Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
shoes, and the rest wear sandals, business must be atrocious, I
thought. I purchased a set of black laces out of sheer pity, handing
over two rupee bills and telling the man to keep the change. He
wouldn't; and embarked on such a complicated process of sending
an urchin to seek the ten paise he owed me that I started regretting
the purchase. Nothing in India comes easy. A dozen chai stalls and
nearby vendors could not break a rupee bill, so the urchin was
dispatched farther afield, while the leg-less man called over all
manner of passers-by, until a fair crowd had gathered. Everyone
had theories to help solve this problem, discussing them animatedly
with the shoelace man and each other. I kept trying to leave, but no
one would hear of it. I was a guest in their city. My problem must be
worked out satisfactorily. You'd have thought they were tackling a
Middle East peace proposal.
After twenty minutes, the urchin returned with two other urchins
and a fat man wearing spectacles that were held together over his
broad, oily nose with electrical tape. The urchins seemed very pleased
with themselves. The fat man rummaged in his shirt pocket,
producing two square five-paise coins, which he triumphantly
displayed to all, but held on to tenaciously, embarking on a protracted
discussion with the leg-less man, presumably about how the latter
would eventually reimburse him. Some pretty complicated
financial angles must have been proposed before the fat man finally
handed the coins to the shoelace vendor, who inspected them
dubiously for some minutes, obviously getting the economics
straight in his mind. Then he passed them up to me, and I handed
them on to the senior urchin, which no one appeared to mind in
the least.
The crowd was still deep in debate - no doubt weighing the
philosophical ramifications of it all - as I hoisted my bag and followed
a wiry little fellow who promised me that his taxi was the finest on
earth.
It turned out to be a
tonga
, a bullock cart fitted with the kind of
roof covered wagons in the American Wild West possessed, but much
smaller and made of wood. After five minutes of persuading this
driver that I did not want to go to his friend's hotel - had already
