The Cow and the Crow

As we are all packing up and saying our goodbyes, here is a snap shot of something that Em and I witnessed the other day walking along the Park Circus train tracks. We see cows, crows and all other animals along our walk everyday but this moment stuck out more than the others and led to excellent conversation. The crow was perched on the cow's head. Em and I both see it,look away but then look back because something doesn't seem quite right. The crow was picking at the cow's eye while the cow was still alive yet the cow didn't even try to get up and fight it off. Em and I were disgusted that the cow wasn't trying to get the crow to stop and that the crow was doing it in the first place.

It is such an obvious microcosm for how things appear to be at times in Kolkata. People are literally asleep on the ground, completely vulnerable and continually being beaten down whether it is from sickness, poverty, corruption, cultural traditions or a number of other things. Our reaction also fit with the larger picture. Why didn't the cow simply get up? Why don't people we see living their lives on the streets or in the slums just get out of it, get treatment, get a job, work harder? It is so easy to fall into this cycle of victim blaming. Upon closer inspection, Em and I might have seen that the cow was tethered to the post so that it couldn't move or that it had no energy to move because all it eats is the trash that it was laying on. Granted, not all of the people who we see are free of blame for their situations but most are due to circumstances out of their control, especially the children. They are born into it and learn that life. Maybe the father that Anne and I see outside of Shanti Dan everyday isn't working because he cannot use his withered legs not because he is lazy or the boy who followed me and Kristy down Sudder Street the other day asking for money had to report to a beggar master and would get beaten if he didn't have money. There usually is a reason why a person is in the situation they are in but we are not likely to automatically think that such bad things could happen to someone who doesn't deserve it. Once I start to think about things like this, I realize how easily it could have been me in that situation. Instead of walking back from dancing late at night, I could be that person sleeping on the sidewalk. I am so lucky to have been born into the family that I was.

Em and I were players in this snapshot too. What responsibility did we have to this cow? Should we have chased the crow away? Untied the cow? Fed the cow better food? We didn't do anything- we kept on walking. On a more positive note, we don't ignore people in need while we are here, rather we are quite active. Whether it is at Premm Dan, Daya Dan, Shanti Dan, Shishu Bhavan, Kalighat, Brother Xavier's or Sabera we are taking the time to stop and be with those in need. After we saw the cow and the crow, Em and I continued to talk about it. Once we became aware of what is going on, we were deeply moved. Similarly, when we are done with working at all of these sites, we continue to talk about them at Blue Sky, our walks and nightly reflections. Do we move on? Do we keep talking about it? What action should we take? What do we do once we return to the US? There is no way we will ever forget what we have experienced in India but it is up to us to do something with those experiences.

We are here in Kolkata and are flooded with new images of poverty, illness and loneliness. There are tons of intense, fun, new and exciting experiences that have happened to us while we have been here. Certain things that were normal to us before, no longer are and things that were abnormal before are now normal. We have only been here 3 weeks but once you see, feel and experience Kolkata it will not go away. We cannot undo the things that we have seen and we are grown because of our experiences here. Although we might not realize that we are changed right away, our family and friends back home might notice that we have. We are so excited to return home and see you all but are sad to leave each other and our bondus here.