The Real India

There is a restaurant in the Old City called Indique. It is on the roof of a haveli (a really fancy old guesthouse) and has a wonderful view of the fort, the city, the palace, and the clock tower. It has great ambiance and food, even though it is a bit pricey. I use their bathroom whenever I am in the Old City because I don’t know where else to go and I countered the idea of using it when I am not paying with the fact that I am a loyal customer and would bring guests there in the future to eat. They also call the bathrooms “fresh rooms” which I found cute. There is also an English pub room, not an active pub, downstairs with saddles for bar seats and giant boar and tiger heads on the walls. No one is ever in there so it has the feeling of a deserted boys club from the early 20th century when the British were still in charge.

While Amanda and Kim were in town, I went to this restaurant with them and Andrew. I ordered yogurt, which the waiter argued with me about since it was night time and chilly out and yogurt is cold. He pointed these things out to me courteously because obviously if I ate the cold yogurt when it was cold outside, I would end up sick with a cold. But I wanted the cool feeling of yogurt on my palette so I insisted that he bring me the yogurt anyway. I ordered Mushroom Marwari at the last minute because I couldn’t decide what else to get and spinach was out of season, so we couldn’t get Palak Paneer. Well, that whim ended up wonderfully. The mushrooms in the mushroom Marwari taste like Portobello mushrooms and amidst the heavy gravy, you can taste the individual mushrooms, which is a miracle to find in India where all of the food tastes like the same mixture of spices and not whatever you are actually eating like mushrooms, spinach, or eggplant. I loved it, took a picture of it, and ate the whole thing. After having this miracle meal I decided that I would take my sister to this little glimpse of heaven when she came to visit.

My sister and I went with Gabriel, Smita, and her driver, Akeel, after an afternoon of shopping. In India, you always seat yourself at restaurants so we all walked in and went straight to an empty table, only to look up and realize that Akeel was no longer with us and had been pulled aside by a waiter to the bar. Gabriel went over to see what was going on and began arguing with the waiter. Automatically, and after reading at least 2 depressing books involving the caste system and social ladder in India, I knew that they weren’t letting Akeel eat with us because of his class. A driver is the equivalent of a servant. My sister asked how they knew and I said because of his clothes, which was ultimately the case.

When we walked in the waiter had asked Akeel how he knew us and he automatically responded that he was the driver. They told him that he wasn’t allowed to eat in the restaurant with us but that he could go to a room downstairs and get some food. When Gabriel talked with the waiter he explained that yes, Akeel is our driver, but he is also our friend and Gabriel wanted him to eat with us. The waiter replied that the policy is that “Real Indians” are not allowed to eat in the restaurant. Gabriel said that the policy was BS rather loudly so that all of the other tourists sitting around us could hear and we got up to leave because none of us wanted to eat in a place that practiced blatant discrimination. Then the manager came and gave the ok for Akeel to eat with us so we stayed and I had my wonderful mushroom Marwari while Akeel sat awkwardly at the table eating with us and not understanding a word of our conversation in English.

Gabriel said it was ironic that they weren’t going to let him eat with us considering that Akeel, as representative of the general mass population of Indians, is what these tourists came to see, so why would the restaurant try to keep them away. But I disagree. Most tourists don’t come to see “the real India.” They come to see the romanticized, spiritual and colorful country of great food and an unnatural adoration of all people white – at least that’s what I think. The people who just come to see the Taj Mahal and then spend their time on the “Palace on Wheels” train, want nothing to do with the real India. They only want to see the India that is depicted in films and photos. This rule that Indique has is probably very commonplace throughout India. Realistically, if Indians of Akeel’s class started regularly eating in Indique, it would ruin their image and the atmosphere that they are trying to portray. At the same time, no one of Akeel’s class can afford to eat at Indique and probably wouldn’t choose to if they could, so that’s a moot point in my opinion. I don’t doubt that any of the main tourist restaurants have this rule but I have also decided that if I explicitly know that a restaurant has this rule, then I won’t go there anymore. So I am giving up those wonderful mushrooms as a small protest against demeaning inequality. We are also going to write to Lonely Planet, who give high marks to Indique and I also have their email address so I can write a letter that way. It probably won’t make a difference but it soothes my own conscience.

And I plan to keep using their bathroom regularly just out of spite.