Photographers Blog

City of joy

By Rupak de Chowdhuri

It’s festive time in Kolkata, with the Durga festival celebrated across the city, before Diwali celebrations fill the city with light. Kolkata has been called the “City of Joy,” a title which was immortalized in a book by Dominique Lapierre. It tells the story of the poorest of the poor who still somehow find hope and joy in life. Little did I know I was about to come face-to-face with such a story.

I hunt for pictures every day. One day, I was looking for pictures when an old friend told me to go to a place where I was guaranteed to find a good story. Because of my curious nature, I started to walk in search of the story I’d been told about in the middle of Kolkata. I started searching among the food stalls because I wouldn’t believe it until I saw them myself.

At last I found them. And I stood stunned, like other customers in front of the food stall. I watched for half an hour.

The next day I came back and started talking to other people at the food stall. The other workers said they were a happy family once. They lived nearby for forty years. A few years ago, they moved to a village about 45 minutes away by train. I went home but I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I didn’t sleep at all that night.

Sheltering mental patients

At an Indonesian center for mental patients run by the Galuh Foundation, I found Totok.  A patient who had just taken his morning shower and shaved. Totok used to be a thug in a market, and was feared for his habit of beating up vendors. One day, the vendors’ anger peaked and they beat Totok  up, leaving him with physical injuries and mental damage.

I read about the foundation in a local newspaper, in an article about a wedding between a  female patient and an employee of the foundation. The foundation was set up in 1982 by Gendu Mulatif in Bekasi, on the outskirts of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. Mulatif used his money to build a compound to take care of homeless patients who had been taken in from the streets. Once admitted, he treated them with medicinal herbals and changed their diet to vegetarian.

Head nurse Suharyono (L) and Suharyoso (R) bring in a man suffering from mental illness (C) shortly after finding him at a street in East Bekasi, outskirt of Jakarta November 5, 2009.  REUTERS/Beawiharta

The conditions at the foundation are a far cry from the centers funded by the government. Only a few walls separate the modest building, which houses a kitchen, a laundry room, the officers and the patients.