Udaipur
I wrote earlier in this Blog about
some insights I’d had into the India culture and psych, or perhaps just some of the
annoyances of touts and other various chaps. Looking back on it, some of it is
right, some of is wrong, and some of it is still under debate.
Four instance, damp washing is still right.
I’m sorry, I meant to say, it was
really about four instances that instilled in me some characteristics in
Indians that I hadn’t seen before. Let me explain each of these in detail.
First: I felt sorry for Rishvan, the owner of the guesthouse we have been staying. In his lifetime, he must have heard thousands of stories of tourists being ripped off by this driver or that merchant. Blah, blah, blah. It was probably the first thing he heard from any tourist who came to stay with him. We got talking to, and became friendly with him after the first few days. Turns out he was a really funny and decent lad (surprising, once you remove the ‘business’ side of people, they become warm and personable). He began telling us his view on the situation. An Indian man (let’s say, a shoe seller) is running is business (in India, specialisation is everything. You’ll have one man who’s done the same microscopic thing (sell omelettes for instance) for thirty-plus years.). The purpose of his business is to make money from the business to provide for him family. Naturally, he want’s that business to be successful to provide a better life for his family. If, he lives in a culture where nothing is fixed in price, so if he see’s a customer who will pay more for his product, he will naturally try and sell to the customer who will pay more. Fair game. He will ask the customer. If the customer says ‘no thanks’ he will quickly realise it is not a sale, he will do nothing further. If however, the customer says, ‘I will take a look’ he will begin the process of trying to extract maximum price from the customer. Fair game. The characters desire for a product will largely determine how much they will pay for it. Their information or knowledge regarding the product is irrelevant. it is their desire, not their knowledge, that will determine the price. Or, and it’s a key ‘or’, if they begin the negotiation process, it is a test of their skill as a businessman. If they win a low price, then alas, they are a good business man, if the tourist pays a higher than a price the seller will except, then wallah, he is the superior business man. Fair game.
So, from the Indian’s point of view,
no one is being ripped off. He is a sharp-minded businessman. From the tourist
point of view however, who is used to a cold beer being $5, paying $10 for a
beer is a rip-off.
Not so, it is a matter of culture. In
Indian culture, it is sharp minded business in a fair game; in our culture it
is a ‘rip-off’ because we paid more than the price on the sticker said it
should. Neither is wrong; each is right, depending on which side you view it from.
The obvious defence of this comes from
the following story. You turn up to the airport in the dark. You have not one
iota about where you are staying or where you are going. All you seek is
darkness and a man asking for thirty dollars. Okay, you pay it. Better to get a
hotel and have some sleep. You later find out you can get the same ride for
three dollars. Darn, you got ripped off. No. You did not have the required
information to make an informed decision and thus simply paid the price you
were offered. Now, that can’t be an excuse ‘you didn’t know what you were
doing,’ because you can get information on just about anything these days, and
if you don’t know basic prices, or have pre-arranged transport, then maybe you
shouldn’t go there in the first place. Again, not a rip-off, but simple
business practice.
The best thing in all this, is perhaps
the time when both win. This is easy to describe. You buy a bag for $10 that
you love dearly. Seller offered $30, you bargained to $10, felt happy, and
shook hands. Problem solved. However, the seller could have sold for $2. Darn.
You got ripped off. No, you got something that you determined as being far
greater value than the time you spent working for it. Perhaps, half an hour’s
work bought you a bag you really loved. In this case, price is irrelevant – you
paid less for what you would have paid more for, or for which you would have
sacrificed more of your time for. A win-win: nice thing to have (the classic
line in India: “I am happy, you are happy, everyone is happy”).
Second. A man in Jodhpur asked us a question
that I hear quite literally ten times a day.
“Where are you from?”
“New Zealand,” we begrudgingly say.
“NO!” he says, “In India they always ask you three questions: where
are you from, where are you staying, and how long are you in India.”
“Uh, ok,” we say, smashing another
omelette down.
In India, I suddenly click. Every
question, without fail, is designed to illicit information in an attempt to
profit. Let me illustrate. “Where are you from?” will allow people to associate
and identify with you in some artificial way, such as “Daniel Verttori very
good cricket.” You will then inevitably be asked to come into a shop.
“Ah, yes, let’s talk.” No.
Realising his insincere approach, you
often rebuff. That’s a bad thing, because some guys are genuine. You would hope
that. So when someone’s talking to you, it’s to get business, not be your
friend. This sounds sad, and to an extent, it is. We don’t want to be talked to
simply because we could be a source of profit. It’s sad how much it happens,
and in a way detracts from the experience. It’s not like this everywhere
either. Philippines especially had friendly people, who were happy in their
life, and were more than happy to just talk. In India, it’s hustling all the
time.
