Calcutta - An Introduction to India

“You’ll love India.” “You’ll hate it.” “India is only for advanced travelers.” “India is a breeze – it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.”

We’d heard it all. And it’s all true. India is everything that you’ve ever heard, good and bad. It may not be an easy place to travel, but if you really want to learn about the world then at some point you have to tackle India.

The country is enormous and is teeming with people, history and sights, so unless you’re able to devote an inordinate amount of time there is no way to see anything more than a fraction of this diverse land. We chose to begin in Calcutta because we had a friend there. Sue Shultz is an UWP alum who now works for the Foreign Service. I hadn’t seen her for a number of years, and so it was a lot of fun to catch up, to talk about travel and about India, and to hear some of what she’s been doing in the past several years, first in Turkey, then Kenya, and now as Public Affairs Officer for the consulate in Calcutta and as Director of the American Center there. Here we are with Sue one evening...




Sue hosted us for four nights and it was through her (and through her driver Peter) that we received our introduction to India. When Sue worked on weekdays, Peter drove us around to some of the city’s sights. The Victoria Memorial, the Marble Palace, the Howrah Bridge and more.

But Calcutta isn’t really about tourist attractions. It’s a about impressions. One of our strongest impressions came during a too brief visit to the Mother Teresa home. There are dozens of these homes throughout India, catering to countless numbers of orphaned, malnourished and handicapped children. We played with some children in the orphanage and were struck by how much they smiled, but at the same time how much they seemed to crave affection, to be touched and held.

The nuns who work at these homes are making a dent, but only a dent, in the city’s poverty problem. The poverty is crushing - it’s as stifling and overwhelming as the summer humidity. Almost every building and street in Calcutta, it seems, is crumbling and dusty and in need of repair. Throughout the city, thousands of people sleep on sidewalks, bathe in the street, and urinate on the sidewalks. There are heaps of garbage piled wherever there is space, being picked at by dogs and birds, or being shoveled onto trucks in a desperate attempt to keep the streets somewhat clean and free of disease.

And yet…as Sue noted, the Bengali people of Eastern India go to great efforts to educate their children. It is a very literate population and there are many bookstores. One afternoon, we went into a sparkling shopping mall where wealthy and midddle class Indians were dressed fashionably, shopping at Benetton and Levis, eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins, and going to Hollywood and Bollywood movies.

There are a lot of talented, educated people in India and there is a thriving middle class. But these people also live in the midst of overpowering poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, and piles of garbage. It’s all part of the Indian paradox, which we became quite familiar with during our time in the country.