9/11/98: Fell prey to a scam that the guidebook had warned about… Then embarrassed myself in a confrontation with a shoe shine man today… I will confess in my diary, but thankfully, there is no photographic evidence of my stupid behavior…
9/11/23: The Lonely Plant guide book warning, about shoe-shine men who surreptitiously drop a dollop of doggie doo on your shoe, then point it out and offer to clean it off, for a higher-than-usual rate because of the baseness of the task, of course. I did not expect to actually be targeted, but as I stepped out of the auto rickshaw in Connaught Place, Ruth saw a man stealthily swoop down behind me, and I felt the plop of the poop on my shoe. As he came around the front of me and with an impish grin and asked “Shoe shine?”, I am embarrassed to say that I reflexively jumped into the role of stereotypical American: brash and bully! I gave him a shove that drove him back a few feet, pointed my finger at him and half shouted, half growled at him: “YOU DID THAT!” The look of shock on his face was coupled with abject fear, for I was at least 4 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than he. The rickshaw driver jumped out to watch the action, as did several other shoe shiners. Fortunately, the altercation ended there, because he was so afraid that he simply got right back down, cleaned up the mess, then scurried away as quickly as possible. I think the rickshaw driver was disappointed that there were no fisticuffs, and the other shoe shine men were snickering at their buddy. As I looked around, I noticed that there were two foot-patrol police officers watching the whole things as well. I feared I might be in trouble, since I had lost my temper and done the pushing. But they were just chuckling too. So, I complained to them about what had happened and pointed out the guy who had done it. Their method of dealing with the culprit was to wag their finger at him across the street. They clearly didn’t want to be bothered with crossing the traffic!
Lessons learned: 1) Watch where you step; 2) Anger does not achieve righteousness; 3) As we forgive others, so will we be forgiven.
NOTE: The photo above shows a group of snake charmers that we saw in Delhi, India.
