andamu

Nancy Gandhi again has prompted memories, with her photograph of a pipal tree in Calcutta with roots growing through a ruined wall.
Now I admit you have to be rather skilled in free-flow association to get from that to the memories I am talking about, but that's the way my head works.
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I first set foot on Indian soil in Calcutta. In the latter part of May. In the middle of a heatwave that killed thousands along the eastern part of India.
We were staying in the Fairlawn Hotel, a decent, (mostly) clean hotel with window air conditioners, and a million miles removed from the five star opulence available to moneyed tourists. This was just the sort of hotel a Westerner want to stay in who doesn't exactly want to rough it, but who doesn't want to have a fishbowl isolated experience either.

We tried venturing outside a couple of times during our three day stay in the city - that after all was the reason we didn't catch the connecting train/plane immediately upon arrival - but the heat was an experience unimaginable to me before.
When we went to a museum, for instance, the journey there held interest, and the first few exhibits captivated me, but the heat insidiously intruded, pressing down on me, sending rivulets (oh, who am I kidding - gushing rivers) of perspiration down the backs of my legs, down my spine, streaming from my hair across my forehead, diverted by my eyebrows and trickling down my throat.
Eventually we joined the other visitors to the museum in clustering (at first surreptiously, later without any pretense or apology) in front of the air movers (large, powerful fans) placed in a few of the exhibition halls. And these weren't whimpy westerners either, which is what signaled to us that it was time to retreat to the hotel. We weren't absorbing anything from the museum displays, and even other Indians were finding it too hot to do much else.
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We tried other short trips outside, taking it easy, and returning when we felt enervated - just enough for me to build up a few unforgettable, essentially Calcuttan images, without getting to see all the touristy highlights like the Victoria Memorial (glimpsed only from a taxi window).

One such image is the ticket collector, hanging by one arm from the pole outside an overcrowded bus, with banknotes folded lengthwise tucked between each two fingers in his fist, sort of a cross between a paper fan and knuckle-dusters, while clicking his clippers. Apparently he dare not ask anyone outright to buy a ticket, because it would be a mortal insult should that person already have one (and many conductors have been badly beaten to prove the fact). All he can do is click his ticket clipper, prompting purchase where appropriate.

Another is that of some small vendors, their stores literally holes-in-the-wall. (Aha, says the astute reader - if those haven't all given up by now - so this is where she was going with it.)

On the outside of some buildings there are niches, about five feet wide, about three feet deep and three feet high, the whole thing set a little below hip-height into the wall. The bottom (floor) would be covered with cloth, on which would be arrayed the vendor's stock, mainly cigarettes, matches, paan, some candy, a few soda bottles. Some of the smaller items might be suspended in strips from the top (ceiling) of the shoplet. There might be a radio tucked in somewhere playing some filmi music, and perhaps a few images of gods with garlands.

Apart from the size and the unusual location, this might not sound too remarkable, but now add the sight of the shopkeeper actually sitting inside, cross-legged in the middle of his wares, king of his realm: a 45 cubic feet hole in the wall.