Most embarrassing moment in India?

Rob_The_Pom

I'm glad I'm not the only one Dr F!

That day I really did a bit of sanctuary at the bottom of a glass!



And also, all the very best to you Bijapuri!

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Dr Funkenstein

I did EXACTLY the same thing, Rob.

Hit this bar that looked like a strip joint (apart from the lack of women) - all male clientele, smoky glass, gaudy decor and full of particularly un-devout Muslim blokes getting totally hosed!

Turned out to be a good laugh in the end, like.

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Rob_The_Pom

The bar I drank in was actually quite nice in terms of decor, it was a bit of English pub/ 'Cheers' cross. It was a bit F.o.B (Full of Blokes) as well.
There was only one young lady in there with her boyfriend, which elicted some rather unforunate comments from some of his mates. (One asked me if I wanted to see what an Indian slag looked like, and pointed her out). Poor girl.

But, Mr Singh from CLB Colony is one of the most memorable figures from my entire trip. He got me completely sloshed, and cheered me up no end.

Dino

One I'm not too proud of was in dry Ahmedabad.We were walking about the city in intense heat and pollution thinking how good a cold beer would be but of course unable to find one,even in the flash looking hotels.One of the hotel staff put us onto a rickshaw driver who he said could get us 'whiskey'.After a long trip up back streets and alleyways he stops,tells to wait here,and leaves on foot.

As usual in India people started to stop to talk to us and pretty soon there was a large crowd gathered around us wanting to know the usual 'coming from' etc but also why we were waiting there.I felt so guilty sitting there making vague answers about waiting for our driver and also admittedly a little scared lest the crowd turn nasty when they see the bottle of whiskey the driver brings.

Fortunatly,the driver returned and had hidden the bottle under his jacket.It was probably justice that later the expensive whiskey turned out to be fake with absolutely no intoxicating effect whatsoever.

tomprice20

fake whiskey? was it warm and slightly frothy?

pinocchio

Was walking peacefully down the street when a pesky roach ran out of a drain and started crawling up my leg. A quick stomp of my leg and I thought it was gone but no...it simply fell into the hem of my trousers and was crawling up again. A few more stomps and a jump or two but no, it was crawling up again. More stomps and jumps...and more...and more...before I realised that every person on the street, including a couple of policemen, were staring hard at me. Finally had to peel up my trouser leg and flick it off...

jens

Great work. That's a wonderful milestone, wishing you many more happy years.
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One moment that made us wince happened in the Indore train station. We were exchanging tickets. First we stood in various lines just to figure out what line to stand in to exchange tickets. During that time there was some of the usual line "maneuvering". Some of the gestured explanations that went like this: "oh, my family of 6 just joined me, I was holding their place (we retreat a couple of painful steps)". Some.. "You can't stand in this line, it's only for elderly" (yes, and tourists we smile - it says on the sign- politely pointing at the sign). Some careful calculations about the length of their line compared to the length of ours, some complicated math about the time to service with the end analysis being; "Your line looks shorter than mine, but I was in my line first therefore I have earned the right to cut in front of you in your line".

We got in the correct line for ticket exchanging and by this time have acquired a bit of an attitude towards cutters, who are certainly fine in small doses, more power to them, but you can't be setting too much of a precedent or else you'll be in cue forever. It didn't help that by then the train station was closing for the mid-day multi-hour break, so everyone was getting really anxious. Finally after a couple of hours there was only one man and his son in front of us so we thought, wonderful, we'll be out of here in no time. But that wasn't the case because the man was in charge of buying tickets for what we surmised was an entire school going on some sort of multi-legged trip. We couldn't sort it out, but he didn't speak the language, so he would talk to his son, then the son would talk to the ticket person then talk to him, then they would get a ticket, then the whole thing would repeat. So we stood and stood.

By then my partner finally could reach the counter with his hand and was employing this technique to block would be line cutters. He's busy resolutely blocking people, right and left, avoiding making eye contact. He's far from a huge person, but he's puffed himself up for the moment, basically standing on his toes and managing to tower over people. People keep coming up behind him, and looking plaintively over his arm barricade, then retreating. Finally two men are rather insistent and finally one says, "please sir - could you get us a form?". Turns out they had run out of forms at the back of the station and everyone now needed to reach under the window of this line to get a form. He reached under the window and got them a form, sheepishly trying to explain his hostile defense moves.

