Disha visit

This morning I visited an NGO called the Disha Foundation. Neena Aunty, its director, is another one of the extremely welcoming and helpful Calcutta contacts that Sumita has put me in touch with. The foundation is set up near the Manoharpukur slum--which is one of the biggest in south Kolkata-- and runs an awesome school, from montessori to grade 10, for about 300 kids from the slum.  I briefly dropped into a class... they all said "good morning aunty" to me in unison :)

After a good introduction to the NGO and details of its work, Neena Aunty and I talked about the migration issues I'm interested in. I observed that Calcutta doesn't seem to have the rampant discrimination and backlash against migrants that is so evident in Bombay (i don't mean to say its non-existent... just not obvious).

She explained this by invoking a special Bengali quality... she used the word bhadralok to describe it. Its a term I've heard several times by now... it means gentle or well-mannered person, and invokes colonial-era images of middle-class cooperation with the British as well as a rising education base.

She went on to describe Bengalis as "non-militant types" who don't like to toil. They are happy to have the Biharis fill the hard day-laborer types of jobs. (And, she explained, the Biharis are happy to do this work... she said the Bihari migrants know that the government work is informally reserved for Bengalis and they don't try to get into it. I'll have to look further into this...)

I asked her if she was only describing an upper and middle class Bengali quality. But she said that even poor Bengali migrant women, who come to Calcutta from the rural areas of West Bengal, prefer to work as ayas (nannies), clothes washers and nurse helpers.

What about the men, I asked her? She laughed and said the men like to fish and laze. And also prefer jobs like bus conductors or menial white collar positions. One of Neena Aunty's employees, sitting in the office with us, wholeheartedly agreed with this entire characterization.  Again, the whole exchange had a slight air of amusement to it.

There are some interesting comparisons to make between this and the stereotypes I heard about Maharashtrians in Bombay.  People would often say that Maharashtrians prefer easy, white collar jobs... they don't want to do the hard physical work.  Basically the same attitude about Bengalis that I've just described... but somehow, in Mumbai it sounded negative, and here it doesn't seem to be an insult at all.  Also, I don't think anyone would describe the Maharashtrian identity as gentle. In fact, its is quite the opposite... the Maharashtrian hero is a 17th century king called Shivaji... he is revered because of his military prowess and his feat of saving Maharashtrian lands from Muslim conquest.  Bengali heroes seem to be writers and poets.

Anyway.... so far I feel like I have a collection of generalizations and stereotypes. Tomorrow I'll be back at Disha.  I'm meeting up with one of the women who works at the school.  She was nice enough to agree to take me around her slum neighborhood and introduce me to people.  Also, I am going to be involved in Disha's computer classes for adults... that'll be really good exposure to both Bengali and Bihari migrants. So hopefully I am working my way toward learning about people's specific experiences.