Trading In

Dear dedicated reader,

This Saturday, I trade in my chalk and duster for a backpack and train tickets. I couldn’t be more excited or more nervous.

Living in India and traveling in India are so different that the latter is like being in another country altogether. Distinguished by my backpack, my camera, my white skin, no matter how long I’ve lived here, no matter what I wear, no matter how well I speak the language, every day becomes my first day in India.

It’s a phenomenon I joke about often and is best illustrated by the following three connected anecdotes from our most recent trip to Mumbai:

Having taken the well beaten path of least resistance (read: Lonely Planet India) in picking our accommodation for our five day sojourn, Melissa and I found ourselves in the known tourist district of Colaba at the southern-most tip of Mumbai. Our hotel had a nice view of the Taj (the nicest hotel in India) from its crumbling location four stories up and one block away. Our welcome to our exulted lodgings was having to politely ask a sleepy eyed construction worker to move just as he was raising his hammer to strike a chisel against the sandbag reinforced wall of the stairwell so we could continue the endless climb to the lobby.

After a refreshing non air-conditioned sleep in our surprisingly bed bug free beds, Melissa and I parted ways in the morning after an indulgent American style breakfast at a local cafe: she, to take her GRE (the whole purpose behind our visit) and me to take in what I could of the sites. I had set my heart on braving the rickety ferries of Mumbai harbor to visit Elephanta Island, home to some temples carved into stone rock faces.

There is a wariness that you must always wear as a traveler here, one that I’ve all but dropped living in the village. The hardened urban shell that I’d perfected while living in Delhi is cracked and in disrepair from living in Kadod, a place where guile is relatively unknown and where its does exist, it is unpracticed and mostly harmless. Walking alone towards the ticket booth for Elephanta Island, however, I felt as one who doesn’t exercise for a long time: nervous I would strain myself or become winded from the interactions I knew were coming.

It was not without reason. As soon as I started walking towards India Gate, one of the most well known landmarks in Mumbai, I was hassled with “Madam, photo?” “Balloon?” “Magic Balls?” “Peanuts?” “Ice Cream?” “PHOTO!”

I kept walking, my eyes looking straight forward. I had a goal and I was going to make it. Arriving at the ticket booth, I stopped, my assured exterior disappearing as I eyed the lines of windows with men sitting behind each. Signs in India have a crowded quality that makes it difficult if you are relying on them to find what you want easily. It is, however, essential that you locate what you want immediately; if not –

“Madam, what are you looking for?” Someone asked me almost immediately.

I decided to just be forthcoming. “I want to go to Elephanta Island,” I said.

“I sell the tickets madam,” this random man told me as he pulled out a bundle from his pocket. “120 rupees, madam”.

The guidebook had said 90 – but my guidebook, leftover from my time in Delhi, is four years old, so I hesitated once again. “Is there a window?” I asked him.

“That window is for tours, ma’am,” the man said.

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just try the window and see what happens,” I said.

He shrugs, uninsulted. “If you wish, madam, but that man and I are in business together.”

The man at the window confirmed this and I bought the ticket from the bundle in the first man’s outstretched hand. He directed me toward the ferry loading dock, saying if I hurried I could catch the next one. I lit up with the brief glow of success when the man at the dock demanded 120 rupees and I produced the ticket for the same amount from my pocket. I had successfully navigated one tourist trap! The joy was short-lived.

I had harbored hopes that I would somehow make friends aboard the ferry with other tourists in the same easy way that I had when I was backpacking in Ireland; however, as I eyed the boat’s other passengers, I realized with some gloom that there was no one in my age range aboard. It was mostly Indian couples – there was one other British looking man, but he looked to be about 60 and not very friendly so I gave him a wide berth and for the next hour watched the approach of the Island from the front of the boat.

As soon as the boat hit dry land and I set foot upon the dock, I felt a hand thrust into mine. I looked into the eyes of its owner, who introduced himself as Krishna. Employing tactics I myself used as a canvasser for Greenpeace that one ill-fated summer, he did not ask me if I wanted a guide (I did) but rather merely acted as if it were an assumption. We agreed on the short 1.5 hour tour of the Island, he outlined our itinerary and I agreed. This temple-touting is a common phenomenon here and while some travelers hate it, the historical sites have such poor signage here that I find that, even if what the touts are telling me isn’t true, it’s still more interesting than just looking at the edifices on my own. I find this especially true at religious sites where I feel an inherent ill-comfort.

The tour itself was a whir: he talked quickly, gave me time to take a picture and then abruptly moved onto the next feature. The tour, while detailed, was so rushed I barely had time to process any of the information he was feeding me. I resolved that I would simply go back to the caves to look them over again once he had finished with me. However, after the end of the hour and a half, I somehow found myself sitting in a café belonging to his brother’s sister, drinking filtered water while I paid for him to drink a rather expensive beer. Trying to keep things polite and following the rules of hospitality that I’ve learned in Kadod, I allowed him to lead me through all of this and once his beer was finished, somehow found myself agreeing to go back to the boat and go back to the mainland. On the way, the other foot fell: He wanted me to pay him 1000 rupees for the tour. And the best part? I did it! I just did not, after being led around by him for the past two hours, have the heart to haggle. He told me he thought I had a very agreeable personality. If someone gave me twenty dollars, I’d probably say that about them too.

