Walking, Talking and Ripping the Heads of Chickens

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Today was bit less intense. After another bowl of granola and yogurt (trying to avoid milk because it’s not always pasteurized), I grabbed my luggage, checked out with the rest of the team and headed back to headquarters.

Being there was comforting. The staff often spends their days in dangerous and dark places, but within the walls of headquarters, you feel nothing but a peaceful presence. All the employees, investigators, lawyers, social workers, admin, greeted us when we entered.

The plan was to be briefed on an upcoming raid. Because of a number of circumstances, the investigators needed more time, so the raid, and our briefing, were postponed.

Instead, we went on a “culture shock” walk through the neighborhoods. To say that 10 white people with cameras looked out of place is an understatement. I was getting more used to the stares, however and wasn’t shy about taking pictures, this being my last day in Kolkata.
After a five-minute walk, we entered a market. It looked to me like an abandoned building, but the smell suggested otherwise. Pike Place this was not. Everywhere you turned there were tables of fish, cages with live chickens or racks of raw meat. At every stall there was this half-moon shaped blade attached to a table. It was about 2 feet long. A man would grab a fish, or a chicken, or whatever, basically straddle the blade and slice the meat, blood oozing everywhere. The man I watched has no shoes on by the way. I got some great shots of wooden vats full of blood and guts.

It was a bit intimidating as we were 10 foreigners in this dark market place surrounded by Indian men, all staring and talking to us in Bengali. We didn’t stay long.

Kolkata Fried Chicken-We exited the building and then the “fun” started. There was a stall of live chickens. A man grabbed a live chicken, held it up for us to see, and promptly twisted it’s head 360°. Lucky for me I had the video camera rolling! He then sliced its head off with the moon blade. The body wiggled in his hands and blood squirted like stepping on a ketchup bottle. Ten seconds later, what was once a live chicken was chunks of deskinned raw meat. It reminded me of Sarah Palin pardoning her turkey while the turkey killer in the background kept shoving turkeys down the Cone of Death.

I ordered vegetarian pasta for lunch.