is it the city?

The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilized governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification.... The universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers – possibly congratulating themselves for imparting what they imagine as salutary lessons? I for my part want to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who for their so-called insignificance are liable to suffer a degradation not fit for human beings
Rabindranath Tagore, writing to the British Viceroy of India, asking to be relieved of the knighthood he had accepted four years earlier

Is it the city? Looking at the heart-breaking poverty, you’d have to be cruel to see happiness here. And yet even at the heart of this burden is a story that makes the world come to Kolkata, rather than shun it. It is the reason why National Geographic did a story on its cycle rickshaws in April this year. It is the marvel of things so unbearable and yet so inherently a part of daily life. Author Calvin Trillin described the sight of one: ‘What came into view was a rickshaw. Instead of being pulled by a horse, it was being pulled by a man – usually a skinny, bedraggled, barefoot man who didn’t look quite up to the task.’

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