Madam, you are going the wrong way

happyhippy, I think you are a very decent and honorable person.

I adopted the "Thank you but no <put phone down immediately>" approach to cold callers, not only because they are thoroughly unwelcome, but also because, yes, they do have a living to earn, so, although they may not think it at the time, I am doing them a favour by not letting them waste opportunity. On the other hand, I can't say I've never played one along, especially if they happen to be from regular-nuisance company, and I find it hard to judge NYTim for his prank, especially if he had been having the kind of experience DaisyL describes.

I agree with everything you've said about the touts behaving inhumanly, especially with foreign tourists,except

but this tout wasn't asking for support , he provided a legitimate services (by taking NYtim to the emporium) and kept his end of the deal;
But off course no one has any obligation to do as they say would and be honorable , or do they!
Yes a beggar did get a donation for doing nothing,and NYtim had his fun , while the tout's children starved, and his old mother waited for the life saving and pain reliving drugs her son would have brought home , if Nytim hadn't chosen to have fun that day!

So remember this all you fun loving tourist/travelers ,you have no obligation to entertain any tout, but don't use them for your entertainment , for the one who suffers maybe his starving children , old sick(ill) mother or perhaps the next tourist/traveler who comes his way!

I get what you are saying Nick and I am not (really not )judging NYtim ,even though it may seem so from my posts, I am just providing you with alternative perspective!

happyhippy, I agree with Nick when he said that you are a very decent and honorable person. You are very passionate about this, and I do see many of the points you make.

I have no wish to argue with you.

I can't claim to be an experienced India hand having only spent a month there (twice) but I do wonder about the tout culture. Wise tourists do some research and probably arrive with an anti-tout bias. The foolish virgins get fleeced once or twice and wise up. Personally I quite like the banter. "Why would I need a laundry basket? Do you think that my clothes are dirty?"

It seems to me that this is not just a tourist problem. My "specialist subject" in India is railways. Apparently totally overrun with touts and people making a fast buck. But as far as I can see the victims here are not visitors but Indian people. Why do they put up with it?

NYTim, you need to go to New Delhi tailway station, have a tout take you to an agent, and book an expensive car & driver to take you on a tour of Rajasthan, it'll keep another touts kids from starving.

To suggest a touts' kids will starve if we waste any of his time is just nonsense.

The way we deal with touts is very often determined by our previous experiences with touts, and at what point we finally have enough of them, some tourists snap and shout at touts, the occasional tourist threatens a tout, some have other less volatile reactions.

Touts can be so persistent, even if you tell them you're not interested from the start, and after 3 or 4 in a morning, we can react, and admittedly, not always to the tout that pestered us in the first place, but are we to believe that the next tout is a real nice tout who's family need him to successfully con a tourist so they can eat that day?

And what about that other argument that we're being ignorant when the 5th man/boy to approach that day with the opening line "What country?" is told "No, I'm not interested"

I dislike touts and indeed actively despise some of them (and their tales of drug-dependent aged mothers and starving children). So I must admit to being secretly pleased by NYTim's jerking one around.

But when does justifiable retribution turn into common or garden variety sadism?

sperehealfe

You don't need to Steve , just don't tell him you will go on a tour of Rajasthan and make him wait and derive sadistic pleasure from having deceived him!
Now whether his kids starve or not, it is unethical to keep a man from earning his lively-hood just because you want to have "fun"!
The starving kids and ailing mother need not be taken literally ; what is fun,leisure,entertainment, and "nonsense" for you is serious business for these people, and their families well-being depends on what they do with their time , so don't waste it because you want your "fun".

And the way touts deal with tourist is also determined by there previous experiences with tourist, and if you give them such experiences how do you think they'll treat the next tourist the meet. Just as it is hard for a tourist to empathize with a tout ,similarly its very difficult for a tout to empathize with a tourist and understand what it feels like to travel alone to a foreign land usually on a small budget!

