baksheesh

Technically it is supposed to be winter in India now, but that didn't stop the thermometer to reach 44,3 degrees C (in the sun), in Udaipur yesterday afternoon. I spent half the day trying to sort out the mess with my camera, which I naturally managed to break somehow (sorry dad...)
"Did you drop it?", the repairman asked me.
"Why not?", I offered, the un-offical Indian universal answer to every possible question.
"Did you get sand in it?"
"Why not?"
Hell, he could have asked me if I had been jumping on the camera dressed as a purple fox, and the answer would still have been "why not", because theoretically that could have had happened. I am known for killing cameras in the most unusual ways: one met it's creator by falling off the roof of a car onto the tarmac of a busy British country road, another succumbed to the sand and rain of Peru. And the others...well, I could go on all night really.

Anyway, first I was told that they couldn't fix the camera, so I went and bought a new one. On the way back, 300 dollars poorer, I bumped into the Indian gentleman from the hotel, who had taken me to the repair shop in the first place. Now I was told that the camera had been fixed, but for double the agreed price. So from having had 0 camera I went to having 2 in a matter of minutes. Now, since I had just bought the new, expensive camera, we went back to the store to return it. A rapid firing of hindi the men between, a sullen expression of the salesman, and the 300 dollars exchanged hands once more.

What I hadn't realised, was that the camera salesman had actually tried to bribe my Indian companion.
"Why are you helping this woman?", the sullen salesman had cried. "I'll give you 1000 rupees if you tell her that we cannot return the camera"
"Why didn't you take the baksheesh", I asked later, just out of curiosity.
"Well, I didn't want you to think that ALL Indians are bad"