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June 17, 2008
most epic journey ever
so i use the word "epic" pretty often considering that it is such an extreme adjective, but seriously, this time it is absolutely justified b/c it WAS the most epic journey ever. a few days ago, a few other volunteers and i decided to go sightsee the marble palace. we take a bus to the station, following the instructions in lonely planet, but were a bit lost b/c we couldn't find the station. we wander around a bit, getting bothered by some shop keepers who want us to buy stuff and stared at by people huddled under roofed areas staying out of the rain. the rain's been coming down since the morning, and it's comparable to one of the really rainy days in providence. a shopkeeper who knows english is able to guide us to the metro so we can take the subway to the palace. when we reach our stop, the rain has mostly stopped but the streets are ridiculously flooded. the drainage systems here are no match for nature's monsoons, and rickshaw drivers were struggling in knee-high water, motorcycles looked more like those things you ride in the ocean, and the cars that did make it splashed you when they drove by but it didn't really matter b/c you're wet anyway. the good thing was that at least it wasn't hot, but the bad thing was that we had to walk for about 20 more minutes through brown-gray water that was certainly mixed w sewage and pee. it was kind of phenomenal -- 6 american girls (4 in bright blue ponchos which i have only seen maybe a handful of locals wearing) wading through the streets and alleys and asking random people, politely but desperately "marble palace?". we had to turn down this alleyway which was even worse than the main street and followed these indian guys who knew the way. i ended up falling b/c the water is so murky you can't see where the sidewalk curb is, but my camera didn't break and that's the important thing.
but we got to the marble palace alright which is actually the residence of this bengali family who grew wealthy from trade w europeans and so built their home out of italian and indian marble and filled it w (mostly european) statues, paintings, furniture, and fountains. there was a ginormous mirror that went from floor to ceiling and was built from a single piece of glass. all the paintings were of white people except for the few that showed the bengali family, but it was interesting to peak out the window, past the parqueted floors and marble pillars to look outside the iron gates at the rest of squalid kolkata. there's evidence of this kind of thing everywhere -- movie posters plastered to the same wall where a homeless man is sleeping, stray dogs and kids bathing a few streets away from a 5-star indian restaurant. i found out that the street that i walk down every morning to get to the motherhouse is actually the red-light district, so if i ever was there at night, it'd be a different story.
anyway, it's been starting to rain earlier and earlier, so today after getting back from shanti dan, i waded around sudder street taking pictures of the water. the guy who works at the internet cafe told me to take his picture, which i did, and then he took mine next to a rickshaw. men who were standing outside liked to comment on my camera ("photo?") and of course the little kids love posing and looking at the images afterward.
Posted by Eunice Chyung at June 17, 2008 02:35 AM
