I’m back in Kalimpong. Since my last post I’ve had an enjoyable but busy 2 months back in the UK, catching up with friends and family, spending time with my girlfriend, attending conferences, and reflecting on my first round of fieldwork. In this post I will go through my first week back in India, where I traveled from Kolkata to Kalimpong once again.
Thursday (19/09/19):
I seemed to be busy right up until my final day in the UK, which involved a slightly rushed journey to Heathrow for a 9:30am flight to Kolkata, via Abu Dhabi. Even my transfer at Abu Dhabi was rushed. I find this concept of passing through security for a connecting flight absolutely infuriating. You pass through security at the first airport and get caught out because you forgot about the bottle of orange juice in your bag from McDonalds the other night, fair enough. What can I have picked up in duty free that will be more harmful on my second flight than on the first? What am I going to attack the attendants with a massive Toblerone, or make some kind of explosive device by mixing up whatever I can find in duty free, perhaps stuffed inside a teddy bear wearing a union jack?
I had a 1 hour and 15-minute connection at Abu Dhabi – more than 30 mins of that was spent waiting to pass through a security check that the staff clearly found as pointless as I did. By the time I got through and put my shoes and belt back on, I had to all but jog to my connecting gate, almost slipping on a wet floor before I caught the last shuttle bus to the plane!
——- Rant over ———-
Friday:
I landed in Kolkata at 3:30am local time, 11pm UK time. After passing through customs and collecting my bag – which I’m always relieved to see — I waited outside for my lift. I was staying with my friend and colleague Shreyasi’s parents in Kolkata until Saturday night, when I would mirror the journey I took on my last visit – taking the train from Kolkata to Siliguri, before being driven to Kalimpong. Shreyasi’s (Shree) Dad came and picked me up from the airport early on Friday morning, and then took me to their house in Barasat, a city north of Kolkata which has been absorbed into the wider Kolkata urban area as the city has expanded. When we arrived, I was warmly welcomed with a cup of tea before I excused myself for the purposes of napping – it had been a very long day and I hadn’t managed to sleep on the plane.
I only took 3-4 hours sleep and woke up about 10:30 for some breakfast — boiled eggs, bananas and some toast — prepared by Shree’s mum. After some more tea Shree’s Dad took me out to the main commercial area of the area they lived in so I could get some cash out from the ATM. It was hot in Kolkata, around 33-34°C, but the monsoon was almost over, so the humidity had fallen away, though only slightly! It was hot enough for me to be pretty sweaty after what was probably a 10 minute walk each way. When I got back, I washed off the heat and the journey with a cool shower, before going back to sleep for a few more hours. Then, it was time for lunch. I was served rice, dhal, gourd, fried potato and a fish curry. Eaten with my hands of course, it was great!
In the afternoon we basically had what could be described as a siesta. Much like many Southern European countries, a lot of people here tend to avoid the heat of the mid-afternoon and stay indoors, waiting until the cooler evenings before venturing outside. At around 7pm, when it was already dark, we went back out to the commercial area around Barasat junction, the main train station for the town/city. First stop, 2 freshly fried samosas in a small restaurant by the constantly busy train station – the open shop front gave me some time to take in the scene. It was loud, with motorbikes whizzing by, horns beeping, bells ringing and people shouting. There are some temporary stages on the roadside. I was told they are for worshipping some Hindu gods/goddesses. There are idols at the front of the stage, loud (really loud), bass-heavy Bollywood style music is blasted out and people dance on or in front of the stage. It definitely contributes to the atmosphere!
We then we walked down to one of the main markets in Barasat. Walking down the street is a bit of an obstacle course, with no one keen on giving way until the last second before a collision. There is no cycle zone, pavement and road, it is just a free-for-all – but it works! The market was a bustling, colourful and loud experience. I didn’t buy anything but there’s not much that you couldn’t buy there. I remembered I needed some sunglasses, so we went to a shop where I could buy some. We then walked back through the market and back home, where I had some roti and veg before heading to bed. Thursday and Friday kind of blurred into one, so I was glad to get a nice long sleep.
