Rick Racket

If you use rickshaws to get around Bangalore (and I do), sooner or later, you will encounter a rick driver you offers to take you to a handicrafts shop for "just five minutes" en route to wherever you're going.

And, no matter how much you resist, he WILL take you to the handicrafts shop. Last weekend, I wound up buying a sandalwood Ganesh (elephant god) keychain. Luckily, I needed a keychain ... and Ganesh is said to bring luck.

This weekend, another guy took me to another shop despite my repeated, shouted insistence that I wanted to go elsewhere. I gave up, walked into the shop, walked out after a decent interval and got back into the rickshaw. Without buying anything.

The guy tried to take me to another shop. At this point, I insisted very definitely that I wanted to go to my destination.

So, he stopped, chatted with another rick driver and asked me to get into his vehicle. The other guy took me where I wanted to go.

This explains why a fair number of expats hire drivers with cars to take them around. For now, I plan to stick to ricks. But I could change my mind.