by Gordon Gray
In Mumbai the slums and shanty buildings are by the airport, acres of them spilling across the wall onto the airfield itself. They are by the railways and main roads; they are down by the docks. Totally naked children defecating in the middle of the road is a common sight. Anyone who has ever been to Mumbai, or Bombay as it was, will recognise the scenes in the film Slumdog Millionaire. India teaches us that the veneer of civilisation is extremely thin and that life is extremely cheap. We are very privileged to live as we do. There are millions upon millions of others in India trying to do no more than bring up their families and survive, but they have to do it from the other side of the hotel wall. Through most of our lives we are not aware of it, but in India we are made aware of it every day, everywhere.
Driving Conditions
The driving in India is something else. Everyone toots their horn, to absolve themselves of any blame; the one who has his bonnet further ahead has right of way; traffic on the roundabout must (or is that should?) give way to traffic arriving onto the roundabout. Phil and I learnt on the return trip to Delhi from Agra that at night it was better to try and sleep in the bus. That way, you do not actually see the near misses. The Delhi to Agra road was a single carriageway then. Now, it is dual carriageway. In those days, cars only put their lights on when they saw another car, also without lights, coming in the opposite direction. Then, as in China, when they saw the other vehicle, they flashed their lights on full beam, blinding the other driver then turning off their lights again. Ox carts, handcarts and wandering cows had no lights, so general chaos and a multitude of near misses and hits was the norm, as well as a good number of fatal crashes. Wrecked cars and overturned lorries were part of the roadside scenery. Overtaking was compulsory by everyone, everywhere, and on blind bends especially. Phil and I consoled ourselves that at least in the bus we were likely to be bigger than the other guy.
When I first visited India, the Hindustan ‘Ambassador’ was just about the only car on the roads. It could not go any faster than about 30mph, so there was a safety factor built in. If in the UK we judge passing distances in feet, in India it is millimetres. Today, with locally produced mini cars, to Korean or Japanese designs, the speed has gone up enormously but still they have near misses. More recently, many, many Indians have also taken to riding around on small 125/150cc type of motorbikes and motor scooters. They are now everywhere and roar around the country as if their lives depend upon it. No one wears crash helmets. The government tried to introduce a law to make people wear them but the Sikhs objected as they would not take off their turbans, so they were excused. Then the women objected as the helmets messed up their hairstyles so they were excused and everyone else then objected as the Sikhs and women did not have to wear them. These machines are now everywhere in India and they treat the road and traffic as a game of dodgems.
I was on a coach near Bangalore on a two-way country road. We came to a level crossing and the barrier was down with red lights flashing, so we had to stop for a train. The coach was about third in the queue with a couple of cars in front waiting at the barrier. Then, the motorbikes arrived. They weaved in and out of the traffic until they had lined themselves up along the barrier in front of the first car. Then, when there was no more space, they lined up across the other side of the road in the oncoming lane. Then, more bikers filled in all the gaps behind them. One or two cars overtook everything and joined in by trying to push into the stationery queue at or near the front. No one seemed the least bit put out and accepted it all without a toot.
When all the road space had been used up, they positioned themselves on the earth verges by the crossing. On the other side of the crossing, riders coming in the opposite direction were doing the same thing, so there were two regiments of massed cavalry of motor scooters waiting for the signal to charge each other. We all sat watching, waiting for the train and to see who would win the charge. A long, slow wail told us that the train was coming. Bike engines were revved in readiness. Another much louder whistle, then a big diesel locomotive rumbled slowly across the crossing followed by a seemingly endless line of goods wagons. Then, just as we thought it would never end, it had gone. Like a Formula 1 Grand Prix race, the red lights went out as the barriers started to rise. Up they went as riders revved and let in their clutches. They ducked their heads under the still-rising barrier as they set off and charged into the enemy. Surely this would end in carnage? Yet, somehow, and without too much shouting, blood-letting or major casualties, they all worked their way through the opposing ranks of bikes and cars, then roared off up the road in clouds of exhaust and dust. The cars and buses then followed sedately on behind. It is all totally chaotic to us but to the Indians it is normal. They expect it and drive accordingly.
