Journey to Kolkata: And So it Begins...

My introuction to this city took place at midnight. Not sure what I make of that. Kolkata, India known for its Red Light District, where young women earn as many rupees as they can selling a commodity of which consumers never tire: the female body.

It is this trade that brought me to Kolkata. The trafficking of girls to brothels in cities like Kolkata is the backdrop of the young adult novel, Sold, my
8th graders read each year. It is the depiction of life for women and girls like Lakshmi, the protaganist of Sold, that has brought me well across the world to simply chat with women here.

Not prositutes. But, women of India, a country that has enchanted me for many years. Aside from the brutal treatment that Lakshmi and her colleagues endure in the most inhumane of whore houses, the women who live more acceptable lives have not garnered lives of ease as a result. It is a fictional tale whose power can only exist because it is based on truth.

According to Sold, women in this town have lives chalk full of work.

What is that work, exactly? Does it differ that greatly from my own? The work of my friends who have taken on husbands and children?

At midnight, here is what Kolkata said when the cab driver introduced us: Yes, my dear, this is a whole different kind of poverty. You ready?

An ENTIRE family slept under a bridge. A mother. What looked to be a father. And about half a dozen kids bunked down on mats as my cab swung pass them. In the rush, I noted several pockets of other groups of people, consisting of big shadows and what seemed to be the tiny outlines of babies as well.

One city bus was packed to the brim as if it were 12 o'clock in the day. Two teenagers hung onto a strap on the inside of the bus and the upper portion of their bodies spilled over outside of the bus. I wondered if anyone actually ever lost his grip in that precarious situation and ended up rolling out onto the street.

My first chit chat with an Indian woman about her work will begin some time around this afternoon. The journalist who arranged the interview will be calling momentarily to coordinate our trip to this woman's home.

I plan on being open to whatever she says. Remembering what the city has already said to me.