Kolkata, one night in late June.
'Huh?! I was not expecting that…' My acquaintance takes a step back, clearly a little shocked at my answer: ' I'm in the city volunteering at one of Mother Teresa's orphanages'.
It is the early hours of the morning, in one of the Park Street area's energetic clubs. The dark, crowded room vibrates in a trance of bass and haze of smoke. I wipe my brow for the hundredth time. Clubbing, like everything else in Kolkata, is a very sweaty affair.
This dude from Assam has been trying every pick-up line in the book for the past five minutes. It seems that four European girls are a rare sight and attract quite the attention in these parts. Quite frankly uninterested, I think I have tapped into my way out of this one. I revel in his reaction at my pious reply: a cocktail, a vodka-RedBull (tonight's poison of choice), of bewilderment and disappointment. I explain, shouting over the club's raucous rhythms that my friends here and I are volunteering with the Sisters of Mercy.
'So…you're like, a Christian?' he asks. 'Hell yeah!' I reply enthusiastically, aware of the irony. He doesn't pursue much longer, and I wander back to the dancefloor, relieved, amused and feeling a little bit smug...
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