Agra, page 3 of 5

At last we arrive in our hotel and it is time for our meeting with the nice gentleman and his mother and sister who aren’t to be disappointed. To be sure we leave almost all our money behind, somehow we both have the same doubts… We meet the nice gentleman together with a nephew of his as agreed in front of the hotel and we walk to his home, which is not far but the streets are very dark… Nothing happens, but I don’t feel very sure about this adventure of us.

The nice gentleman is somehow different tonight, more sarcastic and more silent, or is my imagination playing me a trick in these very dark streets? The house looks quite good, maybe even very good. Inside we are seated in the best room of the house. The mother doesn't join us, but makes us thee. Some children look at us from around the corner of the door. Luckily the nephew still talks a bit with us, the nice gentleman is almost not interested any more and spends anyway a lot of time on the phone. A portable telephone, which is very expensive in India.

At last we ask what is the matter, and he answers he tries to reach some other nephew of his, who has to meet us. We don’t understand this, and we also don’t understand why his mother doesn’t come in at all. Of course this is a different culture, but she doesn’t even serve the drinks and this is not normal as far as we know. The nice gentleman tells us that she is expecting some other visitors and that is why she doesn’t enter our room. To me this doesn’t make any sense. I’m quite sure now something is not right, but it seems not unsafe so I don’t worry too much. Jacques seems to have also some doubts; he starts again about all bad experiences he has with Indians till now, how they always have second intentions and that by now he has become very suspicious. This at last wakes our nice gentleman, he looks extremely alarmed when he asks what exactly does Jacques mean?? When he understands this wasn’t personal he relaxes a bit.

At last the long awaited nephew arrives. He is clothed in a long white Bedouin like dress. He is a bit fat and his face is dark with eyes with long lashes and folded eyelids. He is extremely agreeable to us, talks very good English and explains about his ideas concerning human rights, which are surprisingly equal to ours. He tells us about this production his uncle leads; they make beautiful jewels with expensive stones. No children work there, he quite agrees with us that children have to learn, also when they are from a lower caste. It is a pity you have to pay for school in India, but luckily his ‘auntie’ is very concerned with the poor children of some of the workers in their production and she pays for their education. And all workers get enough money, because it is very important to have motivated people in your production. And so on and so on. I was quite pleasantly surprised with his ideas! By now Jac and I thought it time to leave. However, our champion of human rights had some more things he wanted to talk about before we left. And our host has disappeared totally.

The champion of human rights informs us that he knows a lot of Dutch people, in fact he has visited Holland quite a lot of times already. Some Dutch people really like to visit India, but of course it is expensive. So he pays half their travel or maybe totally. If we like to visit India again he can arrange something for us also. Jacques asks why he would do such a thing. The champion of human rights answers that - apart from his warm feelings for Dutch people - this has something to do with taking some unimportant things past the Customs. Jacques wants to know what this little something is exactly. Our champion of human rights answers that it has to do with quota for stones or jewels or something (?!), tourists have their quota which they can use when he himself has surpassed his quota.

This is enough for us to decide we leave immediately. I explain to the man that we are very technical people and have - compared to him - no experience with trading. I hope to flatter him a bit to prevent insulting him, but still be very clear that we understand and have no intention whatsoever to bring ourselves in big difficulties, not with the police and not with him. Our nice gentleman host, suddenly reappearing, takes us to the door. He is obviously feeling very guilty and bad about his own behavior. We feel a bit sorry for him.

Over dinner we discuss the exciting happenings of today, especially tonight. Looking back everything falls in place and we feel a bit stupid. Now we understand why they wanted to know our traveling plan in so much detail. How convenient for them that we were planning to come back for one night in Delhi. I start to worry a bit, how is it possible something like this happens. Jacques doesn't worry at all and concludes that his idea till now is correct: trust nobody in India who comes to talk with you.