Statement: THE
BUTCHERS OF CALCUTTA
On my second day visiting
Calcutta, I decided to explore the Sir Stuart Hogg Bazaar, (often called New
Market), a 130 year old, chaotic, crowded interior mall with hundreds of little
shops. It's been said you can buy anything from a needle to an elephant (on
order) in its stalls.
Overwhelmed by the sheer
stimulation and insistent touts, I headed out through one of the back doors and
ended up in an enormous meat market, the size and intensity of the old Fulton's
Fish Market in New York City's South Street Seaport. It even looked like the
old Fulton's, with an open hall punctuated by wrought iron columns and high,
vaulted ceilings. As it was near the end of the day only a few stalls were
occupied. There, whole, gutted carcasses of goat were hung up being swiftly
dismantled. The butchers let me know that the height of activity occurs before
dawn. I let them know I'd like to return.
Every remaining early morning of
my stay, for about twelve days, I came back to observe and document. These
photographs are the result.
I have no knowledge of how the
poor sanitation evident in these images impacts the general health of the
population but it must be substantial. This was not my concern. Rather, I was
fascinated by these butchers' devotion to their jobs and traditions, their
lifestyle and skills. As important, I reveled in the visual "beauty,"
the textures and colors, and the strange agelessness of the architecture.
-Tim Feresten
June 2008