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TOURIST GUIDE TO INDIA

This guide has been handcrafted from the finest electrons for your reading pleasure. And so I proudly present the guide to my country, India.

India is known by various names, ranging from The Jewel in the Crown, The Land of Snake Charmers, so on and so forth. However, most Indians would be surprised to hear either of these things, because they consider India as being the place in which they live, and which fits neither of these descriptions at all.

A famous person whose name is not important once said in a weak moment: "Everything that you hear about India is true. The opposite is also true." What an idiot... Anyway, this probably may go a long way towards explaining why tourists in India (that includes YOU, stupid) usually feel like they do not know whether to laugh or to cry. Especially when the natives keep laughing at you most of the time.

Location
Unless it moved recently, India is located on the southern edge of Asia, which is rather neat because we are right next to the Indian Ocean too.

How to get there
Getting there is half the fun, especially if you fly Air India (A. I.), the national airline. The domestic airline is Indian Airlines (I.A.), which is rather clever because they can reuse the same letters in the acronym. We heard recently that having picked up some knowledge about other alphabets, practically everyone and his brother is now starting up local airlines, such as Vayudoot, Damania and Megalomania.

The conventional way to enter the country is through one of the international airports that are in Bombay, New Delhi, Calcutta, and Madras. Most people who land there are headed somewhere else in India, which might make you wonder why the airports were set up there in the first place, but that's the way it is, and remember that you are just a measly tourist and who the heck are you to tell us where to put our airports anyway? And oh yeah, I was asked to welcome you, even if I thought you were a poor, sad excuse for a human as long as you were foolish enough to give us your money. So, Welcome to India.

For the more adventurous minded tourist, there are other ways of entering the country, such as first going to Pakistan and crossing the border into Kashmir. Should you choose this route, the Pakistani government provides you (at no extra charge) with the latest in US Army surplus AK-47s as an incentive. (Offer good until supplies last. The Government of Pakistan reserves the right to substitute other weaponry without prior notice.) While this means, you can get an all expenses paid to the Kashmir Valley, the catch is that it is very difficult to get travel insurance on this trip. Something to do with being killed or something.

You can choose to travel to Bangladesh first, which also provides free infiltration services, particularly into the Northeastern parts of India, but I hear that tourism is difficult in those regions. The natives in North-eastern India don't speak English anymore, since they have discovered that assault rifles are a more lucid way of getting the point across to idiots illegally crossing over the border from Bangladesh. Besides, this way they do not have to worry about dangling participles and split infinitives, always a problem when you try to communicate in English. They are reported to ask questions later, a point which is of little comfort to anyone who's been shot first. Besides, you would first have to go to Bangladesh, and who wants to do that.

Finally, you could take the boat ride from Sri Lanka to India, but the catch is that you will not be able to see much of India because you will be sent back on the next boat to Sri Lanka. You cannot see much of India in an afternoon.

Indian hospitality
Foreign tourists are welcome in most parts of India, and are referred to as "Gora firanga", which is Hindi for "fat-assed foreign idiot with diarrhea and way too much money". Where does the diarrhea come into the picture? Well I would rather not go into the details, you know well enough where it comes from. If you want to know where you got it from, I would say the water, the food, or the air. Of course, the real reason is that you are a wimpy foreigner whose stomach is not strong enough to take care of it, and we are just too damn polite to say so to your face. The least you could do is to quit whining. Thank you.

People
First, there are a lot of them, 950 million to be more precise.

Indian names are difficult to pronounce, which is why most Indian kids have nicknames like Babloo. If you forget someone's name, I would advise you against referring to him as Whatsisface, simply because there may be some person within earshot called Chandragupta Harshavardhana. Whatsisface and he may think you are talking about him. If you have to, at least say Mr. Whatsisface, and pray that there is not a woman around called Mrs. Whatsisface. Better still, keep your big mouth shut, but this may be impossible to do if you are an American tourist.

Places
There are thousands of places you could go to in India.

The Red Fort: Well, it is a fort, and um... it is somewhat red, but I guess you expected that anyway. It is located in Old Delhi, to which I guess you can go from New Delhi by doing some nifty time-travel. Heh heh, no actually that is just a joke and you are supposed to laugh now. Thanks. You do not need a time machine; you can just take a taxi.

Corbett National Park: a jungle, but we figure you would pay good money to go stay there (and get out of our hair for a while) if we told you that you could see some tigers there. Kind of ironic, since Corbett was known for killing.

Kashmir: Snow-capped mountains, serene lakes, quaint ageless traditions, and beautiful valleys which are filled with the sounds of staccato gunfire. Stroll through centuries old marketplaces, touch lovingly handcrafted local ware, and witness a real-life kidnapping by local terrorists, or are caught in an exciting crossfire between the army and the terrorists. Look up at the clear blue skies at just the right moment (timing is everything) and you may see a rocket bomb arcing gracefully through the air. Unparalleled scenic beauty and violent armed civil unrest, a combination you would be hard pressed to find elsewhere in the world.

Rajasthan: Desert, mostly, but the kings built palaces there with a keen eye on the twentieth century tourist industry. They also have an annual camel-trading show, where many tourists like to get into the way of local camel traders trying to run their business. Still, if sand turns you on, you will find plenty of it here.

Other Stuff: Not to be outdone, there are hundreds of places like the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar... and many others which would love to have you visit them and support the local skin-the-tourist industry.

Languages
English is spoken widely, but understood somewhat less widely. Exceptions are regions such as Assam (see above) and Kashmir, where the locals, presumably disenchanted with the peculiarities of English grammar, have made creative use of alternative ways to express them.

Sometimes you may come across signs, which seem to be English, but make no sense anyway such as: "Xerox photocopy done in Telugu, Kannada and English." or: "Limca - The zero bacteria drink"

There are several hundred local languages, none of which you have any hope of understanding, so let us just forget that for now.

Politics
India follows a parliamentary democratic form of government, in which the people get together every five years and decide which party they hate the least and this party gets to rule until the people find a party they hate even less. In this respect, India is just like any other democracy. The losing party usually vanishes, breaks up, merges with the winning party, figures out which ideology would get them the most votes and reconvenes with a different name in time for the next election.

Sports
The most popular sport is cricket, which the Indians picked up from the British. There are several versions, such as "tennis ball cricket", "street cricket", "hostel corridor cricket", "half pitch cricket", "one day cricket", and "that's not cricket". The fundamental rules are common across these various forms.

Each match takes five days. It takes this long because they need time to figure out who is in, i.e. out, and who is out, i.e. in, and who is not out, but not yet in. There are one-day matches, which oddly are usually played at night these days (which may make you wonder why they don't call them one-night matches), in which everyone is in a hurry to get in and stay out.

Hockey, basketball, and soccer also claim that they are popular, but only among the people who play them. These people like these sports when there is no cricket to watch.

And now all you have to do is pack your bags and get ready to leave. Bon voyage!

This article has been modified and edited from the original "Prem!'s Tourist Guide To India" to make it more suitable for the "entire family". All rights (and wrongs) pertaining to this article are reserved by the author. You are free to distribute copies of this article as long as it is not for financial benefit, and both the author's name and this copyright notice accompany the article. Bouquets/Brickbats to: prem@prem.lbl.gov

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