Itadaki Danshi (Gift-Grabbing Boy) Sushil in Kolkata 🇮🇳 Part 1: The Beginning - I Tried Following Him [Traveling at the End of the 20th Century #16]
September 1990, Calcutta (Kolkata), India
In the 20th century, when you spoke of Asian travelers, you meant Japanese people. I met them everywhere.
Even when meeting for the first time, for some reason, people would sometimes confide their worries or talk at length. Well, conversely, there were also people I wanted to avoid.
In the midst of a raw, foreign culture, there was no shortage of episodes that one couldn't fully digest alone, and there is usually some kind of inner conflict involved in choosing to travel to a developing country. Perhaps because the nuances and background of being Japanese are easy to understand, and because we happened to cross paths here, people felt like talking about something honestly without any concern for gain or loss.
On the other hand, even if we were involved, there were times when the situation was one to be concerned about.
There are a few people who left me with somewhat bitter, heavy memories.
This time, it's a case among them that is, well, just bittersweet.
I walk from the Salvation Army dormitory on Sudder Street, the backpacker street, to the Eastern Railway foreign ticket office as usual.
(The header image is from Google Maps Street View. The Salvation Army is still there, but the price has gone up considerably.)
I didn't mind it, but the 2.5km route on the map is full of obstacles: dodging auto-rickshaws, failing to dodge them and having to wash my sandals—which were covered in cow dung—with water spraying from a burst pipe on the side of the road, shaking off someone who was following me, climbing over holes in the road, and peeking at stalls selling snacks, so it takes quite a long time.
But since this is my fourth time, I know the way, and I love this big city.
I finally bought a ticket to Bangkok for one week later.
It's the fourth month of my trip, which is a bit short, but since I heard over the phone that my mother's illness had recurred and she was hospitalized, I have no hesitation in cutting it short.
Departure for Bangkok is in one week.
Assuming I return to Calcutta the day before, I have time to go somewhere. Thinking that, I decided on my first trip to Bodh Gaya.
Railway offices in Indian cities have windows exclusively for foreigners, and (unlike China at the time) they prioritize booking you at the official rate.
I was able to get a ticket for the next night's departure without any trouble.
Next, I'll stop by the nearby Kolkata GPO.
<Click here for more on the GPO ↓>
Many people are sitting on the stairs at the entrance. Among the postcard sellers, pen sellers, and banana sellers, there are also men holding white cloth, needles, and thread who you wouldn't know were shopkeepers at first glance.
They are parcel wrappers.
This part is the stairs.
There were rules for so-called parcels in India.
You wrap the luggage (often a box) in white(ish) cloth and sew it up roughly. The fact that the post office would even seal the seams with wax in some places—was that to deter people from openly stealing the contents? But it looks kind of cool.
Sew it up in white cloth. It's sealed with wax.
Is the address a sticker?
When I sent luggage from Kathmandu, I tried buying the cloth and doing the sewing myself, but it's quite a hassle. In most cases, you give this cloth-wrapping uncle 10-20 Rs and have him sew it for you. The address is written directly on the white cloth with a firm hand. That's because there's no such thing as a permanent marker around, so you have no choice but to write the address and recipient's name directly on the cloth with your own ballpoint pen, which is already struggling to produce ink.
When I came out, a small man approached me with a beaming smile on the stairs.
At a glance, I knew he was someone trying to do something with a foreigner.
A pusher? A scammer? A salesman?
Either way, I didn't need anything, so I decided to dodge him anyway.
He stood in my way and spoke to me in English. Then, he handed me a small notebook written in English and Japanese. If there are Japanese characters, I end up looking at them.
The owner of the notebook seems to be someone named Mana-san. Many Japanese people have written comments about Mana-san.
"He sewed my package carefully for a small amount of money. Thank you, Mana-san."
"In India, where I've been getting ripped off the whole time, this is the first time I've met someone who does their job so seriously."
"Mana-san can't speak English, but he does a proper job. Keep up the good work."
The praise goes on like that.
This kind of review is quite useful. Because even if they are good talkers, almost no Indians can read Japanese properly. It's highly credible.
