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Sunday, December 15, 2002

By Jono David

CALCUTTA, India -- Calcutta is a diamond shimmering in a sea of cold blackness. At least that's what it looked like from 35,000 feet, when I jetted over it sometime round 11 p.m. on my way from Seoul to Mumbai (Bombay).

From ground level, however, Calcutta is not quite the scintillating gem I saw from my economy class window.

In fact, after spending 34 sleepless hours in a sleeper carriage on my train trip from Mumbai, my reaction after my first 30 minutes in Calcutta felt something like "get me out of here."

	GETTING THERE BY AIR: India's international carrier is Air India, with direct flights to North America, Europe and Asia. Some major carriers have direct flights to Calcutta, but others will require plane changes from Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai. They include: British Airways, Air Canada, Korean Air, United Airlines, Delta Airlines, KLM, Qantas and Japan Airlines, to name but a few. For domestic routes, government-run Indian Airlines has extensive routes. Jet Airways is the biggest private competitor. Contrary to popular belief, booking domestic air tickets at short notice is indeed possible. But if you intend to fly several routes, look into airpasses, such as the Discover India Pass. Passes can also be obtained in India. Some discounts may apply for individually purchased tickets. BY TRAIN: The main station, Howrah Train Station, is on a major route and can easily be reached from such major points as Delhi, Calcutta, Varanasi and Mumbai. Tickets are generally available for all classes and routes, but the process for purchasing them may prove time-consuming, if not infuriating. Advice: plan ahead, have ticket booking forms filled in before you reach the ticket window, keep an alternate day/time/class in mind, and get to the reservation offices thirty minutes prior to posted opening times! WHEN TO GO: Overall, November to March. Calcutta's coolest months are generally during this time (82 degrees), whilst the warmest months run March to May (93 degrees), but higher temperatures are not uncommon. Late November through April rainfall is fairly sparse. For the rest of the country, India's climatic conditions are so wide-ranging that it is difficult to suggest an ideal time to go. Broadly speaking, however, October to March are the driest and most favorable in terms of temperatures, usually with low to moderate humidity. April to September bring monsoon conditions with very high temperatures and uncomfortable humidity. VISAS: Virtually all visitors to India require a visa prior to arrival. The most common tourist visa is a six-month multiple-entry visa (valid from the date of issue). Prices vary to nationality, but expect to pay around US$50. Fifteen-day extensions can be obtained from Foreigners' Registration Offices located in most major cities. Visa information is subject to change without notice. Check with the nearest Indian Embassy or Consulate for the latest visa requirements for your nationality. VACCINATIONS: Recommended: Diphtheria, hepatitis A and B, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, meningococcal meningitis, polio, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhoid. Plan injections early as many cannot be administered together while others require two- or three-shot courses. TOURIST INFORMATION: In the United States, 70 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 1808, New York, NY 10020; 1-212-586-4901; www.tourindia.com. In Calcutta: Government of India Tourist Office, 4 Shakespeare Sarani. Open Mondays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pick up "Calcutta This Fortnight," a free events listing. -- Jono David

As I walked out of Howrah Train Station, I was swept up in a human torrent, and then nearly drowned in plumes of car exhaust and waves of exhaustion.

Choked up in traffic and carbon monoxide on Surendra Nath Banerji Road, I decided, albeit with a little encouragement from the driver, to get out of the rickety taxi and walk the remaining few blocks to the hotel. I squeezed out of the cab and into an eerie silence, for all vehicles had switched off their engines (which is why no one was moving, I surmised). In truth, there was a parade up ahead at the junction with Jawaharlal Nehru Road, one of Calcutta's main arteries. I love a colorful panoply as much as the next guy. But this was rush hour on a Thursday afternoon, for heaven's sake.

When at last I dropped my bags at Hotel Heera and had switched on the TV to the BBC World Service, I felt more than relief. I felt at ease in this chaotic demolition site recently renamed Kolkata, due in part to the fact that, after years of thinking about it, I had finally made it to this former Imperial capital city with a reputation for poverty, pollution, squalor, deprivation and death.

No doubt I was surrounded by urban decay and desperation that is often visually, emotionally, even aromatically unkind. But I was here to peel back the layers of this metropolis promoted as the "City of Joy," no matter how unsightly, because I knew a city with 13 million souls had to have an allure, a promise, a beauty to keep them here.

Looking down upon Calcutta, this time on a scale of one-half inch per thousand feet, I was astonished to note the wide expanses of park lands smack-dab in the center of town. Across the Hooghly River, which flows more or less to the west of the city center, I put a fat double red ring around the Botanic Gardens. I hadn't come all this way to miss a 200-year old banyan tree said to have a canopy nearly a third of a mile wide!

But first, it was off to the Maiden, the so-called "lungs of the city." This massive carpet of green spreading nearly two miles north to south and a third of that east to west, is a great and vital fragment of the British Raj (arguably the only admirable legacy). For all the filth and fray of the city center, this oasis is a haven for the senses to repose, refresh and relax.

In ribbons of dawn's golden light, I met up with horseback riders, joggers and cricket players. "It's too hot by 11 and too crowded on weekends," explained Ravi Khanna. "So we play weekdays before work."

From the look of these guys' neat white uniforms it was clear they are economically buoyant. But for millions of Calcuttans, life is an endless chore scrounging food from litter bins and passing restless nights on concrete alfresco beds. In a nation stigmatized by a rigid caste system, burlap bed sheets seemed fitting for these people considered society's trash. I found myself literally stepping over these lumps of humanity a number of times.

