Calcutta..errr Kolkata

Calcutta, err Kolkata as properly named now, was a fantastic experience. I know now why I love this wild city of 14 million so much. It's the people. But isn't that how it's always been? I went to college in the corn fields of Indiana (I'm not joking. Corn husks often swept through the campus on windy days) and after graduating in 1999 I headed straight home to Oregon. Away from the wild wintry blustering-cold nights, away from those corn fields and into the arms of my beloved mountains and mild winter. I recall wondering in both dismay and amusement at those, some of whom are my dearest friends, who stayed back in Indiana. Who chose the blistering heat and blustering cold. Why? Family, friends, community. Home. And that makes the weather mere afterthought.

Kolkata is in a way my second "home" in India, for the community of people I know, I love dearly, and in return they have loved me deeply.

The camera was with Ben in London so here are some mental snapshots of the last four days.

In this first picture, imagine with me a small four-walled room. Inside this room people are sitting shoulder to shoulder on plastic mats, cross-legged and squished into one another. In one corner of the room sits a fair-skinned woman with a fair-skinned baby who makes many attempts to crawl for the guitar being strummed. The people inside these walls come from stories of drug addiction (some sober, some still using), HIV infections, street living and abortions to bible school, MA level education, middle-class, call-centers, and government positions. But none of that really matters. Because we are friends, family, community. Home. And that makes our addictions and diplomas mere afterthoughts.

This next picture is a grandmother speaking to my friend with tears in her eyes. Her burden is great. Every day she watches her granddaughter refuse food and waste away in her skeletal frame. HIV has taken away not only the appetite but also the longevity of this little girls life.

This is a picture of my friend receiving a significant check at a fundraising event on World AIDS Day. With this money, children of AIDS will have another year of education funded. Another year of hope.

This next picture is Shane riding in the taxi with the wind in his (small) hair on our way to spend the night with friends. We will eat a grand meal on the floor and swat at a lot of mosquitoes but not really care because our hands are filled with one steamy cup of chai after another and there's a lot of memory making going on.

This is Shane and I taking a walk with Kolkata's masses in the early evening in search of cookies to bring for dinner. Shane will be asleep while I spend time with a dear "Uncle and Aunty" who despite of a terrible cold prepare wonderful crab curry that we crunch on for an hour. That's a picture of me smiling.

These are just a few snapshots of the last four days. I am enrichend but burdened. Life isn't so black and white when I see what I have seen in Kolkata. Answers are not a sales pitch. That doesn't work here. Beauty comes at me in the form of tangled up messy lives, dying children of HIV, prayers not answered, tempers lost, materialism lying to the poor (it'll make you feel better, I promise) and drugs that not only ruin but take lives as well.

You can't take a picture of that. Sometimes you just gotta see it for yourself. And then pray to God that you know how to love well.