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People and Culture

Many observations were made in previous posts with a bit more context. This section is a potpourri of biased opinions and observations that might have fell through the cracks or that could be emphasized.

The list is partial and heavily biased, so take it with a grain a salt. I haven’t been there for long, and it is a very huge and diverse country.

• Many people spit on the streets, reaching distant targets with precision. Y were impressed and worked hard on that skill.
• People are incredibly nice and helpful. This is what surprised me the most, considering the stories I heard before visiting.
• The Indian numbering system has a 2,2,3 style of digit group separators. After thousands, lakhs and crores are commonly used.
  • A lakh is a hundred thousands, written 100,000.
  • A crore is a hundred lakhs or 10 millions, written 1,00,00,000 (notice the position of the commas).
  • There are specific words for a hundred crore and so on, but I have not heard of them.
  • Prices uses that numbering system. It is not immediately obvious because most prices you see are lower than 100,000 rupees.
• Infrastructures (sidewalks, hotels, cars, public transportation etc.) are pretty poor compared to Southest Asia.
• Service in restaurants and hotels is great. We wonder if good service is a heritage of the caste system.
• Some children have black around the eyes. It’s called kajal in Hindi, khol in English. It is an ayurvedic (the name of the traditional medicine) black ointment that has benefits for the eyes.
• In Goa and Kerala, many employees in the restaurant industry or the hospitality business are from the states near the north border or from Nepal.
• For poor people, weddings are simple. But for the middle class, weddings can be huge (thousands of guests) and very expensive. The walking tour guide in Dehli told us his sister’s weddings cost 22,000 USD, which looks indeed expensive for someone from the middle class in Dehli.
• We heard it is easy to get invited to a wedding and to eat for free. We were actually invited twice to weddings that we could not attend due to our schedule. I understood that the most common “gifts” are blessings.
• Some men have great hair: mostly straight with impressive volume. I am kinda jealous.
• The crowds are very dense.

Language

• Hindi in Devanagari script has been declared the official language, although the constitution of India does not specify one.
• Both Hindi and English are used by the central administration.
• On the (city) train ticket, it was written “To report unsavory situations, please call …”. I like how the word “unsavory” is used here.
• On the train platform in Mumbai, “Divyang” was used to refer to persons with disabilities. It can be translated to ‘one with a divine body part’. Isn’t a nice word?
• “Tell a non veg joke” means a dirty joke. I heard it in the movie Queen. I did not like the movie that much because I am definitely not the target audience of this movie.

Practical details

• ATM limit has always been 10,000 rupees (110.70 euros). SBI has no ATM fees.
• e-visa is needed for French people. It took less than a day. I had an inexplicable payment issue with one of my credit cards. It worked with PayPal.
  • I provided our first hotel as the ‘contact in India’.
• Pharmacies can be very small sometimes. I noticed medicine are not sold by boxes, but by individual pills. The pharmacist uses a pair of scissors to give the exact number of pills.
• In many places, it is difficult or impossible to walk on the sidewalks. We ended up walking on the road.
• I have never seen as many fake Google Maps reviews. There are still valuable, but they are less accurate.

Food & Drink

• Mc Donald’s is good and has unique vegetarian recipes. We enjoyed the cheesy fries and the veg Maharaja mac.
• Biryani is a dish of rice, meat (traditionally, veg versions do exist!), and spices. It is arguably the most popular dish in India. It is often spicy. The Hyderabadi biryani from the city of Hyderabad is the most famous biryani style in India.
• If you ask for ‘tea’, you will get a chai or masala tea. A tea with milk and spices. If you don’t want that, ask for a “black tea” or “green tea”.
• 20 out of 28 states have laws regulating or prohibiting the slaughter and sales of cows. In Goa, Pondicherry, and Kerala, 3 states we visited, there is no regulation. It felt weird eating our first beef burger after a few weeks in India.
• Even (or should I say ‘especially’) in states where cows are protected, they regularly eat out of trash bins in cities.
• In rural areas, it is nice to see cows eat grass.
• Many Indians drink without letting the bottle touch their lips with only one hand. I am still struggling with two hands.
• Many restaurants serve free water. We always ordered water bottles.
• Given the quality of the service in the restaurants, it is surprising that the waiters never opened the bottles of water to serve it to us. I believe they want to let the customers break the seal.
• Indians eat quite fast.
• Waiters are very professional, but not very good at providing recommendations. If there is a thali on the menu, chances are it’s going to be their recommendation.
• A peg is a measure of alcoholic beverage equal to 60 ml. A small peg would be 30 ml.
• The most common bottle of water is 1 liter that cost 20 rupees (0.22 euros). It is not mineral water, but distilled water with extra minerals.

