Saying goodbye

One afternoon during my last week at AWWD, Tabassum came into our office with Sumita (our lovely office assistant). Sumita proceeded to lay out three empty water bottles in front of Tabassum. I looked on in bafflement, slowly turning to understanding, as Tabassum tucked her dupatta closely around her face, closed her eyes and lifted up her hands, murmuring Arabic under her breath. The three bottles of water were placed so she could feel that she was praying in the correct direction, towards Mecca. In spite of the telephones ringing, conversations, and people walking in and out, Tabassum was entirely focused on her prayers. For a couple of minutes a corner of our office was filled with peace and devotion.

It is these moments that I will most miss – the unexpected and unadulterated, if transitory, window through to another’s world and life. AWWD’s community workers have been open and genuine with me, inviting me into their homes and lives, with no expectation of anything in return except friendship. I know that they have given a lot more than I have given back: if ever I am disgruntled or complaining of life back home, I will think back to a beautiful blind woman living in atrocious conditions, unable to see but able to bring joy and a smile to those she meets, who has experienced the darkness of life that I can scarcely imagine, but who is herself a light to those around her.

Although at times I did find Kolkata as a city fairly difficult, frequently needing the (comparitive) peace of my room to recover, there can be no getting away from the fact that I will miss it. Kolkata is a passionate city: with so much humanity squeezed together in such a relatively small area, it vibrates with life. In spite of the huge divide between rich and poor, and the exclusion of many from the riches the city has to offer, it is relatively safe (with the substantial exception of the driving). I could walk through the slums with little fear of robbery. And it is a city with significant religious and ethnic diversity, of which Kolkatans are justly proud. With a 40% Muslim minority, Christians, Jews as well as Hindus, in the last few decades Kolkata has not seen the religious violence that has affected other parts of India. Lakshmi, a Hindu, could lead Tabassum, a Muslim, freely through the streets.

So, I will miss the children from my street running up to shake my hand every time I walk past; driving through the city in a taxi - the varied scents of the city wafting through the open windows: smoke, drains, fried food, flowers, and incense; popping over to my local fruit stall and picking up a few mangoes for 50 Rs…. No, I am not going to look back at my time here through rose-tinted spectacles: the brutal reality of life in Kolkata for many of the disabled women I met effectively prevents me from doing this. And so I will have no easy answer for all those who ask me, on my return ‘how was India?’

Before I left for Kolkata I visited some Christian friends who mentioned the following verse. This has had special meaning for me throughout my time in Kolkata, so it seems appropriate to end this chapter of my life with this verse, but at the same time looking to the future:

‘I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them, and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them’.

Isaiah 42: 16