Ninjineer

a Nerd with Delusions of Wonder

The Shopping Experience [The India Trip - 5 of 6] — (Photo taken 2004-06-26)

One Saturday, we finished up at the training center early and decided we should get some souvenirs for our loved ones back home. After a quick stop at the hotel to drop off our books, my buddy and I and student from England went downstairs to catch a rickshaw. Our “regular” rickshaw guy wasn’t hanging around out front, but another driver was. We had some suspicions about him, but went ahead and asked him to take us to Coughout Place, which is a huge shopping area. Half way there, he diverted to a consignment shop. He said, “We stop five minutes. You go inside. You no have to buy, just look. Maybe you find a nice carpet, yeah?”

This sort of thing happens frequently. Supposedly the shops pay the drivers for every “customer” they get inside. We simply refused to get out. Eventually the guy gave up trying to convince us and took us the rest of the way.

We disembarked in front of a market area full of tiny shops and street vendors. With every step through that place, we had someone at our elbow asking if we wanted wallets or postcards or toy snakes or hankies or shoe shines. That did not include the actual shopkeepers who were just as insistent that we stop and peruse their wares.

Eventually we found the underground walkway to take us to the mall proper. Just as we started to ascend the stairs back up, an adult shoe shiner stopped me and pointed out that I had “bad monkey shit” on my shoe. I looked down. Sure enough there was a big messy glob atop my sneaker. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t there earlier and had passed no monkeys in the tunnel. I figured he or an accomplice had tagged me.

Before I could protest, he wiped it away and moved on to polishing my sneakers. I quickly extracted my foot and walked away. He then demanded 150 rupees. I said something to the effect of, “Hell, no.” I continued on my way and the price suddenly dropped to 10 rupees. I’d have given him that, but I only had 100 rupee notes on me. I couldn’t see him making change. I ended up leaving him grumbling on the stairs.

Once we reached the mall, the constant hawking slowed. We only had to deal with someone every 100 feet or so. The one exception was another shoe shine boy. He kept after me for the next hour, reappearing after every shop we visited.

When we were finally ready to leave, the new rickshaw driver wanted nearly triple the amount that it took to get us to the mall. We managed to bargain him down to only double. Even then we had to forcibly convince him that we did not need a nice rug.