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Seeing a tiger in the wild was a dream I had been nursing for a long time. I made several unsuccessful attempts towards this end by visiting Corbett National Park, the Sunderbans and Nagarhole. In 2007 when the rate of extinction of tigers became so alarming that it even found mention in the Finance Minister’s speech I decided that I had to visit Bandhavgarh (which had been described in glowing terms to me by various wildlife enthusiasts) before tigers went extinct altogether. With work and other commitments looming large over my life this plan did not fructify for another two and a half years after which I resolved that this was one thing holiday I had to take before the sun set on 2009.

I embarked on this quest with a friend who had also never seen a tiger in the wild before. We decided to spend four days in Bandhavgarh. We had been deprived of a sighting for so many years, we were not going to take any chances this time. We reached Umaria station, the nearest railway station one sunny afternoon in December. Recognising us as tourists from a mile away a bunch of taxi drivers descended on us, jostling with each to take us to the Forest Rest House in Tala where we were supposed to stay. An hour and a rollercoaster ride on a pot-holed road later we arrived at the Forest Rest House.

In order to start on our mission as soon as possible we decided to take the afternoon safari on that day itself. Our taxi driver got us a driver called Babloo for our safaris. Babloo turned out to be quite a resourceful nature guide as well. There are various zones in Bandhavgarh National Park but the Tala zone has the highest density of tigers so it is advisable to enter from the Tala gate. The safaris in Bandhavgarh National Park are quite regimented. Only petrol jeeps are permitted inside and the Forest Department assigns a guide to every jeep. There are various routes which the jeeps can take within the park but each jeep is assigned its route before the safari starts. There are steep penalties for drivers and guides who deviate from the assigned routes.

We embarked on our first safari with our fingers crossed. The temperate sal forests of Madhya Pradesh which were the setting for Kipling’s Jungle Book do not have the lush greenery of tropical forests. There is less undergrowth and the tree cover is not that dense. In many patches one sees sunlight streaming in and dust particles dancing in the sunrays. The colours are more muted. The leaves are a dull green, the grass is a yellowy-gold giving the jungle an eerie ambience. The calm of the jungle is occasionally pierced by the hooping call of the langurs, the loud twittering of the babblers and the high pitched calls of the chital and sambhar.

The safari started in the afternoon at which time we were informed that the big cats would generally be resting. Tiger sightings we were told usually happen towards the evening. Like in most other national parks in India there were plenty of chital (spotted deer) and sambhar to be seen. Unlike the ones I had seen before, these were not very camera shy and quite willing to pose for eager hordes of tourists. We saw a jackal in the distance which looked like a moving blue speck to us but we were assured by Babloo and the guide that it was indeed a jackal. We saw a tree which had so many langurs on it, it looked like langurs were the fruit of this tree. We were told to listen for alarm calls, which are the warning mechanisms of the herbivores in the jungle. If any of the herbivores sense that a tiger is approaching they let out an alarm call which is then echoed by others of their and other species. We kept our ears peeled for alarm calls but heard none.

Our safari was nearly over and we were about ten minutes from the gate when we reached a spot where some other jeeps had also halted. We took a cue from them and stopped the jeep and waited. Suddenly from the hillock on one side of the road emerged a tigress. We were told that she was known as the chor behra female. She stood on the hillock and observed the enthralled audience for a while before starting her descent. Completely unperturbed by the presence of so many people and their clicking cameras she came down the hillock, crossed the road and went over to a stream on the other side. She drank some water and disappeared into a thicket. It’s difficult to put into words the feeling when one first sees this magnificent beast face-to-face. When I first saw the tigress I felt a rush of excitement and I pulled out my camera (a Canon DSLR which looked positively Lilliputian compared to the telephoto-lens- equipped-cameras everyone else seemed to be carrying) and started clicking. This was soon tempered by a silent awe at the realisation that my dream to see a tiger in the wild had come true and the experience was everything I had imagined and more. It walked with a majestic step, with almost a royal bearing as if to tell us ‘this is my territory’. We were convinced that this was a good omen and portended good things to come.

On the second day we decided to take a morning safari since we were told that it is the best time for a sighting. Layered in many layers of woollens we set off for our first morning safari. The jungle presents a sleepy picture in the morning with mist slowly lifting with the first rays of the sun filtering in. As the sun rises the jungle awakes with sounds of various birds, insects and animals ringing through the air. In the midst of the trees close to the road we spotted a barking deer which is generally quite a shy creature, eyeing us gingerly. We spotted a lesser adjutant stork standing near a small body of water pensively. We had not planned on going for an evening safari that day but a couple of wildlife enthusiasts advised us to do so to maximise our chances of good sightings.

Following their advice we returned with Babloo to the jungle post-lunch. We spotted some red-billed vultures patiently sitting on a tree. A bright blue kingfisher on a tree added a spot of colour to the otherwise dull landscape. This time again towards the evening we saw a tigress for the second time. This time there were fewer jeeps around. The people in the jeeps which arrived before us had seen her cross the road. We first caught a glimpse of her only after that, behind some trees. Then she crossed over a large patch of low lying grass where we got a good view of her before went into the trees.

On the third day we only did a morning safari even though waking up on a cold winter morning seemed like some form of medieval Chinese torture. Like we had been told the previous day we were maximising our chances. By the end of this safari we realised that as far as tiger sightings went mornings safaris had not proved fortuitous for us. However we were luckier as far as other animals were concerned. We spotted a wild boar doing a quick sprint across the road into the trees. A jackal strode nonchalantly across the road coming very close to our jeep and went into a patch of grass. We saw the footprints of a bear which was most unusual for that time of the year since bears are in hibernation in winter. However there was no other sign of this unusually enthusiastic bear.

Some time towards the middle of the safari we began to hear alarm calls for a leopard. Babloo told us that the reason he was sure this was an alarm call for a leopard and not a tiger is that the langurs were making a big racket this time. Langurs are not too scared of tigers since tigers are not good climbers so when a tiger is in the vicinity the alpha male of the langur lets out the alarm call. However when there is a leopard around all the langurs let out furious alarm calls since they are in great danger from this agile climber. We waited at the spot where we heard the alarm calls but lady luck had forsaken us this time and we did not see a leopard.

The next day we decided to skip the morning safari and explore the Bandhavgarh Fort. The exact provenance of the fort is not known but it has been occupied by various dynasties such as the Magh, Kalchuri and Baghels. In 1617 the Baghel King Vikramaditya Singh abandoned Bandhavgarh Fort in favour of Rewa. The fort is on a hill and is mostly in a state of disrepair. As we ascended the hill we observed quite a few Malabar pied hornbill. We went to a point called the vulture point from where we could see a few nests of long-billed vultures on the sheer cliff face below us. Quite a few vultures were circling around below us. Another point on the hill was called Natin named after a dancer known as Natin who is said to have met a gruesome end there.

Legend has it that she was an enchanting dancer in the court of the one of the kings who lived in the fort. He told her that if she could cross one from hill to another while dancing on a tightrope he would give her half his kingdom. Accepting the challenge she started dancing her way across to the second hill. As she was approaching the second hill the king ordered that the rope be cut. This was done and she plunged to her death. Further up we reached a temple known as the Kabirgufa. It is said that Kabir meditated in the cave that is within the temple. The cave is also said to lead to Chitrakoot but no one in the recent past had sought to verify this. There are many tanks in the fort obviously used as water sources when the fort was populated.

On the summit is the Bandhavgarhdheesh temple. This temple is still used for worship and there is a priest who lives there. We were told that the priest has many interesting stories about his encounters with tigers but unfortunately he was not around on that day. Close to this temple are a palace and the royal treasury. The hillside is also dotted with statues of various avatars of Vishnu like matsya, varaha and kurma and various gods and goddesses. Not much seems to be known about who built these structures and most of them are not even ASI protected sites.

Since it was our last day in Bandhavgarh we decided to maximise our chances by taking an evening safari. We told Babloo that since it was our last day he should ensure that we take a final look at a tiger. He smiled indulgently at us. He must have fielded such strange requests from tourists numerous times in the past. We were told that a pair had been mating on the route we were supposed to take. And to our surprise on the route we saw a tiger known as Kallua lying on the road in a languid fashion blocking all movement of jeeps on the route. Occasionally he would lift his head to survey the audience gathered around him and would then lie down again. He rolled over on his back with his legs in the air like he was laughing over something very funny. Suddenly from the bushes emerged a tigress. She walked up to him but he seemed to be enjoying being the cynosure of the human attention so much that he was in no mood to leave. She went over to the other side of the road and sat there. Kallua still didn’t move from his spot. Clearly he preferred being photographed to her company.

