India at a Glance -- Part 1: Initial Impressions

Indian textiles for sale.
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by C&K

Our initial impressions of India are somewhat clouded by our initial impressions of India.

The easiest way to put it is that India is an assault on the senses. It is relentless noise and perpetual mayhem; it is a completely different world. The blaring car horns, the incessant shouting, the smells of all descriptions, the chaotic traffic, the respiratory- infection-inducing pollution, the holy cows, the gawking men, the calls to prayer at 5 AM, the touts…some days it just amounts to overload.

Mounds of dye for the forehead dot.
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We have traveled before to countries where extreme poverty exists, so we thought we were somewhat prepared. We were prepared to witness poverty, to accept lower-than-western standards of accommodation, to eye with suspicion all meat and raw veg, to treat tap-water before drinking it.…these prove all relatively "easy" to deal with. But abject poverty and hardship juxtaposed with an uber-materialistic culture makes for an extremely frustrating mix. It is difficult to find a connection with the people when you are constantly being badgered from all directions – by every age and demographic – for the informal redistribution of your perceived western wealth. It is difficult to believe that any Indian could want anything other than your money. And to be honest, that’s what most of our well-intentioned interaction leads to – they draw you in feigning friendship and WHAMMO! Your new “best friend” wants some of your rupees.

The colourful street markets are all overflowing with beautiful textiles and handicrafts just begging to be purchased – that is, if you can choose from the multitude on offer, and strike up the courage to initiate the bartering process. Haggling is expected, but frustration abounds when you have no idea what a local would pay for the items in question. The same goes for any good or service offered on the street. Who is cheating who? Who is telling the truth? Why is it that I must compromise my integrity and my morals in order to get anything done in this country? The few times we have given someone the benefit of the doubt, we were totally taken advantage of, and we know we’ve blown off people who were genuinely nice and completely legitimate. It takes real talent—and likely some fluency in Hindi—to pay local prices, and to avoid any and all scam artists here.

On the topic of trust, we had a nice long discussion with one of our rickshaw drivers who was taking us around Agra for a day. When deciding on a fair price for this service, our hotel owner had suggested that we could barter the driver down from his asking price, which he felt was a tad high. Not privy to this information, our driver tried to persuade us that our hotel owner was charging us too much for a room. This prompted us to ask our driver if there was anyone in India we could possibly trust, to which he replied, “You must trust everyone. The world revolves around trust. It is bad karma to not put trust in each other.”

Uh-huh.

While we just missed meeting up with our friend Dale in India by a couple days, he had this advice for us in an e-mail: "The one tip I will give you is stay firm but don't get angry.  A shouting match will put you back two steps when you need to move forward. Patience, patience, patience and logic does not function here." Boy, is it difficult to have patience! It certainly takes a healthy dose of patience to enjoy oneself when being followed all the way down the street by touts who want you to stay at their “cheap hotel”, take their rickshaw (or camel cart, or horse cart, or “air-conditioned” camel ride), or “step into my shop”. And then there are the grubby little street kids. You can’t help but feel sorry for them; they didn’t ask to be born here. But when they are literally crawling over you, persistently tugging at your clothing with pleas for "school pen", "choklate", "munee" for several city blocks, you begin to despise them and all you want to do is escape them. The constant badgering—and I really do mean constant; it is continuous, pounding, incessant, unrelenting, merciless badgering—gets to you after a while. And then you begin to hate yourself for ignoring people or brushing them aside. All you want is a break. From the country.

And no, logic certainly does not function here! The more illogical the argument, the farther you seem to get. Lining up in logical queues does not happen at bus or train stations, which means that as a westerner who thinks logically, you can sometimes prevail. Case in point, rather than elbow our way through a throbbing mass of bodies to purchase yet another train ticket, we line up at the ticket booth that is signposted to open in 10 minutes time. Much to the dismay of the mob waiting at the first booth, we are first in line when the second booth opens and the first one closes for lunch. And I am damn well not gonna let anyone butt in front of me! One small victory amidst all the frustration!