Transportation

• To book train tickets, you do not need a travel agency. The IRCTC booking system works just fine.
• The IRCTC online booking system did not inform us when we transitioned from the waiting list to confirmed passengers. We got the information at the counter of the train station. I hope the booking system will be improved to show and communicate accurate status.
• On the train Hampi—Mumbai, we saw 3 people assigned to the same seat. They went looking for available space elsewhere in the car. We never booked that kind of ticket as chances are you will have to share the seats.
• Buses were free for women in Delhi, is it the case in other cities?
• Food is very affordable at the train station and on the train. It is not more expensive than in town. Definitely not the prices at the airport or on the plane. You can find samosas, biryani (veg, chicken, egg), chai, yogurt, books (rare) and industrial snacks.
• A significant number of people play videos without headphones or earphones on the train.
• On the train, many people want to lie down even during the day. We had mostly sleeper cars, even during daytime trips.
• People seem to be stressed about transportation. The trains are late most of the time, but people arrive well in advance.
• Taxis and tuktuks are old. They are newer electric tuktuks. Uber cars are usually better than taxis.

Religion

• Diwali and Deepavali both refer to the festival of light. The term Diwali seems to be more commonly used. Deepavali might be a more correct translation/transliteration from Sanskrit. Many told us that it is Diwali in Hindi and Deepavali in english.
• Lakshmi, often called Mahalakshmi (maha- is a prefix meaning “great”), is the goddess of wealth, prosperity, beauty, and fertility. Many Hindus worship her during Diwali.
• Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya were quite impressive in 2023. 22 lakh (2.2 million) diwas (earth lantern) were lit, setting a Guinness record. I watched part of it on YouTube while I was on a rooftop in Dehli surrounded by illegal fireworks that went on for the entire night.
• Jainism is a religion in which the path to enlightenment is through non-violence and reducing harm to living beings as much as possible. We met an old Jain lady on the train:
  • She did not eat vegetables which grew under the ground. No animal products like eggs or milk, of course.
  • In a supermarket in Jaipur, we could not find eggs because of the religion of the owner, I wonder if he was Jain.
  • She did not eat bread because the yeast is “alive”.
  • She did not eat or drink after 9 pm. According to Jain scriptures, after sunset the temperature drops and the number of bacteria in the food and the water increase. She does not want to kill more bacteria than necessary.
  • She did not want to use the blanket provided on the train. Was it due to her religion? It was quite cold because of the AC, so she ended up using it.
  • Every time she drinks, she filters the water with a small filter. It is supposed to be better for health and to prevent the killings of many bacteria.
• The Hindu trinity consists of the gods of creation (Brahma), preservation (Vishnu), and destruction (Shiva).

Art

• Rangoli or Kolam (in Tamil Nadu) are art forms consisting of patterns creating on the floor with powders. It is mostly performed during celebrations. We sas many of them during Dev Diwali in Varanasi.

Accommodation

• Some houses, in the north of India, have open spaces to let the air flow in, so people are more impacted by the outside noise and the temperature variations.
• In most hotels, there were switches for hot water and for sockets.

For Next Time

Visit the north when there is less pollution. For instance, the city of Mussoorie in the Uttarakhand state for its proximity to the Himalayas.