After some time the guides in the jeeps on the other side started getting impatient as they had to get to the gate before it shut. So one of them started the jeep and moved ahead. Seeing this, the tiger and tigress beat a quick retreat into the trees. We could still see Kallua walking into the forest. We tried to follow him as far as our eye could keep up but he soon vanished from sight.

This was definitely an incredible end to our trip. I took back many wonderful memories of our trip. I have been told that summer is a good time for sightings so I hope to return in summer again, hopefully with a better lens for my camera this time.

Source: bootsnall.com

As I write this, I’m suffering from a cold, so if I seem even more whiny than normal, you’ll know why. It’s difficult to feel sorry for oneself when one’s surrounded by so much poverty and hopelessness, but through perseverance and innate talent, I’ve managed to do it.

Through the mucus steaming down my nose, and the tears flowing from my eyes, I was glad to see the back of our hotel, in spite of the small family of beetles that came out from under the bed to say goodbye to us. I was also, I must admit, keen to leave Agra, and wanted to head away from Taj Mahal tourists into the Indian hinterland.

The trip took about five hours, and I amused myself by sneezing, blowing my nose and complaining to my wife about how sick I was. In between, I admired the lush countryside, utterly verdant in the monsoon season, and flat as far as the eye could see. It is an immensely rich agricultural zone, and small farmers use every inch of it to its full effect. India is still a land of small farmers and 60% of the population continue to live off the land. When you bear in mind the population explosion, with every woman bearing 2.8 children, it’s difficult to see how even lands as fertile as India’s are going to provide a decent living for all of them, or even feed them at subsistence level.

Even now many farmers cannot make ends meet, and get into debt just to buy seed, and year by year, the debts mount and mount. Suicide is a common cause of death in many rural areas, as impoverished farmers take the ultimate escape from hounding creditors. And below the small farmers and their tiny plots heaves a mass of illiterate agricultural labourers; landless, penniless and prospectless.

The agricultural revolution and mechanisation mean that this area could be far more effectively farmed by far fewer people. Perhaps only one in five of these people could be supported comfortably on the land, and although a farmer’s life may look pretty from your car window, it is in reality a backbreaking, repetitive grind, and one many will gladly leave for the slums of the big cities. At least you can hope for a better future there.

I put these thoughts aside when, about an hour outside Agra, we stopped at Fatehpur Sikri, an abandoned city, and possibly the only great folly of Akbar the Great. It means ‘city of victory’ and he built it to celebrate his many victories in battle.

With the overconfidence that comes from conquering northern India and building an enormous empire, he built a new city in an area that suffered repeated water shortages, and his canals and irrigation systems proved powerless against the drought that periodically befell his new city, and shortly after he died, the city was abandoned.

I was expecting something along the lines of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but all I found was a palace and a mosque, which although impressive did not look significantly different from the other palaces and mosques I’d already seen in India.

I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t had a cold. As I write up these notes, on a dull cloudy Sunday in Paris, I cannot believe how interesting Fatehpur looks in my photos. Indeed, as strange as it sounds, I cannot even remember having seen a lot of the places in the photos. A lot of my mind had turned inwards to the war being waged inside my own body between my immune system and the viral hordes, and the external world was barely registering on my consciousness mind, and a matter of complete indifference to my unconscious mind.

Most of what I do, however, is a matter of complete indifference to my unconscious mind. It busies itself finding things to obsess about and building complexes, like children build sandcastles, shaping them into anchors to weigh me down, and keep me stranded off the island of Malaise.

Apart from the internal struggles with viral invaders, there was also an external struggle with mercenary touts to contend with. If I had had time to sit and quietly contemplate it all, I might have been able to clear my mind of the flotsam and actually see what I was looking at, but as I’ve already mentioned, you cannot really stay in one place in India, partly because of the ever oppressive heat, but mainly because of the omnipresent touts.

Although they lacked the finesse and polish of Delhi touts, they made up for it in sheer numbers and perseverance. On the ten-minute tuk tuk ride up the steep hill to the city, an unwanted passenger sat beside the driver and insisted we needed him to fight off the other touts inside the city. The more I said that I didn’t want his services, the more emphatically he tried to sell them to me, and the more unpleasant the two of us became.

By the time I got to the city walls, I was already fuming. Shortly afterwards, having reached the mosque, it was hard to take 10 steps without another tout taking his shot at you, utterly oblivious to the amount of other wannabe tour guides you’d already fended off. No matter how many touts I dealt with, there were always more and more of them, coming at me from all directions, each one smiling at me, wanting to know what country I was from, and each one insisting they were not just a guide when, in fact, that is exactly what they were.

Throughout the holiday, Sandra said I should be a little more ‘chilled’ and ‘zen’ about the whole tout thing, and demanded that I stop snarling at anyone who even looked like they were about to approach me, but I’m just not a ‘chilled’ kind of guy. I simply cannot bear to have people in my face trying to ‘work’ me, trying to play me like a pipe, feigning an interest in me so they can later exploit me. And if necessary, I was prepared to let one billion Indians know this, even if I had to tell each one individually. I mean, all I was asking was that the rest of the world adopt the norms and mores of the society I was brought up in. Surely that can’t be too much to ask, can it?

Back in the bubble of the car, and a few hours into the drive, our driver wanted to bring us to a temple known as the monkey shrine, but thankfully I had the foresight to say no. I’d seen it on TV, and it’s full of aggressive monkey touts who want you to give them a banana, and they can get very upset if you don’t hand them one. They also have a penchant for stealing shiny objects, like jewellery and cameras. Most worryingly, they have been known to scratch and bite, when the mood takes them, and when we got the India vaccinations, we had been warned to avoid all contact with monkeys, as rabies is still quite common in India. In fact, India has been reported as having the highest incidence of human rabies in the world. I wasn’t having any of it.

Although it did occur to me that you could probably train a troop of monkeys to attack touts, but then I worried that the touts might become infected with rabies, and India was difficult enough to travel around without rabid touts to contend with.

Instead, the driver took me and my snotty tissues to our hotel, and tried to worm a kickback out of the reception staff, who treated him with undisguised contempt, no doubt feeling hotel receptionists to be superior to mere drivers. The driver treated the bell boys with disdain, and the head waiter liked nothing more than to throw his weight around in front of the waiters under him.

The caste system may have been officially abolished, but this is not a land of equality and solidarity. Over and over again in India, I was struck by how keen everyone was to demonstrate superior rank and station at every opportunity. People seemed to bark orders at each other, rather than politely request. Everybody looked like they were jostling for position, marking their place in the hierarchy.

In the West, we have gone to the opposite extreme, and everyone from the President or Prime Minister down likes to make out they are the same as everyone else. We are all men and women of the people now, or at least we must appear to be. Even the ex-president’s son manages to portray himself as an ordinary Joe, and Oxbridge educated Prime Ministers feign an interest in football.

To be different in the West is to be a snob. In India, people still like to show you their place in the pecking order, and to demonstrate status in a clear and obvious way.

The hotel, by the way, was the Holiday Inn, normally way outside my price range, and don’t ask me how Mr Kumar and his agency managed to wangle it for the pittance we paid him, but I was very glad he had. I settled on the sofa, cracked open a Kingfisher beer, blew my nose a lot, and dealt with weighty philosophical issues, like which of the hotel restaurant to dine in.

Sandra watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on TV, but I’m opposed to all forms of sport on principle, so I wrote day six’s diary entry instead.

Photo by Norma Desmond on Flickr

Someone once told me that India is growing at such a fast rate that the number of babies born in the country per year is equivalent to the entire population of Australia. So every year that passes, India basically pours one more Australia into their borders. Its population is second only to China, and they pride themselves on being the “Largest Democracy in the World”.

You’ll hear tourists call it “Incredible India,” “Land of the Gods,” “Land of Adventure,” and of course, “Land of the Taj.” It’s the perfect place to escape everyday life. Sadly, it’s also overpopulated, underdeveloped and thriving with scammers. It’s the ultimate backpacker’s litmus test because if you can survive in India, you can survive anywhere.

Don’t let this scare you, but it’s best to get as many answers as possible before boarding the plane. In case you aren’t sure about what questions to ask, here are the most useful ones I found during my time in India.

How should I introduce myself?

The proper way of introduction in India is with “Namaste.” This should be said with a slight bow and palms touching at chest level. Some foreigners seem to get the impression that this is the equivalent of a hand wave in the Western world, but it’s really closer to a handshake. It’s slightly more formal and as you make friends, you will see that it has fallen out of use with some of the younger crowds. However, if any of your friends invite you to a family dinner, you’ll definitely want to make a good impression with the traditional greeting.

I just want to buy a samosa. Where is the line?!?

