The Lesson is Learned

We learned a lesson about India over the last two days. Perhaps it can be summed up by a saying repeated in a Bollywood Movie that we like: Fanaa.
In the movie they repeat the phrase: “It is easy to choose between good and evil, it is hard to choose between the lesser of two evils.”

We went out to dinner after drinking a bottle of wine in our room. We asked several different people where we should eat, they all suggested the same restaurant: “On The Rocks”. Courtney decided to stay back at the hotel. We decided to give our van drive the night off, so we took a hotel car.

It turns out the restaurant is located where we had the accident. Talk about returning to the scene of the crime. The staff of the restaurantat the restaurant was dressed in army uniforms, which was weird.

The next morning the ramifications of the accident still haunted us, and we were contacted by various representatives from our touring company to discuss our reactions. There were lots of calls back and forth. Our chief concerns were for the motorbike drive and passenger and for the continued employment of our driver.

We then went shopping at a real find. When our driver pulled up and I saw the collection of crafts in front of the store, I told our driver, we won’t be long. I was wrong. They took us downstairs thru a warren of rooms until we were in a room filled with textiles. The owner of the store is the 4th generation of his family to run the store.. He told us stories of the famous who had shopped there, he showed us pictures, he never stopped selling in the most melodious way. He told us he was of the Jain Religion. Jains are extremely devout, and their other distinguishing characteristic is that they NEVER negotiate on price. All of my bargaining skills were for naught in this place.

He showed us a wide variety of bedspreads, scarves and other textiles at amazingly low prices. We purchased several. After our purchases were wrapped up but not paid for, he said since we obviously liked textiles he would show us some rare and special pieces. He brought several vicuna scarves that were incredible in design, color, workmanship, and cost. We told him to forget the already packaged scarves we want these special ones.

We then went to another store, left quickly (we decided to limit ourselves to one Jain shopping experience per day). We decided to have a bite to eat and to have massages, While Cathy and I were getting a massage, the head of the local tour company came to our hotel and talked to Courtney. He assured her that they would take care of the motorcyclist, and that our driver would be ok. He also explained they have a duty to protect us from the Indian Police and Courts that are notoriously corrupt and from the potential of a violent attack from those who witnessed the accident.


Later that evening, I received long email from the head of our tour company in India. We have met him, been to his house, like and respect him. He is very devout. Here is a portion of the email.

Regrettably India is notorious for its hostile Law and Order (police and courts). People with best intentions would not like to get involved with any policeman or lawyer. There are innumerable cases when people have carried injured persons off the roads to hospitals and have suffered the wrath of our brainless law which implicates the carrier even if this carrier is not involved in that incident, being a good samaritan is a crime in India. For us your safety is paramount, under no circumstances we would let any of our clients be in the harms way. Nevertheless, we are conscious of our duty to our fellow citizens. Please trust me, we do whatever we can in order to provide a better life not only for our colleagues but we give back to our society in what ever way that we are capable of. Next time you are in Delhi I would like to show you a few things that we are doing, not only for the upliftment of our fellow citizens but also for our nature. Coming back to this incident, I am told that the biker and his pillion rider had driven off by the time our other rep arrived at that spot, which was instant. He inquired about them and was told that everything was fine and that, they had driven off. We took you away immediately as we were afraid that harassment by the bystanders and eventually by the local police, particularly to foreigners, would be tormenting for you. However, I am not absolving ourselves of our immediate reaction which is unacceptable in any civilised society but we had no better choice.

We had dinner at the hotel, and over dinner we decided how much to tip our driver. There are guidelines for tipping provided for us by our tour operator. Given all that happened, and our concern for our driver, we decided to be overly generous for the 10 days he drove us thru Rajasthan. The dinner bill arrived, and we realized our dinner was costing almost as much as we planned to tip him. We decided once again to up our tip. It is just an indication of the disparity between our two cultures.

Tomorrow we return to Mumbai (Bombay) and the Taj Mahal Hotel, where we stayed last year. The terrorists attacked the hotel 10 days after we left. We love the hotel and are happy it has reopened. We will be met at the airport by our Bollywood Actress friend Kashmera Shah and her actor boyfriend Krushna. They have promised to show us Bombay like we have never seen it! We are ready!