It’s a left turn out of the hotel, straight into a humming street, the humidity presses in like a hot iron on my skin, flattening out any thoughts of walking. A man is pedaling furiously toward me on a three wheel contraption, he is thin and gangly all muscle and no fat . How much has he eaten this week? I make motions for the main village and we begin our sedate bumpy journey.
Unfamiliar smells are in the air – perhaps a whiff of raw sewage, dilapidated buildings held together with bits of discarded roofing tin. The suddenly we are stopped by a motorised version of the Rickshaw. A turbaned elderly gentleman with a row of missing piano key teeth leans out from within, as my driver changes vehicles the turban announces, “Hop in, same price”. He will become my de-facto guide for the afternoon. The imagined taste of chocolate and cigarettes begins to evaporate – am I about to be taken on another ride? No choice really I don’t know where I am. The engine revs up to a high pitched whine, and the horn becomes a whinnying horse,— get out of our way.
A bumpy fifteen minutes later I have my cigarettes and chocolate – but then the return journey takes two hours as I am entertained by a series of sales men in jewelry shops , rug emporiums and sunglass huts, all seemingly relatives of the turbaned granddaddy of salesmanship. The Jewelry store was most convincing. Elaborate glass cases that sprang to life as soon as the rickshaw pulled up. Dormant and unlit until a genuine prospect turns up. The atmosphere is still, like a jail cell. The scheme is laid out before me – I buy $500 USD worth of the star of India, it’s black and lustrous and indeed a star does appear as it is held up too the light. Scratchy affidavits from people who have profited are rolled out from a tattered binder. Supposedly I can sell them for three times what I buy them here. In the end I tell him that my God says NO, the only way to throw him off.
Back into mad streets with shoulder to shoulder people, as far as the eye can see. As the Granddaddy with the misshapen teeth and armada of relatives drops me back to the imperial style hotel forecourt I wonder how they get about the process of survival. It was entertaining I guess.
