Born into privilege

I finally watched "Born into Brothels", the documentary film about the children of Calcutta's red-light districts. I had the uncomfortable feeling while watching it that I knew all the characters, had walked past them on the streets, or had sat beside them on the bus and had somehow not noticed the human aspects of their existence. They had all become part of the indistinct and largely ignored background in the canvas of My Idea of Calcutta. For the first time, I saw english subtitles translating bengali expletives and real characters using turns of phrase which I have heard around me all my life, in very unfamiliar contexts. The idiom of their expression and the texture of their lives captured in film seemed to mock me, pointing to the fact that it took an American documentary to inform me about a way of life which has always existed under my very nose. Last time we spoke, Ani insisted it was a typical "westerner shoots eastern squallor" routine. Well, yes. But is there very much else that is noticeable to a westerner in Calcutta? She has seen the pretty Victorian buildings in better shape in England; there are more cultural events in Ann Arbor any given year than in Calcutta; and there are broader rivers, prettier bridges and more ecelectic cuisines to be found in all the continents. Sometimes, cliches exist with good reasons. So the experience of watching this documentary was moving, very different from what watching a similar one about the brothels of New York on National Geographic might have been.