MY INDIAN ARCHIVE: WOOD STREET 10 – 700071 CALCUTTA

Angelo,  Susama (or more formal: professor Chatterjee) and me in prof. Chatterjee’s apartment;  Wood Street 10 – an Victiorian townhouse next to the posh Saturday Club. November 1993.

I  came to Calcutta to work for Mother Teresa  – but Calcutta turned out to be so much more. I was 18 years old and I met a metropol filled with contrasts maintained especially by my wonderful landlady Susama. (She’d been professor in English at Rabindranath Tagore’s experimental outdoor university in Shantiniketan). She deeply disliked Mother Teresa. Today I can admit I understand her dislike somehow. I got to know Mother personally through some unfortunate coincidences: i got severe typhoid fever and was reconvalesent in one of her monasteries. What really opened my eyes this year was though Susama – and Satyajit Ray’s films (llustrated below by a poster from his film Abhijan) and Pasolini’s poetry. I got to know Pasolini through my dear Italian co-worker, rescuer-turned-into-nurse – and friend – Angelo.

Satyajit Ray (1962): “Abhijan (The Expidition)”. Original Movie Poster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGY6e6e2sK0