New Delhi and two varieties of entrepreneur

Our first impression of New Delhi was of a metro station in the middle of nowhere. A policeman under a street lamp had a thick cloud of mosquitoes circling over his bare head. We stumbled about in the dark until we found a stall with a phone we could use, called Sidd and waited for him to show up. He surprised us with long hair, smart clothes and a motorbike - quite different from the backpacker we met in Malaysia!



Sidd was really hospitable, offering us his bed, good food, a lift around town to go shopping and tales of his entrepreneurial childhood. As a kid he secretly kept the bus fares his parents gave him, and used that money to buy and sell trading cards and goldfish. When his parents found the goldfish farm in his room they threw them all into the river! He later kept the money he was given for a private tutor to finance micro loans to local shopkeeper at rates lower than the average loan shark. He made some good property deals and these days his only income is from an apartment he rents out in an expensive part of town and his investments. Frugal living means he doesn't need to work and can afford to travel fairly often. We were very impressed by his entrepreneurial drive!


Leaving Delhi was interesting. They have luggage scanners to enter the train station, with police sitting by and staff feeding the luggage through. A young guy asked us for our ticket as we put our luggage on the conveyor. We didn't have one, so he directed us to the 'OTTDC' ticket office nearby. Through some smooth talking he persuaded us to take an auto-rickshaw, and even haggled the price down to something more reasonable for us.

Only after we had been in the rickshaw for a suspiciously long drive did I consult our Rough Guide and find the 'common scams' entry that described scenarios exactly like the one we were experiencing. I told the driver to take us back to the station twice, but he continued to the OTTDC place regardless. A guy was waiting there to greet and reassure us "look, other people are buying their tickets here now. What is the problem?" We refused to get out of the rickshaw, reiterated that we had no interest in their scam and repeatedly demanded that we be taken back to the station. They finally gave up, and while making several phone calls the driver took us to the rear entrance of the station, presumably to avoid us kicking up a fuss or making a scene in front of the tourist police.

This clarified a conversation I had had with a fellow Brit in Varanasi. I had mentioned how civilised and (relatively)  swanky the foreigner-only air-conditioned ticket offices were in the touristy northern areas and he had agreed but lamented the higher prices. Hozumi and I had never paid anything extra for transit in India and considered that another significant difference between India and other countries we'd visited. The conversation got a bit confusing and we both thought the other mistaken and left it at that. Only after experiencing it did I realise that he must have been scammed in Delhi and had never realised that anything unusual had taken place. That's how smoothly they operate.

The official ticket office for foreigners was past the luggage scanners with their lazy, blinded by cash policemen. It was well-hidden, clean, spacious, air-conditioned and totally at odds with the rest of the mammoth building, which we must have crossed at least twice while looking for it. We got ourselves tickets to Shimla the next day and found ourselves a room for the night.