It may be a shock the first time you go into a crowded place, get in line to buy something and helplessly watch as someone cuts in front of you to get the clerk’s attention. It may surprise you even more when they say “excuse me”, cut in front of you and do it all over again. When this happens, it’s important to remain calm and collected. Shops and cafeterias in India rarely have queues or any discernable method of keeping order at the register. Instead, customers crowd around the counter, wave and try to make eye contact until the clerk decides who gets to go next.

You will probably have to deal with the chaos in some setting or another, so just remember a few key signals to make the process smoother. First, personal space doesn’t exist in India, so if someone cuts in front of you, it’s because they see space and assume you aren’t trying to get to the counter. Second, once you make it to the counter, keep your cash in your hand so they know you’re ready. Last, don’t hesitate to call out what you want when the clerk looks at you. If you take too long, they’ll move onto someone else and you’ll have to wait longer.

It’s not a nod, and it’s not a shake. What does it mean?

The head bob is the answer to every question. It is done by tilting the head from side to side several times. It can mean “yes”, “maybe”, “I think so”, “I understand”, “I’m listening” and so on. It’s best not to assume that it’s a definite yes or no, so look for other cues to get an exact reading. When haggling, a shopkeeper might bob their head to convey that he’s thinking, but not necessarily agreeing to your offer. Don’t be afraid to ask for verbal clarification if confusion continues.

What’s with all the cows?

Cows are sacred in the Hindu faith and can often be seen grazing on temple grounds or wandering the streets. They are identified as an extension of Mother Earth and considered good luck. Don’t disrespect the cows, no matter how much you want a hamburger.

Where (and how) do I eat with my hands?

Indian food is meant to be enjoyed with multiple senses – smell, sight, taste and touch. Many restaurants in southern India have sampler meals served up on banana leaves (far more eco-friendly than paper plates). There should be a jug of water at the table which you can use to rinse off your leaf before the food is served.

When eating with your hand (right hand only), try to keep the palm clean. You can use all of your fingers to mix the curries and gravies with rice. The thumb should be used to push food onto your middle two or three fingers. Try not to put your fingers too far into your mouth, and keep the slurping to a minimum. It takes practice to eat a full dinner this way without wearing half your meal by the end, so plan on eating out as much as possible.

Is there anything I should know about the drinks?

No tap water. Bottled water only. Ensure that the seal is still intact when you drink – stories circulate about bottles being taken from the trash and refilled to be sold on the street. Be cautious.

Also, be brave while you’re in India. It’s highly advisable to try at least one coconut (they are usually sold by a nice merchant who will slice a hole in the top with a hatchet). Another favorite is sugar cane juice. Vendors can be found chopping, stripping and juicing at portable stands all around India.

Why can’t I use my left hand?

This rule stands even if you are left-handed. Never hand someone anything with the left, never attempt to eat with the left, just pretend like it isn’t there, even if you have to sit on it during meals. The left hand is reserved for cleaning in India (foreigners often don’t realize that this explains the hose and lack of toilet paper in public restrooms). All unclean tasks are handled with the left, and the right is reserved for everything else.

What do I use the bucket for?

You will find a bucket with a small cup in your shower regardless of where you stay. They baffle most foreigners, and many backpackers (myself included) eventually adapt them into makeshift washing machines. Actually, the bucket is meant to assist in bathing. The bucket can be filled with water and the cup is used for rinsing off. They can be immensely helpful in places where the water pressure is weak, and you will use less water than you would taking a shower.

What exactly is a squat toilet?

Many great articles have been written about the squat toilet. All tourists headed to India should know that a squat toilet is a toilet without the chair part. As the name suggests, you have squat over the hole and try to keep your balance while holding all articles of clothing out of harm’s way. You must learn to use them if you plan to travel around India. The best technique to avoid splashing is to get as low as possible (meaning your thighs should touch the back of your calves when you sit).

Remember to carry toilet paper and antibacterial soap because you won’t find them in Indian bathrooms. Actually, finding a public bathroom at all in India is a difficult proposition. For this reason, don’t be too shocked when men relieve themselves on street corners or designated ‘pee walls’ around the city.

What should I bring?

Nothing feels quite so unusual as having a 10 second blackout in the middle of a crowded mall in Bangalore. Life continues normally, other shoppers will continue as if nothing happened and you will begin to wonder if the malaria prophylactics are causing hallucinations. They aren’t. Many areas in India experience frequent black outs, so bring a flashlight. Aside from the obvious stomach medication, sunscreen and bug spray, you may also want to pack a battery-powered alarm clock.

It’s also highly advisable to bring books or a drawing pad for the long waits while traveling. Indian buses and trains rarely leave on time, and you’ll also notice that appointment times are fairly flexible. If you agree to meet someone at 1:00, don’t be angry if they don’t arrive till closer to 1:30 or later.

What do I wear?

Men really need not worry about wardrobe issues in India. It’s best not to wear shorts and keep sturdy shoes because your feet will need protection from the ground (dirt roads littered with glass, nails and potholes).

Females will have far more difficulty in choosing appropriate outfits. Prepare to cover up in spite of the blistering heat because the more skin shown, the more catcalls you can expect. Bring sturdy leggings or even pajama pants that cover the ankle. Loose shirts that extend to the thighs will come in handy, and you can always buy kurtas once you get settled in. Unless you go to the beach in Goa, don’t wear shorts.

Culturalindia.net has more information about traditional Indian clothing.

How do I get across the street?

There seem to be several schools of thought on this subject – most newcomers go with “close your eyes, pray for mercy and run”. This may not be the best method with scores of rickshaws, motorbikes, livestock, speeding buses, and the landslide of cars that plow down the street daily. Few, if any, crosswalks can be found in major cities, so be prepared. It’s not uncommon to see tourists weighing how much they really need to get across the street against how much they really want to keep their limbs.

Don’t be afraid to put your hand out to the cars to make them slow down a bit (don’t try it with buses, they really don’t stop). It tells them you aren’t just thinking about crossing, you’re actually crossing. Be confident and only wait in the middle of the road if absolutely necessary.

I want to talk to people from India, but what do we talk about?

One of the safest ways to start off is with movies. Before you leave for India, try to watch as many Bollywood movies as you can. Other students seem to light up when you mention John Abraham or Shahid Kapoor. Most Bollywood movies are a semi-musicals with dance numbers and a fair amount of singing, but if that isn’t your cup of tea, you can try more serious films like Water. Keep in mind, most Bollywood movies are longer than their Hollywood counterparts – 3, 4 and even 5 hour films are common.

I’m not a movie star. Why does everyone want a picture with me?

It’s normal to feel like an alien when you first arrive to India. In some cities, children will point at you and adults will stare. A few brave individuals will ask if they can have their photo taken with you (especially if you are a female, but men get asked too). Some exceptionally outgoing people will attempt to start a dialogue by asking your age, country of origin, marital status and/or weight. It’s difficult not to get annoyed with the interrogation, but remember that they are just curious about outsiders. Opportunities to speak with people from the other side of the world are rare, so it’s understandable that they’d want to learn more about you.

I don’t know how to haggle, but I really want to shop. Any advice?

It’s common to feel smothered inside shops because if you eye anything, the shopkeeper will be there to start haggling. A good rule of thumb is to start bargaining at a third of the asking price. Don’t be surprised if vendors follow you around if you’ve shown interest in something they’re selling. It is possible and quite likely that they will continue to hassle you up to three city blocks later.

Expect to get ripped off at least once. It really does happen to everyone. Don’t let this ruin your perception of the entire country or your whole trip. Think of everything as an opportunity to learn and pass your knowledge onto others.

Is the transportation as bad as everyone says?

Yes. Rickshaw drivers have a tendency to triple the normal price of a ride for foreigners. If you take a rickshaw taxi, make sure to pre-negotiate a fare or use the meter if they have one. It’s best to find a different rickshaw if they refuse to turn on the meter or claim it is broken.

Expect to have at least one fender bender. Auto insurance isn’t exactly required in India, so the drivers will get out of their vehicles, argue for a short while with plenty of pointing and arm waving, then return to their car and drive away. Always wear a helmet if you take a motorbike.

What else should I expect?

Expect to be overwhelmed. India is a land of extremes in every aspect – the noise, the smells, the tastes, the sights, the heat, the people and the history. There will be days when you feel like India is beating you mercilessly and days when you feel truly blessed to be seeing “Incredible India”, “Land of Adventure” and “Land of the Gods”. Don’t forget to schedule some time outside of the chaos when you can relax and regain your sanity if necessary. You won’t enjoy temple hopping unless you’re rested. Don’t try to do too much and remember that just surviving your first trip to India is an accomplishment unto itself.