Saturday:
Shree and I had decided that I should try and get as much experience of some more ‘authentic’ Indian life during my short stay in Kolkata. I was to be up for about 8:30am on Saturday morning, so Shree’s dad could take me to the fish and veg markets, which were just a little further past where we visited the night before. It was hot again! We walked past some old and now decrepit buildings which were built by the British and formerly served as the courts and a prison – Barasat was a separate settlement to Kolkata in those days. Outside of the old prison building, the market started. Most people just have their stalls set out on the roadside, selling every type of fruit and veg you could imagine. After a while we came to the fish market, set just to the side of the market road under a metal cover. This was… an interesting experience. The first thing you notice is the smell, a very strong smell of fish as you enter the sticky-warm covered market. All around you on tarpaulins on the floor, with narrow paths between the three or 4 rows of ‘stalls’. There is a wide variety of fish. Bengali food cuisine contains a lot of fish, both fresh and salt-water. There were big silver scaled sort of ‘traditional looking’ fish, little finned ones, flat fish, squid/octopus, prawns, eels and other crustaceans. I was told much of the fish in this market came from ponds around the outskirts of Kolkata, as well as the Bay of Bengal and the Hooghly/Ganges river. A typical stall will have 2 people on it, one exchanging money and negotiating, and one manning a rather sinister looking hooked blade. For the bigger fish, they will have a big pot of water where the fish are kept alive — apparently ours was caught 4 days earlier. As the fish sell, they are taken out of the pot and put on onto the ‘display tray’, where they’ll still wriggle around before being chosen and subsequently passed to the blade operator – where they’re sliced up, gutted and diced. The guts kind of just sit around on the tarpaulin. Its all pretty rough and ready, and not something for the overly squeamish to witness. It is a part of the food process that we are very removed from in the UK. I’m not sure how I felt about the whole experience. I did feel a bit sorry for the fish, and I wasn’t so sure about the general conditions for selling food. But again, it must work. A picture of the stall we bought a fish from is below, it cost 400 INR, or £4-5.
The heat was quite intense, even in the morning. After walking home, picking some bananas up on the way, I enjoyed a cool shower when I got back, before having a breakfast of noodles — different! I felt exhausted afterwards and was struggling to keep my eyes open, so I took a nap until about 14:30, when I was served lunch – what a life! We had similar food to yesterday, including the fish we had brought a few hours earlier in a spicy curry sauce. An afternoon and evening of relaxing followed, before my 23:15 train.
We took the ‘local train’ from Barasat to Sealdah, one of the main rail hubs of Kolkata. The train itself would take around 50 minutes. Because I had my 25kg backpack and smaller backpack with me, we took a pedal rickshaw to the station instead of walking – another mode of transport ticked off! Despite taking the rickshaw, once we had climbed over the bridge to the far platform in the 28-degree evening heat, I was very sweaty. I wasn’t sure if all the stares were because white tourists don’t usually take the local train, or because I was dripping with sweat – maybe it was both! We had to wait a little while for the train, so the platform was starting to fill up. I had been warned that getting on the train can be a little… pushy. It was! I decided to try put my small bag on my back and carry my heavy one, which didn’t work out so well – though I’m not sure any configuration would have worked given the circumstances! I am struggling to think of a metaphor, but I guess if you just imagine 30+ people trying to get through a 2-metre wide door in what felt like about 10 seconds, then it was like that. I ended up on the train somehow, more from being pushed and pulled than from my own effort! Shree’s dad took my smaller bag somewhere in the melee. After the dust settled, I managed to climb through the crowd to an aisle, before stumbling onto a seat with my big bag. There were no announcements to mind the gap, and there were no doors, so you didn’t have to mind them closing! After only a couple of stops, the train started to empty, so that by the time we reached the terminus at Sealdah, we were the only ones left in the carriage. I was only a short walk to my platform, where Shree’s Dad left me to wait for the train. I was very grateful to them for their hospitality and to him for taking me all the way to the station. I promised I’d come back!
The train arrived into the platform quite early. I found my seat easily enough and after having my ticket checked – and the conductor mentioning Ben Stokes when I said where I was from – I made up my bed and settled down to sleep though the 10-hour journey.
