What firangs don't want

Sat, Jun 14 01:05 AM

Delhi has its attractions. There are trees, monuments, malls, bazaars, speciality restaurants and multiplexes.

With the booming economy, more and more foreigners are also choosing to live and work here. No doubt, foreigners find the city's easy charm hard to resist.

And yet, Delhi also has a side they find infuriating. After all, this is a city that captivates and exhausts you in equal measure.

Seeing through their eyes, HT City identifies five characters in Delhi who irk the hell out of foreigners. The thick-skinned hawker He will try selling foreigners everything from fake 'Raybaan' [sic] sunglasses, chillums and road maps to the plastic replica of the bear claw pendant he is wearing around his neck.

Using his thick-skinned salesmanship he'll plead, pester and make the poor firangs feel that it's a crime not to buy souvenirs on Indian soil. "I was walking in Janpath and one guy wanted to sell me churan, touting it as an aphrodisiac from the Himalayas.

Another had a magic lampshade!" says Ivan Petrov, a Russian. "Somehow they think a foreigner wants to buy anything and everything 'Indian' under the sun," he says.

The nosy landlord In an inappropriate hour of the night, shortly after dinner, he climbs down to his tenant's room. If he is feeling generous, he'll only ask about his or her country and the sexual habits there.

On foul-mood days, he wants the minutest details of the friends who visit the firang, constantly reminding him about the "how many and what type of friends allowed" commandment. "Some landlords can be prying.

What do they think we are doing in our rooms? Plotting against the earth with Martians?" says Naira Gonzalez, a Spanish woman who refused to tell us where she lives. The traffic-light attention-seeker When a car or an autorickshaw stops at a red light, the driver parks his car or motorcycle close to the tourist's vehicle, and stares until his eyeballs pop out.

This person will try to blow smoke into the foreigner's face or leer at her or try any other cheap trick to draw the firang's attention to himself. The torment ends only when the light turns green.

The camera phone pervert They wield their camera phone everywhere. Every white woman walking by is a piece of photographic masterpiece for them.

They go on an overdrive when the foreigner starts taking out her own camera. Somehow, they believe 'permission' is some town in Antarctica.

The nightclub tharki He has the swagger and is dressed in all black with a thick gold chain, a pendant hanging around his neck like a dead albatross. He has a special corny pick-up line he tries on every foreigner in the room.

When every attempt fails, he comes back to his buddies sitting in the corner table and says, "Chal chhad! Beer pila.".

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