A good day in Cal

It was the hottest it has been. We sat sweltering in the office beneath our fans, laughing at the futility of struggle, giving in and becoming limp rags. Shubhradi and I left the office around 5:30 today to run a quick errand. I work in a room with a bunch of windows, but as it's shaded by neighboring buildings, I hadn't noticed that the sky had turned completely pink, from horizon to horizon. When we stepped outside, everything was lit in a radiant shade of pink--from the asphalt to the rickshawallas, from the stray dogs to the road-side tea shops. I remarked on it to Shubhra, and she told me that it's common in the summer. I'd noticed it before, but today was by far the most striking.

In the country, she told me, this time of day has a particular significance. Arranged marriages are well and alive here, and it's the custom for the mother-in-law and father-in-law to be to meet the girl. It bodes well, then, for the girl's parents, to wait until the light is perfect, and can illuminate the scene to their daughter's marital advantage. You do begin to feel that this time of day has mysterious powers. The overwhelming sensation I had until dark was that I was seeing things as they were supposed to be seen, and that the rest of the time, we survive with only mediocre light.

Shubhradi then dropped me off at her favorite bookstore, Seagulls, and I browsed for an hour. It's a beautiful building--completely open, up to the second floor, with a narrow spiral staircase connecting the two uninterupted rows of shelves. The selection was somewhat limited, and completely out of order except for vague segmentation by subject--but that made for fantastic browsing. I picked up a couple of books on women and urban development, and put down ten others I had flipped through. As I was checking out, I noticed a flyer of a reading of a new play, with a discussion afterwards involving a Bengali author, whose book "Those Days," I'm reading right now.

Then, having spent all my pocket change, I walked the long route back home. It still hasn't cooled off very much, and when it's so sticky, you feel as though the bus fumes stick to you when you cross the street. But I walked past dozens of sidewalk book shops and eateries and slums where little babies were running around, some laughing and some crying, with nothing but a string for a good luck charm running around their waists. And the adults in the slums were all sitting round pots of tea, or woks where samosas were frying. As I passed through the park, all the couples were cuddling under the Banyan trees, and the police were performing their usual act of benign neglect.

In other Indian cities, such heavy petting is strongly persecuted by law enforcement. Here, there's a casual air, especially in the parks. I like to think that the police fancy themselves defenders of the peace and the public's right to have a romantic place to snuggle.

Maybe it was the pink light, but Kolkata was beautiful tonight, and I'm happy, and I'm grateful to be here.