Sunday – NJP to Kolkata, NH-10 condition and overwhelming arrival
I slept on and off throughout the journey, waking up for the last time 20 minutes before my 9:20am arrival. After spending the evening in an air-conditioned carriage, the heat of the morning hit me like a brick wall when I jumped off the carriage! I lugged my bag for the last time over the bridge to the car park where I found my friend and driver Onkar, who would drive me to Cloud 9 in Kalimpong, just like last time. The NH-10; which runs between Siliguri and Kalimpong/Gangtok, and which I have mentioned plenty of times before, was in a terrible state. The day I had left last time, granted, it wasn’t actually passable because of a huge landslide – but at least most of the road surface was in-tact and the ride mostly smooth. This wasn’t the case this time, I can’t remember a 200 metre stretch where we weren’t dodging or passing over a pothole, or where the tarmac had effectively washed away. We were near the end of the monsoon — ‘because the festivals are coming’, said Onkar —and it showed. The landslide at Seti Jhora which had blocked the road last time had evidently increased in size but had been stabilised with a protection wall and looked to be quite secure. When I pointed it out to Onkar, who drove me the other way last time, he said ‘yes, it is stable, but there is another that is causing troubles’ – in fact, there were numerous landslides all along the road. The day before, the NH-10 had been closed due to the landslide Onkar mentioned, which was only 5-10 minutes before the Kalimpong turn off at 29th Mile. It was quite a big landslide on a u-bend in the hillside, and had evidently caused a lot of damage. There was still a lot of water running down it and onto the road. It was barely passable and there was a big queue, but before long, we had passed it and were on the winding road up to Kalimpong. When my ears popped, I began to appreciate the cooler air.
I imagine that the politics and governance processes surrounding road construction will emerge as important in my research. The links between road construction and landslides in The Himalayas have not gone unnoticed by landslide experts and journalists alike.
It felt quite surreal when I walked into Cloud 9 and was welcomed back by Binod, the owner, and Muna, the chef, cleaner and mother-figure of the hotel! I couldn’t quite believe I was back. I had time to refresh and relax in my old room with a tea, before a lunch of aloo paratha and dhal. I then went back to my room. The journey, the change in conditions, the task ahead and the realisation that I wouldn’t be home for another 4 months all hit me at once, and I had a bit of a meltdown. When I left, I was looking forward to getting home – now I was back. I called home and spoke to my girlfriend, which seemed to help. A delicious vegetable biryani plus watching both the first England game of the rugby world cup and Liverpool v Chelsea also helped to cheer me up. But I think that ultimately, I was just exhausted and overwhelmed, and I needed to sleep.
Monday:
I felt much better after a long sleep in the cooler air. I was woken up to order my breakfast, so I went downstairs 5 mins later. Binod informed me that he’d bought some baked beans, just for me! I had an omelette, some toast, beans and a grilled tomato – a good start to the week. To get the ball rolling I rang my friend and key contact Praful, so that we could catch up – I was to head up for about 3pm. After I finished unpacking, I decided to check in at my second home; Café Kalimpong. In true Kalimpong style, though, there was no power. Luckily, you can make tea without electricity. I ended up chatting with an American guy in the café. He seemed to have spent a lot of time in South Asia, primarily because he is involved with trying to promote ‘extreme’ or alternative sports, such as Jiu-Jitsu and Skateboarding – pretty niche! He was here for a few days escaping the heat of the plains whilst waiting for a permit to visit Bhutan. We exchanged numbers and agreed to have a beer at some point. Then I headed up to Praful’s after buying an umbrella in town, a vital accessory for anyone spending time in The Hills.
Praful introduced me to his niece who is helping him out with Save the Hills (STH) during what was turning out be a busy period. She had just finished her degree in Computer Science and was taking a year out before pursuing further studies, helping Praful to run STH in the meantime. Praful explained that he would be very busy this time around, and couldn’t accompany as much as last time. This was ok as I have built up a network from his help the last time and would be able to pick up from where I left off without his introduction. Nonetheless, I was invited to a meeting at his place the following day, where a group of civil society representatives I have met before would meet to discuss an important upcoming event.
