The pull of Indian leather

On my way out of Kolkata the other day, I got talking with a co-passenger I shall call Eric. He is from Belgium. Conversation is a bit of a feat over the general noise, and our diverse accents. I’m curious about why he is in India, because he doesn’t behave touristy. Social worker? I enquire, with only a touch of sarcasm. Truth is, I’m more than a little bugged that foreigners need to come save our souls, as if our own people cannot. But no, he is a businessman, and has been coming to India for a long time. 

I rack my brains for ‘Belgium’ but nothing surfaces from school geography. It is probably landlocked in the middle of the continent. Budapest? I hazard. No, Brussels, Antwerp… It turns out Belgium isn’t all that landlocked. Though surrounded by land on three sides, it is open on one side to the waters of the North Sea. I probably confused it with Switzerland or Luxembourg in my mind!

I tried to name to myself five Belgians of note. Hercule Poirot, but he was a figment of somebody’s imagination, so didn’t count. Mother Teresa was…Albanian. Ah, the football team, dark horses in FIFA World Cup 2014. They came unstuck against Messi magic, I think. I remember a young nun, who played the violin at assembly every morning in my elementary school, but her name was lost to me. Van Damme, the Hollywood action hero. And a former colleague, a British national had once mentioned that his mother’s ancestors were from the Belgian city of Gent… It seems a pitiful list!

I have to accept that my general knowledge is pretty poor. I didn’t know for instance, that Belgium does not have a distinct national language. Eric said that Belgium was made a buffer state, between Germany and other countries of Europe. I began to imagine a nation of human shields, but it seems to me now that something was lost in translation! He probably meant that it was neutral, like Switzerland.

Belgium also does not have an indigenous people apparently. Rather, migrants of other nations people it, and even now a language boundary runs through it. So they speak only French in the south, and Flemish in the north. I finally understand after all these years of wondering, why Agatha Cristie’s Poirot, said to be Belgian, would mutter to himself in French! Diversity somewhat like India, I nod knowingly. This country too has no single national language. However, there are twenty-two official languages and over six thousand dialects. Still, with English and Hindi, it is possible to communicate in almost all of India.

Eric says he has of French origins, and that he does not have much formal education. I ask how come then he speaks English, since he never had it at school? I learn it in India, he says. He must have been coming to this country for many, many years indeed! Nevertheless, I’m impressed with the teaching skills of the Indian business community! I notice he is carrying a book by Noam Chomsky for travel reading, so the education obviously continues. 
 

Eric is in the leather industry. It is not a family business, just something he has personally been interested in.  He started designing handbags on his own and somehow his passion grew, as did the business. Now he has aged, but he just can’t stop working, which upsets his family. In Kolkata, he buys the leather hides to be further processed and used in the manufacture of the bags back in Belgium. Why not Italy leather? I ask, wouldn’t that be cheaper to import? Leather in Kolkata, he tells me, is good. It is good, he reiterates.

If this means that the tanneries of India are able to export in bulk to another continent, then the quality of the leather must be not just good, but excellent. The next time I pass Tangra, and want to hold my nose and mutter under my breath on being overwhelmed by the stench of the raw hides, I shall remind myself that they too contribute to the nation’s economy. In fact, if more young Indians became interested in the industry, India would benefit. Designer bags that celebrities tote around seem to each cost a fortune! 

Eric must have been exhausted by my many questions about his country and his business. Eventually he confides that he is old. And old-fashioned. He says that it is easy for women to ask questions, but men are constrained by courtesy from doing so. I’m surprised. If women may interrogate, it’s only fair that men may do so too, no? I suppose he comes from a generation that lives by a code. Have you never ever asked any question of any woman in this country in all these decades? I ask incredulously. He shakes his head a touch ruefully. I could never, he says. Well, if you could, what would you have liked to ask? Eric thinks a moment, smiles and says: Are you married?