On the boat on the way home, I kicked myself in the ambivalent way that only tourism in India inspires. On the one hand, I gave myself a good whack for being so agreeable, for worrying more about relationship management than what I wanted, which was to see the caves in detail. On the other hand, it had been an exceptionally good tour except for the pace and while I didn’t quite think it was worth the full price I paid for it, I suspected the money would go towards good use. He’d told me all about his family and his sons and his wife and how hard he’d studied to learn the six languages he does tours in. I knew at least that part was true, and if the rest of it was, then I knew he needed the money more than me.

However, just at the moment that I was feeling the most foolish, a second staple of tourism in India occurred. A man came and sat next to me. I had observed him earlier in the journey: he was sitting across the boat with his wife and his teenage son and daughter. He smiled a broad smile as he sat, and I, as wary as ever, returned it slightly less enthusiastically.

“My son…” he began. I waited. I could sense a mental struggle for the words. “Salman Khan? (a famous Indian film star)” He finished hopefully.

I smiled and replied in Hindi, “If you want to speak in Hindi, you can. I’ll understand. What do you want to say?”

He looked both surprised and relieved. “My son,” he said, “doesn’t he look like Salman Khan?” He gestured across the boat where I could see his family looking at him strangely for walking all the way across the boat to talk to the lone white girl. He gestured to his kids, who obediently came over. They sat on either side of me and began to ask me questions: where was I from? Why was I in India? How had I come to speak Hindi? The girl, 17 years old, wanted to know how I liked teaching English; the boy, 21, wanted to tell me I was pretty because I was so fair, wanted to know if I drank or smoked and wanted to compliment my Hindi. Talking to them reminded me of talking to the kids in Kadod and I enjoyed our ferry ride-cum-English lesson. They produced pictures that they had had professionally taken at Chowpatty Beach, another Mumbai landmark, the day before. I laughed as I saw the skinny son making muscles in the surf. When we arrived at the dock at India Gate, they made me take a picture with them and promise to come visit if I made it out to Madhya Pradesh. I said I would.

The whole encounter, so typical of Indian tourists I’ve encountered (minus all the conversation in Hindi, which I wasn’t really capable of the last time I lived here), really lifted my spirits as I headed towards the big outdoor market in Colaba to see if I could find some funky jewelry to bring back for some of my friends in Kadod. It was here that I hit Indian tourism staple number three…

Somewhere between the large book stall where I hungrily indulged in too many book purchases (there being no English language bookstores within four hours of where I live) and heading towards a jewelry stand I remembered glancing at the night before, I made the mistake of making eye contact with a man laden down with drums. Eye contact indicates interest and despite my heated protests in both Hindi and English, this man simply refused to believe that I was not interested in his oh-so-useful wooden drums.

“Madam!” he pleaded in broken English as he followed me. “Price usually 600 – but for you… 450 madam, 450…” I kept walking. He followed.

5 minutes later…

“Okay, madam, okay… special price, just for you. For you, only 300…” I kept walking. He followed.

5 minutes later…

“My children will not eat madam, but you will take it for 200. 200 is good price madam.”

It was no use to explain to him that I had absolutely no use for a wooden drum; that I had no one to give it to, no place to put it, no interest in playing it… all of these things were superfluous. He had decided on selling the drum, and sell it he would. I stopped to browse at a bangle shop, hoping that perhaps they stocked my size. When I emerged, dazzled slightly by so many bright colors at once, I thought briefly as I started walking that I had lost him. That is, until he jumped out at me from behind a bush.

“Okay, madam, okay. You take for 100. Last price madam. Absolute last price.”

We had reached a street crossing and I turned and looked at him seriously. I said in Hindi, “Do you know where the 103 bus picks up?” I had heard that this local bus was a good one from which to see the sights of the city and what I really needed was to sit away from con men and just think while watching pretty things go by.

He looked at me with the characteristic surprise that usually comes when I speak Hindi. “It picks up back there,” he replied simply in Hindi. “Come, I’ll show you.”

On the way, he asked me about my Hindi, I explained that I lived here, and he began, with the added vigor of now being able to speak in a language he spoke fluently, to berate me with stories of his starving children, his poor wife, their hunger, their poverty… With the sun beating down and the sweat rolling off my back and my eyes searching desperately for the bus, it was difficult to listen to what he was saying. When we reached the bus stand, I found myself agreeing to buy a drum. As I got out my wallet and handed him the hundred rupees he’d asked for, I found myself thinking I spend more than this on a daily cup of coffee in the US.

Just as I handed the bill and put out my hand to take the drum, he looked up into my eyes and said meaningfully, “Come ma’am… you must give 150 rupees at least.”

Well, I lost it. I was tired and sweaty and India-weary and so, I tried to take the money back from him as I blubbered in Hindi. I grabbed at it but of course he wouldn’t let go, and at just at that moment, the bus arrived and I ended up just grabbing the drum out of his hands and running to jump on the bus. My haphazard throwing of myself down into a seat made the conductor look at me in pity and he didn’t bother collecting my fair. Meanwhile, the drum sat heavy in my lap, branding me with idiocy for all the world to see. I glowered at it, sinking into my seat and hoping I wouldn’t have to move for some time.

The coup de grace, however, dear reader?

I’d gotten on a bus going in the wrong direction. It was a mere ten minutes before the conductor called last stop and I ended up getting off in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, as a tourist, I had an out. I merely hailed a cab and made them take me to my hotel, where I holed up for the rest of the day, vowing never to venture out into India again.

I’m hoping this next month will whip my flabby endurance back into shape. Amritsar, here I come.

Best,
Cat

P.S. I’ll be updating my blog en route as I can, though I can’t promise the usual every 2-4 days.