Car Mechanics
I was in Hyderabad, a bustling and fast-growing city, with an Indian colleague, Ranjeev, who had recently retired from the Indian Army. He had an old army friend who was now a brigadier and the Commandant of the Indian Army Mechanical Engineering Training Establishment in Hyderabad. This is the place where the Indian Army train all their mechanical and motor engineers. Ranjeev had called his pal and we were both invited out to his quarters for a drink. He would send his car to the hotel for us at 1800.
Sure enough, at almost exactly 1800, a black, shiny Ambassador car swung into the hotel forecourt and stopped outside the main entrance. An Army pennant fluttered from a short chrome mast on the front of the bonnet and a tall smartly-dressed Indian Army corporal jumped out and ran round to open the back passenger door for Ranjeev and myself. We climbed in. The door was shut and the driver got back into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Ranjeev and I sat back and smiled.
“This is the life” I said. “A smart army staff car and driver, just to go for a drink.”
“Well,” said Ranjeev, “he is a good friend.”
The car pulled out into the bustle and noise of the Hyderabad streets. Other motorists recognised the smart car as military and gave us an extra few centimetres of space. We had been going for about a mile when both Ranjeev and I sensed that something was wrong. The driver was struggling with the wheel and when he used the brakes, the car seemed to fight him for control of the steering. A couple of hundred yards further on and the driver stopped the car in the middle of a busy main street. There were cars, motorbikes and trucks swerving around us and happily honking their horns. The driver mumbled something in Hindi to Ranjeev and got out. We watched as he went round to the front nearside wheel and squatted down.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said he has a problem, that was all,” Ranjeev replied.
He opened his door and got out. I followed suit and we went to the front to see what the problem was. We only had to hold a hand near the wheel to realise that the front nearside brake pads were binding and the whole wheel was now radiating so much heat it was almost glowing. No wonder he seemed a bit disconcerted at trying to drive the thing.
The three of us looked at the wheel. Even in the dark, it still looked hot. There was no way we could do anything in the dark and with the wheel too hot to touch. So we stood and watched the people who were gathering around watching us. Then, suddenly and without a word, the driver bolted. He just started running down the road at a gallop.
“Where is he going Ranjeev?” I asked.
“Not a clue.”
Now, rather than being passengers in an army staff car, we were in charge of a broken army staff car in the middle of Hyderabad and without so much as the keys to the thing.
“I suppose we had better wait and see what he is up to – perhaps he has gone for a mechanic. Or, perhaps he realises he might get into trouble and is heading for the hills!” suggested Ranjeev. Ranjeev was as puzzled by this course of events as I was.
We decided that we had better wait as we could not leave the car unattended. We waited and waited. Finally, after about forty-five minutes, Ranjeev said, “Right, that’s it, we must go. We can do nothing here and the driver h
as clearly gone for good. Let’s get a taxi.”
We waited and waited but all the taxis were occupied or just drove straight past. We finally managed to stop a motor rickshaw and just as we were about to get in, there was a loud shout from a passing taxi. The taxi stopped and out got our driver.
“For yous, sirs, for yous,” he kept saying, ushering us both towards his taxi.
In a short burst of Hindi, Ranjeev discovered what had happened. The driver had realised the car was going nowhere but also realised that somehow he had to get us to the commandant’s house. He also had the wit to realise he was quite near the airport where there were long queues of taxis. So he ran about ¾ mile to the airport and hired one that he brought back to his car so we could continue on by taxi and he would have to sort out the dead car.
