Postcard from abroad: Calcutta

In the first of a weekly series of reports from young Irish people working abroad, Marc Murphy writes about Calcutta's charms

In the first of a weekly series of reports from young Irish people working abroad, Marc Murphy writes about Calcutta's charms

It is a city of extraordinary contrasts, where the magnificently rich share the same street as the crushingly poor; where beggars tread on the same footpaths as bankers and where, to the serial visitor such as myself, the atmosphere is both alien and familiar in equal measure.

At first glance everything seems familiar: the endless traffic, the debilitating heat, the exotic sights and smells, and the heaving mass of humanity that is Calcutta. In a city about two-thirds the physical size of Dublin, it is hard to believe that there are somewhere between 15 and 25 million people here.

I am back in Calcutta for a third stint as a volunteer with an Irish education-focused NGO, Suas. I am the city co-ordinator for a group of 12 Irish volunteers who have come to work as teaching assistants with Sabuj Sangha, an Indian NGO that runs four schools along the railway lines south of Calcutta.

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Due to the phenomenon of poverty-related, rural-urban migration, millions of Bengalis have been drawn to the metropolis from their villages in the west Bengal countryside. As a result, shantytowns without facilities and sometimes even running water have grown up along the railway platforms on the outskirts of the city.

Sabuj Sangha operates schools beside these railway platforms which provide non-formal education for upwards of 500 children with the aim of mainstreaming these children into formal, government-run schools.

Despite Calcutta's propensity to assault one's senses in every way, both good and bad, it remains by far the most charming city I have ever visited. Where else in the world would a shopkeeper thank a Western customer for "patronising" him? When I am asked why I always return to Calcutta my answer is always the same: the people. Total strangers of all social classes go out of their way to be helpful to the visitor, where life's ups and downs are greeted with fatalistic good humour that can amaze and inspire the Westerner.

Calcutta's famed traffic problems perhaps serve as a microcosm of its essence. The aggressive honking of horns, the violent swerving to avoid potholes and the seeming absence of any rules of the road terrify the Western visitor. Oncoming vehicles play chicken with each other before avoiding each other at the last possible moment.

Theoretically traffic drives on the left in Calcutta, though I have seen very little evidence of this. It would not be possible to drive for more than a mile in this great city before one would meet a crowded bus approaching on the wrong side of the road. They barely slow down to allow passengers to board and alight from the vehicle. It is not uncommon to see 50-year-old, sari-clad Bengali women jump from a moving bus. Such sights enthral me, especially as buses will stop for me (presumably I am considered too stupid/Western to obey the local bus etiquette).

Calcutta is the only city I have visited whereby five lanes of traffic can drive in one direction down a public highway in the morning and, at a time that is not obvious and seems to vary from day to day, drive in the other direction later on in that same day.

Yet the apparent chaos masks one fact about the traffic problem in particular, and Calcutta in general: despite the haphazard nature of life to the Western eye, Calcutta works. Things may not happen in the way that we expect them to but ultimately things do get done and that adds to the mystique of the place.

Recently I was invited to visit the home of one of my students near Bow Bazaar, a poor area in central Calcutta. Ducking under the low roof I found myself in a room no more than 12 feet by eight feet. In this room seven people ate, slept, lived and loved. Despite the language barriers, I spent a very enjoyable hour or so being introduced to the family, refraining from pointing my feet at anyone and generally trying to be some sort of ambassador for Ireland. I also reluctantly drank a warm bottle of Coke that was presented to me. For a family that earned 65 rupees a day (about €1.10), buying a bottle of Coke for 18 rupees was a serious outlay. To refuse would have offended the family and yet I could only marvel at the warmth and generosity that was shown to me, a complete stranger.

As I stood to leave I bumped my head and knocked over the open gas lamp that was providing light for the family. This promptly set alight the straw in the corner that was used for sleeping. My student's father immediately put out the fire and the entire family burst out laughing at my clumsy attempt to burn their house down. No doubt the story of the pyromaniac "shada" who came to visit will entertain the residents of Bow Bazaar for months to come.

TCD graduate Marc Murphy (23) is studying law in the King's Inns. He is spending three months working in Calcutta. www.suas.ie