India in the Early Morning

I am sitting in my bed right now at 7:30 in the morning trying to stretch out the kinks in my legs that I can already feel forming after an early morning trip to the gym. Those of us who decided to buy a gym membership have been getting up early in the morning and making the five or so minute walk to “Karma”, an air conditioned fitness paradise that is brimming with trainers who are eager to help correct a faulty exercise. Unfortunately, the day after I got my membership I came down with a cough that has made it hard to breathe so I did have not been to the gym the last few times so after a trip to the doctor last night to stock up on cough syrup and antibiotics I was really looking forward to going this morning. At 6am sharp Stacey, Celina, and I tiptoed down the stairs of the guest house, past several sleeping housekeepers who apparently just roll out mats and sleep on the ground floor, and filed out the door onto the road.

 There is something peaceful about getting up early in the morning and walking the streets of Kolkata. The usual symphony of honks is reduced to a few lone beeps and the usually teaming streets are dotted with a few early-morning shoppers and those shop keepers who are sweeping the outside of their stores. As we walked along in the morning light we passed by men and women sleeping by the side of the road, the men folded in half and the women on their side with sleep-tumbled hair falling around their saris. Even the dogs walk around lazily in the morning, seemingly eyeing us as we passed by and wondering why we would ever got up this early of our own volition. Today, or the first time yet in India, I saw a man feeding a stray dog. With a big smile on his face the dirty looking man bent over and offered a cracker to a small, brown and white mutt and even though it was obvious that the dog was distrusting of the gesture of kindness, he daintily picked the morsel from the man’s hands and trotted away with the prize. The air was filled with the smells of cooking food as the food vendors began to chop up their ingredients for the day and cook them over the roadside burners. It appeared to have rained at some point in the night because puddles could be found by the side of the road, though no one was yet bathing in them as people in India are like to do. It is not unusual to see men stripped down to their underwear lathering up with soap right in the gutter and I distinctly remember on our first walking tour watching a boy splash around in the water and I actually felt envious of him as sweat rolled down the small of my back and down my legs; sure, the water is dirty but at least it would cool me off in the heat of the day.

It is easy to go about India in the morning and forget what it is like during the bustle of the day. Thoughts of frantic drivers and shouting street vendors are forgotten, as is the heat of the sun. The humidity still hangs around the air like a thick, wet blanket but at least we did not feel the burn of the sun. As we walked in our gym clothes, I could still feel wondering eyes on my face but I chose not to look back because I was too focused on absorbing the scene that I was walking through. In the back of my mind I knew that this was just the start of another hectic day here in India. In just a few hours I knew I would find myself sitting in the back of a car, wearing a hole in the ground where my food constantly presses the imaginary brake as I watch the driver squeeze through impossibly small spots at frighteningly fast speeds. Then I would be off to school At Manovikas coaxing crying Autistic children to pleasepleaseplease put the peg in the peg board or sit up straight or stop spitting or be quiet and stop shrieking. By eleven I knew I would have already been bombarded by 15 new Bengali words that the teachers around me would teasingly expect me to learn (they think it is hilarious when Kristen and I try to speak Bengali and never seem to tire of teaching us new words and laugh good-naturedly as we try to stumble our way through the foreign pronunciation). I knew that all of these things were going to happen later in the day but as I made my way down the winding roads of Kolkata this morning, none of it seemed to be real. Sometimes I still have moments where it becomes real: I am in India. This whole experience has already been the most eye-opening thing that I have ever done and It is nice every once in awhile to be able to stroll down the streets in the morning and simply take the time to drink it all in.