I am happy to report that a representative from Four Seasons India Tours met with me at 5pm today to discuss yesterday's unpleasant events. Unlike Mr. Prem Singh, who could not explain his rationale for leaving the scene of the accident, Mr. Dheer Singh spent half and hour in conversation with me. He explained that in India when an accident occurs between a larger and smaller vehicle, it is generally assumed that the larger vehicle (in our case, us) is at fault. Because of the large unemployment rate here and the fact that many people linger on the sides of the roads or are simply willing to stop their cars to watch at the scene of an accident, there is the possibility that a fight can breakout if the driver stops and gets out of his vehicle. From Four Seasons India Tours' perspective they were not only concerned about the safety of Vijay, our driver, but also the safety of their four American passengers. Apparently there have been incidents of this type.[Side note: I also talked to Mr. Singh about making sure that Vijay not face any negative consequences resulting from the accident, which was not his fault. He assured me that everything was fine.]
It would have been nice if Prem Singh had been able to explain his concerns to us as we pulled to the side of the road seconds after the accident. We could not understand why, after our repeated urging, he wouldn't allow the van to turn around. Now, after talking with Mr. Dheer Singh, I have a better understanding of how things apparently are in India. I feel incredibly sorry for a country that has to live this way.
On a lighter note, our contact in Jaipur, Vikram Singh Solanki, had recommended a textile shop to us here in Jodhpur. This shop (the name escapes me at the moment) has been written up in Departures Magazine, Tatler and all sorts of other prestigious publications and has been visited by many big Hollywood stars (we heard about all). The shop also makes Indian becoverings and shawls for major international fashion houses like Hermes, Etro, and Kenzo. We had a good time having the turkish-style presentation where the brother of the owner threw textiles onto the floor, one after the other, walked all over them, modeled them and draped us as well.
Somehow in our conversation with this shop the idea came up of having some of our purchases shipped back to the US by Fed Ex. We arranged to have Fed Ex come to the hotel at 6:30pm. Since we'd be charged by the box (kind of a flat rate pricing structure) we tried as put as much as we could into the boxes, including items we'd packed but probably wouldn't use. Hopefully our boxes will beat us back to the US, if all goes well.
Tomorrow we're off to Mumbai. Cliff and Cathy's friends who are Bollywood actors are scheduled to meet us at the airport and take us out to dinner. This should be quite an experience and I will certainly try to take lots of photos.
