Used the earplugs last night - had to. The din was immense and no sleep would have been had otherwise. Wrapped the mattress in our insecticide impregnated mosquito net before bed to kill any bedbugs and ward off the cockroaches. It seemed to work. Alarmingly, though, after only 24 hours, the noise is not bothering me as much anymore... could be that I've gone slightly deaf from the honking at street level...
Wishful thinking, surely...
Have had a great day so far; Baj came by this morning and we all cabbed over to the university area where there are booksellers lining the streets. after searching for a couple of books for his dad and then futilely for a bohemian coffee house, we cabbed across town to a shopping district where we all marvelled at the great selection and prices. I picked up a few shirts for myself as a birthday present and then Helene treated us all to a meal at Oh, Calcutta! a superb restaurant specialising in Bengali cuisine. Your mouth is never bored with this type of cooking and at some point I should dedicate an entire entry to do it real justice.
After that, it was over to Park Street, which is the hip street along which you see couples and intellectuals out walking (not together!), etc. Walking back to the hotel, I was lulled into a sense of calm, and started to think that maybe Calcutta wasn't so intense after all, that I was just overreacting yesterday...
Commuting.
Then we turned back onto our road. Traffic, honking, people coming every which way, a guy peeing on the side of the road while talking on his cell phone, another hurling himself off a bus and then getting spun around by an auto-rickshaw that grazed him... street kids scavenging things from under idling cars, women sitting amidst debris breastfeeding newborns, men warming themselves by fires hastily made by lighting pieces of discarded drywall... all this among clouds of acrid exhaust smoke and haze in the setting sun and the very frequent smiles that people give us when we cross paths. This is not a tourist city -- a fact evident in the genuine interest that is shown wherever we go...
Don't ask me... I just take the pictures...
Proof that they don't always miss...
Bookstore
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