortable. Though they had little, they shared all they had with us. She ensured a steady supply of chai tea, water and food. Lots of food. We ate five times a day: rice, curry, rice, chicken, rice, fried vegetables, and other food I couldn't identify. Oh, and rice. Talk about bloated. I didn't want to be rude to Protima by not eating enough: her family was sharing the food they did have with us. At some points during the meals (which we ate with our hands), I would whisper to Trever, "Did I eat enough? Is this OK?" as I showed him my tin plate. Sometimes he'd tell me I was fine; other times he'd tell me to take a deep breath and keep going. And so I "got my eat on."
At night we joined all the village people at the center of the village to pick up food and rice from the general supply: there were candles and torches lighting up the evening, some Hindi music playing from a radio, and food offerings made to one of the patron Hindi gods. Later that night we got ready for bed, and I had the pleasure of sleeping outside on the porch area with Protima's mother-in-law, called Priyo-ma. Or maybe I just drew the short straw. Asho, a seven-year old neighbor girl, decided to sleep with Priyo-ma and me. I woke several times either to a small elbow in my face or Priyo-ma coughing. The darkness and crickets finally lulled me to sleep for the rest of the evening.
On Sunday, our last day in the village, Trever and Narayan walked off to the community water pump near the pond for a cool bath. Apparently that was the signal for the women to bathe me too. Protima and a neighbor directed some Bengali instructions at me, which naturally I didn't understand, but from their hand gestures I gathered I was to go into the hut. There Protima met me with one of her saris, and she instructed me to disrobe down to my underwear. Then she spun the long bolt of worn cloth around me, tucking here and there and finally flinging the end of the cloth over my shoulder. I was officially wearing a sari. She walked me over to another pond, where two women with buckets of water met me. I sat on a wooden plank, not knowing what was about to happen. What happened next was a bucket of cold water pouring over my head. Wasn't expecting that. The women then washed my arms and hair for me with soap. It was a nice gesture given to honored guests, though a heads-up from my Bengali-speaking travel partner Trever who has been here several times would have been nice.
Protima has three other children under the age of thirteen: Dinobondhu (oldest son), Sujetta and Poatho. Undoubtedly I spelled each of these names wrong (but you, dear reader, don't know the difference, so we'll go with these, ok?). Trever and his friend Dylan are paying for their boarding school, which is about 45 minutes away from the village. On our way out, we stopped by the school to see the kids. Protima, Shwadep and Narayan came along; it was quite the family gathering. The kids absolutely adore Trever: they were jumping up and down and onto him constantly. At least one of the kids was hugging him or sitting in his lap or holding his hand at any given moment. Sujetta picked out a special present for her bondhu ("friend" in Bengali; masculine), and was elated to give him a kiss on the cheek. These were indeed Trever's adopted little brothers and sisters. At one point I purposefully stood a ways away and just watched as they all really loved on one another; laughing, giggling, smiling, enjoying being together. This wasn't gratitude for Trever's benevolence: this was genuine affection and love. He had long since ceased to be some sort of foreign provider and had become a close friend and family member.
Protima gave me a present as well, a shiny black beaded necklace with a cross pendant. Apparently I had made a comment weeks ago that I really liked the necklace baby Shopna wore, which was a simple string of black beads. This one was much more shiny, with the cross "for Jesus." She had spent money on this thoughtful gift for me instead of for, say buying shoes for one of her children or food for her family. Granted, the necklace probably only cost 30 rupees (about 75 cents), but for someone who begs that's a significant money allocation decision. I was stunned at the gesture . . . this necklace will no doubt become one of my prized possessions.
We left the school to catch a rickshaw to the train station. The transportation available was a bicycle pulling a flat board on top of a wagon, so we all hopped on and rode away. As the breeze blew I reminisced over the weekend. I was touched by Protima's generosity though she has nothing, and by her family's love for Trever.
I had been in the middle of nowhere West Bengal; I don't even know the name of the village. But it was there I learned that sometimes the people who give the most are the least able to give.