Helpful links:

incredibleindia.org – A recommended travel guide site

kamat.com/kalranga/timeline/timeline – A brief history of India

timesofindia.indiatimes.com – A leading newspaper in India

Photo credits:
Namaste by Ragesh Vasudevan on Flickr, Squat toilet by query_squidier on Flickr, All others by Roger Wade

I was as prepared for the journey from Manali to Leh, India, as my parents were for my birth. When I was born, they hadn’t had a baby shower, my mom hadn’t had Lamaze classes, and my dad was intoxicated from a Christmas party.

As I entered the jeep at two o’clock in the morning in sandals, see-through emerald Aladdin pants, and an onyx tank-top, the man who took my luggage said the seventeen-hour drive to Leh would probably be cold. I told him not to worry, I had the skin of the Hulk, and I’d manage.

If the man had just said the word “Snow,” I might have prepared myself as if I were climbing Mount Everest. However, I slipped off my sandals and fell asleep in the front seat of the jeep as content as Barbie.

I awoke three hours later to snowflakes ambushing my feet like the Japanese bombarded Pearl Harbor. I thought Leh was surrounded by desert. My uncovered toes resembled eggplants. Replacing my sandals was as productive as sleeping in a one-on-one meeting, which I have done.

I reconnaissanced the range and resolved that the driver’s window was open because he was using it to see the road. Solidified snow and withered windshield wipers obstructed his vision as effectively as a lion lying across the hood of the car.

In the seats behind me, two Aussies adorned in five layers of clothing were shivering like three-year-old baboons bathing in glacier water. The Brit’s lips were grapes and his body was as immovable as London. All I could detect of the two French was the blanket they had over their heads. The Israelis were incapable of speech but repeatedly paraded their fingers from a Nutella jar to their tongues.

The Traveler Jeep had no four-wheel-drive and our driver had no chains.

By leering through my window, the driver’s open window, and the frostbitten windshield, I gleaned that three feet of snow screened the road, we were one jeep in a caravan of four, and sheer cliffs surrounded us. To my left was an extreme incline and three feet from the right side of the road was the edge. I couldn’t conceive the ground. Apparently the driver was under the impression that proceeding through the Abominable Snowman’s land without any blizzard apparatus for vehicles was a good idea.

When he halted between two wooden shacks our driver departed without instruction. Anchored to our seats, we regarded each other with bewilderment paralleling my first experience with a banana.

As we emerged from our igloo, my feet submerged in snow like Britney Spears’ self-esteem after she shaved her head and attacked a paparazzo with an umbrella.

I scuttled with my fellow frozen sufferers to the nearest doorway and catapulted myself onto the nearest bench with the lithe of one who accidentally triggered a tyrannosaurus tranquilizer into their trachea. We were in a home that ostensibly converted into a restaurant during the day. Beds at night became seats in the day.

”Hypothermia,” the Brit moaned with tears in his eyes as he sat down, sounding more like a woman in labor than a trim twenty-two-year-old.

”Frostbite,” I replied as I felt feces festering.

When I requested a toilet location, I was told “Open.”

”Open” indicates that there is none. “Open” embodies wilderness. “Open” means you’re shit out of luck.
As I contemplated whether I could prolong the inevitable excrement another four hours when I surmised our next stop might be, one of the Israelis entered with a smile and a pair of yak wool socks in his hand.

Without words, the Aussies and I dashed out the door, through the snow, and across the street to the only other shelter in eyesight. The Brit hobbled in and railed rupees at the proprietor as we completed our purchases. He didn’t speak. I put on the socks with Michael Phelps speed and we clumped back to our chai.

Forty-five minutes later we still hadn’t seen our driver. He had been spurring through snow and reeling roads for ten hours. We concluded he must be sleeping. After four rounds of chai and an hour and a half he reappeared like the grim reaper. He nodded towards the jeep and trudged off.

As the Aussies, French, Israelis, and Brit filed past me the excrement congregated in my body, threatening to blaze like the Big Bang. I bound behind the building to find sheets of snow and no barriers to bend behind. Panicking like a schitzo as my anus leaked liquid waste, I lowered my loose, transparent Aladdin pants and perched near a concrete step.

Poop projected from my ass with the force of a sperm whale’s ejaculation. I couldn’t cease the deluge any more than I could speak Mandarin, interpret Arabic, and dream in Japanese simultaneously. I sighed with the contentment I would convey should I scrutinize a hot air balloon in the shape of a penis. I looked around for toilet paper. I distinguished with dismay that I was on the back deck of the house. There was snow and a leaf stack, and my hippopotamus-sized stool sat three steps from the backdoor. The jeep’s honk honed in my ears. I launched some leaves over my discharge, stoned some snow into my posterior, and duck-waddled to the jeep, my socked feet shoved into my sandals and cold creeping through my bottom.

Ten minutes later I observed discoloration on my right pant leg. I had excreta on my pants and sandals, melted snow in my underwear, and wore a tank-top in a snowstorm.

Our caravan continued with the persistence of telemarketers. The two-wheel-drive Traveler Jeeps persevered through the three-foot snow until they slid from the road like vehicles on ice skates. Once the glide generated, the automobile reversed until the wheels wedded with the snow-covered concrete cleared minutes before. The three vehicles trailing reversed in a four-car retreat that resembled ducks doddering backwards.

One man materialized like Harry Potter and with a Neanderthal shovel, spaded the snow from the path until the jeep found a foothold. The jeep drove for six feet before spilling from the street again. Harry Potter would reappear, shovel and disappear, only to manifest five minutes later. His shovel doubled the prized possession of a caveman and looked like the metal had been fastened to the wooden shaft with string. In two hours we progressed two hundred meters. The Indians were apparently under the impression that a bulldozer and chains were unnecessary. Our passage over the 16,020 foot Baralacha Pass made as much sense as Sylvester Stallone naming his son Sage Moonblood.

Although my sheer pants provided as much warmth as an icicle, I adjudicated that as I wasn’t afflicted with explosive diarrhea or barking bloody feces, I was as happy as an orphan adopted by Oprah Winfrey. The other passengers didn’t share my enthusiasm.

The French remained immersed in their blanket, the Brit was reduced to an infantile state, and the Aussies were so assured of our impending death that one of them deemed it logical to smoke a joint in the snow to tranquilize himself into a soothed state. Instead, as we skidded over the snow towards the edge of the cliff, he assumed the cracked character of one with Paranoid Personality Disorder.

When our driver desisted driving at eight o’clock at night, I asked what was happening. Earlier, while we had sat like perplexed dung beetles, he had exited the vehicle for twenty minutes to have a conversation and for ten minutes to relieve himself. He replied that we were staying the night at the surrounding tent community.

”Excuse me, but can we please get our bags down from the roof? A few of us have sleeping bags,” the French female requested.

”Ya, I actually have a shirt with sleeves in my bag,” I said.

”No, bags stay on roof,” he said and then stalked off like Hitler.

The Brit cried.

We crept into what looked like a circus tent to discover a stove and sleeping areas.

“Blanket,” the Brit said and thrust money at the owner. He burrito-wrapped himself and then pronounced, “Chai,” between shivering lips. The rest of us relapsed in conversation while he curled into the fetal position.

The next day the snow shifted to desert and our progression was impeded by road blockades and detours instead of arctic conditions more suitable for polar bears than Westerners. Our journey, originally supposed to last seventeen hours, endured for thirty-two. We later learned that the pass closed as we were on it.

Anybody who has ever traveled to India will likely tell you that the subcontinent is a land of vivid contrasts, of opposite extremes co-existing, and a complete assault to the senses. True that India’s massive population of over 1 billion people has given the country an uncomfortable reputation, but within the villages of the tropical countryside and along the streets of the busy cities lies the true essence of India, the sensually assaulting culture and contrasting character that make India among the most exotic and intriguing places on Earth to visit.

And what better way to explore the country than by the driver’s seat of Asia’s most beloved vehicle, the autorickshaw?

The Rickshaw Challenge, a series of autorickshaw events created, produced, and managed by Chennai Event Management Services, provides a once-in-a-lifetime experience to adventure tourists around the globe. The idea for participants is to learn how to fuel and drive an autorickshaw, then personally drive that autorickshaw from one point in India to another, along the way completing a series of challenges worth points that determine a winner at the end.

Currently, the Rickshaw Challenge events include the Malabar Rampage, the Tech Raid, the original Classic Run, and the popular Mumbai Xpress. Each of these events has unique routes of varied lengths, all beginning in Chennai, but each exploring a different aspect, theme, or characteristic of the diverse states and regions of India.

The Mumbai Xpress, for example, is a 1,900 kilometer adventure that takes participants across Tamil Nadu into the state of Karnataka, up the west coast of India into Goa, and further through the Western Ghats to Maharashtra, the richest state in India with Mumbai as its capital.

Along the route, which takes 12 days to complete by autorickshaw, participants compete to accomplish a set of “challenges” that range from scavenger hunts and cultural observations (photograph yourself with a cow in the road) to geocaching and communicating with local people (to find a Nissen Hut in Karnataka).