If someone were truly malicious or had been scammed and had a terrible experience, they wouldn't be able to hold onto such a notebook in the first place. At best, the result would be something like "Watch out for this guy" being scribbled and posted at a long-established tourist guesthouse.
Mana-san must be a good person.
He sits on a burlap sack on the ground in front of the GPO from morning till night, seriously wrapping and sewing up parcels in cloth, and even though he can't speak English, he shows foreigners a menu with the necessary items written in English, doing honest business. He'll never be rich, but honesty is a virtue. For the people he meets, he might be the only good memory for a foreign tourist who has been ripped off and had a miserable time.
But the chemical-wash denim guy smiling and holding out that notebook in front of me is not necessarily Mana-san.
This was my second time in India. By that time, I had spent a total of 4 months in India, and if you add Nepal and Bangladesh, which are in a relatively similar cultural sphere, it was over 7 months. So, I had over a year and a few months of experience as an Asian backpacker.
Without even needing to bring up that experience, I knew this guy was a different person from the one in the notebook.
First, his attire is different.
At the time, jeans were not for people in the working class who worked seriously.
If he were a parcel-wrapping craftsman, he would be wearing a lungi on the bottom and a pajama or a frayed shirt on top.
People around there who work with their fellow countrymen—white-collar workers wear shirts and business-style slacks, while blue-collar workers, craftsmen, and those relaxing have a high rate of wearing ethnic clothing like lungis or dhotis.
People who work on the street look like this.
Because for me, those chemical-wash jeans weren't cool at all, but for Indian men at the time, it was proof that they considered themselves stylish. The very act of wearing clothes influenced by movie actors is a sign that they aren't exactly "honest" folk. Thinking back, it was a hairstyle modeled after the movie actors of the time.
There were also a lot of people who were against it.
Second,
If it were Mana-san, he wouldn't speak English. Even if he did, it would be the bare minimum necessary for business. Because that's what's written in the notebook.
And he wouldn't stand around waiting for foreigners. He would definitely be sitting on the ground, carrying his tools of the trade, like cloth and such.
He wouldn't show a smile like this. Even if he were to call out to a customer carrying luggage.
When I read to the end of the notebook, there was a caricature of Manu-san drawn by someone. He was thin, just as I had imagined, and he was wearing a cloth on his head, as Indian people often do.
"Thank you, Manu-san," it said.
I knew it. He looks nothing like the guy in front of me.
Then the notebook was snatched away. He must have realized it was bad.
As a test,
"Is this your notebook?"
I said, and he finally nodded.
Ho, impersonation confirmed.
Usually, I would have left quickly because it's annoying to have him follow me any further, but I didn't do that.
When I ignored his invitation to go to a sari shop,
"I have a girlfriend, Eriko-san (pseudonym). I really want to introduce you to Eriko-san," he said.
"Eriko-san," calling her with the "san" suffix—is she really Japanese? Why does he want to introduce me?
I suddenly became interested.
I decided to follow him.As I left the GPO, I saw him drop the notebook from earlier into a basket next to a certain uncle with his back turned. It was the uncle who looked exactly like the caricature from earlier.
Goodbye, the real, honest Manu-san.
Manu-san, I think you should charge a little for the notebook rental fee.
I brushed off his talk about knowing a good sari shop and had him guide me to where Eriko-san was.
Eriko-san was in a room at a certain hotel north of Sudder Street, which was mid-range (though the level in India at the time was low).
Our first words to each other were
"Ah!"
That was it.
Because about two weeks ago, she had spoken to me at the dormitory where I was staying. She asked how to go about buying a train ticket to Varanasi. She wanted a ticket for the next day's departure. So, I showed her the location of the Eastern Railway office using the map in her copy of 'Chikyu no Arukikata' (Globe-Trotter Travel Guide).
After that, I went to Darjeeling and Sikkim, returned to Calcutta, and here I am now, having just bought a ticket to Gaya for tomorrow.
Why are you here instead of going to Varanasi?
And who is this man next to you?
<Continued in Itadaki Danshi (Gift-Grabbing Boy) Sushil Part 2: The Development>