Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
$400. And it was rumoured that even more refined pleasures were
available to those less easily pleased: for $10 you could watch a beggar
being slowly hacked to death by two men with machetes . . . or do the
job yourself, if
that
was what you needed.
I sat in a bar with no name next to the Band Box Cleaners and
drank a furtive rum with fresh lime soda, the finest drink in India.
'You like to buy some silk, maybe?' the barman asked. I said no.
'Then what you like, sir? Some ivory statue, yes?'
'No.'
'My friend, he give you best price. Just look, not buy.'
I said no more forcefully. The barman shrugged and carried on
swabbing tables with an indescribably filthy rag. A dapper old
Muslim in a fez, his grey beard dyed a hellish orange by years of
henna, sat next to me smoking cigarettes and drinking black tea
from a glass. The nails on his little fingers were over an inch long
and had been painted with crimson lacquer some months before.
'It is most tiresome to be bothered when you relax, I think?' he
asked rhetorically.
I agreed.
'I perceived accurately, isn't it?' he continued.
'You did. Most observant of you.'
'I think you are a man of taste, yes?'
Who could argue with a statement like that?
'I will show you some very rare and beautiful carpets,' he
announced, cutting off my inchoate objection with 'But just for
their beauty, you understand. Not to buy, just to see.'
I told him I had no time now or in the foreseeable future.
'Buy if you wish,' he said. 'But just look for the beauty.' He sighed
just thinking of it. 'We are men who appreciate beauty, are we not?'
Exasperated, I paid for my drink and left. Behind me the old Muslim
was saying, 'Then tomorrow, my friend? I meet you tomorrow?'
I took myself off to see a film -
The Fall of the Roman Empire
,
starring Sophia Loren and a cast of thousands. As with the buses,
there were numerous categories of ticket: Sofa, Chair, Bench, Seat,
Floor. The price ranged from two rupees down to thirty paise. I paid
two rupees for Sofa seating.
The cinema itself turned out to be a low, hangarlike hall about