But it’s not just the Mumbai Xpress that contains challenges like this. As if driving these distances in an autorickshaw is not challenging enough in itself, each of the routes of the Rickshaw Challenge contain daily adventures based on the topography, history, culture, or reputation of a particular location. By the flag-down point on the final day, each of the participants are able to say with certainty that they have experienced India, that they have actually been there, and that they wish they didn’t have to go back home.

Accommodation along the route can be organized with Chennai Event Management Services and range from hilltop stations hidden by monsoon rains and local hostels with no air conditioning to the five-star J.W. Marriott of Mumbai. Even the accommodations are considered to be part of the daily challenge sometimes. Regardless of where you rest you head, the experience of India as a participant of the Rickshaw Challenge is real and off the beaten track.

Furthermore, the Rickshaw Challenge contributes back to India. By working with Round Table India, a non-profit organization designed to provide educational opportunities for underprivileged children, Rickshaw Challenge participants do more than observe India. They get involved. Round Table India provides personal tours of their projects, especially those built under their “Freedom Through Education” initiative, which has set the foundation, built the facilities, and provided the resources necessary for India children to receive an education.

Many past participants have initiated fund raising efforts before travelling to India while others have committed to efforts back home in order to support the cause. One team of Mumbai Xpress participants from Australia, for example, purchased their autorickshaw after the completion of the event with the intention of providing rides in Australia to residents for a small fee. This fee, in turn, will be donated to Round Table India to provide for children who would otherwise continue to live out their lives in slum conditions with extremely limited opportunities.

This is the real India. This is the land of contrasts, where schools are built near slums, where the bright color of saris captures the eye as much as the dirty streets, where the monsoon rains and seasonal droughts are patterns of life. This is the land of sensual assaults, where the spice is so authentic, the chai so bittersweet, the noise so constant, the silence so deafening, the smells so bold. Anybody who has ever been to India will tell you, it’s unlike anywhere else in the world. They’re right.

And each event of the Rickshaw Challenge guarantees an experience that is just like India itself: raw, breathtaking, and unforgettable.

Delhi has a population of approximately 17 million people. That’s
such a large number that one needs to think about it to put it into some kind of perspective. It’s four times the population of Ireland, for example, and greater
than the population of the entire human race until about 2000 BC. In other words, at any time before 4,000 years ago, every human being on the face of the earth
would be less than the number of people who currently call Delhi home.

Initially, it feels as though about one in ten Delhites’ primary occupation is the business of trying to rip off hapless tourists. Admittedly, we were
staying right smack in the middle of Delhi, in Connaught Square. Touts flock there, scenting tourist honey. As there are not nearly enough tourists to satisfy
the rapacious needs of such a large number of would-be tricksters, especially off-season during the monsoon, fierce competition has created a race of super touts
and conmen, who could easily win Olympic gold medals in hustling, if such an event existed.

The Con

I have travelled more than a little in my time, and I’ve come across
some pretty clever conmen, but these were mere beginners in comparison with even the most mediocre of Delhi touts. They are a breed apart.
It starts a soon as you leave your hotel, when friendly strangers
approach you with helpful advice. The golden rule is that anyone who appears to want to help you actually wants to rip you off in one way or another: taxi drivers want to charge you double or triple what they would charge an Indian; all want to bring you into a travel agent’s and thereby collect a
kickback on anything you purchase; everyone wants to show you the "best" hotels, shops and restaurants, focused on the commission they will receive from you being overcharged; everyone is keen to strike up a conversation, find out where you are from, build up a relationship, and then proffer
some ‘independent’ advice, which if taken, is going to cost you, one way or another.

Being a mistrustful misanthrope from birth, my cynicism kept me out of their clutches at first. However, as it’s 40 degrees in Delhi in
August and monsoon season, I could not avoid all human contact, as much as I tried to.
The first time I was ripped off was in an auto rickshaw, or tuk-tuk as they are called in Thailand; a curious three-wheeled contraption,
which is basically a motorbike with a bit of cart stuck on the back. It’s cheaper than a taxi and can often move faster through heavy traffic due to its diminutive
size. It also allows you to appreciate the appalling pollution of Delhi more thoroughly, as there’s nothing to prevent the exhaust fumes of other vehicles going
right into your lungs and sticking to your clothes and skin.

The excitement of being that much closer to death also adds something to the ride, as in the event of a crash with a car, it offers you about as much protection
as a cornflakes box. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved these vehicles. Ever since Thailand I’ve used them whenever possible, even though I know they
are dangerously unsafe.

For our first Delhi tuk-tuk ride, we wanted to go to the National Museum. My Lonely Planet
guidebook informed me that the price was 20 rupees, or 33 cents. Needless to say, I had to pay triple that, and constantly refuse my driver’s earnest entreaties to hire him as my driver for the day, or week, or month, and if I had wanted to hire him for the rest of his
natural life, a special discount would no doubt have been forthcoming. His main argument was that I could trust him because he had told me that his metre was rigged,
and that his honesty in admitting this to me was evidence that he was a man I could trust.

The logic of the argument escaped me, but I have been raised in the
traditional western rationalist mode of thinking; the subtleties of Indian thought often elude me. I was also surprised to find that he didn’t have any change. These guys never seemed to have any change,
which struck me as odd, as surely their profession demands it. Not only tuk-tuk drivers, but a vast array of people working in various service industries seem
to be permanently bereft of change – curiously enough though, only when dealing with foreigners. I sympathised with the embarrassment they must feel in constantly
having to pocket the change from large bills. They must be wracked by guilt.

National Museum

I found the National Museum rather dull. While it was clearly a treasure trove of archaeological relics from ancient Indus valley kingdoms, I never really could summon up much interest in bits of old broken pottery. I’m not remotely interested in new pottery either, to be honest. Bowls and plates are just things I eat from, and wash up afterwards; I never give them a second thought, heartless cad that I am.

There were some interesting exhibits regarding the early Harappan civilisations, a culture I had never even heard of. At its height, between 2600 and 1900 BC, it rivalled the ancient Assyrian, Babylonian and even Chinese empires. It was particularly advanced in urban planning. Recent excavations of Harappan cities have shown advanced drainage and sewer systems, far more advanced than contemporary towns in the Middle East and China, which struck me as ironic, considering how many Indians lack access to basic sanitation today, four thousand years later.

Harappa, the first of the forgotten Harappan cities to be excavated, which amazingly lay undiscovered and unknown until 1921, also showed a marked segregation of society. One part was probably for priests and administrators only; another part for the plebeian lower castes. On the other hand, all city dwellers had access to clean water and sewage systems. House sizes seemed not to differ enormously, so perhaps there was an egalitarianism that is so markedly
absent from modern India.There are so many unknowns about
Harappan culture that it’s hard to draw any conclusions. Most mysteriously, the Harappan cities were abandoned and forgotten for reasons unknown about
1700 BC. Climatic change has been put forward as the most probable reason, but no one really knows.

The museum also contained innumerable statues of strange Hindu gods. You know the kind: half man, half
bird; half man, half elephant; elephant/bird/man with six arms and a trunk. There are over 330,000 supernatural beings in Hinduism, the world’s oldest and
third-largest religion, but I can’t believe any of the one billion adherents of Hinduism actually know all of these mini-gods. The dusty statues,
divorced from their original context, didn’t excite my interest.
Perhaps what the museum really lacked, at least for me, was information beside each exhibit telling ignorant foreigners like myself what
I was actually looking at, and what it all meant.

I remember feeling a similar sense of disappointment at the Cairo National Museum, and wished, without meaning
to sound "colonial", that both the Delhi and the Cairo museum were more like the British Museum in London. Needless to say, I kept this insight from
the museum curators, not wanting to be accused of cultural imperialism, which I must admit, would be a fair accusation in this case. Not for the first time, I
criticised what I did not understand.

Back in the baking street, accosted by beggars with babies on one side, and tuk tuk drivers kerb crawling us on the other, we took refuge in the Meridian, ate an overpriced buffet meal quickly because the buffet was about to close.
I wondered why they hadn’t told us this before seating us,
since our main objective was to escape the heat for a while, not to eat a very expensive meal fast. We tried to relax in the bar afterwards, but we were
refused entry, as the bar was strictly for hotel residents, not for the likes of us. They told us in such a way as to let us know that they knew that we really
didn’t belong with the toffs.

Connaught Square

We soon found ourselves back in the 40 degree heat, pounding the pavement. We headed back to base, Connaught Square is three rings of concentric circles surrounding a park, like ripples on a lake. It
was built by the British and must have looked beautiful in its day, but rather dilapidated now. The area is divided into blocks; I found myself saying
things like: Take me to H-Block, which to me sounds like a prison wing. Sometimes I tried to walk, but I kept getting lost in the rings,
found myself in the inner ring when I wanted to be in the outer ring. Every time I set foot in the middle ring, I ended up walking around in circles, like a
lab rat on a conveyor belt.

