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Bol Bam & other Madness 24th August 2012 (organization) Hi , Last week I was telling you about my trip over the Hump and arrival in Kolkata, India
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24th August 2012
(organization)
Hi , |
Last week I was telling you about my trip over the Hump and arrival in Kolkata, India. You can read it here.
After arriving and recovering from the overnight flight at a good hotel near the airport, our supplier picked me up and we drove out of Kolkata over the Hooghly bridge and onto the old GT highway along the banks of the Ganges river. This year the monsoon has failed to come and everything is sticky and hot, the river is like chocolate, flowing languidly odd lumps here and there breaking the surface. I'm here to buy jute, a new range from a new supplier and his office and factory is in a town really at the back of beyond.
Today it turns out is Independence day. Shrines of Indian flags have sprung up, cars are sporting pendants, TV's are all switched to the big-wigs big speeches. 65 years on, and India has changed, boy has it changed. Except that is.. in this sleepy backwater I have found myself in. As far as I can see nothing has changed. |
Yards from the river, tiny lanes, shops in holes in the wall, draped wires, stand pumps where people wash, wandering cows and runaway chickens. Nothing is new, a stone carving over an arch tells me it was built in 1952. The place has a feeling of madness about it. On the way here we'd passed several naked holy men and a old lady made up like a tart and topless. "Mad", confirmed my contact sagely each time. |
I'm taken to a first floor office, where I'm left alone while my man goes to find his business partner. Outside I can hear Hare-krishna type chanting and tambourines. I open a low balcony door to see what is happening, and find myself looking down on a dead body held aloft on a stretcher by four bearers, a small retinue of musicians follow. The blackened head of a young girl lolls back and forth almost at my feet. I close the door recoiling in horror. Later we walk down the lane to the crematorium. Relatives sit in circle chatting while the body is burned on a pyre. After the ashes will be scattered in the Ganges beyond. Death is the main industry, thanks to the sacred river in town. |
I have spent three days here, developing some new products and got to know some of the people. They are dignified and intelligent, thoughtful and kind. And to a man, eccentric as they come. The place is poor but without the squalor you often see in India. No beggars, no-one asked me for money and folks only showed me kindness. I took heaps of pictures to try and capture a feel for the place..
Here are some. |
Apart from Independence it was some special festival called Bol Bam, I was taken to see. At this special place on the banks of the river people come to do the Bol Bam. This involves swimming in the river, filling two plastic pots with sacred water, and then walking 35 kilometres bare foot, with the pots hanging on a pole across your shoulders in the stinking heat to a particular shrine where you pour the water over Shiva. Hundreds of people do it every year. Madness I pointed out to my man. Surely the gods would rather you did some good for a fellow human than this. He told me when he was young he'd done it, and it took him three weeks to recover his health. But I pondered maybe superstitions run high, when life offers little else.
The communist party ran the place in to the ground for many years - that's my assessment anyway. Recently voted out of power, maybe things will change. I hope it does, maybe our business will help in some small way. But you have a feeling that when it does an old way of life will have been lost.
More news next week. |
Take care and enjoy this Bank Holiday weekend
David
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This time worth £200 of stock (@RRP's)! |
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 Oil Burner, 2 packs of Simmering granules and pack of Scented nightlights(note designs and fragrances may vary) |
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