The Ideal Customer

Wednesay 10:30 am

*switching to past tense here*

It seems that everything I do here is an event. I stopped by a random shop to ask for a current converter and about a dozen men and young boys gathered around to watch me do it. For God’s sake, I thought, it’s New Delhi, am I really the first tourist you’ve ever seen? I was more amused than irritated. Everywhere I went men would stop me to ask if I wanted a rickshaw or an auto-rickshaw. “No, thank you. I’d like to walk” I kept repeating. This was apparently unfathomable because most kept repeating the question. One driver even followed me around.

At some point one driver offered to take me to the market and return me to the same exact spot for 10 rupees. That’s like $.25, I thought. Either he’s going to kidnap me and sell my organs or that’s a really sweet deal. I decided to hop on. As we drove past I found out my trustee drivers’ name was Bishal. Bishal took me immediately to a gift shop which was obviously geared towards tourists, it wasn’t until later that I realized he would get a commission on the ridiculous amount of money I would spend there.

At first I was led to a room on the right of the store where they kept all the hand-knotted Kashmiri rugs. Inside, to my surprise, I found the student group from U of M who had been on my plane the day before. This must be where they take all the tourists, I thought. The salesman approached me: “Assalamualikum”, he said. I felt a rush of emotion: comfort, familiarity, reassurance, peace. “Wa’alaikum alsalam” I grinned. His name was Nasir and he was from Kashmir, he brought the rugs that sustained 60,000 people in his village over to Delhi to sell. He wanted me to buy a rug, but also he wanted me to buy a weave of Ayat Al-Kursi. “It’s the best definition of God”, he said. “Think of the blessings.” It’s too much money, I tell him. I can only get one thing, and it has to be small. “It’s just, you’re the ideal customer for this” he tells me. Oh hitting those soft spots, these salesmen are good!
I hadn’t seen the worst of them yet though. After the rug area I was led through to the Pashmina section, then the jewelry section, then the crafts section, then the paintings, then the sculptures, then the tea, then the sarees…In each spot I was told why buying this sculpture of a goat or this painting or that decorative dagger was going to be an investment and not a purchase, a thing with which to remember India. In each section, the persistence was astounding and at each section I thought it would be the end of my trip around the store, until another salesman, in perfect English, asked me to please not leave until I saw his art.

“I’m afraid my rickshaw driver will leave me,” I said, desperate for an excuse to get out. They laughed.
“Your rickshaw driver will never leave you, ma’am.”
“…I’ve been here for a long time.” I said.
“No, no, it’s a different custom. Besides, we give them a little gift…” he said.

Now it all made sense, this is why Bishal offered to take me here for just 10 rupees. A Kashmiri rug, a couple of paintings, a saree and some decorative boxes later, I found myself back on the rickshaw and asking Bishal if we could visit the Red Fort or Jama Masjid, which were the sites that interested me most in Delhi.

“Ma’am, you don’t want to go there. Very crowded-not good place”, Bishal said.
“Well, how long would it take?”
“At least 1 and half hours, traffic very bad” he said.
“Hmm…I really want to see it.”
“Ma’am, I take you good places in Delhi. Temples, buildings. Then some good shopping…”
I smiled, too exhausted to answer. Afterall, I only had a few hours to spend in Delhi, a tour from the back of a rickshaw was all I could really hope for, right?
“Mandir? Right? That means temple..?”
He smiled, “Haan, very good!”