The ease in which most of my fellow travelers accepted a twenty-four hour delay in their travel plans amazed me. I wanted to be on my way! My time in India was limited and it seemed absurd to waste a day languishing in a hot train with my destination so close. But beyond the inconvenience of being stuck in a muddy town desperately short of attractions, I was curious to see what a citywide strike looked like. The idea of a city as vital and congested as Calcutta frozen for a day in self-imposed inactivity was hard to imagine. The more I was told to forget about getting to Calcutta that afternoon the more I wanted to try to penetrate the shuttered city. The problem, however, was how does one get into a city closed to the outside world.

I exited to train station and quickly exhausted the most obvious options for continuing my journey to Calcutta. Not a single bus has headed north and all the taxi drivers just shook their heads lazily when the name Calcutta passed by lips. I discovered from talking to the taxi-wallas that a crossroads on the main north-south trunk road was due west about three kilometers. One man suggested that this was the only possible place where I might find a ride heading north. With this slim bit of information I headed west through the bus station towards a small road cutting through the fields. On the very edge of the bus station I happened upon a bewildered French couple that had been busily looking for a ride too. They seemed a bit frantic and with a troubled tone in their voice they said that they had a flight from Calcutta's dum-dum airport that evening. I tried to reassure them that it was extremely unlikely that any flight would be leaving Calcutta that evening. I did not allay their fears and when they heard I was seeking a ride on the highway they asked to come along. With the informal familiarity that comes from chance encounters in foreign countries I said, "why not, come on". With out partnership formed, our small band walked west along some recently harvested fields in the growing heat of the late morning.