Travelers' Tales India

by James O'Reilly

  I explain that most naturalists believe the pink-headed duck is extinct, but my theory is that it’s actually in hiding, having learned, for good reasons, to remain scarce. Although most of its natural habitat around Calcutta has been destroyed, there are still some isolated pockets of undisturbed marshland in the Bengal plain and suitable nesting spots in remote northeast India.

  The official remains silent but no longer appears alarmed. I keep up my chatter, hoping that he, too, will appreciate the magic of this beautiful bird. The words tumble from my mouth. At last my fantasy takes shape for him and elicits a laugh.

  “You’re putting me on, aren’t you?”

  “No more that I do myself, Sir.”

  He returns to the map and traces an outline of the game-fowl market, which he refers to now as the easiest place to buy a bird in Calcutta. Handing the map back to me, he grins and says, “At first, I thought you were a drug addict or a smuggler.”

  “Heaven forbid!”

  “Good luck,” he says, pushing back his chair and rising. He’s taller and fatter than I suspected. He hands me another business card. “Call me if you find it.”

  With ice a luxury, and refrigeration a symbol of wealth, Calcutta is a city of noxious odors. The fowl market is aptly named: I smelled it long before sighting it. I wander along its perimeter, surveying the countless small shops and street vendors hawking birds. Most of the birds are tied at the feet and dangle upside down, suspended from door frames, street posts, or the hands of children; pigeons are cooped ten to a cage; geese, throttled by short lengths of twine, are muted with rubber bands.

  I’m uncertain where to begin my search until I spot a parked van and join the queue leading to it. Inside the vehicle an unmuffled generator jiggers loudly; a young man wearing a grease-stained lungi is haunched over a copy machine, tweaking knobs and feeding it documents. His two associates lean out a window, conducting business under the sloppy red letters advertising “The Copy Shop.”

  Once I arrived in an Indian town exhausted after a long train ride. I found a cheap, nondescript place to stay, slept soundly for twelve hours, woke up, showered, and went exploring. Hours later, when it was time to head back, I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel or where it was!

  After months of staying in inns named after Lakshmi, Durga, and all the Indian gods, guest houses named Rose and Daffodil and every flower in a bouquet, and hotels named to reassure the wary traveler—Honest, Friendly, Clean Hotel—I simply blanked out.

  That experience led to a simple new routine: each time I sign in at a new hotel, I take their business card and slip it into my pocket. It comes in handy when I ask for directions, especially if the name is written in more than one language. And, if I like the place, I tuck the card into my journal or pack to recommend to someone else.

  —Thalia Zepatos, A Journey of One’s Own: Uncommon Advice for the Independent Woman Traveler

  Hastily I compose a poster of sorts, ripping a color plate from the book and taping the picture of the duck over the caption “LOST! Pink-Headed Duck.” In smaller print is the name of my hotel and a request for any information about the bird. The blasting radio and noisy generator render speech useless, so I flash my order for 25 copies with my fingers. Acting like an anxious parent looking for a runaway child, I hastily post them around the district.

  During my first couple of days in the fowl market, I feel dispirited and out of place. People on the street seem to keep their distance. Perhaps I do look odd: I’m the only Westerner walking the area, and because of my height, pale complexion, and baldness, I look a bit like a walking floor lamp, a Gyro Gearloose invention ambling the darker streets of Calcutta.

  I develop a routine, awakening before dawn to meet the boats floating down the Hooghly River. Usually they are filled with fresh produce and laborers from the north. I inspect each cargo, hoping to find my duck, constantly showing skippers and crews a picture of the missing bird. By the time the sun slices through the haze coughed up by millions of cook fires, I head away from the river to a teahouse in the center of the fowl market.

  Gradually I become more comfortable, and the workers of the district begin to accept me. Inquisitiveness replaces suspicion once they’ve decided that I’m not a policeman. A cardinal rule of the neighborhood is to avoid the police. “They mean trouble,” one vendor informs me, “and who needs more of that?”

