The Deadly Delhi Duo

It might be news for you but (semi)professional travelling is quite hard work! There’s usually quite a lot to see in a limited amount of time and you must plan it so that you get to check every imaginable attraction on the list and every unforeseeable distraction on the way. Hours are tough, as this really is a full-time job. So, taking a vacation from your vacation is really something!

My time off from globetrotting started in Delhi, when my friend Fatma arrived, all runny-nosed, glassy-eyed and generally sick as a Kenyan at the North Pole, who will henceforth be known as Mona.

The first day we just hung out around the hotel, being unsure of our future plans, and only superficially raiding the area. We were pretty much disoriented, partly because of the blasphemous maps we had available in our guidebooks, that would not give away our exact location in relation to the metro station. We even tried to pinpoint our current position by consulting the hotel’s extensive Delhi map and finally realized that scales are something that eludes Indian observation. Also, orientation in Delhi is something that eluded us.

While we were on the lookout for an easy (and all too urgent) way to get to find and visit the beauties of Delhi and Rajasthan, we spend half a day of our precious time trying to book train tickets online, and, consequently, I am now the proud member of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd., having both an original unique username (Flinx) and a unique password. And, in case I forget my unique password, there’s also the different, yet still unique cell phone password which I complementary received. The only thing I don’t have (and without it, all my efforts are completely, utterly useless) is a bank account favored by Indian banks and that would be an Indian bank account or American Express. So, with all my vast 6 week experience with ‘The Indian Way’, I had to admit to I was clueless.

But there was always plan B, which roughly consisted in actually leaving the hotel and its surroundings and getting to a real live railway station. Keep in mind when Indianing: thanks to the great British influence (consisting in the current masochist Indian pleasure of acquiring and stubbornly assimilating British words that are longer than six letters – not counting double letters – and are usually – indianly – pronounced in such a way that no European would even have the slightest idea what they meant to express; the word ‘temperature’ would, in time, sound something like ‘tramp-churn’), there’s no such thing as a train station; there are only railway stations all over the country.

So, we called Babu, the rickshaw driver who became my dearest (and first) friend in Delhi: not only had he convinced me to get into his rickshaw right after I got out of the Metro station; not only had he taken me to ‘my small shop’, that was really owned by a serious-looking Sikh, who at least gave me a very useful Delhi map – free of charge (after all the information about his sightseeing services); not only did Babu promise that, after a nice morning chai at ‘my shop’ he’ll take me to my hotel; not only this, but he had invited ‘my brother’ along too! That is, a dubious-looking guy, who got into the rickshaw after we left ‘my shop’ and also offered his services as a taxi driver – Siva forbid he would say guide! – for a bigger price than the serious-looking Sikh. I played along, wrote down his number and acted all impressed by the no less than two Romanian cell phone entries in his private phone, and sheepishly disappeared into my hotel reception. But Babu’s number I kept, honestly intending to use it:

‘Hello, Babu! Can come pick us up?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Coming in fortyfai minutes!’

‘No, no! Sooner, if possible.’

‘Okay, okay, thirty minut!’

‘Okay, Babu, we wait outside...’

Of course, Mona was deeply impressed of my Hinglish speaking abilities…

Five minutes later, Mona, who’s cell phone I used, got a call. After some confused but thorough misunderstanding, I got the phone and heard the sweet, coarse voice of one beedi-addicted Babu at the other end:

‘Ma’am, coming in piptin minut!’

‘Huh?’

‘Piptin, piptin minut. Will be at hotel!’

‘Ah, fifteen minutes, you say? Great! Meet you in front.’

Piptin minutes later, we were staring bemused at Babu’s rickshaw, which contained a toothless, grinning Babu and a dignified but still dubious-looking Babu brother, whose good eye was fixed on us and his other eye, the lazy eye closely inspecting a spot right over Babu’s left side mirror. The brother plainly falls into the creepy-without-the-need-of-a-physical-handicap category but his wandering eye really startled us. Can he actually drive a taxi while he is looking at the left passenger’s door handle and at the road at the same time? Still, he joined us in our quest for a better venture in the marvels of Indian Railway, hoping to prey on the innocent, sharking for an occasion to rip us off.

‘To train station, Babu!’

‘?’

‘Err, sorry, to railway station!’

‘No possible, ma’am. Today close.’

‘But today Tuesday. Why close?’

‘Today holiday. Not open…’

So it went on for a while, they trying to convince us that only when hell freezes over will they take us to a closed railway station, us insisting that there’s no way in the aforementioned frozen hell that the railway station is actually closed on a Tuesday. The compromise came when Babu shoved a slimy hand under the rickshaw’s soft-top and extracted a damp and sticky city map on which he proceeded to point at a tourism office he wanted to take us to instead. We agreed, hoping to find someone there who would be able to explain this mysterious matter with the holiday.

We went in as naïve as butterflies. And, as the great guffaw duo that we are, came out waiting for the driver (car included) we had just purchased for the following 10 days. We got hoodwinked by a legit (!) private company, who offered all our heart’s desires on a platter: visiting the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort; seeing the Pink City of Jaipur; amble on Pushkar’s ghats; climb onto the BlueCity’s defense walls; marvel at Mount Abu’s Jain temples and idly ramble through Udaipur’s winding alleys. They threw in a tiger safari in Ratambore National Park, the entrance tickets for the Taj, an elephant safari and the accountable driver (car included). We had everything: a good Tata car, budget hotels and promises we would not be disappointed.

We walked out befuddled, not yet aware of the impressive remuneration Diamond Tours Ltd. got for its services, sum which I refuse to disclose and of which I refuse to think about on the grounds of a possible heart attack. True, it would be easier and faster to find our way around and we’d be spared the hassle of searching for train and bus tickets, booking counters and guest houses and, most importantly, we’d be getting our own personal driver which definitely meant we were in for some serious holiday-ing.

And, right up to the moment we received our copy of the (already signed and paid for) contract, we were almost convinced that it was a government office. Well, Diamond Tours is, in fact, a company licensed by the Indian government and thus, can even have a standard information sign posted on its front door. But that doesn’t make it governmental. Gotta hand it to the self-proclaimed ‘Man with the Big Chair’ (Caution! Do not attempt to translate that into Romanian!): he does know his job and he’s good at it, so he really deserves his big chair(s)!