We got to the commandant’s house safely and met him and his charming wife. We related the story and so the brigadier summoned another car and driver and we three men went up to the Officer’s Mess for a drink. We spent a most pleasant hour or so there with cold beers in our hands and nibbling warm samosas, as the brigadier showed us the mess trophies, mementos and portraits. On the way back to his house afterwards, I was sitting in the front of the car – another army Ambassador – when, as we drove down an unlit lane, the headlights and all the dashboard lights suddenly went out. We were instantly enveloped in blackness. The driver, without pausing or slowing down at all, let go of the wheel and ducked his head under the dashboard. I grabbed the wheel with my right hand as he pulled out a mass of wires and frantically wiggled them about. As he did so, the lights all came back on. He sat up took the wheel and carried on as if nothing had happened. Ranjev and I thanked the brigadier for his hospitality, but declined the lift back in an army car and took a taxi back to the hotel.
Delhi Belly
Delhi Belly is not a lot of fun. Most people who visit India for the first time experience it at some time or another. Delhi Belly normally lasts for about twenty-four hours and people spend some hours close to the bathroom, but normally by lunchtime the next day you can recognise that you might be on the mend. There are many theories about how you catch it. The water is always the first suspect and if you only drink water from properly sealed bottles, you minimise the risk enormously. Fruit and salads are also common suspects. Regularly hand-washing is a good precaution as heaven knows who or what has just been touching anything we pick up.
I was in a hotel in Kochi sitting at the bar one evening and asked the small bar boy if I could have some more peanuts. “Certainly, sir,” he chimed happily and dived down below the bar. He reappeared with a big plastic screw top jar of peanuts and undid the top, then without batting an eyelid proceeded to thrust his somewhat grubby hand deep into the peanuts and scoop them out and dropped them into the bowl in front of me. He pushed the bowl towards me with a huge smile, “Peanuts, sir.” As I had not seen him wash his hands recently, I stayed hungry a little longer. I then began to wonder how many had I eaten from the first bowl! One of my rules in India is ‘Always keep a packet of Imodium in my pocket’ as you never know when or where Delhi Belly might strike.
I used to get Delhi Belly when I first went to India but when I was visiting India regularly, ie every month or so, I was rarely troubled. I believe it also has to do with the antibodies in your gut. Perhaps my system developed its own defences against the bad Delhi Belly bugs. However, I could be caught out. Years ago, I was told “Never eat fish in Delhi.” This stemmed from the days before proper deep frozen foods were available and fish in Delhi had travelled for a few days by rail or lorry from the coast. I always stuck by this and never touched fish, especially shellfish of any kind. Whenever we attended a major exhibition in India, all the visiting staff from the UK were firmly told: “Only eat in the five-star hotels and never, never, ever eat from stalls outside or dubious cafes and restaurants and do not touch shellfish.” This was genuine advice, not just a killjoy local director spoiling everyone’s fun. Eating out on the streets quickly leads to an exhibition stand with no exhibitors; as well as some very sick people.
One year at a big show in Delhi, a group of us ate in the Italian restaurant of the five-star hotel in which we were staying. The Italian themed decor of the restaurant was superb and after a couple of glasses of wine, we all felt that we were really in Italy with the Italian menus, Italian food and the Italian waiters. It was all very pleasant. However, all four people in the group who had prawns that night were ill the next day.
Some years before, I had been working in Delhi for a different organisation with a colleague who was finalising a contract with a government department. The final day of negotiations were really about signing documents and did not involve me, so I had returned home. My friend stayed on to finalise things and was due to fly home over the weekend.
On the Monday, I rang his office but was told, “Graham is still in Delhi.”
“Still in Delhi? Why? Is there a problem?”
“We don’t know,” they said. “We just had a message to say he would not be back for a day or so” This seemed strange, so I rang his hotel.