  On the fourth day, everything changes: I’m invited to share a meal, street hawkers start greeting me as the Duck Man, and a few even seek me out before slaughtering their ducks. Soon captains of river boats are inviting me aboard, insisting on taking me for complimentary rides. On a Tuesday I cross the Hooghly sixteen times.

  One day toward the end of the week, I finish my waterfront inspections early. The teahouse won’t be open for another hour, so I walk downstream to a bathing ghat next to the flower market. Nearby, in the shadow of Howrah Bridge, four men stand in water up to their waists. Each is praying in a loud voice while splashing himself.

  I strip and dive into the supposedly cleansing water of the Hooghly, a branch of the Ganges and a sacred channel flowing to the home of the gods. For a Hindu, the holiest way to leave this world is to have one’s ashes scattered on the Ganges. I swim out toward the middle of the channel, diving for the bottom about fifty yards from shore. As I surface, something bumps the back of my head. Thinking it a stick, I thrust my hand out to fend it off. To my horror, my fingers sink into the spongy remains of a bloated, partially burned corpse. Seconds later my feet are on dry land.

  Firewood is scarce in Calcutta because all of it must be transported from the dwindling forests to the north. The price is high everywhere but highest at the funeral ghats. Since the average family in Calcutta earns barely enough to subsist on, the bereaved can seldom afford enough wood to cremate an entire body. When the fires diminish, the remains are simply heaved into the river to be carried out to sea, beyond the beaches of Janput, nearly forty miles away.

  Shaken, I rest for several minutes on the stone ramp, staring at my hand. An old man sitting nearby is watching me intently, so I wave and greet him in the traditional fashion, bowing with my hands outstretched, palms together. Ashes are smeared over much of his nearly naked body. He’s wearing boxer shorts, and a bell hangs from his neck. Pulling on his beard, he shouts to me: “What did you say? Can you speak English? Your Bengali is awful….Come here and sit by me.”

  We spend the next several minutes talking about Albany, New York, where he worked as a cook in the early 1960s. He tells me his pigeon pie was famous, the best in the Empire State.

  “The governor, that Rockyman, ate my pigeons all the time,” he says, picking at his toes.

  Upon hearing that Nelson Rockefeller is dead, he muses, “Hmmm…must have missed my cooking.”

  The old man has been watching me for days and wants to know what I’m doing in the district, which he refers to as his “kingdom.” I produce the illustration of the pink-headed duck and explain my search. As I talk, he nods in a knowing way, waiting for me to finish before holding out his hand and introducing himself: “Call me Babba, for I am without enemies.”

  Babba takes the picture of the duck and stares at it for some time. Then he starts to ring the bell around his neck and presses the picture to his forehead.

  “Yes,” he confides, leaning on my shoulder, ringing the bell louder. “Yes, I know this bird. I know where one lives.”

  “Let’s go!” I exclaim, jumping to my feet. My enthusiasm is not contagious. He motions with his grimy hands for me to sit. Complaining that he’s old and infirm, he tells me to calm myself. I continue to beg for directions until finally it occurs to me that money might be able to cure his painful condition.Yes, he will lead me for a price, assuring me that fifty rupees is the proper balm for his aching body. Babba, friend for life, is able to spot a meal ticket a hundred yards away.

  I follow him as he hobbles along the narrow streets. People are selling goods and services of all types.“Sahi
b need girl? Yank.Yank. Feel good. Suck…Ah! Sahib want boy?” But my thoughts are fixated on the pink-headed duck with its cotton-candy feathers and electric-pink bill; not even the alluring smell of opium persuades me to tarry.

  Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover.

  —V. S. Naipaul, An Area of Darkness

  The streets deteriorate into alleys awash in green piss as we distance ourselves from the Hooghly and head ever deeper into one of the poorer, tougher parts of town. The decrepit, two-story tenements have dun-colored façades and stockyard odors. Water drips from hand pumps at every other corner. There are no cars and only a few pedal rickshaws, which, like the pedestrians, follow the English tradition of keeping the curb to the left. Groups of men squat near doorways. Whenever I get close, they stop talking and hurriedly fling shawls over items at their feet. Their scowls tell me to keep moving.

  “Black market,” Babba explains. “Do you need cigarettes? Ivory? Silver?”

