English Charm Comes To Calcutta.

The above title appears on the cover of this month’s “The World of Interiors” magazine. It caught my eye for a number of reasons, none of them related to decorating. The last time English charm came to Calcutta was, I believe, during the Raj, when India was part of the British Empire. Among the charming practices of the time were being “blown from cannon,” in which an unlucky Indian was draped over the mouth of a cannon and it was fired. There’s also the infamous “Black Hole of Calcutta,” a fourteen by eighteen foot room in which one hundred and forty six British soldiers were imprisoned. By the next morning, heat, suffocation and exhaustion had claimed all but twenty three - or so the British would have us believe. "Thugees" were also active at the time. They were a cult of assassins, who worshipped the Hindu goddess, Kali. First, they befriended a group of British travelers, then strangled them all in their sleep. If you don't believe me, I refer you to the movies, "Gunga Din" (1939) and "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom" (1984). All of which militates against linking the notion of “English charm” with “Calcutta.”

I’ve never been to the city in question, so I can’t judge its own level of charm. Yet, I think we can all agree that Calcutta has an image problem. What other place - in the world - is so closely associated with abject, grinding poverty and a quality of life that's abysmal? Mother Theresa could have gone to Patterson, New Jersey, but, no, she went to Calcutta. What’s more, she worked there for fifty years and only put a dent in the problem. There are still no movies called, “Honeymoon in Calcutta” and it won’t be knocking Cancun off the list of favorite vacation spots for a while. So I bought the August issue of “The World of Interiors” and read the article by Henry Wilson with more than usual interest.

The truth is deflating. All the more so for being, contrary to Oscar Wilde, pure and simple. The article is about a successful, English antiques dealer, David Earp, who moved to Calcutta in 1998 and devotes himself to helping street children. He started a charity, Shaktara, ten years ago and supports it, in part, by selling native shmatas, to fancy stores in London and New York. Since it’s a magazine about interior design, they show his home in Calcutta. A small, ground-level apartment, it’s furnished in a blend of English and Indian styles that could legitimately be called charming. But I can still dream about about British atrocities and Thugee assassins, can’t I?