In the heat and humidity, and taking shrapnel from fighter touts on one side and limbless beggars on the other, it soon began to feel a bit like Dante’s Inferno, but it was what we called home.
Shortly after we returned from India, a bomb went off in the centre of Connaught Place, killing twenty and wounding eighty. It was a low
tech home-made explosive device, not even powerful enough to knock down a strong wall, but cleverly designed to maim and kill, flesh being far less resilient to
explosives than bricks and mortar. A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was to seek vengeance for the
killing of Muslims throughout the world.

I found the name of
the group repulsive. The original Mujahideen fought a well-equipped Soviet army in Afghanistan in the eighties; they did not plant nail bombs in litter bins in
crowded shopping centres and then get on a metro home in time for tea. Since 2005 over 400 people have died in Indian cities from terrorist attacks. Almost all were
civilians, most completely divorced from the "Islamic oppression" for which they died. Many just happened to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time – soft targets in a world driven mad for vengeance and ‘justice’.

We spent a lot of time on our first couple of days in
Connaught Square, partly because we kept getting lost, partly to ease ourselves into India slowly, and partly because I wanted to find a Starbuck’s. I never did find one in India, I never got used to the country, and I was continually getting lost.

Touts and Scams

It’s bad enough being lost when you’re walking somewhere, but worse
still in a taxi or tuk tuk because then you really are powerless, at
the mercy of a stranger who may see you as more than a normal customer
whose only interest is being brought from A to B. He may view you as a
potential meal ticket, and he may be wondering how big a meal he can
make out of you. For example, on our second night, we went through the
highly complex procedure of negotiating a price for a tuk tuk to take
us to a dance school about three kilometres away. We bargained the
price down though, some kind of self-appointed taxi wallah
"controlling" the tuk tuks at our corner. We negotiated the cost from
the obscenely expensive to the merely exorbitant.

Our driver, who claimed to be a refugee from Afghanistan, used his
feeble English to provide us with an unwanted potted version of his
life story. About half way through the journey, he pulled over and told
us he wanted to bring us shopping in a place where we would find many
bargains. We said we didn’t want to go shopping and gently encouraged
him to bring us to our agreed destination. He was not taking "no" for
an answer. He explained that he needed us to go shopping with him to
get a kickback from the shopkeeper for bringing foreigners into his
shop. He kept tapping my forearm with his oily fingers, believing this
would make his point more forcibly, unaware of how uncomfortable I find
physical contact from strangers, especially strange aggressive men in
turbans. He kept telling us that the shop keeper had promised to buy
school books for his many children upon delivery of foreigners to his
jewellery store, and that if we did not go into the shop, located in an
unspecified part of a nearby derelict tower block, his children would
be deprived of an education.

The conversation was rather cyclical and went something like this.

You go jewellery store. I get books for my children. Yes. My children go to school.
[3 taps on my forearm]

No, we’re not going into the shop.
Please drive on.

You buy, you no buy, I get books for my children’s school.
You go to shop. You do this for [tap] the [tap] children [tap] Yes.

No.
No shopping. Please drive.

I refugee. I from Afghanistan. My children need
books. You go shop. Good jewellery. [tap] Great price [tap]. You shop [tap].

After about ten minutes of this, I told him to either drive on or let
us leave the tuk tuk. As he had little idea where the dance school was,
judging by the amount of time the taxi wallah had spent giving him
directions, and disappointed at his inability to convince us to shop
till we dropped, he told us to get out. We got into another tuk tuk,
which happened to be nearby, and sped off into the dusk.

The second tuk tuk, driven by two teenagers who claimed to be
university students, turned off the highway, careered through some
dimly lit side streets, travelling at a speed that left us quite
shaken. I wondered suspiciously if they were in cahoots with the first
tuk tuk driver, and if we were about to be robbed down a dark alley. As
it turned out, they didn’t try to rob us, or even sell us anything.
They appeared to be what they said they were; two university students
in a borrowed tuk tuk taking advantage of a Sunday to earn some extra
cash.

Not everyone was out to get me, but I couldn’t tell those who were from
those who weren’t. It was to be a problem throughout the holiday. India
makes you paranoid. We got to the dance school a little shaken, waited
on a musty sofa in a large hall to see the "Traditional Dances of
India" show. It was less touristic than it sounds, but also less
interesting than it could have been. The dancers were teenage dance
students, didn’t seem too enthusiastic about performing in front of a
dozen or so foreigners.

In their defence, they were also being asked to perform dances typical
of different regions of India, probably an impossibility. Imagine
asking a dancer in Europe to start off with an Irish jig, then switch
to some Morris dancing, and finish off with a flamenco. In any case,
the musicians, especially the tabla drummer, were really good, so I
shouldn’t complain. The thing is, I simply can’t stop complaining, and
if you’ve got this far in my travel diary, you already know this. I
should also warn you, that I have no intention of stopping! It is the
duty of every writer to report both good and bad.

A few hours later, back in Connaught Square and about to go into an
excellent restaurant called The Embassy, a con man, somehow
successfully impersonating the taxi driver who had brought us from the
airport, convinced us to get into a tuk tuk with him on the pretence of
showing us something or other. He drove us half way across the city to
some decrepit travel agent he insisted was the official government
tourist office. I know this seems incredible, and looking back at it we
cannot really understand how it happened either. It is worth analysing,
as the same elements may hold true for many scams, which do not, as is
commonly believed, always take advantage of the greed and dishonesty of
the victim.

Scams and Scamming Rules of Engagement

I will go ahead with the scam analysis and try to extrapolate general features of scams.

- Surprise the "mark"

As in military matters, a successful attack is more likely if the enemy
can be surprised. A man caught off guard is much easier to trip up. Our
conman came out of nowhere. As we turned a corner, he was there waiting
for us, a smiling ambusher.

- Feign a relationship

Humans have an inherent distrust of strangers, so conmen must never
appear to be strangers. Our conman had his hand outstretched and seemed
to know us. Moreover, proffering one’s hand instigates physical
contact, and once physical contact has been made, I think it becomes
more difficult to disentangle oneself from a situation. This could be
why politicians are so keen to shake hands.

- Build the relationship

The stronger a relationship between two people, the more likely one
person is to be influenced by another. It is for this reason that
conmen spend so much time and effort building a relationship before
moving in for the kill. Our conman claimed to be our taxi driver from
the airport pick-up, arranged through the hotel. He also claimed that
his brother worked as a receptionist in our hotel. You may wonder, as
we did afterwards, how he managed to successfully impersonate the taxi
driver. My only answer is the power of suggestion, and the fact that we
only really saw the back of the taxi driver’s head for most of the
journey; the back of one man’s head looks pretty much like another’s.

- Guide the conversation

A conversation, if left to its own devices, would be unlikely to move
towards the conman’s pitch. However, the conman must avoid suspicion
and not be too direct. He cannot, for example, say: Now I want to talk
about the product I am going to try and sell you later. Instead, he
must gently guide the conversation to this end. Our conman asked us how
we were enjoying Delhi, what we had seen, and what we intended to see.
In reality, of course, he had no interest in our opinion of Delhi, and
was merely fishing for information to be able to refine the "pitch"
later on.

- Mask the "pitch"

Just as a pyramid scheme scammer will never tell the victim that he is
trying to get him to invest in a pyramid scheme, so our conman could
not let us know he wanted to get us into a travel agent to get a
kickback. Instead, he highlighted, in general terms, the importance of
having independent and trustworthy information. He warned us about
unscrupulous touts who might give us untrustworthy information. He
stressed, in an apparently disinterested manner, the advisability of
going to the official Government Tourist Agency.

- Slowly reel in the "mark"

I believe there comes a key moment in every scam in which the victim is
asked to do something he later cannot justify doing, a compromising
action which brings the victim a lot closer to the conman’s objective,
after which escape becomes more difficult. In our case, it was getting
into a tuk tuk with the con man and a tuk tuk driver, who had
mysteriously appeared from nowhere, in order to be shown where the
official government tourist agency was exactly. We tried not to take
this step; it was already night time, and we wanted to go to a
restaurant. In hindsight, I cannot understand why I did not labour this
point, but I didn’t.
The conman used the relationship he had built up previously to stress
that he was only doing this to help his brother, the receptionist in
our hotel, to ensure we had a pleasant stay in India, and did not fall
prey to unscrupulous sharks. He also stressed the shortness of the
journey.

