Travelling India: Our Love-Hate Relationship With the Realest Place on Earth
We love India! It's no secret, but it is complicated. This is our love letter to India, a country that we believe is the most authentic, the most real. We share the reasons why we cannot stop thinking about India, as well as what you can expect if you travel there, too. If there's only one place on earth you ever travel to, let it be India.
Stay tuned for the Lost & Found section, as Adam getting drunk on a plane and Alun questions the difference between smelling and sniffing. Who nose?
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:11 - India Love Letter Begins
01:49 - India's ambiguos head knod
14:13 - Lack of personal space
18:59 - India Deserves a Second Chance
24:51 - The Realness of India
27:25 - Swiggy Biryani Surprise
32:36 - Why India Feels Alive
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Welcome to Tripology
Alun:
[0:02] Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show
Alun:
[0:08] that writes love letters to specific countries like we're doing in this episode. I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever ambiguous Adam.
India Love Letter Begins
Adam:
[0:18] Thanks ever so much for joining us for another fantastic week. I'm in Milan, you're in Tokyo, but today we're going to be talking about India.
Alun:
[0:26] I'm really in tokyo i'm in tokyo now i were in tokyo last week i was in tokyo the month before that i've been here ever such a long time konichiwa uh.
Adam:
[0:37] And then in the patreon section thanks again for all of all of the love on patreon guys get over there if you are not a member already but i'm going to take control of the patreon section lost and found and i'm going to tell you why if you like alcohol you should definitely fly to india.
Alun:
[0:52] Mate, our Patreon section's kicking off. It's the show after the show for what, let's be honest, a price that frankly doesn't do us justice. You can get over there. You can listen to the show after the show. It's back an alien. I met up with some Patreones here in Tokyo. That's the kind of thing that can happen to you. If you get on the Patreon, you can actually meet one of us if you happen to be within a 100 meter geographical radius.
Adam:
[1:18] That's it. We're ever so accessible through Patreon. Just reach out to us and say, I'm in the neighbourhood. Can you come for a drink? Or food. If you don't drink alcohol, like me. Or, you know.
Alun:
[1:28] I had an alcohol-free beer.
Adam:
[1:30] Did you? A zero?
Alun:
[1:32] With the Patreones. I got a zero.
Adam:
[1:34] Did they drink?
Alun:
them.
[1:36] Yeah, yeah. And I pretended to drink. I turned the label round, so they thought I was drinking with
Adam:
[1:40] Yeah. They said, I wish Adam was here. He'd have a booze up with us. Yeah.
Alun:
[1:46] I said, I bet you wish Adam was here. Don't you?
Head Nod Confusion
Adam:
[1:50] Oh, dear, oh, dear. Anyway, mate, let's crack on with the show, because it's a subject that I'm very excited to talk to you about, and it's certain aspects of India and travelling India that maybe, you wouldn't necessarily know from the outside looking in, but we're very, very fortunate to have travelled India extensively, fair to say.
Alun:
[2:08] I would say so, yeah. I travelled there for six months. You've travelled there for more than six months now total, haven't you?
Adam:
[2:14] Yeah, it's been probably eight months in total and over three different occasions. And we've probably, I mean, so that's over a year combined. But how many states have we been to? I don't know. Let's not count them live on air because that's boring.
Alun:
[2:31] But let's not count them live on it Adam I'm thinking very much of this episode as a love letter to a country that both me and you really love but I have to say I found your energy and prior to the yeah sometimes sometimes love hate relationship I found your energy prior to this recording to be baffling you of course typically famous for in the early days of topology you would often say let's just have a casual chat and I would go no Adam we've got to get clicks we've got to be dynamic we've got to you know talk about dolphins and aquatic mammals and all sorts of crazy stuff and you just be like let's just be two mates having a casual chat this episode though you've, really been determined to nail down some sort of indian structure.
Adam:
[3:16] Yeah which you know i'll go on i'll go on record as saying i'm not sure that there is such a thing as indian structure Now I know that that sounds offensive, but if you go to India for any length of time, you might agree with me. I don't know what it is, mate. Maybe it's the shirt, maybe it's being back in Europe, but I just think that a little bit of structure sometimes, a bit of foreplanning can go a really long way. And India and promoting India is definitely something that is dear to my heart for many reasons. And lots of people will say, if there is only one country you can ever visit in your entire life as a traveler, it probably should be India.
Alun:
[3:53] Yeah. Okay. So I very much see this episode as a love letter to India. And I want to do a little preface beforehand by saying, you must understand going into this episode that both me and you adore India very, very much. We adore it for all of its positive qualities. We adore it for everything it's given us and everything that it is. There's going to be some bits during this conversation where we might discuss aspects of indian culture that we found a little bit frustrating up to and including, the times where i, tangibly despised being there now, you shouldn't if you're listening to this perhaps you are indian perhaps you, are not indian but you want to take it on your great big shoulders that you want to protect people who are critical of things that you like if any of those things just relax yeah we really really like it we couldn't like it more we like it so much that we can barely keep our hands off it we're always getting all up around india trying to get more involved in india and you know you've gone so far as to falling in, literal love with an indian human so it's like you can't say more than that you know i mean so just relax guys.
