Ode to Kelly: Make the voices stop!

Hello all,

Ok so after been sick for the last week I had pretty much decided that I couldn't face going to Culcatta, and would do a massive skip to greener pastures, aka Rishikesh. It was only after meeting and speaking to gorgeous blue/green eyed Frenchman, (previously mentioned) who had just arrived from there that I decided to 'suck-it-in' for 2 more days and just go.

What can I say say about Calcutta? ....on arriving at the train station, rather than being surrounded and bombarded with rickshaws there where hundreds of bright yellow taxis. Driving through the city I was amazed at how incredibly clean it was, how controlled the traffic was and the massive, all be it run down, green parks that we passed. My hotel, which kind Frenchman found in his guide for me (bit dubious about trusting good old lonely planet these days) was clean and friendly. Setting off to find some lunch...I was pleasantly surprised to be able to walk around the small streets quite easily, with minimal hassle. There where loads of shopping stalls and even an ' India styled shopping mall. I was impressed, this was not the city of squalor and poverty I had been envisioning. Calcutta is by far now one of my loveliest Indian cities.

After lunch I set off to try and find the Victoria memorial. (Built to commemorate Queen Victoria's 1901 diamond Jubilee. Stated in the guide:"Had this been built for a beautiful Indian Princess, and not a dead Colonial queen , it would surely rate as one of India Greatest Buildings" I was approached by an old guy who offered to take me there in his Rickshaw and I happily agreed. I was mortified when I realised that he actually owned one of those pull rickshaws, no horse, no donkey, no bicycle, just an old man and his old legs. (As far as I'm concerned it's slave labour) and I felt incredibly pompous and hypocritical sitting there been pulled by this poor man......especially when he would attempt to start running to keep up with the traffic....by the time he dropped me off I felt compelled to double his asking price of a mere RS20 just to ease my conscience....

Lesson 3: When in India....make sure you are dropped off right outside the entrance of you destination.

Old Rickshaw man gave me a big toothless smile and pointed around the corner. I think telepathically what he meant to say was:
"This is the main road, I'm not allowed on the main road, your destination is around the corner, across the suicide main road, around the massive park, across the road on your left, walk for another 5minutes and there it will be! Hope you have an umbrella? Oh and thanks for the tip! " And he was off.
Some 25 minutes later after asking about 6 people, and getting caught in a torrential storm.(You would think I have an umbrella by now:-) .I eventually found the VM. Nevertheless I was still smiling, The VM was stunning, the city was beautiful, the people were friendly and I got to take photo's of a foal for Hannah. (aka Utlah- sorry babe your alias is out:-)

After the VM I went to look at St Paul's Cathedral only to discover that it was closed between 12- 3. Was sitting down outside the church, minding my own business, when I'm approached by really chatty, friendly Indian women. She sat down and offered to take me to the local village area. Before I could even answer she had then started telling me her entire life's story. She is a nurse, but she only gets RS400 a week. She was married and had a daughter in collage. (collage is very expensive you know) She was waiting for the church to open because she desperately needed to get money from the church to buy her husbands medicine. Now I have to be honest, immediately alarm bells were going off and I just wanted to get away. But not been brought up to be rude...I struggled to find an opening/ or a pause, at which I could make my escape. I got told how the church continually refused to help her with the money, as did the Mother Teresa House.....she hadn't eaten in 2 days, and her shoes were falling apart. Her husband couldn't work because of the sever pain caused by his brain tumor!! "What could she do?" "What could she do?" She implored me.
At this point a man walked over who she introduced as her husband. He didn't really look like he had a brain tumor....but seen as Im hardly a qualified physician I decide I had no right to make that call. I then made the fateful mistake of asking..."How much is the medicine!" Within seconds she had whipped out the prescription sheet for me....RS450.- Mmmmmmmm...So he was literally only 6 pounds away from a pain free existence....how could I not help? I figured if she was waiting to get medication from the church (thought there might be a health centre in there....) then they would know straight away if she was scamming...so I would be pretty safe. So yes, I agreed to go into the church and get the medicine for her. No sooner as there words were out my mouth was she shouting to her pain infested husband that she was going to get medicine and walking down the road calling me to follow. At this point, yes I should have voiced my objection, but no I didn't- I simply followed meekly. Its OK I rationalized....we are going to go to chemist and actually buy the stuff so the money wont be wasted. First chemist we arrived at this women walked in and shouted rudely at the man who was talking to someone else, once she got his attention and had handed him her prescription he took one look at it, shook his head, gave it back to her and waved her out the shop. She then said to me: "He doesn't have it, we go to next place" And again we set off. There was something about the pace that she was walking and her manner with people that she passed that just made me feel uneasy and for the next 10 minutes we walked I was overwhelmed and in complete turmoil as my inner voices went to war!(lets just call them Irrational Angel and Common Logic!)
Angel: "Gayle stop being so tight arsed, its only 6 pounds for goodness sakes, what ever happened to giving with an open heart?"
Common Logic: "Gayle you are a bloody idiot! 90% of your gut says this women is scamming you,so why are you falling for it? "
Angel: "Brain TUMOR! What if the man REALLY does have a brain tumor? You are in Calcutta Gayle , I bet Mother Tersa wouldn't have thought twice about about helping poor man with a brain tumour! Shame on you!"
Common Logic: "ahhh yes very mature and now you compare myself to the most compassionate person in the world? You fall short miserably! You know she is probably going to go and simply resell the medicine! You know this Gayle!! "
Angel: "That's not really the point and you know it.....even if she is scamming you she still needs the money more than you do......how dare you be so selfish?"
Common Logic: So in a country filled with people begging for help you are going to help the person who is literally lying to your face? So much for your 'love of honesty Gayle!!"
Angel: "Brain tumour! Brain Tumour!Brain Tumour!!! "