  Along the curb, rising like giant termite hills are mounds of trash encircled by human scavengers. Babba explains that recycling is the only legal industry in the area. For the trash pickers, still considered untouchable by many Brahmins, all bits of creation have value, anything can be reborn. Most garbage collection is a family affair, with children stalking the city, returning in the evening to their hovels with burlap bags of discarded treasures. Parents cull the heaps of trash, rearranging them into smaller piles. Cardboard is sold to one broker, tin to another; one buyer even specializes in pull rings from soda cans, paying a penny for every three gross.

  “What’s the name of this neighborhood?” I ask.

  “Heaven’s Gate.”

  At last my guide stops and waves his arthritic hand toward a small shop. “There, inside that place, you will find your duck,” Babba declares as he turns to leave.

  I grab his arm and remind him of his promise to show me the pink-headed duck. Steering him back on course, I make a mental note never again to pay in advance for guide services.

  Four holy cows, painted with indigo and wearing garlands of marigolds, laze in front of the shop. Flies swarm in tight circles around a row of plucked chickens suspended in the open window. We walk inside slowly, allowing our eyes to adjust to the dimness. The pungent odors of the street mingle with the dank air of the shop. A cleaver lies on a blood-splattered newspaper near the pile of chicken heads oozing at one end of a butcher block. The dirt floor is littered with feathers and entrails.

  An obese man emerges from the shadows. With each step, his body shakes, especially his gelatinous face, the color and texture of meat aspic. He talks hurriedly to Babba, far too fast for me to understand. Occasionally he stares at me, running his eyes over my body as if he’s sizing up a flank of lamb. I retreat several paces, making sure Babba is between us.

  Babba thanks the butcher and moves closer to me, saying, “Follow him to the back yard.”

  “You first.”

  We walk down a corridor too narrow for the fat man, who has to turn sideways to squeeze through. The light fades with every step, and shortly we’re in total blackness. Alarmed, I pull out my flashlight and lag behind, ready to bolt. My apprehension is somewhat dispelled when I hear a muffled but unmistakable “quack.” Ten steps farther on, we enter a shrouded courtyard. Stacks of bamboo cages rise up the walls; most of them are empty, but some contain chickens, none of which are moving. Feathers of all kinds cling to the wooden latticework. An industrial drum full of inky water sits in a corner by the entrance.

  The butcher shuffles to the other end of the courtyard and grunts for me to follow. I stay put, shining the beam of my flashlight toward him. So far I’ve seen no ducks, only chickens.

  “The ducks are on the other side,” Babba informs me.

  I focus the light on a cage the butcher is pointing to. He thrusts his fist inside as if punching someone. A “quack,” loud and clear, draws me nearer. He pulls the bird out, attempting a smile as he speaks. “He says it’s yours for nineteen rupees…a good price.” Babba interprets.

  I close in to identify the duck, steadying the light on its rust-colored bill. What? Yes, a rust bill and a dull brown neck. It’s not a pink-headed duck but rather a common red-crested pochard, annual winter visitor to India.

  “Please, don’t tell him,” Babba advises. “Just buy it and we can leave without trouble.”

  Babba grabs the duck and I hand over the money. Dejected, the two of us leave the shop. Babba doesn’t want the pochard; he became a vegetarian long ago. Its wings have been clipped, so we can’t release it. I give it to a family living on the street, and we walk back to the river along one of the city’s larger avenues. The return trip takes half the time the original trek down the side streets, but as Babba explains, “You get your money’s worth the other way.”

  At the bathing ghat, I decide to bid Babba farewell. This doesn’t sit well with him.

  “How can you leave me? How can you be so cruel? Are we not friends? Look at my legs, my hands…I will cook for you. Pigeon pie. Duck stew….”

  “Enough,” I shout and lead him into a teahouse.

  Over sweet cakes, we agree that he will become my tutor, giving me language lessons for half of every day. He will also act as my guide, with the understanding that when I want to be alone, he will disappear. In return I’ll pay him the fifteen dollars a day he has asked for.