There is a caveat though. Most places
I go I am in tourist or commercial zones. By nature, they are places
congregated with a lot of sellers, and you will thus be asked multiple times if
you would like to buy things. So it would be natural towards my bias view that
‘Indians aren’t out to be your friend; they are out to sell you something”
because I hang around in these zones. Where I to hang with families, or small
communities, my view would be entirely different, based on different
experiences and different information. Indian friends of mine are exactly that
– friends. It’s just hard to those friends over here.
The young, though, a few years younger
than, do generally seem interested and engaged, and not out to fleece you. I’ve
enjoyed talking to them.
Okay, back to our three question man.
He says,
“people want to know where you are
from so they can bond with you, like Mick Jagger is in my shop or something.
They want to know where you are staying because they will then know how rich
you are. If you are staying in an upmarket hotel or palace, they will know you
are rich and will sell you genuine articles. If you are staying in scungy
guesthouses (like us), they will offer you fake knock-offs.”
Again, good business sense. Qualify
how much a customer will pay from his choice of lodging. And disguise that he
won’t know as much. He continues,
“He wants to know how long you are in India for so he knows if he cheats you whether you will come get him or not. Want to know the secret?”
“Yes,” we say.
“One, say you are from Delhi, two, say
you work at the Embassy and have worked there for three years.”
Wow, these are really good tips. I’m
thinking, this is a really genuine guy. Then, as my balloon deflates and the
same bullshit comes through, he asks,
“now come have a look at my shop.”
You could perceive me as having read
the situation wrong. Maybe be was
genuine, and then offered us to look at his shop, and not genuine only so he
could get us into his shop. But consider this: when we turned up for our
omelettes the man asked if ‘this was our first time.’ Yeah, it sure was. A few
minutes later he was sneakily on the home, and soon holding is ‘brother’ (and
later ‘cousin’) on the shoulders introducing him to us. Oh right, genuine only
to get us into his shop. Not genuine, per se. Rats.
There are two saving graces too all
this, which, although I intended to sound positive, actually sounds quite
negative. Let me try again.
Three: Dinner with an Indian family. Yes
they had a silk shop below, and yes they lived above the silk shop, but in this
case I think they were genuinely genuine, and good and honest people. I left
feeling good and happy, without the familiar let down of a hard sell. I wrote
about this in ‘guess who’s coming to dinner.’
Four: This was Disco man, who I written
quite a lot about, and will write more. Though he was running a business, by
his nature and his behaviour I feel he was genuine. They two can mutually
coexist, and I think in this case we found a genuine man and a genuine business
man. That’s a good mix to have.
So I don’t know if I have saved their
graces, all the while acknowledging my deeply inherent bias of being a
westerner in India and a naïve tourist one at that, but I do know there are
genuine pockets of real connection between people without the tentacles of
business, and I do know that the vast majority of people are capable of more
genuineness than they show in their business lives. I know Indians would be
genuine to each other, and I know every Indian friend of mine is infinitely
genuine, but I don’t know if the two will ever meet. I’ll always be a tourist, and
a tourist will always have the dollars to spend, and probably, in all
likelihood doesn’t want to make friends with a humble shopkeeper, even though
some do, like me. So if I were a businessman or something, I would rationally
not try to make friends, but see it as business, because the customers don’t
want to be friends in the first place so why try. Even if some do, there’s not
enough point in putting all the effort relative to the reward. So I will do as
I always do. And the westerner thinks ‘he doesn’t want to be friends with me’,
so I won’t try. It’s a sad reality, really.
Reading over this, I really think I
need to get out of these so-called ‘tourist places’ because it’s really
distorting my view. But it’s hard, because you have just a few days in a city,
and want to see the best places and have the nicest time. You can’t have that
exploring a pointless suburb for half a day in a city of 20 million, rather
than taking in the sites and highlights, where the restaurants, nightlife and
other travellers usually are anyway.
I guess that just goes back to the
other blog “the art of being a traveller”. You’re not there for friendship, or
enlightenment, you’re there on holiday. Just imagine people saying ‘I’m going
away to make friends’ or ‘I’m going to go make friends with random village
people’, they would be ridiculed. Much better to say, “I’m going to see the Taj
Mahal.’ I’ll have more to say on this in later entries.
[I wrote this on Bhang Lassi]
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