Kolkata to Balichak [Part II]

After landing in Kolkata, I took a taxi to Hind Motor, where I would meet Arpita. The air was cold but heavy, and I dozed in the back of the old-fashioned yellow Ambassador, flashes of the outside world alighting in my consciousness like butterflies, only to take off again. Mud. Rain. Rickshaw. Political posters. Steaming chai poured from a tin kettle. The streets narrowed as the taxi drew closer to Debaipukur. No landmark, just some half-constructed pastel apartments pressed up against a rectangular lake refracting white sunlight. A village oasis in Kolkata, with streets barely wide enough for two cycle rickshaws to cross one another.

People stopped and stared at the taxi passing by, and cows slowly gave way. I called Arpita, and she emerged from a narrow gully with a broad smile on her face. “Welcome!” she said, and led me to a steel gate at the bottom of one of the half-constructed houses. We ascended the unfinished concrete staircase and entered her family’s apartment on the second floor. It was cold, but no glass had been installed in the windows, which were just wide rectangles cut into the cement wall. I shuddered momentarily in anticipation of sleeping through a damp Bengali winter night in such a room, but her mother’s shy smile and glass of sweet chai pressed into my hand dissipated any worries. A stranger and her family were welcoming me as if I was their very own long-lost daughter, and I basked in the familiar comfort of yet another unfamiliar home.

Something about the easy identity of being a foreigner in this country has always appealed to me — it’s such a clear role to play, so satisfying to surprise people with a sentence in Hindi or a well-placed dupatta. Suddenly, expressions shift, some expectations fall away, and others take their place. And how fortunate it is to carry these so lightly and freely, always only a temporary daughter, being in each place without being of the place.

As I inquired into Arpita’s work, I learned of her humble bravery — from studying accounting to working in a bank to quitting her job, moving back in with her parents to work on film, and refusing to get married, each step on her way went against what would have been written for her by her ancestors or the stars. From reluctant Chartered Accountant to adventure filmmaker, she had quite literally gone from sitting in a bank to rappelling down mountains with a camera in her hand. It was as if she had found a glitch in reality and broken it open against all odds.

“I have to go now, if I want to make it to Balichak on time,” I told her, “But I think I should also make a documentary on you and your courage!”

She shrugged this off, laughing, as so many strong women do when others truly see them.

“Would you like to come to Balichak with me? I would love that, if you have time,” I asked her, showing some videos of the artisans I’d met in Anantapur. She replied that yes, she had time, but she’d had an upset stomach since the previous day, and didn’t necessarily want to go to a remote village in this condition. But she would drop me off at Howrah station.

After a bit of rather selfish convincing on my part, she took a tablet or two for her stomach and started packing her bags to join me for the shoot in Balichak. I was elated that she’d be coming with me, particularly since she and her mother had both expressed a certain apprehension at the idea of me going there alone. Plus, she could speak Bengali and even had a drone!

My intention had been to catch a ten o’clock train from Howrah to Balichak, but it was already close to eleven. We hurriedly zipped our bags closed, and were about to rush out when her mother arrived with freshly-prepared sabzi (parwal, my favorite) and roti that we couldn’t refuse. We quickly wrapped it in some newspaper, and took a cycle rickshaw to the Hind Motor local train.

By the time we reached Howrah, her stomach was off again. It was 11:03 and the train was set to leave at 11:06; we were rushing towards the platform in the busiest train station in the country, pushing against the crowd. Finally, we came to an impasse. Arpita really wasn’t feeling well, and I couldn’t ask her to come any further.

“Let’s find you some medicine,” I insisted.

“You’ll miss your train… the next one isn’t for an hour, and they are already waiting for you,” she replied.

Suddenly, she turned and started chatting in Bengali with a man in his forties who was passing by. She seemed to know him, and I found this uncanny — what are the odds of running into someone you know at the most crowded station in the country?

“This is Tutul Bhaiya. He is my neighbor. I trust him. He will come with you,” Arpita announced. “He will have to get down a few stations ahead, but at least you’ll be in good hands, he will make sure you catch the train while I get some medicine. In case I don’t make it back in time, just go ahead.” She vanished into the crowd.

Tutul Bhaiya and I waited awkwardly, both of us a little wary of the other. He must have been wondering how he ended up as the shepherd of some foreigner on his way to work that morning. Meanwhile, I was just hoping that Arpita would be back in time for the train. A shrill bell announced its departure, and she appeared again and we sat together in the train as she opened a packet of medicine. The train began to pull away from the platform, and Arpita proclaimed, “I’m sorry, I am going to be sick!” and jumped out of the train as it slowly gained speed. Later, I would find out that she vomited on the platform, but by the time I could react the train had already gathered speed and left the station.

I called her several times to check whether or not she would be able to go back home by herself, offering to accompany her home again. “No, don’t worry, now I am feeling much better! Anyway you don’t know the way, so I’d really be taking you home,” was her cheerful reply. “I guess I just had to get it out of my system. You go, make this film! You will be fine, I’ll be fine too. See you in the evening.” Tutul Bhiaya and I had a shy conversation in broken Hindi, as curious passengers listened in and watched us out of the corners of their eyes. Men passed through the train selling almost anything you can imagine; chai and biscuits, oranges, vegetables, blankets, warm socks, digestive tablets, gamchha, bhel, toys, and schoolbooks. “If you take this train every day, you would never have to go to the market!” I joked. A hint of a smile crossed his face.

