Inside a Rally

I stared out the front windshield of our car at the bumper of the bus in front of us and read, for perhaps the 15^th time in the last 10 minutes, the red block letters that proclaimed, “Sealda”. What that means I couldn’t tell you. I then looked around the car as Ashok, our driver, paced outside the window as Shikha talked to Bethany out the window while Stacey proceeded to have a full conversation with the rest of the car with her eyes closed because it “made her headache feel better”. The other half of the group that was in the car next to us stood outside their car and shifted their weight from foot to foot as they scanned the cars around us. Oh, and all of this was happening in the middle of the road, and by road, I mean something more akin to a parking lot. We were on a bridge in beyond bumper-to-bumper traffic and if we knew one thing and one thing only it was that we were stuck. This was at about 12:00pm so let’s rewind to how all of this started.

We started out this weekend by planning a trip to go to see the Marble Palace and the Tagore family house. After a long week, we were al ready to get out and explore the city and then got back to Transit House at a reasonable time so that we could take naps and work on our projects. It had been awhile since something had gone terribly awry so I think all of us were lulled into a sense of security that centered around the mindset that we were finally “able to predict India”. India chose today to remind us all that predicting it is about as easy as predicting Lady Gaga’s next outfit, you never know WHAT is going to show up.

As we set out on the road we noticed more traffic than usual but thought nothing of it since it was a weekend and a pretty nice day out at the time. It wasn’t until we had gotten about 10 minutes away from Transit House that we started to ask questions to each other about the increased flow of foot traffic, louder than usual speakers, and the springing up of new Indian flags all over the city. Luckily, I had Shikha in my car who proved yet again to be an invaluable resource as she asked Ashok what was going on. It was at this point that he told us that a political rally was going on for the lady in charge of West Bengal. Fine, I thought, I’ve been through rally traffic before, living near to the mess of a city known as Los Angeles, this will delay us a bit but it shouldn’t be TOO bad. When Shikha asked Ashok what he thought this would do to our time schedule for the day he responded with an all too knowing laugh. As uneasy silence then filled the car and we looked around at each other, Ashok said (translated by Shikha) “Slowly, slowly the city of Calcutta will become completely blocked”. Uh-oh we though, but at this point it seemed a waste to turn back because we already had permission to go to Marble Palace this day and we were already half way there.

We continued on to the Marble Palace and made it there with minimal issues and had an awe-inspiring walk around this amazing house. The house itself was built in 1835 and, for a lack of a better term, is a building in which anything you could ever want built in marble is. Bust of George Washington? Check. Greek gods? Check. Entire flooring built of Italian marble? Check. Not only was there all that marble but there was also tons and tons of assorted finery. There were gold statues, chandeliers, beautiful paintings, floor to ceiling mirrors, and even a cage with parrots. All of this was thrown with out any apparent rhyme or reason into this mansion in which the owners still live. After we saw the inside of the house we decided to go see the menagerie. After trotting past the peacocks we saw a giant squirrel, a pheasant, and finally came to an open enclosure with a large, light pink bird. Sean and Charles immediately ran over to “photo-bomb” the pictures of the bird with bunny ears but as soon as they got within 5 feet of the bird it swung it s enormous head around to face them and let out a sound that was unlike anything I have ever heard before. If I had to make a comparison I would say it was a mix between a lighthouse foghorn and an air horn. I don’t think I have ever seen two people run as fast as I saw Charles and Sean do after that noise. After seeing the animals we all piled back into the cars to head over to the Tagore house.  The house was kept up very well and it was amazing to be able to walk through an area of such historical significance.

Once we left the Tagore house, Ashok said that it would be a good idea to take the metro home but the traffic seemed fine so we decided that it should be ok to stay in the car. Well… We may not have gotten the car ride that we expected but I learned a lot of things on out 2 ½ hour ride home.

1.     Never get sick during a political rally. When I say the cars were at a standstill I mean ALL the cars. That includes fire engines and ambulances. We all watched as some poor person tried to get to the hospital in an ambulance only to get stuck on our same bridge for 30 minutes.

2.     When people stare at you, don’t stare back. You know when you look out the window of a car and make eye contact with a person for a brief second and then they (or you) speed away? Well, here, if you made eye contact with someone you had better hope that you like them because chances are you will be stuck next to them for the next 20 minutes. I made awkward eye contact with a man in a dark green shirt in the bus next to us and instead of looking directly away I accidentally continued to look it his extravagant mustache. Bad choice. I was stuck next to mustache man for the next 15 minutes, feeling his eyes bore into the side of my face as he continued to look at me.

3.     Things are what you make of them. Yes, we were stuck in a car for 2 and ½ hours on a day that was supposed to be our break day. This fact, however, was not going to change so Shikha, Michelle, Stacey, Tierney, Amber and I (the whole group in Ashok’s car) decided to make the best of this. We had some amazing conversations that ranged from musicals to body image to Duke in general and it made the time go by faster than I could have imagined.

4.     Ashok is hilarious. As we were driving, Ashok was telling Shikha in Hindi that going out during a political rally was “very bad” and that our “program” (schedule) for the day was unbelievable. He said all of this with his usual smile and then went so far as to wave the piece of paper out the window at Bethany (our current site coordinator not that Baishakhi is gone) and shout “Bad!”. Our car burst out giggling and shook our heads.

5.     Political rallies in India are CHAOTIC. The streets were filled with men (it was mostly men that were out, not women) who were shouting, waving sticks as they tried to direct traffic, cramming themselves 10 at a time into 4 person cars, sweating, arguing, and waving Indian flags. This site was one that I am so glad that I got to see because we have been removed so far from the political scene. The best part was that I felt safe sitting in the car but I got to see the literal inside of a rally.

6.     There probably isn’t a group of people that I would rather get stuck in traffic with. The five other girls I was in the car with and I had a great time and even when I felt a little frustrated at the situation they helped bring me up and made me appreciate the amazing opportunity that this “accident” had thrown us into.

After we finally got back to Transit House after the ride (ok, after we finally got back to Transit House after the ride and a trip to get us all chicken rolls to eat…) we still were able to have a relaxing afternoon. It’s opportunities/accidents like these that make India the place that it is. A place of chaos mixed with beauty, fervor mixed with ancient culture, and inefficiency mixed with generosity. Most of all, it make it a place that I am so glad to be spending 8 weeks of my summer.