Are You Experienced?

“It’s… the… parliament. The Indian parliament.’

‘It’s not the parliament. Parliament is the Lok Sabha and the Rahja Sabha. Congress is the ruling party.’

‘Oh, yeah. Right. Of course. I knew that.’

‘So you know about the argument over Harijan quotas?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘You know who the Harijans are?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who?’

‘They’re… um… the opposition party.’

‘Oh my God, this is unbelievable. “Harijan” is the name for the underclass of Indian society. The Untouchables. The people who’ve probably swept every floor that you have stood on and cleaned every toilet you’ve shat in since you’ve been here.

They

are the Harijans – as renamed by a certain Mahatma Gandhi. You’ve heard of him, perhaps?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ I said, with attempted sarcasm.

‘Probably just seen the film,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Just forget it. Forget it.’

Then, shaking his head, he gave every impression of forgetting that I was there, and turned his head away. With a vague smile on his lips and a frown playing across his forehead, he stared out at the swamp.

This was a very rude man. I decided that I wasn’t going to let myself be humiliated.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘you’re a professional journalist. It’s your job to know these things. I’m just travelling here. It’s only a holiday. I don’t have to revise for my holidays. I get enough of that the rest of the year.’

He turned towards me slowly, and muttered, still apparently to himself, ‘You don’t have to revise for your holidays.’

Was this his idea of a conversation? He was, without a doubt, the most impolite man I had ever met.

After a while, he said it again, slightly louder, with strange emphasis.

‘You don’t have to

revise

for your holidays.’

‘That’s right. I don’t have to revise for my holidays. Do you have a problem with that?’

‘No,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘I think it’s very accurate.’

‘Accurate. What do you mean, accurate?’

‘University of Life. Year One – Advanced Adventure Playgrounds. Part One Exam – go to the Third World and survive. No revision, interest, intellect or sensitivity required.’

This guy was unbelievable.

‘Look. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know why I’m here. You don’t know what I think. You don’t have any interest in why I’ve decided to come and what it means to me, so you… you… you’ve got no right to make pronouncements about my… my journey… and my… character. Right?’

He nodded, still smiling. ‘You’re absolutely right. I don’t know anything about you. Nothing at all. And yet I turn up here and make judgements about your character right out of the blue. It’s terrible.’

He eyed me with an inquisitive look, but I didn’t know what he was on about, so I just tried to stare him out.

‘You’re

absolutely

right. I’m completely ignorant, and yet I come here, sit next to you, spend a few fleeting moments in your company, then go away feeling that I’ve learned something about you. It’s appalling. I shouldn’t even have come here. If I’m not interested, I shouldn’t have taken up your time.’

‘Oh, right, I

see

. Very clever.’ I looked away and tried to ignore him.

Down the track, crowds of people were still chatting and smoking, with no apparent sign of the train moving on. Even though I hadn’t exactly hit it off with the journalist, I decided to stay put. I wasn’t ready to be on my own again.

‘I might do an article on you,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I might write about you.’

‘About me? What have you got to say about me?’

‘I’m not sure. Tell me – what do you do all day?’

‘What do I do?’

‘Yes. What does your average day consist of?’

‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘No. I’m just curious.’

I gave him a suspicious look. ‘You know – I’m travelling. I’m a backpacker.’

‘But what do you do all day? How come you don’t get bored?’

‘Bored? You could never get bored here.’

‘What do you

do

, though? In each place.’

He looked genuinely interested.

‘Well, you get there. Look for a hotel. Hang out there for a bit. Look around town for a few days. Eat. Read. Sleep. Talk to the other travellers. Think about where to go next, then – you know – it’s a big hassle to get the tickets for your next journey, so you prepare yourself for that, then bite the bullet, spend a morning queuing for tickets, and the next day you move on.’

‘Right. So the most significant and challenging thing you do in each place is to buy the tickets for getting to the next place.’

‘No. I didn’t say that.’

‘Yes you did.’

‘Look – forget it. You’re obviously only interested in taking the piss, so I don’t see why I should help you write your crappy little feature. You’ll have to talk to someone a bit more gullible.’

‘It’s fine. I’ve got more than enough material already.’

‘Like what? What are you going to write about me, then?’

‘I think… something about how it’s not hippies on a spiritual mission who come here any more, just morons on a poverty-tourism adventure holiday. The real point would have to be about how going to India isn’t an act of rebellion these days, it’s actually a form of conformity for ambitious middle-class kids who want to be able to put something on their CV that shows a bit of initiative. All the top companies want robots with initiative these days, and coming to the Third World is the ideal hoop for you to leap through. You come here and cling to each other as if you’re on some kind of extended management-bonding exercise in Epping Forest. Then, having got the nasty business of travel out of the way, you can go home and prove to employers that you’re more than ready to settle down for a life of drudgery. I suppose you could call it a modern form of ritual circumcision – it’s a badge of suffering you have to wear to be welcomed into the tribe of Britain’s future élite. Your kind of travel is all about low horizons dressed up as open-mindedness. You have no interest in India, and no sensitivity for the problems this country is trying to face up to. You also treat Indians with a mixture of contempt and suspicion which is reminiscent of the Victorian colonials. Your presence here, in my opinion, is offensive. The whole lot of you should fuck off back to Surrey.’

‘That’s… that’s bollocks. I respect the Indians.’

‘Why did you run the whole length of the train to come and talk to me, then? Do you think I’m the only person here who speaks English?’

‘No… I just wanted a bit of… Look – it’s easy for you to come out with this kind of PC crap when you stay in cosy expense-account hotels. If you spent a bit of time with real travellers, you’d see that there are a lot of people who try and rip us off. You have to be a bit suspicious. It’s basic self-defence.’

‘

Real

travellers. You’re priceless. I’m going to have to put that in.’

‘Forget it. You’re not even listening to me. I just think that your kind of… of… cynicism is really sad. There’s a lot more to what I’m doing than you think.’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘At least I’m trying. Most people are happy to… to stay totally ignorant about the Third World. At least I’ve come here.’