The Slums and the Cemetery
We go for a walk near mababa's very nice Golf Green flat - not
heading anywhere in particular, just exploring. Surprisingly close by
we reach slums, with tiny brick buildings huddled close together all
around the shore of a large pond, cycle-rickshaws in long lines along
the adjacent street. I stop to take a photograph over the water,
through a length of huge concrete pipe, and the kids sitting on the
next pipe along get very excited, crying 'camera!' and going on in rapid
Bengali - while another three or four kids are scrambling to join them
I get on with taking the picture I'd stopped for, then I take theirs as
they grin and wave. They seem very pleased.
As
we are setting off again another group of small children spot the
camera and immediately clamour for their photograph to be taken too,
posing together with great gusto - their cycle-rickshaw risks escaping
in all the commotion. I like it when people actively want me to take street
photos; I'm often too shy to ask. Everyone is very friendly, several
people calling out 'Hello!' - I am plainly a curiosity, but apparently
not an unwelcome one.
Down the road we reach another, much
cleaner and better-maintained pond. It is fenced all around with razor
wire to keep out the poor, but gratifyingly it is full of people who
have hopped over the gates regardless. Three young men see us wondering
how to get in, and direct us to the gate a little further on. It is
locked though, and P is in a dress, so we leave it.
Just around
the corner the kids with the cycle-rickshaw catch up, and stop us
again. One of them jumps down, places his hands on his hips and grills
me in quite good English - assertively, but not in a hostile way. Where
am I from? I tell them I've come from Edinburgh, in Britain, but it's
impossible to tell how much he understands. I suspect his English,
however well-pronounced, may not stretch far beyond the few questions
he asks us. What am I doing here? P explains in Bengali that I'm her
husband, and he seems quite wrong-footed by this.
We keep on
heading in the direction of the nearby cemetery, down a long street
with next to no shade. It is not that hot, really - I've had much
hotter days in Britain, let alone here - but the intense humidity makes
it far harder to take. By the time we reach the cemetery gates I'm
starting to feel slightly faint, and wondering if we should have turned
back long ago. To our relief the cemetery is open, and after a few
questions the guard waves us in.
There is nobody else inside -
nobody alive and human, anyway. It is profoundly peaceful, overgrown
enough but with clear, grassy paths. Nowhere here has felt so distant
from the crowding bustle of human existence. In the shade of a big
banyan tree which I can barely resist climbing, there are two benches
and a very welcome water-pump. The water isn't safe to drink of course, certainly not for foreigners, but cooling down by wetting my limbs and
face allows me to feel human again. We rest on the benches and wait for
another big cloud to give us respite from the sun.
The graveyard
is busy with other forms of life. Crows chase chipmunks, their sworn
enemies, around trees, up and down. We see mynah birds, a flock of
tiny, sparrow-like birds, a bright yellow one something like a budgie,
and a pair of beautiful red-winged birds - perhaps kites? - which look
something like a cross between crows and eagles and act like they're in love.
We leave the
cemetery again by its only entrance, and decide to try following the
roads around its other edge, hoping to find more shelter. These
neighbourhoods are relatively prosperous, and it shows in their
quietness, the bars over their windows, the manned parking spaces
beneath each building. It's a short walk back to the slums though, and
this time we take a short-cut right through them.
Again we are
conscious of how much we stick out in this crowd, but nobody seems
upset by our presence, and (to my mother-in-law's evident surprise when
we tell her later) nobody asks us for money, or for anything more than
a photograph. I am fascinated - not leeringly, I hope - by this glimpse
into a lifestyle which is usually kept at such a distance from the
affluent minority I generally interact with. Amazingly elaborate
collections of wires deliver electricity to the masses, presumably
illicitly. Some of the huts are made of wood or wicker, woven together,
but most are built of bare bricks. In the narrow alleys between rows of
huts, goats nibble leaves while kids and clothes are washed with
buckets.
We are obviously greatly intriguing especially to the
children, and when P asks one if we can get through the way we are
going, we start to accumulate a great helpful crowd, showing the way
ahead. They seem pleased by their collective mission, leading us
quickly down the winding path through their home. We thank them all as
we emerge at last just a few metres away from our marble-floored,
blissfully air-conditioned flat. I hadn't even noticed these slums were
here. I wonder if I will ever get used to this sort of juxtaposition.
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