The people however are a delight, peaceful and gentle with a sharp intellectual wit. The better off residents do the best they can to help the poor people. Regular readers will know that we do our bit to support a orphanage in the town. A delightful couple, and a lady who does the cooking (on the right with me in the picture) have given their lives to looking after around 25 young children. They go to a good school, are clean and well dressed and amazingly well behaved. Not to say talented kids. This time they put on a small music and poetry show for me and Chatterjee.
Where do these homeless children come from. Well for any number of reasons they end up on the streets, and can fall into the hands of the beggar gangs. From here to tapping on taxi windows in Delhi is not a long journey. The local police when they find a homeless child bring them here. Mr & Mrs Kundu take them in and care for them like their own children. There is zero government support, but local business people make donations of money or food to help. From the AW Freedom Fund we paid for a house renovation including a new roof. This time we fitted a decent kitchen.
We buy jute products here, and I spent four days working on new products and seeing a growing list of local handicraft workers bring their wares, hopeful of becoming suppliers. Most products generally are not suitable for our market, but with a bit of redesigning we can make some interesting things.. but it's a lot of work. Charity is good, but trade is better, because it gives people a chance to make something they can be proud of and with their own efforts improve their lot.
One evening Mr Chatter said to me to come up to the roof terrace (he has built a terrace on the factory roof where we go and sip whiskey of an evening). I was surprised to find all the great and good of Serampore sat in a line. Before them all the children, to the side a crowd from the town including a local journalist I have met before. Mr Chatterjee has made jute duffle bags (like the ones we sell) stuffed them full of goodies one each for all the children... and against secretly organised a ceremonial giving away meeting.