So while my inner dialogues were battling it out she then started talking to me about how she has a sister in Canada and wealthy family in Delhi, but she would never dream of asking them for anything.
Angel: "How noble!"
Common Logic: (fuming)" No of course not but you will ask a complete stranger (namely ME!)simply because I am white???? "
It was at this point that I have to admit....good old Common Logic won and I decided in all good conscience I really wasn't comfortable giving her all that money, so I handed her RS100 and marched my 'tight arse' out of there. Needless to say she wasn't very happy, and I then had to deal with the annoying voice of angel berating me the entire way home. She was eventually silenced when I stopped and spoke to a chemist about it, and he said without a shadow of a doubt that she would have simply gone and sold the medication again, and the reason the first chemist wouldn't give it to her was because the prescription was probably out of date! So Yeah for Common Logic. It took a while but she prevailed..... eventually!


Now there is point to this whole story....(I promise) and no its not to shine a light on two of the many voices that continually run through my head on a daily basis. (Alas its hard being me!:-)
I have spent the last couple of days thinking about how, this, has to be the absolutely worse thing about traveling India. Its not the dirt, the constant staring (or the spiting) or even the poverty itself....its the sheer guilt you feel every single time you are confronted with some one begging for money. Its the knowledge that your days spending money could possible feed this person for an entire month or that while you are here on holiday enjoying the sights and experiences, people are scavenging for food and money simply trying to stay alive.
Its also the continual awareness that the tourist industry itself plays such a massive part in maintaining and perpetuating the status quot in India,. As the guide book says : It would probably be better to donate your money to a reputable charity, so it could be put to good use. But for me, personally, although I am sure Im not alone ....giving money has very little to do with actually improving their life style, its simply a means to an end in helping to relieve the overwhelming guilt that I constantly feel for simply having money. And yet every time I give, I'm then compounded with the double guilt that I am actually making the problem worse.

Let me give some examples:

While waiting for my train to Calcutta a scruffy station child (one of the hundreds that sleep in the station) came up to me begging for food......for about 5 minutes, continuously...when that didn't work...she dropped to her hands and knees started touching her head on my foot over and over again, all the time looking up at me and motioning for food. I tried ignoring her at first, then asked her to stop, then firmly insisted that she stop.....but eventually I just went and bought her something, only to have another 5 children come crawling out of the wood works 30seconds later all wanting something too! When I wouldn't buy for them all one of the older girls got really angry and started shouting at me. What can you do?

When I was going for ride with Santos in Bodghaya, he took me to a very old holy shrine, but as with most religious shines it was surrounded with beggers. Most of them where incredibly old and frail. As we walked in there was a little old lady sitting by the shine that could have easily been 90 or above. I dont think I have ever seen someone so thin and fragile looking so I gave her a little money. But as always one of the others saw and as a result I had 4 old people all heart breakingly hobbling after me the entire way down the road and once we were on the bike, they started angrily shouting at us as we drove off (had I given them something then the other 12 or so beggars around the side would have also started)

Or how about the little boy that walked up to me with a bleeding arm today begging for money for the doctor ( I doubt he needed a doctor for that little scratch) but never the less he was a persistent littler bugger and he then proceeded to follow me for almost a block. I eventually gave him some money just to get him to go away.

And there in lies their lessons: "Hound Foreigners and eventually they (well the weak one) will give in and pay up! "

So yes.....this for me has been the hardest part of India, knowing deep, deep down that I am actually part of the problem. Am I being too hard on myself.....mmmmm yes probably.....but at the same time it has made me so much more aware of how my actions are completely controlled by my emotions....and that awareness alone, I think is priceless.

and now im shattered...so this will have to be continued tomorrow.....as will my replying to my messages...Midget so glad you are well, but I have my own theories...you will just have to wait and see.

Loads of Love from India