Taking India on a Tuktuk

Our TUK TUK! Lala is the wonderful little man sitting down!

Krista and Tori were FABULOUS friends to see the Taj with!

Handing out pencils at Gandhi's memorial..before the police chased the boys away.

I can’t decide whether to keep my eyes open or closed as I am squeezed between two other girls in an auto-rickshaw, the Indian “TukTuk,” and we are slashing through the chaotic traffic of trucks, other rickshaws, cars, cows, and cyclists. We are on an intense mission to get to the Taj Mahal before the ticket office closes so we can see it at sunset. Danger is no object and traffic rules don’t exist when we are on this kind desperate race against the sun. Alas, the speeding and sprinting through the streets of Agra failed and the ticket office was closed. The thrill of the chase was worth it though, and not to worry I got to see the incredible marble glowing beneath the sun from across the river at sunset and right up close the following morning at sunrise.

Every minute in India seemed almost as much of a rush as that rickshaw ride. Hitting one city per day, we saw as much of this incredible subcontinent as we could. Beginning with the huge city of Mumbai (formerly called Bombay and actually still called Bombay by all the Indians) I fell in love with India. Bombay is fantastically exotic because it combines the dirty beggars and trash filled streets and waterways with the most beautiful trees that look like they were imported from the rainforest. Surrounded by water, this city brings the term “concrete jungle” to life. I half expected to see a tiger chilling next to the little kid asleep on the sidewalk.

The classes I had taken, the books I had read, and the pre-port lectures I heard about the complexity of India and the love I would find there were dead on, yet hardly prepared me for the extremities I found there. In keeping up with my anthropological observations, I have to note India really surprised me. I had this preconceived notion that the genuine hospitality and devotion of the Indian people was going to blow me away and when I didn’t immediately experience this I was disappointed. All I encountered for the first few days was in-your-face tagic begging and the strongly held belief that since I was white I had all kinds of money to throw around. Indians charge 5 times the amount to tourists as they do to locals and it can be really frustrating to be treated as such a foreigner when you are trying to understand a complex country. But, as I got deeper into my travels, I was able to see that shinning charisma that I knew must be there.

In Bombay a fellow-SAS student and native Indian invited our group of 7 into his home. Not evening knowing me before that moment, I was offered a place to shower, eat and a driver to take me where I pleased. His mother (along with their 4 “helpers”) prepared an incredible Indian meal with tastings from all parts of India. It was the kind of meal that no matter how full you are; you are drawn to keep eating serving after serving, desert after desert. The Columbian and Mexican boys I was traveling with decided that they MUST learn how to cook this way and open an Indian restaurant in their counties so that they can become millionaires. It really takes a home-cooked meal to appreciate the power of good food.

Shantaram is a huge book that I read in my time leading up to India and it was the source for my desire to go to Bombay to see the slums, Leopold restaurant, and find my own equivalent of the charming character, Prabaker. I was disappointed when the closest I got to being inside the slums was a smelly fish market and I didn’t find my Prakbar in Bombay. However, I did see the terrorist-attacked Leopold’s and it was so surreal being in the real place that I'd read so much about. Then, in Agra, I finally met my Prabaker – his name is Lala.

He picked us up from our hotel and we sent him on a mission to grab a bottle of wine and watch the sun set over the Taj. What was originally going to be a one-way drop off turned into an afternoon and evening of trusting Lala and his young friend to take us any and everywhere. On our adventures through the town Lala insisted that we didn’t need to pay him, that money was not as important as showing us a good time. And that he certainly did with a smile on his face and a wiggle of his head. I have to interject here to say that the Indian “head wiggle” or ("waggle" depending on how you look at it) is one of the most interesting and simultaneously hilarious cultural motions I have ever seen. It is this movement of the head that look as if it has actually become disjointed from the neck. It is their way of saying yes, or agreeing with you, but you always wonder how sure they are since it kind of looks like they are shaking their head ‘no.’ Quite funny.

We ended our evening with him in a souvenir store where we found ourselves immersed in converstaion with the shopkeeper (Amin) as we bargained away our money. Amin was quite the businessman and convinced us to post our praises on Trip Advisor.com in exchange for good deals, whiskey shots, and a free headband.

Amin described Lala as “long in everything but his height.” This holds so much accuracy as Lala was about 4 foot 8 but so genuine and enthusiastic. Lala’s faithful 12year-old companion (of whom we never learned the name of) had a crush on me and whispered in my ear, “I have a gift for you and only you but it is a secret so don’t tell the other girls.” The gift turned out to be a bracelet that I will always cherish. I also learned that this boy had never been to school because it was too expensive. Despite this, he spoke excellent English and a little Spanish that he had picked up from riding around the tuktuk with Lala. I couldn’t have been happier to meet those two incredible Indians.

I myself was also a source of entertainment for Indians many times when they begged to take pictures with curious American girls, and once when my sari was falling off me (because I had no idea how to wear it) and all these Indian women laughed and laughed at my cluelessness…while they helped me fix it of course.

Some other amazing highlights from India included riding an elephant in Jaipur, going to an orphanage in Chennai, getting henna on my hands, holding an Indian baby girl who wore little bangles on her wrists, driving a rickshaw on the crazy streets, and seeing Gandhi’s memorial in Delhi. My only regret from India was that I didn’t get to go to the religious city of Varanasi, which sits on the Ganges River. I think that maybe I was not meant to go there because when I come back to India, I will be able to experience that holy site not as a tourist, but as a lover of India. In my future travels after Semester at Sea, it will be my ultimate goal to spend enough time in a place that I really get to feel how the people there live. For now though, I wouldn’t have had my first taste of India any other way.

“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant…An elephant’s faithful – one hundred percent!
-Dr. Seuss Horton Hatches the Egg

Quote explanation: In most of the world I have been concerned about pick pocketers and misguidance. India is different. After I got past the barrier of “rich white tourist” I learned that Indians don’t want to overcharge you or lie to you about the quality of something – it goes against their basic beliefs. That night in the store, as Amin promised us a good deal and Lala refused money for driving us I realized that Indians and the beautiful elephants of their country are similar in their faithful honesty.