I arrived at Agra train station, and, being warned by my guide book of tourists being ripped off, attempted to find the proper government approved taxi stand. This was easier said than done, however, and all the time I was being hassled by taxi-wallahs and rickshaw-wallahs to take their taxi. I looked and saw that it was a very nice day and saw on the map that the part of Agra with the Taj Mahal was maybe an hour walk from the station (or maybe 1.5 hours) so I decided that I would take a walk and see a bit more of the country instead of rushing from one tourist attraction to the next.
I headed off, looking forward to a nice walk, but I was pursued by an extremely persistent rickshaw-wallah. He kept yelling at me "Sir, sir, it is too far to walk... sir, sir, it is too far to walk!" I just walked and tried to ignore it but he kept following and kept yelling.
After about 20 to 30 minutes of this I decided that it was completely ruining my day and I although I didn't like giving in to this sort of behaviour, I wanted to get on and enjoy the nice sightseeing day I had planned so I got into the rickshaw. After about 20 mins we arrived at the Taj Mahal. The rickshaw-wallah said that he'd wait for me outside, but I had no intention of being conned into paying for a whole day of this guy's time, so I said clearly that I did not want him to wait.
A few hours later I exited the Taj Mahal to find the same guy waiting for me. I told him I did not want to take his rickshaw, but it was no use. It was very hot and a restaurant across the road had tables put outside - I went there for a drink, the guy sat across from me and watched me the whole time. Afterwards I walked down the road and he followed, I kept saying that I did not want his services. Eventually I almost had to run away before he gave up.
Later that day I found myself wondering if I should have been quite so stubborn, especially when I needed a rickshaw in a more deserted part of town and could find none!
*wallah is a word derived from a Hindi word and, in India, is attached to almost any occupation to denote someone who performs this job, eg. taxi-wallah, rickshaw-wallah
I love the clever Agra-vating. It is also very helpful to people who might not know the terms to gloss them. Your piece has brought the persistence of the rickshaw-wallah very much to the armchair traveller (like me for India), which is good fore-warning for anyone who might be thinking of going to be prepared or work out some strategy to deal with them.
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