Giver and Taker

At times I become startled by the immense power I harness within this universe. I begin a day, saving the frantic moth on my washroom floor. I release the mosquito tangled in a sheer mauve curtain. Yet I drown the winged thing fluttering above the kitchen sink, its now motionless body trapped in the drain cover with soggy bits of rice and lentil. I am Hestia. I am Kali.

My irrational whims choose what lives and what dies. Sometimes it’s a terrible pressure for me. I make a dreadful god and wallow in the guilt of denying one bird my crumbs, but not the other. I dote on the baby. I engorge the bold one who eats from my hand. I shoo any that scuffles or bullies, especially the crows, though they are my favorite bird of all. It’s a daily battle with my scale of imbalanced justice.

Once I asked Sanjoy how he decided who to give change to on the street and when to refrain. Here in Kolkata, there is no shortage of outstretched hands. As a foreigner, I am the flame moths clamor towards. Beggars plead and search my eyes for pity, at times, tugging on the corner of my clothing. I once watched a friend buy rice for a woman, and as if an invisible alarm had sounded, nearly a dozen others swarmed her, begging for the same in what looked disturbingly similar to a zombie apocalypse. I cannot un-see the drone of swaying figures, moving slowly with disfigured spines, arthritic limbs, pocked and wrinkled skin, nearly over-taking my friend who towered above their bent, frail bodies. My domain of birds and bugs is insignificant. People are more difficult to save than mosquitoes. How does one choose which stomach to fill and which to starve? It is depressingly easier to deny them all.

I often stay in my home; a recluse buried away in my own comforts and shielded from these harsh realities. My Amazon Echo streams Mozart as I work from a Macbook connected to a home WiFi system. I sip honeyed Earl Grey in this centenarian home, not oblivious that these curved walls and tiled floors were born of colonialism, labored by slaves. I live in a gentle neighborhood, bordered by two golf courses and a Tollywood film studio; yet when directing someone to my doorstep, the most recognizable landmark is Joro Bosti, the slum just a moment’s walk from the middle of my lane.

If you were to know about my daily life, truly know it, you would find loneliness in a loud, yet exotic land. Many days are spent in solitude, speaking only with my partner for one, two, or three hours, either in person or by phone, depending on where his work has taken him. At times it feels like I live in a jail cell and the isolation is nearly too much to bear; but, more often my home is my sanctuary. I imprison the rest of the world, putting it behind the bars of every window and balcony ledge. Even if there were a fire, the world could not get in to save me.

I am Rapunzel, but instead of letting down my hair to a handsome prince, I release a tethered bag attached to a length of twine and weighted by a stick of bamboo. Twenty rupees sits at the bottom for the man who pushes a vegetable cart in front of my house. I speak in broken Bangla, “Aloo. Kuri taka. (potatoes, twenty rupees)”

He weighs a bag with about thirty cents’ worth of potatoes. “Tiké (okay)” as he gives a tug and I pull up my treasure. Food enough to last three more days without stepping outside these crumbling walls of my kingdom.