There are scams in every city in the world. Some are particularly dangerous, others are just fucking disgusting – like the one I fell victim to TWICE in downtown Delhi.
Even without being the target of scams, being in India is already an assault on every sense you have. Trash gathers in piles by the side of the road, where men and animals can be seen openly pissing. Every car and auto-rickshaw is blaring its horn at all times at the impossibly congested traffic. Power lines crisscross and tangle into knots above the street. Every piece of food is covered in spices, rendering even the most familiar food like an apple into spiced curve-balls for the taste buds. And the smell of really large animal shit is never far behind. With cows, camels, and elephants all sharing the road, it’s hard to tell which.
Despite all of this, I was loving India. It’s fascinating how different a place can be, and I genuinely looked forward to my next jawdropping surprise.
Traveling is about experiencing something new, being utterly surprised, and seeing things you never knew existed. India is the world capital for all of that.
Two things in particular, though, really pissed me off. As trivial as it sounds, nothing pisses me off more than someone cutting me in line. Cutting me in line is like stealing from me while I watch. I can’t help but hate it. Maybe that’s my cultural bias, but in India, with 1.5 billion people, they can’t afford to be polite. So I just had to deal with it. At a close second is throwing shit on me. This is where the scam comes in: at the Connaught Place bazaar in the heart of Delhi.
Walking the concentric rings of Connaught Place is a must for every visitor to Delhi. Connaught Place is a huge marketplace of goods mixing the British-colonial past with a more traditional, open-air bazaar. The grounds are filled with hundreds of exotic vendors as well as aggressive hawkers trying to sell leather belts at “very good, special price for you.” Amidst this busy chaos a young man comes shouting at us, finger pointing excitedly, insisting to shine my friend’s tennis shoes. Not understanding why, we look down to see the most vile, greenish-brown shit all over his sneakers. I’m talking foul and textured shit-slime with visible scent waves wafting up from it. Looking around confused, all we could see where masses of people. How then, did a diseased camel just release gangrenous diarrhea all over his shoes?
Impressed by the sharp eye and helpfulness of this kid, we gladly paid him to “shine” the shoes for a handful of rupees. Knowing fully well that you can’t shine a pair of tennis shoes we were just happy to have him clean off the wretched shit-mixture, wherever the hell it came from. More than a little perplexed, we thanked him and were on our way. It didn’t occur to me until the NEXT time the invisible diarrhea-camel shit on us what was going on.
Working in teams of two, one boy carries a ladle of poop-sludge and finds the target – which is your tall, white ass
Working in teams of two, one boy carries a ladle of poop-sludge and finds the target – which is your tall, white ass that sticks out in the sea of all-black hair. In the dense crowd of people you won’t even notice him slinging it on your shoes as he passes by. With the first boy out of site, the second kid runs in insisting to shine your shoes. He’ll seem innocent enough with his meager tools for shining shoes but don’t be fooled – he’s part of the scam and is just there to take your money.
After suffering the shit scam twice the second kid didn’t get any rupees for cleaning my shoes.
Ultimately, it’s not a great deal of money to be scammed for, but having shit throw on you is probably the last thing you were hoping for on your trip. At the time I was downright pissed to have that unidentifiable shit-concoction anywhere near me – but now I’m just amazed at the tenacity of this scam, where you deliberately carry around shit, and then willfully clean it up, all for a handful of rupees.