Street corner GPS

I’m rather challenged in spatial orientation. I mean my sense of direction goes haywire on the road in Kolkata. It is tough to figure out locations, and their street signs are a little difficult to spot too. I don’t worry too much, however. Navigational help is around the corner, and it comes free.

The street corners of Kolkata buzz with activity, from first light to late night. They are the centres for adda (gossip). Everything is discussed, the local news, sports, politics or personal issues. They may have card games there too, and gambling. Makeshift stalls for tea, snacks and tobacco spring up on the sidewalk, to do brisk business. The corner serves the same social purpose for the ordinary that exclusive clubs do for the wealthy. In both places, men need clubbability, like ships need anchors. But the roadside intellectuals are rather more street savvy. 

I venture in to explore an area in the vicinity of the Howrah Bridge some call a bad place. Wholesale goods are auctioned there. Hand-rickshaws or thelas (pushcarts) line the street ends, waiting to be engaged, to carry people and goods to different parts of the city. They run on human labour through the seemingly mazes of lanes and bylanes of Kolkata’s congested areas. Getting lost is pretty easy in those places, and on my own, I go round in circles.

Many street corners of the city double as stands for transport vehicles. Each stand is specific for a type of vehicle – for taxis, for auto-rickshaws, for rickshaws, etc., and mindful perhaps, of road hierarchy, the types don’t mix. The transport walas (drivers) are weather-beaten men, almost uniformly dressed in lungi (long loin-cloth) and baniyan (vest), which younger men might vary attire with jeans and tee-shirts.

 

Each though, carries their trademark long red gamcha (towel). It helps with the sun, the rain, the cold, and the carrying of weights. They are patient, they can wait hours, perched on their vehicles or squatted on the sidewalk. The chaps in this place speak Hindi, not Bengali, as do most of the traders, which shows how diversity has infiltrated the city. I guess the ‘bad’ perceptions may also be parochial! 

I stop at the corner to enquire where the roads might lead to or come from. Surprised at being addressed, they all stare at me. Finally, one of them asks instead where it is I’m trying to reach. Nowhere actually, I say and smile at the incongruity, just roaming. They find it funny that I would choose such a place to roam in. But still, they need a destination to be able help. I say Kolkata, which is silly really, as we are in the city, but they rightly assume I mean its central region. They explain the one-way only rule is enforced here, and hence it seems wise to keep going with the traffic. They point out where I can join the flow, and how to return to the centre. Accordingly, I go across the river over the bridge, u-turn at the railway station, and then, via the flyovers, head back to more familiar climes.

Another time, another turn becomes wrong. I find the sides of the road closing in, and the surroundings progressively shabbier. I realize I’m in the heart of a close-knit minority community, and its residents are suspicious of outsiders coming in. Few women are about, and those that are, are keeping conservatively covered. I’m obviously out of place in that environment, and it is being noticed. The rule of thumb of following the road no longer makes sense because it’s now a dirt track. 

No help for it, I have to stop to ask directions. Several young men are lounging about on the street corner. I attract their attention and they gather around, curious about what I’m about on their turf. I mention the landmark seven-point crossing. They know where it is, and how to get there. They tell me I’m actually heading the opposite way. Their instructions to going back include plenty of turns, and I’m getting confused.

The first thing though, is to move, because a queue is building up behind me. I decide on taking one turn at a time, with the first one right there. Drivers behind me, and those in oncoming vehicles, begin sounding their displeasure, but the young men jump in to help. With their arms outstretched, they stop the traffic on either side, and hold them back until I manage the turnaround in the narrow space. I wave my thanks as I drive away in the general direction they explain to me. A few street corners later, my way forward is clear again.

Many localities in Kolkata have their own distinctive community flavour. In the more congested old Kolkata, especially to the north of the city,  pockets of various religious minorities focus on preserving their customs and rituals. In the more affluent southern areas, the social milieu is more diffuse, more liberal perhaps, but neighbours hardly know one another.  

Near railway stations, the roads become thoroughfare. There is a constant stream of people that have just stepped off one or are on the way to catch the local trains. They commute daily from their homes in the villages far from the city.Fortunately, for millions of people employed in the city, the Indian railway network is the largest in the world, and it is their only mode of travel. 

When they set off from their homes early morning, it is still dark. Their families are asleep when they leave and when they return. They are so focused on getting to work, or catching the train home, that they are quite oblivious of their surroundings. Honking at them makes no difference; they walk in the middle of the road, as they do back home. The only way to drive there is to trundle along behind them.

I take a turn to get away from the crowds, and that road keeps winding on and on, left then right. I follow it with the hope of coming upon a main road soon. Eventually, I see a row of cycle-rickshaws at the end of the road. Beyond them, between two buildings, there is an opening. Something seems to glint beyond. I stop and roll down my window. The group of men squatted on the roadside, look on impassively. Elder brother, I say, is it possible to go down that way? I gesture to the passageway beyond. 

No, elder sister, they reply, pleased with my respectful form of address. I realize I’ve reached an absolute dead end. The glint I saw is the railway tracks just beyond, and the opening is a shortcut to the station.  It’s their corner, they line up their vehicles on one side, pick up passengers coming through the opening, and move on down the other side of the road to take them on to their destination. They tell me I should have turned right instead of left, to reach the main road and the bridge further on. A passing man sniggers that the only way out now is in reverse. But backing the car around the winding bends I passed earlier doesn’t seem a great option.

The rickshaw-walas watch in silence as I back away to the nearest pavement and wait there. Some rickshaws are taken and ready to move. Their drivers look at me uncertainly. They are unsure of my intention, and seem to debate being patient or being belligerent. I wave them on their way. There is just enough room for them to go past, and they head out. Thankfully, passengers are aplenty the line of parked rickshaws clears quickly, and I can continue with my manoeuvre. The drivers that remain courteously move their vehicles up to provide me a little more space to help me get right around and retrace my route.

The class conscious groups in Kolkata looks down their noses at the riff raff that gather at the corners. They are loud and individuals may be quick to confront, or even come to blows over perceived injustices. Moreover, they may be illiterate and vice ridden, so the respectable barely acknowledge their existence. Street corner people are perceived the lowest of the low.

But their social responsibility is second to none. These savvy people become first responders in any emergency. Their help is immediate even for a total stranger. They spring into action to clear traffic jams if the police are not around, or as additional help. They also regularly intervene to resolve street altercations.

The one thing they are undoubtedly expert at, are road directions. Ask about locations, shortcuts, traffic flow and road conditions, and they are instant sources of information. They know ways in and out of the locality, like the backs of their hands. A satellite-dependent GPS is a must in the West.  In Kolkata, we get by with these human equivalents.