Mikki

This moment was worse in retrospect since I wasn't aware of what I was doing then. I was hiking with someone from Sikkim. He carried the water bottle and I had a drink "western" style instead of holding the bottle at a good distance and "tossing" the water in. In his eyes I probably defiled the bottle for the rest of the walk. However, I made up for it later when I couldn't finish a mug of chang we were offered (which had to be finished by somebody because it would have been rude to our host otherwise) by turning the mug around in the other direction for him to drink. I think he got the point. Or did he just not want a drink of water anyway, but he liked chang?

PeakXV

Barfed in the backseat of a business associates Mercedes. Tried to warn everyone but we were on the Delhi Airport Highway and it would have been near suicide to stop quick anyway. I had a touch of Delhi Belly the day before and the leather Interior of the Mercedes had just been polished with some of that strong smelling Chemo-clean toxic stuff .... Blaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Blaaah! Blaah! .... Umm I think you'd better take me back to the hotel to change my pants & socks ..... and a thorough shoe shine!!!

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

Digital Drifter

You certainly seem to choose the correct location and time. That's good. Very good timing, in fact.

Just. stay. Away. From. Me.

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sudheer poppa

Goodness peak... Reading your post, have you thought of what would have gone in the mind of a person who does not know the meaning of barfed ???

Hmm, I felt some relief after checking up in a dictionary !!! Apologies for what I originally thought

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PeakXV

Sorry Sudheer, Threw-up! I hope barf-ed in hinglish doesn't mean something even more embarrasing ....

Hindi = ICED ?

jivan

hindi ~ ulti It's actually one of the most natural things to happen when the body doesn't agree with something. Nausauting sometimes but quite a relief.

New-South-Welshman

I was in Uttar Pradesh in 2004, and my father's business associate's son invited me to play cricket for a local district team in a few days time, so I accepted, never having played the game in India. The team also thought it would be great to have an Aussie in the squad, psychologically and physically, for a semi-final game. Anyway, I was picked up by a driver on game day and taken to the cricket oval at a high school. When I saw the crowd, I was amazed at the size of the crowd, and everybody was basically sitting along the boundary, and any seat they could get their arses on. It was like the crowd watching the cricket game in Lagaan, must of been around 3000 people, at this high school ground. I asked my dad’s business associates son if the crowd is always like this, and he just told me that word got around that an Aussie was playing, and more people showed up. I felt a bit flattered, but mostly nervous. I went into the game with an arrogant frame of mind, thinking if I sledged a lot, and heckled a few of the opposition they’d crack. Our team ended up bowling first and I was given the new ball, and ended up with figures of 6-40, and being very happy with myself. I decided that I was going to be aggressive in the batting as well. I was put at #11, so I was the last batsmen. Our team were absolutely hammered in the batting, and we needed 10 runs in the 5 balls remaining when I came up to bat. The first bowl that was bowled, I hit for six out of the ground into the river near by, with the crowd cheering and yelling. My ego got bigger, and I was confident. I kept heckling the opposition, waiting for the ball to be retrieved from the river. Anyway, five minutes later, a wet ball, 4 runs to win off 4 balls. He runs up, bowls it, and I take the biggest swing of my life, this is the kind of swing that champions are made from… that’s if they actually hit the ball. I was bowled out, 2/3 wickets flying out of the ground, and obviously we lost the game by four runs. I felt like such a fool because I was very arrogant. I just kept looking at the ground, too embarrased to look at the crowd even. Anyway, the crowd and players applauded a great game. My team and the opposition team just sat around for 15 minutes after the game, talking like old friends and having a great time. We had just acknowledged this was an amazing game, and I left the ground, the players and a the crowd, and never saw any of them again. If only I had played a patient game, and wasn’t so arrogant, we could of won, and I wouldn’t of had my tails between my legs. I was pretty red with embarrassment. I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame, and most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me in India.

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kalyani68

Dredging this thread up from the depths....
because its entertaining.
And because I actually have a story to add to it.

My embarassing moment was when my husband and I were visiting a large temple in Kerala. I took off my shoes, as one does before entering a temple. I was walking around barefoot, sporting my new silver toe rings (two on each foot) which were given to me during my marriage not long before my trip to Kerala. Well, the toe rings were just a shade too big. It did not help that the temple grounds had numerous puddles which helped lubricate the toe rings right off my feet every 20 yards or so. It was embarassing to have to keep bending over to pick them up and put them back on and then try to walk around with curled toes! I suppose I could have just left them off but for some reason I did not think of that. Oh well, at least I gave all the ladies nearby a good chuckle.