On my way home I got a text from the guy I had met earlier saying that he was heading to Cloud 9 for a beer! I was barely through the door before I had a glass of Tuborg premium in hand! We ended up eating paratha and dhal and drinking beer until around 10pm. We discussed a lot, the highlight being a potential solution for preventing landslides on the roadside which involved building a skate park in a u-bend on a hilly road! The half pipe concrete shape is apparently a good support to hilly roads, and the introduction of skateboarding as a hobby could provide some opportunities for young people to pursue a new passion and maybe new opportunities. Wishful thinking maybe, but after a few beers it seemed like sliced bread. I was taken back to my 3rd year lecture on the geographies of skateboarding and alternative uses of public and private spaces. Perhaps it is time to introduce a new literature on the nexus of skateboard geographies and Disaster Risk Reduction! Before he took a taxi back to his homestay, we suggested we might make it to the bar in town before he left, but it would turn out that his visa would arrive sooner than expected, so by Wednesday he was away to Bhutan. It was a good night, and an interesting conversation anyway!
Tuesday:
Praful’s house is about a 50-minute walk from Cloud 9, with a fairly considerable climb for the 2nd half. It was almost inevitable then, after a few beers and sleeping in, that I would do the honourable thing and take a taxi instead. The meeting was interesting and threw up some potential new avenues for my research. I was also able to renew conversations with some of the people there and discuss the possibility of doing some interviews with some of them. The spaces where civil society operate in The Hills is interesting and complex, having to navigate a complicated cultural and political landscape (Joshi et al., 2019). These meetings are useful for me and I hope to cover the processes involved in my research.
After around 2 hours, Praful declared the meeting over and, in what appears to be a tradition after such meetings, cracked open some lunchtime beers. After pulau rice and muttar paneer, I was given a ride halfway home. As I left, I was glued to Twitter as the Supreme Court decision on whether Boris Johnson et al. lied to The Queen, was imminent. It was certainly a unique experience, finding out, whilst in the back of a car on a side street in Kalimpong, that the UK’s PM had acted unlawfully. For the rest of the day, I watched the reaction to the historic decision and tried to get my head round what was happening. I’m not sure whether being here and observing the unraveling of the UK government; who seem intent on burning down as many democratic institutions as possible in the process, is better or worse than experiencing it whilst in the UK. One interesting point is that no one I have spoken to in India thinks that: Brexit is a good idea, Boris Johnson is PM material, or that the UK is in a good situation politically. Most people ask me what on earth is going on, why/how is this weird Trump lookalike in charge, and what do I think of this Corbyn guy, because he seems to have some good ideas.
The day ended well with momos for dinner and a nice call home.
Wednesday – chill, no power. Met some people for dinner.
It had actually been a busy first few days back in Kalimpong, and I hadn’t really had a full day without packing, travelling, or meeting someone since sometime 2 weeks earlier! I decided that today was going to be a chill-day. After breakfast I watched Uruguay beat Fiji in the Rugby World Cup, a historic result. The RWC is showing everyday sometime between late morning and early evening here in India, so I’m able to watch a lot of the games that I might have missed in the UK. Shortly after the match finished, the power went down in Cloud 9. This was fine, as I planned to go to Café Kalimpong – which, it turned out, also had no power! So, I went back to Cloud 9, because at least the Wi-Fi was on an inverted power supply and was working there. I didn’t do too much other than update my fieldwork diary and read an interesting paper on the history of community responses to landslides in what is now the Czech Republic (Raška, 2019). Some locals were having dinner in the restaurant when I ate, so I spoke to them. One was the head of the local college and one was involved with some work with Praful. We spoke briefly about why I was here before they, like many others, asked me what was going on with Brexit! To continue the theme, after dinner I watched the coverage of the ‘resumption’ of Parliament; which was thoroughly depressing. Boris Johnson is doing his utmost to unsettle many of the established principles of democracy; which he was happy enough to promote during the referendum campaign, in order to force The Opposition into placing a vote of no confidence in him, so that he can try his best to manipulate the timetable in such a way that he can deliver a no-deal Brexit. It is odd and unprecedented to witness a PM beg The Opposition to allow him to have a general election, and it is equally odd to see The Opposition deny them that opportunity. However, they must make Johnson go back to Brussels to request an extension, so that his main election line of ‘get Brexit done’ can be exposed for the ridiculous lie that it is, and further so that he is humiliated to the extent that his election chances are hampered by his reputation as the PM and leader of a party who asked for Brexit and failed to deliver it. Perhaps then, we can put him in jail for his ‘technology lessons’ – but that might be a little too much to ask. In the meantime, their slash and burn tactics must be seen as what it is – a desperate attempt to have an election and spin the story to suggest that the EU failed to negotiate a deal and/or they were unable to get a deal because of ‘The Surrender Act’. This is all assuming that The Opposition are able to agree on a temporary Government of National Unity, or potentially, Johnson is dismissed for failing to comply with said ‘Surrender Act’/Benn Bill. No matter your political persuasion, it is the law! We’ll just have to hope that their poisonous rhetoric doesn’t get anyone killed in the meantime.
