How a Bollywood inspired 3 Idiots restaurant is a microcosm of war profiteering

Calais (Nord-Pas-de-Calais), France: There are more than 20 nationalities and a population of up to 5,000 in the sprawling migrant camp in the French port city of Calais. There's every shade of brown and ecru from Africa, Central Asia and the Arab countries, none are Indians, yet sounds of Bollywood songs and restaurants named after movies reverberate all around.

Umaid, from Kunduz in Afghanistan, is sitting on the sideways of the road leading to the camp site, head bent down, with a mobile phone in hand softly blaring chitthi aayi hai watan se chitthi aayi hai, the famous Pankaj Udhas song, that every Indian away from homeland still weeps to. "I have just got here a few days ago,'' Umaid says in Urdu as if to explain the choice of song he was listening to. He is not alone, there are thousands of inhabitants who have arrived here with a hope to illegally ferry themselves across the English Channel or la Manche or to cross the Eurotunnel and land in England. The Jungle is the unofficial, inexistent place on the map which operates as a stopover smuggling point to UK.

Welcome to the Jungle
The town of Calais on the northern shores is the closest one can get to England from France. On the easternmost periphery at the edge of zone industrial, and just under the highway what once used to be a landfill site is now a swamp. Overgrown bushes have been cleared to set-up tents and make-shift shelters by refugees, migrants and economic immigrants fleeing from the desperation of wars, famine and ethnic conflicts.

At the entrance to the Jungle in the market area, on both sides of a mucky unpaved way are restaurants and cafes promising spicy food and hot showers, people speak Urdu and suddenly one gets the feeling of being back home in India. Three Idiots and PK restaurant-confirms the doubt of a South Asian presence. Run by three Pakistani friends, the restaurant is a recreational hub for Afghan and Pakistani refugees where they come to eat some meat samosa, kebabs, charge their mobile phones and watch Bollywood movies, a feeling of home away from home.

The recent surge when over a million refugees crossed over from the Middle East, Africa and Asia to enter Europe has converted the sprawling Jungle, a refugee camp, into a city of its own. Small shacks are lined up with grocery shops selling soaps, toothpastes, clothes, medicines, torches, batteries, books, snickers, biscuits, beverages, bicycles, phone chargers, packs of hand-rolled cigarettes whatever materialistic items the refugees couldn't carry on their long and dangerous journeys can be found here. And irrefutably it is the Afghans and Pakistani nationals that have turned into tradesmen, profiteering from the swelling refugee population.

One of the owners of the PK restaurant who says his name is Awesome and claims to be from Peshawar is a self-obsessed Bollywood fan. "I come from Qissa Khawani Bazar, the same street where Dalip (Dilip) Kumar is from. All the top actors of Bollywood, the Khans and the Kapoors have origin in Pakistan,'' he says beaming with pride.

The restaurant is a large carpeted hall with a small kitchen and a grocery store selling chocolates, food items on the side entrance, brought from the UK and France. A stuffed yellow tiger with a cowboy hat is a showpiece attraction in the centre and behind it is a TV screen mounted on a wooden wall. On the sides, mostly male Afghan and Pakistani migrants sit to talk to family back home or to simply get some Bollywood entertainment.

I asked Awesome what is he and the 3 Idiot restaurants doing here in Calais, after all he does not appear as other refugees. "No, I have come from England to make business. Because, why not?,'' he says in a British-Asian accent. Sales for meals and food items cost between one euro to 5 euros or more. The consumers of these shops and restaurants are not just the migrants but also volunteers, visiting aid workers, photographers and journalists. And shopkeepers can earn from 1,200 euros to 2,000 euros depending on the fluctuating population of the camp.

Volunteers from the camp say the owners of the restaurant have houses in England and one was kicked out from Denmark due to visa issues. ``They are here to make money out of refugees,'' says Polly Martin, a volunteer with British charity A Home for Winter. The young French-British student is a regular at the Jungle for volunteering and research on the refugee movement. "There are many here profiteering from the desperate refugees promising them to reach UK.''

The Jungle in Calais, has been around in some form or the other since the 90s. Being a port town, it has historically been used by refugees and migrants alike to cross France and reach the UK. Since the last five years when conflicts flared up simultaneously across Arabic and African-speaking nations, the population in the Jungle too swelled.

Police evictions and protests from the local residents have shifted the camp numerous times. At its current location, the shape and size too has altered variably. Presently, its permanent existence at any given time has at least 3,000 inhabitants has resulted in its own make-shift economy.

The Jungle like its own rules has toxic economy filled with traffickers, money launderers, drug dealers largely ran by the Afghan-Pakistani nationals. Ravaged by war since 1970s, the locals here who were displaced and migrated to Pakistan have an upper hand on how to deal in conflict situations. The presence of Afghan has also brought opium and heroin in the camp. Finding hashish is easier. Hands rolled cigarettes wrapped in tin foil are sold ten for an euro.

There's also schools teaching English and French—both the languages are important when the asylum claims are approved either in France or UK—a disco club, church, mosques, medical units.

Hundreds of migrants die or are injured trying to get to UK by attempting to cross the fenced wires, hiding in the cargo trucks plying through the Eurotunnel or in the trains. The Afghans and Egyptian traffickers promise to send them over to UK in exchange of money: prices vary from 3000-5000 pound per person. Those who still have some money and are lucky make their way either alone or through traffickers. Others return back to Jungle only to try again. As the saying goes in the camp, you are free to arrive in the Jungle but you are not free to leave.