Mendicant Monks meet Regular BeggarsMother Theresa
Mother Ali & Baby Sophie
Readers of a certain vintage will remember the time when all good American mothers would remind their offspring over dinner about “the starving children of India”. This was usual when a kid balked at chowing down fried liver, canned peas, lima beans or other unappealing staple foods of the 50’s.
Well, do I have some good news for you!
As I passed the docks on the Hoogli River this morning I noticed freighters taking on loads of rice from the Bengali countryside. A passerby explained that India, thanks to the green revolution, not only is self-sufficient in food but is also a net exporter of grains to other countries! That makes me feel happy for the starving children of India. Although I must admit I still resent Mom for all those wasted hours I spent staring at bits of rapidly cooling liver on my plate, long after everyone else was excused from the table.
Another marvel of the ‘new Calcutta’ is the subway system which is being constructed downtown. It is fascinating to watch a modern engineering project being built by hand. In the U.S. everything is moved into place by cranes and bolted or riveted together with power tools. In India most of the work is done by hundreds of men in loincloths and turbans dangling precariously from bamboo scaffolds while hauling on thick ropes attached to large pulleys. Rivets are heated on charcoal braziers and banged flat with mallets. Bolts are seated by young boys and men hanging off the ends of wicked long wrenches. It is fascinating. The 19th century meets the 21st century on the new Calcutta Metro construction site. I’ll take bets from anyone that the Kolkata Metro will outlast Boston’s Big Dig by a century or two.
(An interesting thing about the Metro is that the laborers sleep with their families in the sections of tunnel they work on during the day. Yet another example of the ‘all-in-one’ philosophy that characterizes the Bengali mind-set.)
In the new Calcutta even Mother Theresa is no longer sacred. She is considered rather old hat by your average Kolkata man-on-the-street. Although still revered by Catholics all over the world, this diminutive Albanian nun is only tolerated by the average Calcuttan. They consider her a harmless old relic who does a lot to perpetuate the myth of their city as a place chock-full of dying beggars. “Why does every visitor come to see Mother Theresa and no one visits the Calcutta Heart Institute?” is what my informants ask me. They are also proud of the fact that satellites are now being launched into earth orbit via the Satish Dhawan Space Centre near Chennai.
The beggars in my Calcutta neighborhood are clean, well behaved and not evidently at death’s door. They politely line up in the morning near a bridge over a small tributary of the Hoogli where people walking on their way to work dutifully drop coins in their outstretched hands. Higher caste people with jobs are expected and even obligated to provide charity in this way. The beggars are usually greeted by name by their benefactors. In return, they give a ‘namaste’ blessing to their usual patrons. So in traditional Bengali fashion, giving to the less fortunate is part of the daily round.
It’s interesting that in India wandering sadhu’s (or holy-men) are beggars too! They present a small wooden bowl into which people put alms. Somehow this ‘holy beggar’ archetype sanctifies the entire profession. Beggars in America have no such sanction. Their degraded condition contrasts sharply with the lowly but respected position of beggars in Indian society. One difference is that alcohol is readily available in the U.S. In India it's illegal and mostly restricted to fine tourist hotels.
Unfortunately, airport and tourist-hotel beggars in India are just as annoying as anywhere else in the world. I wonder if I offer one of them a case of lima beans will he give me ‘namaste’ or not – somehow I doubt it.
Daktari
P.S. As of this blog date, the Indian space program is still going strong. The launch date for the first Indian lunar orbiter is scheduled for July 2008, to be followed by an unmanned lunar landing in 2010 or 2011.
P.P.S. It’s OK Mom. I forgive you!