I forded the traffic on Chowringhee Road (the former and more commonly used name for Nehru Road), the eastern boundary of the park, and was instantly a planet distant from nature's equanimity. By 10 a.m., the avenue's shops, offices, hotels, and restaurants were doing boisterous business. Just negotiating the body-packed sidewalk proved to be virtual gymnastics.

I was headed to the geographical heart of town, centered between vibrant Sudder and New Market streets, but not before popping into the Indian Museum, a fine example of that other practical British legacy: architecture. Calcutta sports some of the finest examples of colonial design in India, including this popular house of national treasures, which dates to 1874. Unfortunately, its impressive outer expression belies the dark, crowded exhibits inside.

I wasn't to be disappointed, though, because "outside Calcutta" is better than "inside Calcutta." The town is peppered with architectural prizes. From the forbidding Fort William (1781), from whence the city was truly established, to the bureaucratic halls of Writers' Building (1880) to the stately Raj Bhavan government house (1805) to the Marble Palace (1835) to the Gothic St. Paul's Cathedral (1847) to the industrial-like Howrah Bridge (1943), possibly the world's busiest, there is always a structure nearby to admire. The highlight, however, is Victoria Memorial (1921), back in the southern end of the Maiden. It's a mammoth white-marble museum which seems to float on a manmade lake. Exhibits show off the wealth and loftiness of the Raj.

Sadly, much of the city is in such a state of decay that it would be deemed uninhabitable by Western standards. But life, as hard as it seems, is colorful, even charitable, for the tenants, or so it seems. Down one central lane I was impressed, touched even, by a display of unmatched generosity. A truck with a very loud speaker called for Gujarat earthquake relief in the form of cash and clothing. In the back, piles of garments were being sorted by type: trousers to one side, shirts to the other, shoes in the middle. And all down that street, people were performing ablutions -- or washing themselves -- in curbside wells, taking their meals, doing their washing, and catching up on the day's gossip. Rickshaw drivers waited for fares, newspaper vendors called out headlines, and snake charmers dazzled some kids. It was all so wonderfully neighborly, warm. The beauty I had been looking for.

The open-handedness I saw shouldn't really have been surprising. Calcutta has a history of the poor giving to the poor. After all, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity is here, the best-known among dozens of such houses of beneficence. The "Saint of the Gutters," as she was called, is now entombed at the house on AJC Bose Road, and all visitors are welcome to pay respects or volunteer.

"I'm here for four months," said Kate, a 19-year-old Briton over a plate of aalu chhole, potatoes and chickpeas, at Zurich's restaurant. "Sometimes it's hard emotionally," she continued, "but I feel like I'm making a positive contribution." Other travelers, like Indian-Canadian Juzar, help out for a only few afternoons, although he was realistic enough to acknowledge the limits of passing through. But he's a link in a long chain of care, perhaps curiosity, that is a much needed support system for Calcutta's thousands of indigent souls.

At last I made my way to the center of town. The heart of Calcutta beats a sonorous and soulful song, particularly in and around the New Market, which, despite its name, looks entirely old, decrepit and in need of cleaning, if not demolition. This labyrinth of stores and stalls offering fruits to silks to spices to shoes is not to be missed, for its daytime energy seems to light up the surrounding streets by nighttime.

It was in the sprightly market that I met David Nahoum, a Jew whose family immigrated from Iraq several generations ago. This pot-bellied owner of a 100-year-old confectionery shop is a sort of custodian of the remaining fragments of Jewish life here, a life that at one time contributed disproportionately to the economic foundations of the city.

"There are about 50 people left," David explained over almond cookies and a chilled glass of orange soda in his store, "though we just buried a 90-year-old woman yesterday, so I guess we now have 49," he added wryly. With India's independence in 1948 and the creation of Israel the same year, I was curious why he didn't emigrate like so many of his friends and family members. "I didn't want to leave because I had a house and a good business, still do. Calcutta is my home. I was born here. I will die here."

David also hinted at his fondness for the Internet, hardly surprising for a resident in a city that takes great pride as the intellectual capital of the country. More than a few well-known politicians, doctors, novelists, artists and actors have come from Calcutta. These days are no exception: Theatrical, musical, film, art, and cultural events abound, as spelled out in "Calcutta This Fortnight," a free bi-monthly listing of what's on.

One event Calcutta takes great pride in is the annual Asian Book Fair, the largest of its kind, in progress during my visit. I spent time awash in the ebb and flow of very large but restrained crowds, mingling and browsing at this evanescent library of books and materials on every imaginable topic from hundreds of publishers both foreign and domestic. A tribute to more than literacy, the fair demonstrates a Calcuttan's interests in life beyond the limits of his craggy though congenial city.

On the evening of my departure, I was reminded of my arrival one week earlier. Strangled in the fumes of bumper-to-bumper congestion, I couldn't wait to get out of the taxi. But I was in no hurry to leave Calcutta, I was merely ready for Varanasi and my first sighting of the Ganges River.

Whilst waiting for my train to be called at Howrah Station, I was accosted by a young woman who asked me what I had been asked by dozens of others: "What country?" "America," I answered. "What city?" the woman predictably followed. "Washington, D.C.," I said. "It's better in Calcutta," she replied, as if to correct me.

"And why is that?" I asked.

"Because in Calcutta everyone wants to know where you are from."

Maybe it is better in Calcutta, I mused. After all, for richer and poorer, such a friendly question is free, but priceless. Another piece of the beauty.