sunday explorations

August 09, 2017

For Sunday afternoon we decided to explore. We walked through back alleys, slums, busy streets, over railroad tracks and in torrential rains. As always, it was neat to explore the real India.

I'm relying on pictures to tell the stories for this blog.

In short, we began by exploring back streets. It was clear we ventured to territory where few foreigners travel as we were often quite the spectacle. We garnered much attention. As per usual we saw few females. It may have been appropriate to be afraid when in these obscure streets, with no clear exit, prominently populated by men. Sorry moms, there was zero fear and negative trepidation.

Harsh trading is right.

Notice the lady in between the auto rickshaws sifting through the garbage.

When travelling I love the butcher culture: I find it an intriguing mix of biology, sustenance and our desire at home to pristinely hide reality. My brother Daryl was a butcher at Schomberg IGA back in the day and although he was regularly covered by the by-products of his work, what he dealt with was still a few steps away from the beginning of the meat process. In early elementary school I remember taking a class trip to Heather Blacklock's dad's butcher shop. I remember cow carcasses hanging in a cold room. In Honduras, a student (Kevin Verkaik) caught a chicken that we ate in soup that night (I think that's how the story goes). I've fished three times before. These are the closest experiences I've had with respect to where our food comes from. Walking through the alleys of Kolkata (and innumerable other places) reminded me that we are often 'cleanly' removed from what we consume. I don't know if this is a bad thing, but it is a stark difference from seeing biology neatly laid out on a slab.

One of our goals while in India was to watch live cricket. Since the official season is over in May we did not have a chance to see it in a stadium so we settled for the next best thing: going to a main local park. It was captivating to see how so many games could take up a relatively small space, however, considering how most Indians are used to living, working and travelling in a similar fashion, it should not be surprising in the least. Cricket pitches were being thrown perilously (in my opinion) close to other cricket matches as well as football games. They were not even close to playing in the same direction. Add to this the fact that in cricket if you hit behind you the ball is in play: it's a circular field AND the ball is small and hard rubber. Although I was drawn to watch, I did so uneasily.

And the skies rapidly dumped their weight.

One item that bothered me: there were zero females playing on the entire, massive, packed field. I don't believe it is because females don't enjoy playing sports on Sunday afternoons.

After cricket watching we headed to explore the slums I had passed through that morning. A lot of what we saw I have written about previously. It doesn't make it any easier to see but it does continue to make me appreciate organizations that are working to alleviate suffering and advocate for change.

I continue to be impressed by the human ability to problem solve, survive as well as the ability to develop and allow resilience to grow and manifest in remarkable ways.