Distract the "mark"

The journey was not five minutes, as promised, but nearer twenty, and
it brought us into an insalubrious part of town I do not know the name
of. To distract us, the conmen tried to discuss Indian society,
stressing the problems of poverty and inequality. He deftly changed the
subject whenever I enquired about the unexpected length of the journey.
It was here that his scheme began to unravel. I happened to know that
the real government tourist agency was in Connaught Square, and I also
knew we were no longer anywhere near Connaught Square. All confidence
tricks rely to a greater or lesser extent on the ignorance of the
victim. Information is power. Although I possessed the information, I
was not yet in a powerful enough position to control the situation. I
mean, one cannot simply jump out of a speeding tuk tuk, and try as I
might, I could not control the direction of the conversation, or the
direction of the tuk tuk.

- Pressurise the "mark" and sell the "pitch"

We were eventually delivered to a grotty travel agent down a
rubbish-strewn back street. The conman tried to convince us that this
was the official Government Tourist Office, and that once we stepped
inside, irrefutable proof of this would be provided. The door was
opened, people were waving us in, someone was pointing at a part of a
sign that said "government", and the entire street was willing us into
the shop. The amount of pressure exercised on the victim, I believe,
increases and decreases throughout a scam, but it is always most
intense at key moments like this. For the conman, this was the make or
break. The sequence of scamming is summarised below.

Getting out of the Scam

I knew at this point that we were being scammed. The question was now
how to get out of it. I considered simply walking away and calling him
a cheat, a crook and a liar, but I had no idea where I was, I had no
idea who the people around me were, and more importantly, I had no idea
what relationships existed between the conman and the many undesirables
in the darkened street. I needed to somehow turn the tables, to put the
conman on the defensive.

Desperate to close the deal, the conman again tried to stress the
relationship he had built up earlier, and that he was simply doing his
brother and us, a favour. It was at this point that I destroyed his
pitch. I demanded to know precisely what hotel his brother worked at,
i.e. which hotel he had supposedly dropped us off at. He tried to
change the subject, but I held firm. He was, of course, unable to name
our hotel.

We stormed off, anxious to exploit our advantage before he could
regroup and sell a revised pitch. We reached a relatively well lit main
street; he followed us in the tuk tuk, insisting there had been some
kind of misunderstanding and promising to bring us back to Connaught
Square, free of charge. At one point we were walking down the middle of
the road, cars whizzing by in both directions, horns tooting, and the
tuk tuk a few metres away – the conman, like a shark, refusing to let
go of its prey, believing he could bring us down with just one more
bite. Only when we hung around near some police guys at a corner that
he finally let us go and disappeared into the night.

It was not the first or last time someone tried to scam us in India.
However, it was the nearest anyone came to actually doing it. From that
moment on, I trusted no one, I believed nothing, and I never spoke to
strangers. It meant cutting myself off from over one billion people,
but I saw no other way of getting through the journey.

Migraine Misery

I don’t know if it was the stress of all these tout wars, the heat,
the change in diet, or just culture shock, but on my second night in
Delhi, I had a massive migraine attack. All light caused pain – the
stronger the light, the greater the pain. Noise became painful too, and
I mean physically painful, not just unpleasant. As the migraine
progressed, it spread to the rest of my body. Cold sweats kicked in
after the third or fourth hour; I tossed and turned. Nausea and
dizziness took hold in hour five, and every inch of me seemed to be
competing with itself to see which part of it could cause the most
pain. The crescendo of pain came in hours six and seven when nausea was
replaced by vomiting, when my stomach was empty, then retching. By this
stage, I just wanted the pain to stop. I woke up the next morning with
the happiest of glows; the pain, which had seemed so permanent, had
mysteriously vanished.

Surrendering to Luxury

I had only been in India for two days, but it felt as though I’d been
there months. I felt like I was a raw recruit, dumped in the middle of
a war zone; exhausted, shell shocked, and running low on ammunition. I
needed help. That help came in the form of a man called Raju, who we
hired as a driver for the next twelve days, to take us around Agra and
all over Rajasthan in north western India. We had only gone into the
travel agent, Kumar, on the recommendation of our guidebook, to ask
about the price of a one-way taxi to Agra, but had come out with a
driver for 12 days, all accommodations booked and a one-way plane
ticket from Udaipur to Mumbai.

That’s what shops are like in India. Never go into one you have no idea
what they are going to convince you to buy. They possess occult powers
of persuasion which innocent westerners are powerless to resist. I had
never imagined I would hire a driver, thinking myself an independent
traveller: a user of public transport; a man who hauls his own bags; a
man of the people. When luxury was dangled in front of my face at a
very affordable price, with the prospect of spending the rest of the
month battling armies of touts like we had done during the first two
days, I plumped for luxury.

Sights of Delhi

The Red Fort,
dating from 1639, is a physical demonstration of the zenith of Mughal
power in India. I was surprised to find how great the Muslim influence
had been on northern India. Even the Taj Mahal is an Islamic structure,
and most of the sights in northern India were also very much in the
Mughal architectural style, rather than of Hindu origin.

The Mughals, one of the great Islamic empires, swept east from Persia
and came to control much of northern India, from the sixteenth century
until the British Raj took the reigns of power in the nineteenth
century. The fort is a massive structure, with an imposing red sandstone
wall that stretches for 2.5 kilometres, and reaches 60 metres in height
in parts. This fort city was the epicentre of Shah Jahan’s new capital
city, which he modestly named after himself, Shahjahanabad. He was the
same shah who built the Taj Mahal. However, he never quite completed
the move from the former capital Agra, because he was deposed by his
own son, Aurangzeb, a religious zealot, who sowed the seeds for the
later decline of the Mughals.

The fort used to house thousands of people, but the British evicted
them following the India mutiny of 1857, and deposed the last of the
Mughals, who had unwisely agreed to be a figurehead for the rebellion.
The British turned the fort into their own military base, building some
truly hideous barracks that still scar the fort today. We saw the fort
early in the morning in drizzle and sandals, ignoring the dismissive
glances of Indian tourists, who didn’t seem to notice the drizzle.

A large and immaculately groomed park, this must be a very soothing
place to visit in the winter. However, as the mid-afternoon sun burnt
through the morning clouds and set the ground steaming, it felt like
being in an open-air sauna. My clothes became wet with sweat, as we
tried to admire a simple black marble platform which marks the spot
were Ghandi
was cremated following his assassination in 1948. My eyes were red and
I had to hold back the tears, not through emotion, but because my
mosquito spray and suntan lotion were running down into my eyes from my
soaking eyebrows. I thought about how uncomfortable it must be for
women who wear make-up, which is probably something few people consider
when staring at Ghandi’s memorial.

The park is a memorial not only to Ghandi, but also to three other
great Indian leaders; only one of whom, Nehru, wasn’t assassinated.
Indira Ghandi, Sanjay and Rajiv went the same way as the great Mahatma,
testaments to how deeply passions run in India, and how dangerous a
country it is to lead.

Qutb Minar Monument Complex

Battling through the Delhi traffic for what seemed like days, our trustee driver brought us to the Qutb Minar
monument complex.
When we arrived, I asked him what it was, and he replied: a monument.
That was as much information as I ever gleamed from Raju about anything
we visited. I could see his level of English was lacking, but without
knowing a word of Hindi, who was I to comment? Some internet surfing
later, I learned this was a World Heritage Site marking the beginning
of Islamic rule in India. The showpiece of the complex, the Qutb Minar
minaret, is the largest red brick minaret in the world and reaches an
amazing 73 metres, no small feat when you consider it was built in
1193.

Some of the materials in the complex were actually recycled from
previous religious shrines. For example, there is a seven-metre high
iron pillar, which has somehow refused to rust, probably of Hindu
origin, may date back to 400 AD. I enjoyed rambling around the ruins,
with the sun setting and the temperatures becoming bearable. Wild dogs
were playing in the evening sun; flies were getting ready for bed.

My time in Delhi was drawing to a close. I was looking forward to
exploring the immensity of India. We spent the evening in a bar with
live music. I think it was called aLIVE. I don’t know if it was the
quality of the music, the ample quantities of Kingfisher beer that
flowed, or the thought that I wouldn’t have to get on a tuk tuk for a
while, but I felt very happy.

We got up at 7.00 and checked out after breakfast. Well, breakfast in India was always a rather dull affair. After we eliminated everything that might potentially lead to food poisoning, we were left with a banana, toast, and black coffee. However, sometimes there weren’t any bananas, and most hotels didn’t attach much importance to the toast being hot, and the coffee was invariably Nescafe instant, but I was generally so stuffed from the previous evening’s feast that I didn’t really care.

Our driver picked us up at 8.00, and we began the long exit from Delhi. Staring through the window of the air-conditioned car, part of me felt guilty for succumbing to this kind of luxury, but most of me very glad not to be facing a prolonged and doomed negotiation with a taxi driver, a long queue in the train station, and then warding off touts when we reached our destination.