Adam:
[5:17] Yeah yeah relax we uh hopefully the people that listen to this show are returning listeners and if you're not and you're new welcome but we we're anything if not honest um, and and i think that's that's important to.
Alun:
[5:33] Remind people we're anything if not honest oh no hang on, okay we'll cut that shit.
Adam:
[5:42] Out let me uh rephrase that what is it what is it i mean to say.
Alun:
[5:47] I don't know actually you've wiped the phrase from my brain is it not we're not anything if we're not honest or something no no we're anything if not honest isn't right there is it didn't sound right when i said it.
Adam:
[5:57] Um so where do i want to go with this.
Alun:
[6:00] I gotta be honest with you guys we're in not anything, um so I'm gonna be telling some porcupines during this.
Adam:
[6:12] So I'll go um, Yes, mate, you're totally right.
Alun:
[6:17] We're nothing, I'm not honest.
Adam:
[6:18] Hang on. Yes, mate, you're totally right. If you are a returning listener, of which there are many, thank you very much, or if you're a new listener, you should know that we are honest and raw, and we're going to give some genuine accounts of times that we've travelled India, which not all of which are positive, but that's just the nature of travelling India.
Alun:
[6:37] So speaking of both India and returning listeners, and I'm sorry to do a segue, and I will not derail, as I promise, this is going to be my last segue. We last episode we talked about, we talked about an instagram reel known as phone stolen that you published from india featuring me stealing your phone at churchgate station in mumbai and we told the listening audience to go in their droves and comment to revive that reel, we have had literally, some of you go to that reel and comment it's not had quite the effect on the algorithm that i was hoping but certainly nice of you guys to have gone to our instagram and commented.
Adam:
[7:20] Yeah much appreciated and if any of you listening to this still haven't gone over there to check it out then do because it might just need a few more people before it makes its way back into the algorithm and then makes us famous for a second time.
Alun:
[7:33] Yeah well you famous for a second time the thing about that reel is it features your face quite prominently and features me as a clearly racially ambiguous man on a train, uh i've been accused of being indian i've been accused of being i've been accused of being everything other than the co-host of the podcast.
Adam:
[7:52] Yeah yeah lots of cricket players actually you were accused of.
Alun:
[7:56] Being yeah i looked like every cricket player under the sun someone said i looked like one of the cricket players i looked him up he plays for the african national team it's.
Adam:
[8:07] 2026 alan that can happen um but you mentioned.
Alun:
[8:09] The word i can't say that hold on because africa is not a country it's a good joke but it's like not as bad isn't it, I got compared to a lot of cricket players. I looked one of them up. He plays for the Kenyan national team.
Adam:
[8:22] Hey, it's 2026, Alan. That can happen. Multiculturalism is a thing. You mentioned the word ambiguous. Now, one of your least favourite aspects of Indian culture is the ambiguous head nod. The kind of side-to-side bob that I don't really want to do because I might get accused of being offensive or, you know, insensitive. But it is something that causes a hell of a lot of issues and you will be pleased to know that i was in alope kerala just two weeks ago, and i had a conversation with a local with a local guy an indian guy from kerala, who said unprompted that he hates the fact that people communicate with this ambiguous head nod now i wish that you were there and i've been waiting to talk to you about this for weeks all.
Alun:
[9:11] Right tell me the story because i'll come out on record right now hello um, i'll come out and and say that uh, i don't hate the um i agree the indian head nod is absolutely ambiguous but i think it's somewhat endearing some of the time what i don't like is when it's served up to you instead of a definitive.
[9:32] Answer which is often.
Alun:
[9:36] Yeah that is often yeah i agree but it's like you know, saying that i don't like it is like saying i don't like big cats because i'm scared of being eaten by a tiger i'm i am scared of being eaten by a tiger but, there is a harmless version of the thing you're describing.
Adam:
[9:55] Yeah but it's it's ineffective isn't it it's the purpose it tries to serve is a response to something usually from that's that's what i know that's my.
Alun:
[10:04] Interpretation well it serves the same function do you are you aware of the, the gen alpha phenomenon of like six seven you know about that.
Adam:
[10:12] No i haven't got a clue.
Alun:
[10:13] Is it travel related lucky guy no it's not it's a segue so there's a thing, where people go like six seven it means like neither here nor there kind of you know like six or seven it could be either either one you choose it's kind of like a brain rot thing but the indian head nod serves, it's totally functional in that scenario where you're saying like oh i'm not sure oh where where should i go i don't know where you should go maybe just go wherever you like that's great, that's because our definition.
