A bad joke

There's a difference between a tourist and a traveller. And Indians (in my experience) only make terrible tourists. Not North Indians. Not South Indians. Just Indians. North Indians usually get the blame for being uncouth (which they generally are) away from home, South Indians aren't always exceptionally great either. The first thing that strikes you about our countrymen is how indifferent we are towards our country, let alone abroad. Compare that attitude with a foreigner who has travelled farther to visit our land. That firang would show more respect and affection towards what's geographically ours. We, on the other hand, will display our endearment by littering beautiful places. Don't we, as a people, enjjjoooooy spreading love in the form of plastic? We don't even spare the hills. The height of commitment—quite literally! How difficult can it be to let a place stay the way it was before you entered the scene? Seriously. I noticed how narrow streets and their narrower gutters in Dharamshala are filled with polythenes of varying sizes. Yes, one can point out that not all of the mess could be created by Indians alone, some blame should fall on the Tibetans. Agreed. But, going by my observation, it's difficult to share the blame. I noticed how these (technically homeless) people in exile love their Little Lhasa. Their simplicity is too apparent to be overlooked and they are too calm a species. The finest example could be noticed in the manner they behave on the road. Indians, despite knowing very well that they don't really have the knack to maneuver their vehicles on topsy-curvy bends, flock their four-wheelers up the hills. And in the process, end up creating massive traffic jam. The worst part was to witness an Indian driver taking a turn at the speed of 1km/hr and honking while he's at it. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with us? Why can't we just let the expert Tibetans and Pahadis drive and earn their livelihoods (not to forget, curb air pollution) instead of creating a public joke of ourselves? And speaking of honking, if there is a traffic jam, you can be dead sure that the local drivers won't touch their horn while the Indians will go ballistic with their impatience. It's high time we Indians stopped putting the loud in McLeodganj. 

The height of being laidback

It'd been a long while since i visited the hills. Ladakh happened in 2013 and it only helped create a fear in me for altitude. So i was a bit apprehensive about visiting McLeodganj over the past (long) weekend. But then, Ladakh is at a massive 18,875 ft above sea level while McLeodganj is at 6832 ft. Lower the better, for my breathlessness. So my partner and i reached early morning and headed straight to our hotel. The overnight bus trip was kind to neither of our backbones so we just wanted to sleep off. There was only one problem with that plan. Nobody seemed to be at the reception. I knocked on the door only to realize that it was unlocked. As i let myself in, i noticed that there was nobody behind the table either. I tapped the table bell repeatedly to no avail. By then, we had wasted about 15 minutes. I repeated “Hello” in various accents too. No response whatsoever. It was then i leaned over the table to notice that somebody was fast asleep on the floor. I raised the decibel of my unpleasant hello in an attempt to wake up whoever was sleeping with the quilt covering his entire body. No response, again. I proceeded to shake his legs gently—in the beginning at least—to wake him up. He wouldn't move, let alone bother to open his eyes. Tired but amused at the same time, i finally decided to pull his quilt off, hoping he'll get the sign. But no, he had his own plans. Without disturbing his forty winks, he dragged the quilt back over his face and went back to sleep. After my third attempt at tug-of-quilt, he finally gave in. On getting up, he apologized profusely but not without explaining how he went to sleep at 4.30am! However, that's not the funniest part of the story. He informed us that the room we booked wasn't empty because the occupants didn't check out! Sheepishly, he further requested us to leave our luggages behind and go have breakfast somewhere. His idea was that he'll get us room—somehow—within an hour. We did as he instructed because we were so damn indebted to his awakening.