The Haves and the Have nots

Saturday was spent doing the touristy bit, visiting the colonial Victoria monument and Kolkata`s answer to Richmond Park known as the Maidan. We watched the Future Hope boys win a local cricket derby match before investigating the inside of the monument. As is becoming the expected norm, I was photographed hundreds of times. One older local man, Joy, befriended me so he could practise his English. This involved be talked at for about an hour. Once the light had faded and my stomach was calling for its daily dose of dhal, I made my excuses and left.

Sunday turned into a confusing experiential roller coaster. We fulfilled our Sunday duty by accompanying the girls to a local book store to read stories before heading back to school to play games and read some more.

Alice and I had an afternoon invitation to another day scholar`s house, Jai. He is the head junior prefect and is the only member of his five siblings to attend Future Hope. He feels a great pressure to secure good grades and as such a good job to support his family in the future.

His home was a bus ride away, giving me my first exposure to the Kolkata public transport. The journey, which cost 6p took us into the poorer districts where the streets took on a whole new stench. Jai`s house was relatively substantial. Spread over two floors and connected by a metallic structure which doubled as stairs. Each step was spaced 30cm apart with a decent drop between subsequent 15cm bars which were supposedly steps, A vertical rope hung from the ceiling and a questionable banister were there for support. It makes Grandma Griffin`s stairs seem child friendly!
A scrap metal obstacle course formed a pathway to the door where his father and brother earned an income for the family. Having arranged a meeting time for 3pm we assumed we would go for a little chai and a meet and greet. Oh how wrong we were. The family had simply delayed their lunch until we arrived. Lunch would be an understatement. The feast left Alice and I feeling like the fatted calves! The meal of puri, curried potatoes, solid lassi and an excessive number of sweets left us bloated and feeling dodgy.
On rolling out of the house, we went on a walk around the local area. This included a visit to a chai pot making factory, or rather a 3x3m room containing a huge heap of smoking dried grass draped over thousands of tiny pots, doubling as a kiln.
Next to a Hindu temple where we observed prayer and then we're asked to join the congregation for yet more food, sweets and a questionable white sweet liquid. That churned my stomach even more. 

Alice and Jai's family

Back to the family home to finish of the feast with chai and then onto the next event.

Just a 5minute bus ride along the road from our afternoon tea, the Bee Gees tribute night was all about excess and over indulgence. Fat Indians in western clothes drank and ate to fill their oversized stomachs while the Canadian tribute band played some classics. It felt like the scene had been plucked from a Cambridge Ball! Culture shock.

Bee Gees

This evening I am taking the sleeper train to the coastal towns of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri where in the latter there is a beach festival! I'll tell you all about it in the next entry.