commuterating

the commute to 'work' is never without its myriad peculiarities, and today was no exception. not that i always enjoy it, however - for truth being told, i usually don't. for a metropolis of 16m people, calcutta is unusually late to rise. the metro does not open until 7am and people do not seem to take it until around 8. why and how i know this, you may wonder. despite the odd bottle or two of 'supah strong indian beer'* that i shared amongst roomies last night, this morning i was up again at the crack of dawn, lying in a musty puddle of sweat and searching for the remains of what was once the mildew green sheet that stuck to the mingy brown mattress on the floor in the corner of the room (indians -apart from punjabis - drink little to no alcohol, yet the only beer you come across at the independent/monopolizing storefront beerstands contains a cool 8.5% devil juice). battling a wretched cough and an army of mosquitoes, there was no point in remaining idle, so i got up, put on the kettle and began to tidy up a bit. a few more suitcases had been added to the sacrificial edifice in the corner of the kitchen, though this time there was a plastic-wrapped guitar and a motorcycle helmet on the top of our makeshift shrine (i am alluding to the miniature shrines and/or prayer rooms that the vast majority of practicing hindus have attached to their kitchens and living rooms. at one friend's house, they even pay a local brahman a monthly allotment of sorts to stop by their crib each evening when making his spiritual rounds. nevermind that we were relearning to eat with our fingers as our host explained the universal truth of cricket - the brahman, unnerved by the frontally-curry-stained and gaping occidentals, went right ahead with his evening devotional. once the guru left, i asked our host who the man in the photograph in the upperright hand corner of the altar was. "that's one of my gods," he calmly explained. "as in you get to choose one?!" i asked incredulously. "in a sense, though not exactly," he continued. "uncle ricky was taken, so i settled for my mom's boyfriend from college. i guess they're still friends - sometimes we go for tea.")

but back to the dirty kitchen. epshon, the rowdie union-squaring aussi subway zitarist who lives above us, had gotten back from darjeeling with our icelandic roommate kata sometime in the wee hours of the morning. i cleaned up the hookah furnishings scattered across the table, poured a cup of instant coffee and got back down to hamlet, my 100 rupee read for the weekly train commute (which oddly enough, has only ever been recommended to me by non-native english speakers. whether this is a conspiracy of sorts, a linguistic insurrection, or merely the coincidental advice of several particularly clever non-native speakers, ill never know...). a few pages in, however, and i was drawn by the chance to get a few early morning shots of park street (one of calcutta's principal thoroughfares, off of which i work), so off to the metro i strode...

as aforementioned, tis always a curious commute. after leaving the house, i wander up the diagonally skitzophrenic chanditala lane until reaching the better known bose avenue. our dear chanditala is a real treasure in architectual and urban planning. twisting and turning, our 'petite ruelle' of sorts is covered in the colorful graffiti of local parties' marxist propaganda. though already omnipresent in west bengal (the federal state of calcutta), ebulliently neon hammers and sickles cling to the walls of chanditala at every possible glance. little red hammer&sickled flags lazily droop from every telephone pole, while the aesthetically sympathetic local maoist politicians remind voters, in a variety of different hues and 2-D effect, just how to vote : "when you see this symbol (ie the hammer and wanking sickle), press button"