Thursday – Café Kalimpong, contacts, Rugby, Bhutanese food.
On Thursday I woke up feeling more refreshed after a relaxed Wednesday. I decided that today was the day to get the ball rolling with my research, so I fired off lots of Whatsapp messages to my various contacts, receiving warm welcome back messages throughout the day – I would be able to pick up the old lines and pursue interviews soon. I did this from the comfort of Café Kalimpong, which had managed to restore its power. I was keen to get all of this done so that I could get back to Cloud 9 for 16:15 to watch England beat the USA in the Rugby World Cup. It was Bhutanese style food for dinner and more horrified viewing of the House of Commons to follow.
Friday:
My main plan for Friday was to meet a student who I met on my last visit for lunch. She was about to head to The Netherlands to pursue an MSc in water management, so we caught up before she left and discussed future plans. Ultimately she wants to research water management in Kalimpong, so our research may converge in future. In the morning I had fried eggs and toast for breakfast, made some more calls, and then went to town to visit an ATM and grab a cup of tea at The Art Café. I was taking this week pretty easy, playing myself in, and enjoying some of the nicer parts of fieldwork.
Bhutanese food is a bit different. Most of the dishes come in a kind of cheesy sauce, often made from Yak’s milk, which is almost always full of chilli! The food often contains a lot of meat such as pork and chicken – oh and the rice is pink. Many people will know I’m not a huge fan of cheese, but in recent years I’ve started to eat it a bit more, and the cheese used here isn’t too pungent – either way the chilli tends to overwhelm the cheesiness anyway! Sanjana, my friend, ordered some red rice, cheesy potatoes, cheesy mushrooms and a kind of cheesy scrambled egg – meat options were also available! All of that was pretty good, though I’m not sure its my favourite cuisine which is available in the area – unfortunately I forgot to take any photos. One thing I am not a fan of is the tea. We ordered some Bhutanese tea, which looked like a fairly standard tea with milk. In reality, however, it contained salt and maybe butter. This wasn’t my first run in with the concept of salty tea. Apparently, my hotel owner also takes salt in his black tea. One day when we both asked for black tea, Muna mixed our cups up and gave me the salty one. I thought it was a wind-up at first, but apparently, it’s not uncommon here, and is often taken by people who can’t take sugar in their tea because of diabetes! To further add to my confusion, the idea with the Bhutanese tea was that you poured savoury puffed rice into the cup and then spooned them out, a bit like cereal. I tried it, and it was a firm ‘nope’ from my end, unfortunately! I’ll stick with boiled the red rice and plain tea; I think.
The restaurant was above a sweet shop, so I was pointed to some of the nicer sweets by Sanjana and bought some for later, before we went our separate ways. I had a coffee at Café Kalimpong before heading home for the evening. I felt as though I had a cold all day and couldn’t stop sneezing, so I decided just to rest up. It started to rain on Friday night, which set the precedent for what would be a very wet weekend!
But I’ll cover that in my next post.
References:
Joshi, D. et al. (2019) ‘Watered down? Civil society organizations and hydropower development in the Darjeeling and Sikkim regions, Eastern Himalaya: A comparative study’, Climate Policy. Taylor & Francis, 19(sup1), pp. S63–S77. doi: 10.1080/14693062.2018.1557035.
Raška, P. (2019) ‘Contextualizing community-based landslide risk reduction: an evolutionary perspective’, Landslides. Springer, 16(9), pp. 1747–1762.
Peter McGowran 