And so, fifteen years after my first trip to India, I was back again in Delhi.
Eventually I felt brave enough to leave the café and go off to do my tasks. First of all, I had to sort out my train ticket, so I headed off to the Tourist Bureau (The Official One!) at New Delhi Station. But as I headed up the steps towards the office, I was stopped by a friendly chap who told me it was closed. ‘But no bother’ he said. ‘You come with me and I take you to Tourist Office where they sell you ticket’.
Before I realized what I was doing, I turned to follow him. By the time that we were out of the station and threading our way through the taxis and crowds on the concourse I had remembered that this was a common ploy to get people to ‘Tourist Offices’. Nowadays I have no problem with using them – in fact I will often seek them out to buy me tickets, but more of that later. I glanced up at my new best friend, who was a few steps ahead of me, and peeled unobtrusively off and headed back into the station.
I went back up the steps towards the Tourist Bureau. The first thing that struck me was the silence. Downstairs, all was noise and smells, colour and chaos, but up here was a big, gloomy, echoing corridor, empty as far as I could see. After wandering up and down for a while, I found the Bureau which was, naturally enough, open, and fairly crowded. Inside, whilst I awaited my turn at the counter, I chatted to a fellow traveller from England who decided that it was his task to lecture me at length on how to approach getting a ticket out of Indian Railways. Foremost amongst this advice, he said, hectoring me sternly, was keeping your cool amidst all the provocation, bureaucracy and hassle.
Eventually, he was called to the counter. They went through his application form and documents with him, seemingly finding fault with something. He lost his cool with them, and left without a ticket.
I chortled quietly to myself.
When it was my turn, I found the process fairly straightforward, although long-winded. But I left with my ticket to Gaya stashed securely in my wallet.
Why Gaya? Gaya is certainly not a tourist destination, but it is the nearest town of any size to Bodhgaya. When I had decided to come to India, instead of limping around Britain in pain, I had come to the conclusion that instead of just travelling around for three months or so, I should at least spend some time doing something worthwhile.
We all like to think that we’re having an existential crisis at times. Okay, that’s probably not true. But lots of us do. What is an existential crisis, though? Is it simply that we are going through a time in our history when more and more of us question our role, our place in our society? Or could there be more to it than that? It certainly would now seem to be a time when many people in the west have come to doubt whether the values that they are taught are actually of any importance, and indeed whether they really have any value at all.
On the other hand, there are just as many members of that society who feel that the whole subject is just bunkum, and that those who complain about these things are merely whinging, work-shy degenerates. Sod your existential issues, mate, I’ve got a family to feed.
Is it really, then, just so much nonsense? Maybe our situation is such that we can afford to have these crises now; that we now have the opportunity to address them. When life is simply a struggle to keep a roof over one’s head and to put food on the table, then one’s priorities are very different from those with the leisure to ponder ‘life’s imponderables’. In past times, we would have had to just carry on regardless, although there were writers then who recognised and explored them, such as Hermann Hesse and Somerset Maugham. The only other realistic option, other than becoming a vagrant, would have been to completely renounce the world and to join a monastery or become a hermit.
India, though, handles these things rather differently. Hindus have a duty to seek pleasure and success and to accumulate wealth, but also, eventually, to renounce the world and seek moksha; liberation, after the discovery that the other three paths give no lasting satisfaction. This is seen in the persons of the many ascetics who wander the land, or live alone or in ashrams, having given up all worldly possessions.
Bodhgaya is in Bihar, the poorest state in India. It is also the place where the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment. For this reason, there are many Buddhist temples there, attracting a goodly number of Buddhist pilgrims, and, naturally, not a few tourists, and also a number of charitable projects.
And a few rogues.
I was attracted to the idea of spending time there, both to experience the temples and atmosphere, but also to work for a while on one of the projects. I did some research whilst in the UK, and arranged to help out at a project that comprised a school and orphanage in a village on the outskirts of Bodhgaya.
Smugly pleased with myself for obtaining my ticket to Gaya, I then went to find an Internet cafe and e-mailed everyone, then meandered back to a café for lunch.
Two days later, I was in Bodhgaya.
This is quite the adventure and one certainly has to keep their wits about them! Love the pictures too 🙂
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Thanks, Lucy. I’ll have to see if I can ratchet up the suspense as much as PorterGirl!
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You are too kind. Rest assured I am on the edge of seat already!
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Wow. Amazing! Thank you for sharing your experience.
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You’re very welcome. Thanks for reading!
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You seem to have had an interesting time!
Tourist Department?
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When I first went to India it took me a few days to realise that a ‘Tourist Office’ wasn’t some sort of official place set up by the government to help tourists, but was in fact usually a private enterprise like all of the others that touts attempted to steer the unwary to. After that, I was okay!
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Yeah…. This is the first that I was hearing about a “Tourist Office”… But then, I am Indian!
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I’ve come across loads of them throughout India, and guide books such as Lonely Planet always warn you about them. After a while, though, I came to realise that they could be very useful for the tourist, especially the Western one, but I shall mention this later in another post!
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Interesting read..Bodhgaya is popular only among the buddhist circuit. Of late, quite many Europeans and Americans are heading out to explore this circuit, but it has been quite popular among the Japanese and other Asians . Looking forward to the Bodhgaya Chapter…I’m sure there’ll some more “India Adventures”
🙂
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Oh, there will be, Arv. There were quite a few Americans and Europeans there in 2004, but they were certainly outnumbered by Japanese and Koreans, amongst others.
