Back in February 2010, I visited India for the first time. I was traveling alone in the West Bengal for 2 weeks. My first few days was spent in an outskirt of the city, a rustic beautiful town called Barrackpore, before heading back to the state capital city, Kolkata where I spent the rest of my trip.
I was very much soaking myself into travel and film photography back then. After watching a documentary film called Kids With Cameras in 2009, I was so inspired by it. With a leap of faith, I booked my flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kolkata, got my Indian visa done and about 2 weeks before Chinese New Year I made my way to India! At first, everything felt so foreign to me. Getting a culture shock was almost inevitable! I was overwhelmed by what I saw and experienced around me. The good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, all came in a package.
Yes, there were things that drove me nuts such as the smell of urine because everywhere seemed like an open public loo for the local men in public places, piles of rubbish along the streets, the sacred cows were feasting on the rubbish and the endless noise of honking exhaust gas-puking vehicles, everything seemed so chaotic, as I recall the feelings I had at the time. After about a week in the city, I decided to slow down my pace in exploring around. Instead of giving the pressure to myself that I must hit one hundred location check-ins in a day like how being in a travel group tour would be like, the kind that touch and go, if you will, I just wanted to stay in my hotel room, sleep in and watch TV. And I did. Catching up on sleep had never had so good. Only a few times in a day I would go out to buy my meals back to enjoy my own company in my own comfort zone. It felt so much like I was living like a local than a tourist. Sort of.
Having too much time on my hand, one day, I thought it would be great to get some nice postcards from the store to send back to Malaysia, to myself, as a memory of this city that I have visited. After searching high and low around where I was staying, not even one postcard design I found that really could satisfy my taste. That was when I decided to make my own instead! I bought a piece of white Manila card and liquid glue from the stationery store, rolled up my illustrator sleeves and got my hands dirty with colours. Luckily, I brought along some drawing and painting gears with me on the trip. Drew some scenes of the city on the blank card, cut them up into various sizes, pasted stamps on them and with my fingers crossed, I sent them their way to Malaysia.
All 4 postcards did arrive not too long after I came home from the trip. Here they are.
I have no intention to paint India in an unflattering light from the experience I described earlier. There is so much more to the country that one needs an open mind and heart to see her beauty in the midst of the chaos. I could not end this post without mentioning about the hospitality of the local people I met! As a guest, was treated like no Malaysian would treat their next door neighbour. I had a chance to stay in a seminary in a peaceful countryside, visit a high school nearby where the students in class went to were over-excited and asked me for my autographs as though I was a celebrity. How hilarious, I thought to myself! I was invited to the homes of a few students from the school in the village next to it, where I was treated with so much love and warmth. I got to taste the best biryani rice I have ever had at a home of a local Indian-born Chinese family where they speak in Hindi instead of their mother tongue in their household. I had a chance to try the different means of public transport where a particular one had my heart pumping fast the most was siting in an open-air on a piece of wooden board attached to the back of a bicycle ridden by a cycle-wallah at peak hour when huge buses puked black smoke in my face was something to endure along the journey to an orphanage home. That was in Barrackpore.
Even in the city of Kolkata, people were helpful and friendly to show me the way when I was lost and needed a direction. Curious kids would run up to me and excitedly ask where am I from. I was always being mistaken as being either a Japanese, Korean or Mainland Chinese. I must say that Indians are very camera-friendly people. So many that I came across, happily flashed their smiles at me when my camera was pointing at them and some would ask me to have them photographed. No wonder photographers love India!
There is so much more I could tell about my encounters on this very short trip but perhaps we will leave it to another post. Things could have changed since my last visit, 9 years ago, who knows? I have to say, India is indeed INCREDIBLE, in many ways. You can never be over-prepared or under-prepared for her because she is going to surprise you anyway. In ways you can never imagine.
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