I'm lying in my deathbed in Calcutta, as is custom whenever I visit this shithole among shitholes. I had expected to get sort of a blank-slate experience after visiting the city (and the country) after three years, but the smell of Calcutta proved unforgettable as I stepped off the plane, and the residents were all eyebrows and whiskers. Hearing my parents converse with the customs officer, I was reminded of how I always resorted to Hindi when conversing with the natives. I could never bring myself to speak in Bengali. Idiomatic Bengali is just too oleaginous for my comfort. On the ride to my grandmother's place, I witnessed the gokart school of driving that is prevalent in India. I remembered the platitude about Indian drivers being able to drive anywhere in the world of which Nikki was a particularly vocal fan. Of course, she is known for her eccentric views on driving - for instance, her insistence that stick shift is superior to automatic transmission.
As I watched Calcutta natives cross the street in the spirit of the martyr, the inherent meaninglessness of human life struck me hard. Of course, I've always held that life was inherently meaningless, but there is something about watching Calcutta natives go about their quotidian lives that drives the point home better than mere ratiocination ever could. Not to sound like a douche. The natives in question probably wouldn't think my life had any meaning, and their own lives are doubtless very meaningful to them. I never said life was meaningless - just that it was inherently meaningless. One of the many reasons I don't like religion is that, contrary to what religious people say, I think religion deprives life of meaning by attempting to foist an inherent meaning on it.
At one point on the journey I came across a large billboard with Mamata Banerjee's face on it and the words "Welcome to the Sweetest Part of India". I must have scoffed audibly. I thought "City of Joy" was bad, but I was content to put that down to a kind of inertia that made the natives blind to how big a shithole their city was. "Sweetest Part of India" is on a whole other level. The words never seemed so hollow individually or together. For the remnant of the journey I thought back to other Indian cities I'd lived in and/or visited: Hyderabad, Bombay, Bangalore. I can imagine living in, growing up in, and identifying with all these cities. In contrast, I wouldn't even come to Calcutta to die. Calcutta does nothing but bring to mind the horrors of the third world. I searched with an open mind for redeeming qualities - even a glimmer of one - that would make me revise my opinion. None suggested itself. Calcutta is a giant slum for one end to the other. I saw a couple snogging on the bridge over the Hoogli. At least, it looked like snogging. For all I know it could have been sexual assault, but I prefer to think it was run-of-the-mill snogging. The smoke billowing into their faces was the most romance you could hope to find in this city.
My relatives are weird, too. I blame the city. My grandmother's sole passion has always been feeding people, and these days she hardly opens her mouth except to importune the nearest person to eat something, and she opens her mouth a lot. Meals are divested of all dignity at her house, and one ends up eating less than one would have eaten elsewhere. One even fears confessing to being hungry lest one find oneself faced with more food than one can possibly eat. Then there's my uncle. This morning I was sitting in the living room, when I heard my grandfather's voice emerge suddenly from the quiet - unremarkable but for the fact my grandfather had been dead three years. It turned out to be a recording of my grandfather's Alzheimer's ramblings that my uncle had set as his ringtone. Then there's my great uncle - a man of great spiritual pretensions - who puts a religious interpretation on the most mundane things and breaks into song when asked a question. My mom's side of the family would have made Wodehouse weep with joy.
As I watched Calcutta natives cross the street in the spirit of the martyr, the inherent meaninglessness of human life struck me hard. Of course, I've always held that life was inherently meaningless, but there is something about watching Calcutta natives go about their quotidian lives that drives the point home better than mere ratiocination ever could. Not to sound like a douche. The natives in question probably wouldn't think my life had any meaning, and their own lives are doubtless very meaningful to them. I never said life was meaningless - just that it was inherently meaningless. One of the many reasons I don't like religion is that, contrary to what religious people say, I think religion deprives life of meaning by attempting to foist an inherent meaning on it.
At one point on the journey I came across a large billboard with Mamata Banerjee's face on it and the words "Welcome to the Sweetest Part of India". I must have scoffed audibly. I thought "City of Joy" was bad, but I was content to put that down to a kind of inertia that made the natives blind to how big a shithole their city was. "Sweetest Part of India" is on a whole other level. The words never seemed so hollow individually or together. For the remnant of the journey I thought back to other Indian cities I'd lived in and/or visited: Hyderabad, Bombay, Bangalore. I can imagine living in, growing up in, and identifying with all these cities. In contrast, I wouldn't even come to Calcutta to die. Calcutta does nothing but bring to mind the horrors of the third world. I searched with an open mind for redeeming qualities - even a glimmer of one - that would make me revise my opinion. None suggested itself. Calcutta is a giant slum for one end to the other. I saw a couple snogging on the bridge over the Hoogli. At least, it looked like snogging. For all I know it could have been sexual assault, but I prefer to think it was run-of-the-mill snogging. The smoke billowing into their faces was the most romance you could hope to find in this city.
My relatives are weird, too. I blame the city. My grandmother's sole passion has always been feeding people, and these days she hardly opens her mouth except to importune the nearest person to eat something, and she opens her mouth a lot. Meals are divested of all dignity at her house, and one ends up eating less than one would have eaten elsewhere. One even fears confessing to being hungry lest one find oneself faced with more food than one can possibly eat. Then there's my uncle. This morning I was sitting in the living room, when I heard my grandfather's voice emerge suddenly from the quiet - unremarkable but for the fact my grandfather had been dead three years. It turned out to be a recording of my grandfather's Alzheimer's ramblings that my uncle had set as his ringtone. Then there's my great uncle - a man of great spiritual pretensions - who puts a religious interpretation on the most mundane things and breaks into song when asked a question. My mom's side of the family would have made Wodehouse weep with joy.
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