And then I landed

If you’ve ever watched The Jungle Book, you might be able to form yourself up a fairly good image of my first view of Kolkata. The ground emerged from beneath misty aeroplane haze. I saw luscious, jungly clusters of palm trees and odd, irregular-shaped houses. Deep jewels glistened and shimmered in the ground, eventually revealing themselves to be dark pools of water. But as we came to land I noticed that the rivers were filthy and strewn with litter.

This is a city of constant paradox. Rich vibrant colours scream out for attention, but are numbed and mattified by the relentless dust. Bejewelled, beautiful women sit barefoot in the dirt next to filthy, swollen nippled bitch-dogs. The rich/poor divide reaches out constantly to slap you in the face.

 Safety checks 

India’s got a thing for pointless bureaucracy, and we were just going through our third passport check when my companion, Aga the Photographer, had to go on ahead. I suddenly realised I was the last person in the queue, alone but for one painting of a Bengal tiger and an official with a gammy eye. Gammy eye looked at me, gripped my passport with both his hands and began to tell me in hurried tones about how his son was dying and he needed my money “please madam, please.”

This was my first impression of the Indian people. I was mentally calculating how many rupees I could afford to offer to get my passport back (and how many more times this might happen) when a collection of slightly more official officials passed on by. I took the opportunity to wrestle away my passport and flee.

I passed a clapped out, threadbare old wheelchair and went to pick up my own custom-made one from baggage reclaim. We made it out of the airport with both passports and all of our rupees intact, leaping (after quite some negotiation and another attempt from our failed con-artist friends) into the best taxi they had. Almost all of the tyres were even inflated, almost fully. 

I have no idea where this taxi driver is taking us. We’ve passed Bollywood bright markets and destitute favella-style slums. Less Jungle Book now, more Scrapheap Challenge. Out on the streets there are people sleeping, washing their clothes and living their lives. None of the cars have wing mirrors, but they all like to prove they have horns. Aga has gone unusually quiet. I wonder what the hell we’ve let ourselves in for…