Pakistani hospitality continued to within yards of the Indian border. Our rickshaw driver stopped and waited whilst the border guards gave us tea. Then we strolled through the arena where the Wagah border closing ceremony would be held to much cheering, bravado and blaring Bollywood tunes that evening. Now though, all was quiet and serene.
We were stopped at the immigration desk and asked if we wanted to buy Indian rupees at a terrible rate. We did. 5 minutes later when we naively declared all our cash at Indian customs we were told bringing rupees into the country was illegal and we’d be heavily fined. We’d fallen for the first scam India had to offer.
Happily the customs officer took pity on us (or perhaps decided we didn’t have enough cash to bother demanding any) and after some careful ‘corrections’ to our customs form we were waved through.
Forcing our way through a melee of taxi drivers all vying for our attention, we made it out on to the Amritsar road where we flagged down a cycle rickshaw driver who agreed to take us to the nearest bus stop for 20 rupees and a handful of Lays crisps.
So that was it. Three and a half months of buses, trains, trucks and rusty cargo ships and we’d made it from Dalston Junction to India.
In my mind’s eye I’d imagined coming back to India would be like putting on an old, comfy pair of slippers. ‘You’re practically Indian’ my roommates in Bangalore had told me a few years ago as I ate rice with my fingers and did the head-wobble. Now though, I was most definitely foreign and jittery and wondered if I’d been naive to think I’d ever been otherwise.
In Delhi 24 hours later, having become recipients of the immense hospitality of my old friend Prashant, his flat-mates and cook, and holding glasses of ‘Old Monk’, such concerns were melting away. If re-acclimatisation came with hot showers, delectable food and full mugs, it wouldn’t matter if it took some time, we decided.
Scamps on a train 