Kolkata II

The next morning I walked south to Park Street, looking for the Oxford Bookshop, the Barnes and Noble of India. It falls short but most of the bookshops I had come across were pretty informal affairs heavily into self-help books. Napoleon Hill is big as is the U.S. spy counter spy stuff. Many books have titles like A Thousand Useful Facts, the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, or A Study Guide for Successful Applicants in the Postal Service. There are some classics in fiction, both East and West but nothing to really tempt me. Of course my problem is that a backpacker can’t carry books…but I can look.
Park Street is a shopping street for the more affluent. I stopped in a coffee shop for a sweet roll and there was enough peeled paint and grunge to remind me where I was. But the street is upscale nevertheless.
The Oxford Bookshop comes in two pieces separated by another shop. The children’s books are in the one with the toilet and the larger store has the security guard who looked after my pack containing toilet paper, The Lonely Planet, and my bottle of water. What titles I perused I can’t remember but there was enough in the shop to cause me to be systematic in looking over titles because I didn’t want to miss anything. I found a book of putdowns and got tired of standing so like at Barnes and Noble’s, I found an overstuffed chair and read. Dorothy Parker and Mark Twain had star billing at the end of the book. Oscar Wilde was well represented but Gore Vidal had one of the more incisive comments, which went something like, Andy Warhole was a genius with an IQ of 60. When Dorothy Parker was told that Calvin Coolidge died, she asked, “How do they know?” India is an odd paradox. Here’s a country that produced Kama Sutra and they disallow kissing on the movie screen. But I found a book showing a different sexual position and scenario for the 365 days of the year. I’ll leave it to your imagination what they programmed for leap year.
But then there were other places to go and so I reclaimed my pack and again made my way south along Chowringhee and across to the Maidan. A country mile of grass separated me from the Victorial Memorial but I kept walking. The building is covered in white marble and surrounded with formal gardens. I believe that it was begun in Victoria’s reign but completed in about 1920 and so while Victoria, Edward, and George V were remembered, only the latter monarch saw the great building. The queen sits on her throne out and away from the front of the building at about the same distance as Edward sits his horse at the back of the building. Both of these statues are of bronze. Inside and facing each other from the length of a transept stand King George and Queen Mary in white marble. While people in many countries obliterate their unhappy past by pulling down statuary, India has chosen to maintain its visual connection with the past. In the U.S. we did some name changing after the revolution (King’s College became Columbia University, etc) but the Indians, wisely I think, kept these visual reminders of their past. The exhibit throughout the lower floor focused on the founding and building of Calcutta with both national points of view well balanced. Attendance was surely heavy enough to justify whatever public funds that were spent.
I exited the building from the front (north end) and walked around to see how they presented King Edward. He looked down from the back of his horse and having looked him over, I decided I needed to find a “public facility.” This is not the kind of place where one takes a sudden interest in the base of trees. The Maidan, yes; the Victoria Memorial grounds, no. Several men sat on a bench that I walked by and one of them decided to be helpful. He followed me about twenty paces and asked if he could be of service. His English was perfect as was one of the others, who sat on the bench. I forgot about my immediate need and we visited. After the “where are you from” questions, we talked about the U.S, our education, and occupations, and as always they sounded me out about George Bush.
It’s said that the Arabs invented zero, which means that the Arabs probably learned it from the Indians. Travel is broadening and the Arab sailors surely paid attention when encountering the Indian fiefdoms. But I haven’t found a person who supports anything that Bush has done. It’s not a 20% approval rating. We are back to zero.
The men were about my age, which is convenient since I don’t have to explain so much to them. Their memory of events during our lives are as good as mine. They were all retired and met every afternoon to talk over current events. I hadn’t read The Hindu lately so I played catch up. After an hour, I really had to go and so they gave me directions to the restroom as well as an invitation to meet with them the next day. The sun was dimming in the dust and smoke and I had a long walk across the Maidan, where I kept an eye out for snake charmers, and then I hiked up the Chowringhee to Sudder Street, dodged through the street construction, had a good supper and stretched out on my bed. As I dozed a little I though how my memory played tricks on me again. The men in the park told me that both the zoo and the Temple of Kali were on this side of the river, not the Howdah. They also told me that the zoo no longer had its white tigers and that non Hindus were not allowed to see Kali as I had during the time before. I’d have bet money on their being in Howdah….which made me wonder if on some street corner that I had not rounded in the last two day there might be a stand of cactus, where if a fellow were to buy a bag of peanuts that he just might coax out a hungry rat that would bite his finger! I drew my hand back, punching my elbow against the wall and that woke me up! I rubbed my elbow wondering what I’d been dreaming. After a while I rolled over and again fell asleep.

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