Clash!

Dateline: Amritsar, July 1

As soon as I limped off the train in Amritsar, we were swarmed by touts. K walked off to have a cigarette, leaving me surrounded by them (strike one). When he came back, we agreed on a cycle rickshaw for 20 rupees, slightly higher than rate indicated in our guidebook. K told the wallah firmly that we weren't interested in stopping at any shops en route ("Oh, no, sir!"). I hesitated: it was hot, we had large backpacks...wouldn't an autorickshaw make more sense? The wallah assured me the ride would take ten minutes. Ten minutes later, we were at the base of a hill. The wallah acted as though this had caught him by complete surprise -- oh, right, the hill! -- and informed us we would have to walk up; naturally, he couldn't pedal us up. We trudged up the hill under the noon sun, wearing our packs, with the autorickshaws zooming by inches away from us and spewing exhaust in our faces. Back on the rickshaw, and about thirty minutes from when we left, the wallah abruptly came to a halt again. I asked why. Addressing K, he began to sing the merits of various other hotels and guesthouses (at which he'd get a commission).
"Save it," I told him. "If you won't take us to our hotel, we'll get down here. Close enough."
The wallah got back on his bike, but kept turning to yell a torrent of angry, almost abusive, protests at me ("Why won't you just listen to me? I'm just trying to help you!"). I was too tired, hot and angry to get into a screaming match; I just wanted to get to the hotel. K looked on and said nothing (strike two).

We reached our hotel, and I darted inside. As we were checking in, I casually asked K, who has a habit of overtipping, how much he'd given the wallah, in the end.
"Fifty rupees," he said.

As soon as we got to our room, we had a little discussion.

My contention: the guy deliberately misrepresented how long the trip would take and omitted mention of the hill. He tried to give us the hardsell, and, while obsequious to K, felt free to try to put me "in my place," and probably read K's overtipping (making the fare more than four times the market rate) as an endorsement and validation of his rudeness toward me.

K's first rebuttal: The total fare still came to just over $1. We really shouldn't argue about things costing less than $1.

Which, of course, further provoked me, because it really wasn't even a little bit about the money.

K's somewhat more considered rebuttal: For the rickshaw wallah, it's about the money. We can't even imagine what his day-to-day life is like. He needs the money; why begrudge him?

Ok: we already knew that K is an all-around better person than me. But still: there are any number of people in India who need the money. Why reward the jerks? The railway station touts prey on tourists. We usually know their lies, but someone else could really be harmed by them. If you want to give, fine, but don't reward aggressive or parasitic behavior, and don't reinforce abusive ideology.

And then he pushed it: "I can't believe you care what a cycle rickshaw wallah thinks!"

K, of course, does not have to deal with nonpersonhood in India. K doesn't understand why I practically started crying from gratitude when we went to Bangkok and the hotel desk clerk made eye contact and asked -- me! -- how our flight was. K doesn't feel the weight of accumulation in incidents such as what we just had two minutes prior, in checking in to our hotel:
Clerk (greeting and acknowledging only K): "Do you still want the Temple-facing room, sir? We still have it for you, sir."
Me (piping up): "Is it noisy?"
Clerk (looking at K curiously, as if to say "why is your woman addressing me?"): "Yes, the weather is very hot today, madam."
Me: "What I'm saying is: if the room faces the street, is it noisy? Would a room at the back be quieter?"
Clerk (clearly trying to figure out what sort of frivolous whim my feminine brain might be pursuing, but not caring enough to actually listen): "We have a dining room just there, madam."
Me (is it a language thing?): "Room...noisy? Loud? Other room...more quiet?" (I mime sleep)
Clerk blinks at me.
K: "Would another room be quieter?"
Clerk: "Sir, all the rooms will be noisy for the next few days. It is a festival now."

I've often complained that India is simply pre-feminist; it's as if nothing in terms of women's rights had ever happened elsewhere in the globe. Living here gives me an idea of what the fifties must've been like.

Well, the argument K and I were having, then, was straight out of the seventies: he just didn't get it.

We reached a non-issue-based accord, eventually, without too much rancor. K agreed to accept my being upset as sufficient reason to act to minimize that state, even if he didn't exactly grok the reasons for it; I agreed to acknowledge that having reached my India quota may have played into the strength of my reaction.

"I think I may have reached my India quota for the weekend when we touched down in Delhi," I warned him.