By the sewage rendered fetid, by the
sewer
Made impure, By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by
the swamp
Moist and damp ... As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its
bed,
So it spreadChance-directed, chance-erected, laid and
built
On the siltPalace, byre, hovelpoverty and prideSide by side; And, above the packed and pestilential
town, Death looked down.
THAT was how Calcutta seemed to Rudyard Kipling 70 years ago. Last week, slowly recovering from a cholera epidemic that killed 2,000 people, India's biggest city was as much as ever a pesthole, and in the words of the U.N. World Health...