With the morning traffic and the sheer immensity of the 17-million strong urban sprawl, it seemed to take forever to get out of Delhi. As a passenger, you very quickly stop noticing the accidents and near fatalities you see along the way, and before you know it, your involuntary flinch as a motorbike weaves in front of you without warning becomes a twitch, and then it disappears entirely.

I could never learn to drive in these conditions myself, but I had learned to be a passenger in them.

As you leave the outskirts, which still seem to be full of teeming masses, the factories are slowly replaced by lush green fields, occasional buffalos lazily swish their tails and a cow here and there muses philosophically. Breaking up the fields, small groups of trees seem to hold the haze, almost magnetically. Large flocks of birds circle and rise on the morning air, and everywhere you look there is life-bursting from all corners in what may be the most fertile land on Earth.

You pass strange sights on the road: tuk tuks built to carry two which have somehow squeezed in 9 or 10; women dressed in colourful saris walking in the lay-by of the motorway carrying immense sheaves of wheat or other farm produce on their head, ignored road signs telling people not to drive the wrong way down the motorway.

It’s not as strange as the things you see when the car comes to a stop. At one roadside cafe, for example, the car had hardly come to halt before a turbaned man with three monkeys on chains, a snake charmer and a vendor of some old tat were vying for our attention. Picture it: the vendor’s tapping on the window, smiling a toothless grin at you; the monkeys are doing summersaults, and the snake is rising from its basket as the snake charmer plays something freaky on his pipe.

And this isn’t in some bazaar or other. This is a lay-by 200 metres from a roadside cafe. This kind of thing never happened to me on the M1, and at the time I fervently wished I was back there, as our uninvited entertainers were all beginning to look a bit annoyed by our lack of money for what they considered to be services rendered. The snake was hissing, the monkey jumped at the car window a couple of times, and the vendor’s long filthy nails tapping on the window were growing louder and louder. Our driver had disappeared on some errand or other, but I had no idea where he had gone nor when he would return, as his English had been as incomprehensible as ever.

I wondered absent-mindedly if it would make Sky News if they broke in and murdered us. I could hear the news commentary in my head:

“And this news just in-Two British Diplomats [sic] (you know how accurate Sky News can be) have been killed in their car today in a bizarre attack involving three monkeys, a snake and some picture postcards. Police suspect the snake may have been trained by Al Qaeda.”

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any stranger, a legless beggar hauled himself across the road and joined in the melee. Thankfully our driver reappeared soon after, but the legless beggar wrapped himself around the driver’s legs and wouldn’t let him go until he received some kind of financial remuneration.

The above incident did at least have its comic side, but child beggars tapping on your windows at traffic lights, or any other point where your car becomes stationary, just aren’t funny.

As the possible payoff from touching the heartstrings of a fat white fool are potentially so much greater then anything they could expect from a hardened Indian, beggars always try much harder with Westerners, and they stay for much longer.

The sight and sound of child beggars tap tap tapping on the car window, and their whining cries for assistance, will be one of my lasting memories of India. Of course, you are an even bigger target out of the car, but I’ve found endless repeating ‘No, thank you’ in an increasingly snarly and venomous tone, combined with walking away quickly, usually gets rid of them after a while. The catch is you just have to keep moving, look like you know where you’re going and what you’re doing. This can be rather difficult when you don’t really know where you’re going or what you’re doing. Nevertheless, you must keep moving. Stability would draw every beggar and hawker in a 500-metre radius toward you, vultures drawn to carrion.

Let’s get back to the trip. Just outside Agra, of the Taj Mahal fame, we visited the mausoleum of Akbar the Great, often hailed as the greatest Mughal leader of India. The Mughals, distant descendants of Genghis and Kubla Khan, were to exert a strong Muslim influence on northern India and what is now Pakistan. Indeed, without the Mughals, the partition of India might not have even taken place, as Pakistan would probably have remained Hindu.

Akbar was the first Mughal emperor of the Delhi region, sweeping down from the Afghan mountains, and at his death in 1605, he ruled an empire stretching over 500 million acres. He is remembered nowadays for his tolerance of non-Muslim minorities, who made up the vast majority of his subjects. He held regular debates with experts from other religious faiths (Hindus, Sikhs, and even Jews and Christians), and tried to stress what was common to all faiths, rather than what divided them. He argued that all faiths lead to God, a philosophy the world could still learn from.

However, it would be wrong to see him as the world’s first great humanist. For example, shortly after coming to power, after retaking Delhi, he made a ‘victory pillar’ from the decapitated heads of his defeated enemies. He advocated a state of permanent war and constant expansion, and he was not averse to destroying Hindu temples and replacing them by mosques and mausoleums, and in the siege of Chittor he showed his bloodthirstiness when he massacred 30,000 unarmed and defenceless peasants in cold blood. But by the standards of the day, he was a liberal humanitarian. Such were the standards of the day.

Religious conflict was on my mind. On the previous night, rioting had broken out again between Muslims and Hindus in Ahmenabad, as it still periodically does in northern India. Most of the time, only a few people die and it doesn’t even make the western news. You need real blood and carnage to make the International news. You need something quirky, savage and entertaining, like diplomats savaged to death by Al Qaeda monkeys and blood-sucking snakes. However, reading Indian newspapers and watching Indian news channels showed me that religious conflict and violence is an everyday event in India-either that or I was there during a very violent month.

I had thought that after independence and partition all Muslims went to Pakistan and all Hindus came to India-ethnic cleansing on a truly massive scale. While millions did move, and millions more died in religious clashes which the army was unable or unwilling to control, Islam is still a powerful force in modern India. While there are certainly few Hindus in Pakistan, less than 1 % of the population in fact, a significant minority in India are Muslim-13%, to be exact, and most of them live in the north.

But to get back on track, the mausoleum itself was an early example of what was to become known as the Mughal style; large onion domes, minarets and immaculate gardens. Inside the building, as in all Islamic buildings, idolatry in the form of statues or images is completely absent. Instead, one’s attention is held by shapes, by intricate patters and inlays.

Forgive my gross simplification, but picture the mausoleum as being like the Taj Mahal, except made of red sandstone instead of white marble. It was a very impressive sight, and if it wasn’t for the 40-degree heat and the 90-plus humidity, I would have stayed longer.

We reached Agra in the early afternoon, and went straight to the hotel, as I was beginning to suffer India burnout, and needed to feel something bland and innocuous, like a hotel room. As I lay on the bed, even the sound of the building renovations on the floor below me and the endless honking of innumerable cars flooding through my window couldn’t keep me awake. I fell into a strange sleep and for the first time I could remember, I didn’t dream of work. I dreamt of India. On day four I had done it. I had arrived in India.

Over the past several years, Bangalore, now better known as the Silicon Valley of India has transformed. Its salubrious climate has succumbed to global warming, pollution and the impact of the boom in the IT sector, resulting in a mass of floating population – much more than the city was perhaps equipped to handle.

Yet, annually on the occasion of India’s Republic Day (January 26) or Independence Day (August 15), this city gears up to live to its original name – that of the Garden City of India.

Lalbagh Botanical Garden, written about in Bootsnall earlier, hosts the famous flower show during the week running up to Republic Day and Independence Day respectively.

So, on a cloudy August afternoon (crowds are less in early mornings and afternoons), I found myself in the glass house at Lalbagh Garden, admiring the flora and the fauna (which comprised of homo-sapiens – largely of the security guard variety). Yes, terrorism threats mean a whole lot of security precautions.

At the flower show, a troop of school kids provided me company. In fact, watching them was more interesting as they stood transfixed while gazing at model of the dinosaurs, newspaper reports cite that it took 50,000 flowers to make this model. They oohed and they aahed. I wish we didn’t have to grow up!

Each Independence Day flower show has a theme, perhaps this time it was the animal kingdom. Last year it was Indian musical instruments. But, to my amusement, a mermaid which occupied centre stage, with a fish tail made of orchids, was surrounded by dolphin models and teddy bears (yes all made of flowers). Since when did Teddy-bears become part of the sea kingdom? I have no answer to this one.

Thai art was also visible as aero-planes made of banana (plantation) leaves whizzed on the ceiling of the glass house. Plants, roses, flowers of all kinds that were the prize winners also occupied pride of place in the glass house.

If you happen to be in Bangalore during the week of the flower show, do look up the newspapers for the details and do not miss it. Where else can you get a whiff of the era gone by, where Bangalore was truly a garden city?

Fortunately some things do not change. The HOPCOM (a local horticulture organization) counter continued to provide glasses of the freshest grape juice, with just a marginal increase in price. As this sweet juice trickled down my parched throat, all seemed well with the world, even if Teddy-bears seemed to rise from the sea!