The Beggars

In India, never ever give money to a beggar, no matter how pathetic he or she looks.

I made the mistake of giving ten rupees to a woman with a child before going into the "Looks" shop at Ajmal Khan Road.

I must have spent an hour at the shop but when I came down another beggar was waiting for me.

She wasn't the same beggar I ha given the 10 rupees to but she was carrying the same baby.

Talk about the grapevine, this was obviously a syndicate job.

And the beggars in India are born sweet tongued. At Amritsar the beggar, fast running out of praises while angling for an alm finally referred to me as "The one with the beautiful spectacles." I scrammed before she could praise my shirt, pants or perhaps even my underwear!

The Trains.

Indian trains are likely to make up on lost time.

They never do.

But only on the trains, travelling on a better class, did I see some signs of orderliness.

The tickets had been booked well in advance by a returning Singaporean and when the train pulls in a sheet of paper with your name is neatly pasted on the coach door.

And though if you take a night train sleep doesn't really come well ,with a stranger snoring in the next coach and someone else coughing down the aisle, it is nevertheless a comfortable ride.

And the guard actually remembers to remind you when your station is approaching.

And sitting on a morning train moving out of Delhi from Amritsar I couldn’t help notice the names of the stations that I passed and the filth and squalor of the homes that surrounded the area, makeshift huts belonging to homeless out of towners. . And the farms where men sat, facing the trains and doing their ablutions.

And I wondered if they too hummed this merry tune.

" The world is a bride and India is the dot on the bride's forehead. This is my India, I love my India."

And you too can love India unless you get too puffed up with the hiccups.