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will await for you next post….
🙂
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Love it. I often wonder if we’re biologically programmed to have these existential crises – though other times/other societies would call them something different.
Such crises could be part of the process whereby we accept that one part of our life is done and we need to move on to the next. That’s not inconsistent with the Sod You viewpoint: The process is individual, and the Sod You-ers are at a different stage of it.
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That’s an interesting thought, although I have no idea what the answer is.
I wonder how long it will be before someone will suggest I was going through the male menopause?
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Nah. Tell them to sod off. Some people call it mid-life crisis, but believe me, I have one every 10 or 12 years. It’s more like skin-shedding. As I tell despondent 20-somethings, the first is the worst. The second (30-something) may not be much fun either. There’s the mortgage to think of, so you can’t obey your impulses.
But after that, you know they’re meant to be.
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Ha! I’m with you there!
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You know, now that you mention it, it does seem like every 10-12 years I have some major change: change of job, residence, marital status, retirement. I never really thought of them as a “mid-life crisis”, just as life going through its changes – usually a good thing although sometimes uncomfortable. I wonder what the next one will be.
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Yes…it does seem to do that…
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Love this recount. I would have chortled too at the all knowing traveller who didn’t get his ticket. In my home country, his type is called over sabi – too much knowing 😉
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That’s a great name, Jacqueline. I’ll have to remember that.
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Hopefully 😉
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Good job peeling off, Mick! The first thing we did upon landing was pay ten times too much for a taxi at 2 a.m., only to be let off in the street instead of in front of our hotel. It’s funny now …
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You learn, don’t you, Monica? After a while you get wise to all these things, and then learn which ones to ignore, because they don’t really matter, and how to deal with the others.
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Yes, indeed. And we’re about to learn a lot more here shortly. Leaving this morning for Vietnam/Cambodia (scheduled my Sikkim series to post automatically while out of the country). Have you been?
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Ooh, no. Every now and again we thought about it, but it never happened. I’ll look forward to your Sikkim series – I went there later after in the Indian trip that I’m posting at the moment.
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When I have my existential crisis, I think I might become a hermit. It’s one of the few career options I can afford and have the qualifications for.
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I fear that openings are few and far between, nowadays. It seems that no one wants to build a little hermitage on their estate and install a hermit, any more. I can’t think why not. They probably want a virtual hermit.
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Oh dear, another career opportunity bites the dust.
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Could you be a virtual hermit? Or virtually a hermit?
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I have a page on Google+ that I can retire to when I want seclusion.
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It is nice and quiet, there. No one speaks to me.
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What an adventure. I like you style of descriptive writing. Sounds a bit like some parts of London where you’re offered ‘goods’ by somebody who will lead you to a ‘shop’ or ‘hotel’.
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Thanks, Colin. Yes, it was just like that. I’m sure you had plenty of experience of that in Kathmandu!
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Tiger Balm, chess set….massage, smoke……sir?
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That’s the one. You got a ‘sir’, though, did you? I just get ‘mister’!
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Maybe they thought I was somebody important.
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You are, Colin!
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I wasn’t aware of a Tourist office either. So, did you find a way to address the existential crisis at Bodhgaya? Probably we will get to know in the next part.
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Not telling…yet!
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Hopefully will find out in the next post. 🙂
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Hey Mick, You do know how to raise up Suspense; but You have left us wondering what You did do in Bodh Gaya. Maybe in some other post?
Glad You have come to know the ways to get around in our country! Great!
As far as becoming involved in social issues, etc, it is not a question of Either-Or, is it not? We DO have to get involved in them, and give a goodly part of our God given time for that. Or else it is We who suffer!
Kudos on Your Efforts, and Regards. 🙂
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I agree with you that we do need to get involved. We can all do something, and every small effort is a contribution to the whole.
As for what I was doing in Bodhgaya? New post coming shortly…
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Thanks for the support in the first points. And look forward to Your post! Regards. 🙂
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A friend of mine just returned from India a few weeks ago – what a coincidence! He says that he can’t bring himself to try our “Canadianized” Indian food after tasting the real deal abroad 😉
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I wonder how different that will be? The Indian restaurants in UK still serve a mixture of dishes – ones such as ‘vindaloo’ which were invented for the west and which do not exist in India, but also plenty of dishes that are exactly the same as those met out in the subcontinent.
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Great read Mick. I feel like I am almost there beside you. ( descriptive text, super!) Eagerly awaiting next instalment, so don’t make us wait too long.
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Just a little longer…
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In which year did you travel?
Before internet booking was introduced in India it was very popular to contact a booking agent ( as they are called in India) or a travel agent. In order to save a day leave ( since the booking office works during office hours and one would expect a long queue) and all the hastle at ticket office many were using such services. Even many hotels used to provide this faciltiy for guests.
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This trip was 2004. I still like to use them, though. I tend to make up my mind to catch a bus or train at fairly short notice, and i like to be able to go into an office and ask them to book a ticket. This saves me any hassle, and to pay 50 or 100 rupees on top of that is nothing for a tourist.
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Thats what I meant.
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