From a trip long ago...

Spring '03, to be exact.

Version one...

The air is thick. It has substance. As we walk through it, we have to push, putting forth considerable effort to get through. My long, baggy pants--"Made in India" but "Bought at Buckland Hills Mall, Manchester, CT, USA"--cling to my legs. Jasmine suffocates the city--insense that I would later buy at that same store in the mall and try to recreate at home. Rickshaws whip past us. Bare feet, cracked, dirty, and needy bustle around the crowded streets...and our leather sneakers.

Children with deep wells of experience in their eyes, much more than I had at their age, watch and inquire silently. What are they thinking? Hoping? Dreaming?

With hands outstretched, palms up, they demand rupees. I wonder if their screaming bellies let them think of anything else.
________________________________________________________
Version two...

"Aunty, aunty," she mumbles, almost inaudibly. Her eyes, deep wells of experience that I never had at her age, or ever.

"Rupees, ruppees." Her feet bare, cracked, worn. Her skin coated in dust, sticking to her with air that acts as adhesive, that chokes if inhaled too deep. Her frail body wrapped in a crimson sari, the threats fighting to stay together, clinging to her for support.

Around her Calcutta swirls, blurs into a cyclone of senses. Daring you, taunting you to make sense of her. Begging for you to give her just one moment of relief, one reason to believe that this is not all that she is. That this is not all she can be.