INDIAN ODDITIES
When I vacationed in India, I noticed some odd but interesting things about the large, lovely, exotic country.
INDIAN MONEY IS ALL GHANDI. All India’s paper money, from the lowly 10-rupee bill up to the 2,000-rupee bill, has the same identical picture of Mahatma Ghandi on one side. However, different colored bills for each denomination help you keep them straight. In this monetarily colorful country, the Indian ₹10 bill is chocolate brown, the ₹20 is greenish yellow, the ₹50 is fluorescent blue, the ₹100 (pictured above) is lavender, the ₹200 is bright yellow, the ₹500 is stone grey, and the ₹2000 bill is pink. India currently has more than 37 trillion rupees circulating through its economy. A national hero, Gandhi led the famous 24-day Salt March, a major nonviolent protest march which ultimately helped free India from British rule.
INDIANS PREFER NOT TO SHAKE HANDS. When meeting an Indian in India, it is not considered polite to shake hands. The preferred greeting is to put both hands in prayer position near your chest or chin, then to bow slightly over your hands. If you like, you can say, “Namaste,” which means “The sacred light in me recognizes the sacred light in you.” My traveling companion warned me that it was not at all polite to casually touch an Indian. It’s especially rude to point or gesture with your left hand, my friend added, since the left hand is traditionally reserved to clean yourself after going to the (old style hole in the ground) toilet. For the same reason, many Indians still carry their own towels when they leave home.
RICKSHAWS, RICKSHAWS EVERYWHERE …. The streets of India’s cities are crowded with millions of three wheeled canvas-covered motorized carts, also called auto-rickshaws or putt-putts. These motor-scooters carry a driver and three or more passengers. Steered by a driver up front using handlebars, they are powered by electric or motor-scooter engines. Being hauled around tech-savvy Bangalore (pop. 14 million) in one of these putt-putts was like being set loose in a real-life video game. Dilapidated cars and trucks barreled down the road toward us. Mopeds and motor scooters darted past on the right or left, while hives of puttering, passenger-carrying auto-rickshaws crowded together at stoplights like swarms of bees. The traffic makes riding in a rickshaw perilous because India’s streets are often in poor repair, with lots of potholes and speed bumps on the wrong places. Indians drive like the British, on what we Americans consider the wrong side of the street. However, although I was in the country for a month, I never saw one single auto accident. My traveling companion explained that, if you dare stop at an accident to help someone, even if you think they’re dead, don’t be a good Samaritan because you’ll get wound up in so much legal and bureaucratic red tape you’ll wish you never stopped.
YES, INDIA IS BUREAUCRATIC. Perhaps because the Brits had the country by the throat for so long, India has developed into an extremely bureaucratic country. To even set foot in India, you need a special visa issued by the Indian government which is not easy to get. Every time I checked into a hotel, I was asked for my passport and travel visa; hotel desk clerks dutifully made copies of my documents, presumably to keep or file with the government. Everywhere I went, I noticed signs of what could be called bureaucratic neglect — half-finished highways and roads, city intersections with no road signs, and piles of trash accumulating on streets. According to the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, based in Hong Kong, India’s bureaucracy is the worst of any country in all of Asia. According to the same report, India’s bureaucracy is responsible for the many complaints businessmen have about India, including its lack of infrastructure, while corrupt bureaucrats are rarely held responsible for bad decisions.
INDIANS SPEAK ENGLISH DIFFERENTLY. Yes, India was a British colony for hundreds of years, but as a visitor, I could barely understand the English even in posh hotels. Indians speak a rather speeded-up, British accented English with a singsong rhythm that may reflect one of the many languages still spoken there. Several times I had to ask Indian clerks and others I encountered to repeat what they said, and slowly. This embarrassed me, and probably embarrassed the clerk I was speaking to, too. Hindi is now the official language of India, with English categorized as “a provisional official sub-official language.” India’s constitution also recognizes 22 regional languages, most spoken by millions of people in various regions of the huge, linguistically diverse country.
THEY’VE GOT YOU COMING AND GOING. It’s quite inexpensive to travel in India, but they nip you a little coming and going. Non-residents are not allowed to bring rupees into India. I exchanged $200 US for INR (Indian rupees) when I arrived and was charged a hefty tax of nearly 10 percent on my transaction. I cashed out my remaining rupees when I exited the country, since taking rupees out of India is also prohibited, and of course I paid more tax on that transaction, too.
David Drum is a Los Angeles-based writer.