Travels Through the Land of Scams and Curry - Part 1 (Now with random pictures!)

Due to crappy internet connections and general procrastination on my part I have a bunch of unpublished posts detailing my trip to India.  I'll (hopefully) get these up in the next few days. 

10.2.2014

Delhi: a descent into sensory madness

To sleep or not to sleep?  That is the question.  I’m on the Bhopal Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Agra.  This necessitated a 4am wakeup time, but I assume the Taj Mahal will be worth it.  Indeer, the incredibly helpful owner of Hotel Kabli, recommended that I get a cab at 4:45am so that I would have an hour to find my train.  Well, the Bhopal Shatabdi Express leaves from track 1 at New Delhi Railway Station which is basically at the station entrance, so I think the extra hour was really a scam cushion.  Oh the scams.  The many, many scams.  As my cab raced through the streets of early morning Delhi I could not help but imagine all the greasy Indian scam artists emerging bleary-eyed from their abodes murmuring, “Time to scam the tourists.”  Scams in Delhi are like Dunkin Donuts in New York – ubiquitous. 

And yet surprisingly, I survived my first two days in Delhi unscammed.  This is in part because I basically refused to speak to men unless negotiating a rickshaw fare.  And since Delhi is 95% male (gender-selective abortions and female infanticide can really shape a demographic) this means that I basically spent those days in a mental fortress of solitude.  So far, however, silence seems to be the best approach.  Otherwise I would spend the entire day repeating the following:

“No, thank you, I don’t want a rickshaw ride/saree/pashmina/shopping emporium/shoeshine/tour of the Red Fort/tour of the spice market/tour of ANYTHING!  And no, you cannot take my picture, because you are a sketchy young man and I fear you will use it for lewd purposes (***note: I’m not being paranoid; it’s a thing).  Or, I guess you could just wait until I sit down and then scoot in next to me while your friend takes the photo before I can stop him.  Oh well.  No more sitting for me.”

See what I mean?  Better to leave these things unsaid.

So yes, Delhi is rife with men trying to separate you from your money.  My personal favorites are the guys who are waiting at the train station trying to lure you away from the official tourist office and right to one of the travel agencies where you will be charged ten times the actual cost of the ticket, and the scammers will receive a hefty commission.  Common tactics include impersonating a Railway official, demanding to see a person’s ticket, and then informing that person that the train in question has been cancelled, and the only remedy is to follow him to this travel agency where everything will be sorted out.  Riiiiiight…… I am kind of surprised that this works, however.  These guys are sketch-tastic.  Why would I listen to some creepy guy who clearly spends a lot of time hanging out at railway stations? 

To be fair, Delhi is not entirely populated with shady shysters. There was the rickshaw driver who overheard me attempting to negotiate a ride from a grizzled old driver and interrupted to tell me that the old man didn’t speak a word of English, and furthermore I didn’t need to take a rickshaw anyway because I could just take the metro. Very honest.  Very helpful.  Very rare.

So I guess the real question is, do I like anything about Delhi?  Well, yes.  The food, of course.  The parathas, the samosas, the chana masala, the chole buture, the kati rolls.  It’s a world of spicy richness, and my only regret is that I can’t eat more.  I love Humayun’s tomb. It’s a serene pocket in a crazy city.  Built by his grieving widow (grieving gets pretty elaborate here in India), the mausoleum is a magnificent floating structure of red sandstone and marble.  I visited there in the late afternoon on my first day in Delhi, and enjoyed the amber sunset while listening to Sufis sing devotional hymns from the nearby shrine.  I love the heady scent of cardamom that that suddenly engulfs me as my rickshaw driver careens through the streets at break-neck speed.  I love the incongruity of men leading goats through clouds of dust, grime, and exhaust on the traffic-clogged streets of Chawri Bazaar.

But I will still be glad to leave Delhi.  These few days allowed me to get a taste, and, like many travelers before me, I find that taste to be particularly potent. I think for now that’s all I need.  I’m ready for the desert.