  This arrangement works well. Occasionally problems arise, but Babba is always quick to explain that I’m at fault. My morning routine stays the same, while the time I previously spent prowling the museums and libraries is given over to Hindi lessons. Babba uses the street as our classroom. We roam Calcutta together, Babba pointing something out and then stating its name in both Hindi and Bengali; a half block away, he tests me on the word or phrase. When I fail, he theatrically asks anyone nearby to help teach me. During the course of a normal afternoon we share pots of tea with four or five different people, all volunteer tutors.

  One day, unbeknown to me, Babba tells the workers at the game-fowl market that I will pay a handsome fee for a pink-headed duck. This sends the cogs of local commerce into high gear. A day later, my thirteenth in Calcutta, while standing on the left bank of the Hooghly, I spot one of the riverboat captains sprinting toward me. He’s carrying a bamboo cage containing three wildly pink ducks. Fortunately for the birds, the paint is latex and easily washes out.

  Only hours later another pink bird is laid at my feet. Fluorescent overspray dapples the sandals of the eager seller, Amrik, a young man who usually peddles screwdrivers and wrenches near the bus stop. What attracts me to Amrik, besides his winning smile, is his capacity for lying. He swears that he has just scooped the bird from the river, insisting that the coloring of all Indian birds comes off when touched by foreigners.

  “It’s your white skin crying for color,” he tells me, gently stroking the bird.

  When I point out that he’s holding not a duck but a red turtle-dove, he quickly corrects me: “It may look like a biki [dove] now, but it was a duck.”

  My eyebrows arch in disbelief; Babba turns away, wheezing, trying unsuccessfully to swallow his laughter. Amrik is undeterred.“It is true,” he continues.“You see, when a pink duck leaves the water, it changes into a biki. If it was raining, it would still be a duck, but it is not raining today. That, my American friend, is why it looks like a biki. Don’t you understand?”

  For a small price I buy the distressed bird from him. As I sit in the back of the teahouse, swabbing the biki first with kerosene and then with soap and water, I decide to leave Calcutta. Originally I had planned to spend only five or six days in this city, and now I can foresee what will happen to me if Amrik brags of his sale, telling his pals that the American will buy any pink bird.

  At first, Babba is angered by this news, but noting my reaction,
he starts chastising himself for being inadequate. “I know why you leave. Because I am miserable, I make you miserable. Because I am poor, I make you feel poor. Because my bones ache, you suffer…. Yes, you must go. Who wants to watch me die?”

  He drones on and on as I try to think of a satisfactory way to part. I summon the owner of the tea shop, and after twenty minutes of haggling, we stand and shake hands. I’ve just leased the shop for the night in Babba’s name. Like the mythical phoenix, Babba rises from the ashes of misery, becoming a new man. He will be the host of a party.

  “There is much to do and little time,” he says, excusing himself from the table. “I must invite everyone and keep an eye on the kitchen.”

  I leave for my hotel as Babba begins to harangue the shop attendants, ordering them to clean the place. It’s a thirty-minute walk to the Rest Happy Lodge, my residence for the past week. I chose it for its name, cheap price (six dollars a night), and pleasant staff. It’s the perfect antidote to the Fairlawn Hotel, where I spent my first nights in the company of impolite Westerners, burly Australians, and Japanese shutter-clickers. Where the Fairlawn aspires to recreate the atmosphere of the Raj (the employees dress in silly get-ups and call the guests Sahib or Memsab), the Rest Happy, not listed in any brochure, doesn’t pretend to be more than it is: a quiet place run by a sleepy family.

  Packing is no great chore for me; I’m content to wear the same outfit for days on end. If I need something new or fresh, I buy it. But when it comes to camping and camera supplies, experience has taught me to arrive in a foreign country fully equipped. My gear fills two bags and weighs nearly fifteen kilos. Cameras and film count for most of the weight, and the remainder is survival or medical equipment. I’ve also brought a variety of presents to give away at opportune moments: a gross of “New York, New York” pencils, a dozen wrist watches with built-in AM radios, plenty of 3-D pins of Godzilla, and a hundred disposable lighters printed with the image of Michael Jackson.