Three hours is a long time to spend on a train with a man who you don’t know, and whose language you don’t really speak. Grateful for his quiet presence, I looked out the window and noticed how he would look over in case any man seemed to sit too close or jostle me on the shared seat. Prabir Bhaiya had been calling almost every fifteen minutes to check where I was, and by the time Tutul Bhaiya got down at his stop, everyone in the train had overheard these telephone exchanges.

“Maybe I should shift to the women’s compartment?” I asked Tutul Bhaiya as he was standing to leave.

“No, don’t bother. It’s better here. They fight more in there than here in the mixed compartment,” he replied.

“It’s true,” agreed another voice in the row of seats. “Don’t worry, I will look after her,” this new stranger said. We began another casual conversation, but this time I was more guarded, since he was totally unknown to me. Even my new companion had to get down before Balichak, and by this time, three and a half hours from Howrah, the crowd in the train had thinned significantly. Finally, in the middle of a flat ramshackle marshland, we arrived. The train slowed, and all at once, nearly every person in the train car turned towards me and announced, “This is your stop!”

I leapt down from the train, and landed on the platform with my bags. Prabir called to tell me where to meet him, and I could barely understand what he was saying. A shadow of a thought crossed my mind — how would I be able to interview his family, if I couldn’t even communicate about where to meet in the station? I let this momentary tension dissipate, and finally found him; he had come inside without a platform ticket, so we had to rush back out.

“I came by van,” he said, “I thought you’d be more comfortable this way so I borrowed it from a friend.” We reached the van, and there were no less than four men inside. All of a sudden, his red paan-stained teeth seemed ominous, as did his smile and friendly demeanour. What if this was a trap? I could imagine the headlines: Foreign girl gets into a van with four strange men in a remote village… I started making nervous conversation with Prabir Bhaiya, more to calm myself down than anything else.

“Who all is in your family? Who are we doing to meet?”

“My wife, my sister, my children and my parents,” he replied.

After another half hour, we reached his village, where he ushered me into a house and I set down my bag, at last. His wife came out to meet us, and showed me where to wash my hands before guiding me into a room as five or six children looked on. She unfolded yesterday’s newspaper and spread it over a bed, and started laying out lunch; fish fried in pungent mustard, chicken, dal, cabbage, raw onion, and a copious serving of Bengali rice. I knew she would have spent hours cooking this, and so I relished the flavours, using my fingers to wipe the plate clean. But I also saw the time; it was already past 3:00pm, and I had planned to leave before dark. Now it seemed that possibility had gone out the window.

“Ready?” Prabir inquired. “Whose interview would you like to take?”

I asked, “Who is the oldest person in your village?”

He brought his father to the courtyard where we stood, and they started spreading out different paintings. A handful of kids whispered and giggled behind me, and I shushed them, pointing at the microphone. Instead of quieting them down, this gesture drew their attention to the spongy cover of the mic, which they started enthusiastically trying to grab. Their mothers and aunts chased them away, and finally we were left in relative silence, except for the occasional rooster crowing. Prabir Bhaiya’s father started recounting story after story. Some were from Hindu mythology, some were about tribal communities, and others he had made up himself. A particular favorite of his was Machli ki Shaadi, the Fish’s Wedding; I had even heard Prabir singing it in Anantapur the previous week.

Over the course of a few hours, I recorded some of their dazzling paintings and songs, including one where the whole village sat down and sang together. Thankfully, Prabir Bhaiya intuitively understood what I was trying to do, and converted my interview questions (which, literally translated from Hindi, must have sounded something like “You love paint. Why this way?”) into Bengali. Prabir and his relatives performed their paintings about the goddess Durga, the Titanic, HIV prevention, the Nirbhaya case, and September 11th. When Prabir Bhaiya’s father vanished for some time, I inquired about where he’d gone.

“To Namaz,” came the reply. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but their whole family was Muslim. Later, I asked, “If you are all Muslim, why do you sing Hindu songs about Durga and Saraswati?”

“Why not?” an elderly woman replied, matter-of-factly. “We paint and sing, and we also do Namaz. This is our work, and this is our life.”

If only the whole country could think as this family does, I thought to myself. The divisive ideologies that politicians use to tear the country apart could never be as strong as the love of this family for their craft, or for each other. Here, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, was a family preserving the heritage of many cultures in a supremely creative way. I realized that this was exactly what had drawn me to Prabir Bhaiya as he performed in Anantapur. How often do we get to see our lives through the eyes of another? And, what’s more, how often does someone we’d call an “other” imagine our own experience in such vivid detail, and manifest their thoughts and feelings into paintings and songs? To me, their work was the undiluted essence of storytelling unfolding before my eyes. I just wanted the rest of the world to be able to witness it as I did.

[This is the second in a three-part series about my journey to Balichak, Bengal to document the stories of seventh-generation Pattachitra artists.]