It turned out that the final negotiations had gone well and the contract had been signed. Graham, in the mood for a celebration, went to the à la carte restaurant in his five-star hotel and ordered his favourite meal. Unfortunately for Graham, his celebration was marred by having to spend the next three days and nights in his bathroom with a really serious bout of food poisoning. He had had to cancel his flight home and could only wait until he recovered before rebooking it. When I asked him what his favourite meal was, he confessed that it was “fresh oysters followed by a grilled lobster.”
“What! Graham! In Delhi?” I could not believe it.
“Yes, I know, Gordon,” he said, “you warned me about seafood but it was such a nice restaurant, it all sounded so good and I did want to celebrate.”
Another case of serious food poisoning, not just Delhi Belly, happened a few years later. Again it was during a defence exhibition in Delhi and we had a large number of staff out to support it. Many were from corporate HQ and a few had never been to India before. On the first night, the local resident director briefed everyone, as usual, and in particular stressed the importance of only eating in the five-star hotels and avoiding the outside food stalls or restaurants. At the end of the show on the second day, one of the corporate staff guys, Phil, and a girl from the India desk in HQ, Jill, decided they wanted to go and do some sightseeing. I gave them a list of nearby sights and I told them to take a taxi from the exhibition taxi rank and said we would see them back at the hotel in a couple of hours. We went back to the hotel and got changed, met in the bar, then wandered off for a meal in the coffee shop, but there was still no sign of Phil and Jill.
The next morning, Phil appeared but not Jill.
“Where is she?” we asked.
“Oh, she rang me to say she is not too well and can’t make it today,” said Phil.
Alarm bells rang in my head “Where did you go last night Phil?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “we took a motor rickshaw to Old Delhi and the driver took us around the sights.”
“I told you to take a proper taxi,” I told him. “But then what? Why did you not come back to the hotel?”
“Well, we were in Old Delhi and decided to have a proper Indian meal out, so we asked the rickshaw driver to recommend a good local Indian restaurant.”
“You what? You idiot! In the middle of Old Delhi? Do you realise that you could have killed that girl if she has got really serious food poisoning. The driver of a rickshaw knows less about decent restaurants than I do about brain surgery. Where did you go anyway?”
“Well, I’m not sure, he took us down these alleys to this place somewhere in Old Delhi that he said was run by his cousin. It seemed OK actually, but Jill did say on the way back she did not feel too good.”
“Did you not listen to the briefing? The rickshaw wallah would have taken you to somewhere that was owned by some of h
is family or a friend regardless of how good or bad it was and he would get a cut. You really are a total a***, Phil.” I was furious. It took three days for Jill to recover enough to come out of her room and four days before she could get to the show again, just in time for the last day. And this guy somehow held down an international marketing job in corporate HQ!
Hotel Customer Surveys
One of the aversions I have to modern travel is the awful habit companies now have of thrusting a customer survey form at you before you have even sat down. No matter how good a flight or stay you are having, it is instantly spoiled by these forms. They seem endless and are written in a way that ensures you cannot give a poor rating without appearing to be a thoroughly nasty piece of work who would find fault with everything.
I was staying at the Sheraton in Kolkata, where a lovely Indian lady had a role making sure that anyone in the lobby area was being looked after. She was a very attractive, tall, young lady and always seemed to remember my name and made sure everything was ‘tickety boo’ for me. As I was checking out and trying to sort out my bill, wondering where I had put my passport, did I have enough cash to tip the driver, where my e-ticket was and other mind-numbing things, the young female check-out receptionist handed me one of these awful forms.
“Oh, sir, please do fill in the form; we need it for our ratings.”
Not only was I getting a form, it was accompanied by emotional bribery. I decided to make a stand and said, “I am sorry, but I do not do those forms,” and handed it back to her.
But she persisted, “Sir, it will not take long and will help make this a better hotel.”
“I am sorry, I am very happy with the hotel. If I had a problem, then I would tell you. Now I must go as I have a plane to catch.”
I realised that I was sounding more and more like a peeved child. My lovely friend, who as usual was missing nothing, floated gracefully across the lobby as if on wheels.