And if touts begin to believe that the next tourist is just out to con him,waste his time and hurt his families well being, how do you think he will will treat him!
You don't have to let the tout con you, just don't con him and waste his time because he is trying to con you to feed his family ,while you are doing it just to have fun, and this may hurt the next tourist the tout meets!

sorry, happyhippy, the tout is a businessman, no more, no less. what happened to him with nytim is the price of doing business. he'll make it up on the next gora or two.

I agree with steven...to suggest that a tout's kids will starve if we waste his time is just nonsense.

The tout is human and no one needs to be anything more! Why should the next gora human pay because the one before him wanted to have 'fun'.
Perhaps you missed this Sama:
.

The tout is a businessman, so we should all remember how we would feel in our respective jobs, for example if we provide our specialist service then we do not get paid, most of us would be seriously angry.

I suppose touts are businessmen, if being a businessman is just trying to make a buck, by whatever means. Which means that pickpockets, footpads, and hit men are businessmen too. All the touts that have approached us have been con men, pretending to be disinterested parties trying to help out stupid tourists, when in fact they've been trying to get a commission by steering us into one sort of shop or another. I have a hard time believing that con men deserve respect.

But NYTim seems to have met up with an honest con man, who offered him right up front to take him to an emporium. NYTim agreed, and it sounds like he agreed with the intent of pulling a prank and wasting the man's time. Which sorta seems to turn the tables here: the con man is straight and the straight man is the con artist. Which brings us back to the issue of whether con men deserve respect for their actions, however much pleasure their con might produce for the bystander.

Did he really? Or was he just another embellishing, fabricating BSer that told the client what he wanted to hear ... in order to get him 'in the door' & retain his commission?

After all, a 'very high class emporium' with high pressure sales is light years difference from a 'craft store', isn't it?

I've met many touts who've said please come with, go in this emporium, look around for a few minutes & leave - don't buy anything as it is overpriced - I will still get my comission. Fine! an honest request for which I often oblige them. But please don't take me on a wild goose chase for apples when I'm looking to buy oranges ... and expect me to fully capitulate in the end.

What's the difference between a con woman and a tout ? Or shall I use the term con artist ? It gives artists a bad rap

Can one decide whether it is a high class emporium with nothing reasonably priced in it, or a craft store by walking past it!

However that hardly matters when the intention right from the beginning was to have 'fun' at the expense of a man who was trying to earn his daily bread!

Even if don't care for tout or for the harm you may cause him and his family, refrain from such indulgences because it could hurt the next tourist he deals with!
That is not the kind of energy one should pass around, because it will come back and bite your a$$!

HH, you're defending a conman, India in general treats tourists with respect and gratitude, yet you're defending a man who chooses the job of trying to get tourist to a store where he knows they'll be ripped off.

OK, if there were laws to protect a conman, then anything but a firm NO said 20 times could be considered as leading the conman on.

But we're talking about a bit of fun, a bit of getting your own back, and a chance to not have to go through the usual hassle of trying to get a conman off your back.

I was in Paharganj a few years ago, I had a 40+ hour train journey in Sleeper Class the next day, and it was a little cold, a young lad was selling sleeping bags, I really didn't have a clue how much they cost in India, so I asked the lad to give me the lowest price he would sell one for, I really wasn't bothered about having one, but if the price was low enough I would buy one and give it to a beggar at the end of the journey, I was hoping to hear something like Rs150 but never told him this, he said Rs1000, I explained that I wasn't interested as I knew I had no chance of getting the price I was willing to pay, I made it clear that I wasn't interested.

He then followed me up and down Paharganj continually lowering the price, within 10 minutes the price was Rs300, I had a chai in a cafe, he waited and followed me again, the price was now Rs200, in the end he offered me the sleeping bag for Rs150, the price I'd wanted, but by then I was too pissed at him ruining my mood, he didn't get a sale.

Was I at fault just for asking him the price, was I to blame for him losing 30 minutes of his day?