Guru Gem Scam: Part Two

Life has gotten unusually busy. I'd normally say that I'm so not into that, but to quote my friend Whitney, Mama's got bills to pay.

If you thought I'd forgotten about my Guru Gem Scam, though, you were wrong. Nary a day goes by that I don't think about the incredible, vivid fever dream that was the month of March with Homegirl Laura. To be honest, it's hard for me to convince myself that it was real. That it happened. That I did those things and saw those places and ate that food and felt it all. Our time at Elephant Nature Park is indelibly engraved into my brain as "Heaven" and I think that experience - even/especially our morning riding in the back of a grain truck - will forever be my Happy Place. It's where I'd love some kind soul to scatter my ashes. But India is infinitely more complicated in my memory... as everyone told me it would be.

 

I ended the last post by talking about just how nervous I was about the whole enterprise, how worried I was for my financial and physical safety. I could never have predicted where the biggest scams would come from, though, or how I would feel about them as and after they occurred. India tricked me big time. All things considered, I think we couldn't have been luckier in our lack of major scrapes. Neither of us got extremely sick (though admittedly, my digestive system has never been so responsive in its 28 years), neither of us were robbed (in the traditional sense of the word), and neither of us got hit by a moving object. Great success!

We were constantly wheedled out of money every step we took. Shoe attendants outside of temples demanded cash for "watching" our shoes. Surly women in bathrooms shouted at us if we didn't tip them for handing us toilet paper, or, at Ranakpur, for simply watching me pee. Small children didn't even give a pretense and just wanted money. Being treated like an ATM was obnoxious and a bit dehumanizing, but at the end of the day, I understand it. Even though Laura and I are broke, we're still less broke than most people in India. I get it.

But there were things that happened and still make my blood boil:

1. We got embarrassingly ripped off by the biggest ass of a bicycle rickshaw driver in all of Delhi. Our car driver for the day dropped us off at one location and suggested we take a bicycle rickshaw to Jama Masjid, the grandest mosque in all the land, only for this jerkface he picked to get us there after it had closed to visitors. That was frustrating, though I should've just been glad to still be alive. I vow here and now on this blog that never will I take another bicycle rickshaw in India in my life. I saw Death and he winked at me. Lecherously. Once our charming chauffeur returned us to our original location, he demanded a sum so outrageous that I've blocked it out of my memory. (300 rupees each, Laura?) It was almost as much as we paid for our car driver for the effing day. We were too new to India and too sympathetic with his shitty job to tell him to stick it, but we should've. Skin tax.

2. Finding our train from Jaipur to Udaipur was hell for many reasons, not least of which was because they'd changed the physical layout of the train and as such, our seats, without informing us. But I remember that journey because it marked the first (though not last) time I can recall yelling at a total stranger. I am not a person who is quick to anger. It takes a lot to awaken the fiery demon within me, and even more for me to act on it. But this guy... oh, this guy. Due to the clusterfuck of confusion with our seats and the fact that Indian train officials just don't give a shit about helping foreigners (and maybe even less of a shit about helping Indians?), we had maybe five minutes to get to our compartment with all of our stuff before the train was due to leave the station. Laura and I don't roll with transportation uncertainty, and that is something I respect about our travel partnership. I decided in the spirit of haste and convenience to bend my iron will and hire a porter. Not so much because I didn't want to haul my suitcase as because I figured he'd get us on the train right quick. (A word about Indian porters: they wear red shirts, sometimes red turbans, and they're aggressive as hell. They make a bee line to any foreign-looking person and shout "Porter, Madam!" in your face until you either agree or get borderline rude.) Learning my lesson from our bicyclist asshat, I asked how much this porter's services would cost before I accepted his offer. He said "100 rupees" and  picked up my suitcase and Laura's before scrambling onto the train without really looking at our ticket. He smashed our stuff under two seats and I gave him the 100. He looked at it and said "No. 200." Uhhh... I said "No. 100. You said 100." I glared at him. He didn't budge. He said "200." I felt the demon rising in my throat. Are you fucking for real? He pointed at my suitcase and said "100" and then pointed to Laura's and repeated. I started yelling. He still wouldn't move. I reminded myself that we were bickering over $2 and he probably needed it more than I did. I probably growled as I handed over the other bill and he left without another word. A Spanish couple on the train had witnessed the whole thing, and the guy said to me in his accented English, "fucking coolies! I'm going to kill the next one that does that to me. The same thing happened five minutes ago. Also, you're in our seats."

I was soothed by the affirmation that I'd been very obviously bamboozled by the porter, but ashamed to be in such company. I'd read the word "coolie" a dozen times before in old colonial English novels - it is an unflattering and racist term at best. I felt taken advantage of but more than anything, annoyed at my own annoyance. And I still had no idea where we were supposed to sit. Somehow, by the grace of a nice Italian woman who pointed out a list rubber-glued to the outside of the train car, we found our new seats and I even got help moving our shit, but man. Unfun. 

3. I think it was the morning we arrived back in Delhi from Udaipur (or was it Jaipur, Laura?) after a ludicrously long train ride that I snapped at the roving pack of jackal taxi drivers. (You're sensing a theme here, aren't you. Aggressive men surrounding us telling us to hire them and pay them abnormally well. None of them gigolos...?)

A. TAXI, MADAM?
B. Where are you going, Madam?
C. You want taxi! Come!
D. Come. I take you [makes move to grab bag].
E. Rickshaw, Madam?
F. My rickshaw is cheaper, Madam. Come with me.
C. Rickshaws are slow! He cannot take all of your luggage, Madam.
F. He's a liar, Madam.
G. TAXI, MADAM!

Now add sleep deprivation, un-brushed teeth, hunger, confusion, and 6 AM. I lost it. It went something like this:

"If you start a fight, I'm not hiring either of you. This is stupid as hell. You are screaming at us at 6 in the morning. We are exhausted. We just got off a 12 hour train ride. We need space and time to think about this. I do not want your taxi. I do not want your rickshaw. We're people. We're human beings. You're treating us like we're an ATM. I am not an ATM. I am a person. My name is Anya. Leave us the hell alone! GO. AWAY. NOW."

Nothing like a good old fashioned shaming, right? One of them actually apologized, though I doubt what I said really sank in. India's a country of hustling. Too many people with poorly distributed resources. How can you survive and not hustle? But still. It hit me then as it did for those three weeks that my skin color will always precede me there. My college essay on E.M. Forster's novel A Passage to India came to mind. I'll spare you the 20 pages and give you the thesis: There Is No Passage.

On that note, I'm off to bed. Fear not, reader! You are one step closer to not one - not two - but THREE gurus and one very shiny gem scam. Hark!