Scammers are us

Shimla, Saturday 19 January 2013

Returning to my first day in Delhi...

Something about India's vast capital city felt very familiar to me. I suppose it's by virtue of having watched so many programmes about India, and having lived in the east of London for so many years - and also from having been to Kathmandu. A taxi takes me to my hotel in the mad tourist bazaar area spinning off from the New Delhi train station. The driver does a good job of getting in through the tight streets, congested with autorickshaws, cycle rickshaws, people, dogs, stalls and who knows what all else, asking various people where the Hotel Hari Piorko was. I get checked in, and my room is just like the internet pictures, complete with fish tank. It's about 10am by this stage. I get myself installed and then head up to the restaurant on the roof, for some masala chai and a bite to eat.

OK, time to get out into the city and get my hands dirty.

I wander along the main bazaar to the train station, just as a recce for the following day. I figure I might as well go in and maybe see if I can get a feel for how it all works, how I'll find out what platform my train's going from and all that. There's a security scanner at the entrance. A man standing near it asks for my ticket. Enter scam number one. Being a docile westerner, I assume anyone asking for my ticket must work for the station. Seems plausible. Maybe it's like the airport and they only want people inside who are travelling. 'Trains to Kalka cancelled, madam,' he says. 'Too much snow. Maybe running later. I take you to travel agent. Can book for you.' I took my ticket back, having belatedly figured out it was the usual attempt to take you to an agency so that he'll get a commission and I'll get ripped off. No thanks. I decide I'll just wait until the morning to tackle the station after all, and head back into the bazaar.

I walk the length of the main bazaar street, past my hotel, and out onto the main road we'd come along from the airport. It's alive with autorickshaws, taxis, cars, trucks, motorbikes, animals - everything and anything that has legs and wheels, it seems. There appears to be no system of lanes or traffic flow... it all just works, organically. There are traffic lights, but there might as well not be. People weave in and out among each other, through the junction. An autorickshaw lies on its side against the footpath, while someone works on it with a spanner, a small boy sitting beside him handing him various tools. Life just all plays out in front of you.

A few people offer me taxis but I decline. I have a vague plan of heading for Connaught Place, the more 'upmarket' shopping and dining area, but I'll choose my own taxi, thanks. I figure that anyone offering me one must be out to scam me. A young chap comes over and starts talking to me. Never a good thing. He's a rickshaw driver, and I'm actually interested in how things work for them. I ask him a few questions... he tells me it's about $4,000 to buy a rickshaw, and then you've permits and things on top of that, but you can make 1,000 rupees a day. That's about a tenner. He offers to take me to Connaught Place for 10 rupees. I smell a scam coming, but I accept in the end. We set off. He tells me I should visit a tourist information office and get a map. And I look a bit Indian and should get a Punjabi outfit - but not in the bazaar, no madam. Tourist prices. Indian bazaar is better. We pull to a halt. It's not Connaught Place. It's a tourist office. He opens the door of the office but I politely decline. No, this is not Connaught Place. 'I show you Indian bazaar. Don't have to buy. Just can look.'

'No, thank you,' I tell him. 'This is not Connaught Place. Are we going to Connaught Place or are we not?'
'Yes, madam. No problem.'
He does take me there, but instead of dropping me at the main circle of shops, I find myself at another tourist office, just off the main drag. He's nothing if not persistent. The commission for delivering pieces of tourist meat to these places is how he makes his money - not his 10 rupee fares, evidently. And 10 rupees was all he got, too. I suppose his next ploy would have been to say he had no change if I'd only had a larger note.

The main drag is a large circle of shops, which ring a central park area. As I walk around the circle, the scams just keep on coming. Men walk alongside for a few seconds, and it's always the same thing. 'Where you from, madam?' It inevitably ends with some attempt to take you to a tourist office or somewhere that they'll get a commission. I'd just shook off one of them, when another who was walking ahead of me said: 'Don't listen to them. They just want to take you to fake tourist office where they charge you too much.' At first I thought he maybe was just a genuine fella, out shopping. But no. He prattled on about where I was from and the rest, and then offered to take me on a tour.

I didn't mind the ones genuinely trying to sell you something. Everything from a chess board to a shoe shine. They at least took no for an answer. I was even offered an ear cleaning! I'm curious to know what that would have involved!

More later... the internet cafe is closing.