Sylvia's Journal

We are busy organizing our trip to India and emailing with two agencies that claim they will delight us. The language of the emails is wonderful, as if we are talking with Jeeves, PG Wodehouse’s famous butler. Each new email is better than the previous one. We are being treated to one piece of adjective-laden after another:

“[…] India provides an authentic adventure – stimulating, absorbing, daunting, sometimes moving and shocking. Here is one of the world’s great dramas; an ancient, vast and crowded land committed to the most formidably challenging exercise in mass democracy. It is a spectacle in which hope, pride, paradox and uncertainty mingle and struggle. […] Here is a society of over a 1000 million people, growing by a million a month, divided and united by language, caste, religion and regional loyalties. It has often been described as a functioning anarchy; and it is in many ways an amiable one, of marvelous fluidity and tolerance. Indeed, the true Indian motif is not the Tajmahal, the elephant or the patient peasant behind the ox drawn plough. It is the crowd, the ocean of faces in the land of multitudes, endlessly stirring, pushing and moving. It is in this human circulation that one sees India’s colour, variety, busyness, and, senses also its power, vitality and grandeur.”

We are negotiating to lower the rather steep rates for our excursions. That too is met by the most wonderful prose: “Namaste & Good Morning Axel ! (Will you be offended if I addressed you by your first name ?, let me take a chance ! Actually, India is a pretty warm country and salutations as ‘Mrs.’, ‘Mr.’ are formal ‘wares’ as neckties which can be mistaken for the hangman’s noose !!!).”

He continues, “[…] Thank you for sharing your concerns with regards to cost. […] Axel, let us walk towards each other. I have walked USD 106 and I will request you to gently tread the other USD 94. Let us meet at USD 594 Per Person. […] Come on my friend, the hand remains extended in friendship and in goodwill – please hold and let me not fall !!! In all humility, I wish to state that, we do not promise just a tour. We are offering an experience. This is an experience that would communicate happiness, smiles and fulfillment. […].” He signs off with lots of love. There is the illusion (or is it pretense?) of deep friendship that is both creepy and seductive. We are definitely being seduced in a most wonderful prosaic way.

We are inclined to tell Mr. Manodj that we will go with the competition. Mr. M is the travel agent who Steve has used in the past and who is now organizing a tour for him and various family members following a similar route, but in a bus and for 10 days, a trip that starts tomorrow as he leaves Kabul for Delhi. But the prose of Mr. Banerjee is just too good to pass up. We will do a little more due diligence by checking some references but my heart has already decided.