Adam:
[10:48] Of a head nod is indifference or maybe you know if you don't know something if you don't know the answer to something then you might kind of wiggle your head from side to side surely that's cultural uh culturally specific to us which is why we.
Alun:
[11:01] Think I like it. If someone ain't sure about something and they wiggle their head, I think more power to you. You've communicated that effectively. What I don't like is if I ask them something with the definitive answer where I need to know yes or no. If someone serves up their head nodding that situation with a view to later going, well, I didn't say yes. I don't think that's okay.
Adam:
[11:22] Yeah, I remember vividly we were asking a rickshaw driver if he was available, if he had a current job or if we could get in the back. And he nodded his head from side to side and we were like, okay, is that a yes?
Alun:
[11:36] Yeah. When you're trying to get consent for something important, the worst thing you can see is a head nod, isn't it?
Adam:
[11:43] We looked at each other and we were like, seemed positive. So we asked again and he sort of did it again. And then we got in the back and as we got in the back he was like whoa what the fuck are you doing i said no you didn't say no.
Alun:
[11:56] Did i did i nod.
Adam:
[11:58] Yes, so it is incredibly subtle but when i was having a chat with this guy, i really wish you were there mate because you would have you would have weighed in and he just said it's so ineffective it's so difficult communicate communicating with people that the sort of use this as a yes or no because it is like i said it is so, subtle all and why don't people just say yes or no, i really don't know the answer but uh in this scenario i was, i was asking whether they have lime soda would you believe it or not and, uh and then there was some they were fumbling around with my change and all this sort of stuff and i was just there going i was looking to him for help, to interpret the head nod, and he was like don't ask me mate i've got no clue so i think from the outside looking in we think or i thought anyway I can't put words in your mouth I thought that Indians would understand the subtleties of head nods, but maybe in some cases even they don't.
Alun:
[12:59] Yeah, well, I think it does it culturally come from the head nod, the idea that it's rude to say no. And so an ambiguous filler has been put in its place that says I'm not going to say no, but I'm also not going to say yes, because I don't want to. I think it more often means no but that's not true because often it does mean yes doesn't it often it definitely sometimes it'll be like oh could i have some chai, a quick side to side of the head and then a chai will turn up so it does it means yes often.
Adam:
[13:35] Yeah it does i think you've spent so much time in japan now that there's this indirectness that you've been uh exposed to and maybe that's why.
Alun:
[13:43] Yeah i mean you nod your head like that in japan and there's an eviction notice turns up to your door in three or five business days.
Adam:
[13:50] Yeah talking about what saying that something in india and i do risk sort of offending people here saying, trying to imply that saying no in india would be rude i mean maybe historically that is true i don't know given what else you see and experience in india i
Adam:
[14:11] i can't i just can't believe that that would be true because some of it.
Alun:
[14:14] Is incredibly rude well go on so this is our love letter to India we've started off by saying that we both love I do kind of love it and dislike the classic Indian head nod the sides are side shifting that says I'm not sure either way and perhaps I'm indifferent what uh what other things have you seen that make you believe that you're surprised that no is rude.
Adam:
[14:38] Oh, really? Are we going to go down that path? Well, hang on. Just the non-existence of personal space.
Alun:
[14:46] Yeah.
Adam:
[14:47] If you go to India, guys, if you haven't been to India yet, my God, personal space is not a thing in India. It doesn't matter if... I'm not sure. I've only ever seen one queue in my life in India, I think. And that was at an airport.
Alun:
[14:59] There's just... Well, what about that Vada Pav shop that we queued outside that one time? It had a security guard and a rope.
Adam:
[15:06] That is true. That is true. queuing is possible.
Alun:
[15:09] If it's stringently enforced by literal guards.
Adam:
[15:12] Yeah um but indian people in general from my experience in the country tend to operate by different rules which is seemingly none for people like me but um, it is it is difficult when you're when you're at a train station or you're trying to buy it or even actually if you go shopping, you will notice that one of the assistants will come and stick themselves to you so uncomfortably close that you immediately want to leave the shop.
Alun:
[15:40] Hmm. Interesting. You're doing a classic, you're doing a classic Adam thing where you're being metaphorical. He's not really referring to the actual adhesion of one human to another because he knows I'm a hyper literal guy. And he knows that as soon as he said that, I thought of someone covering themselves in PVA glue and climbing onto his back. Um no i'm not much of a shopper i, refuse to shop almost like almost religiously and by that i mean i literally devote myself to the act of not shopping i'm minimalist in all areas of my life i will frequent a grocery store i dislike doing even that although i do it weekly.
Adam:
[16:23] Well you've had the same fleece for 15 years so i mean you'll notice that.
Alun:
[16:28] A lot of what i'm wearing has put.
Adam:
[16:30] Up similar tenure all being bought online uh no regarding the personal space thing i just you really have to be comfortable with there being not just a lot of people, but a lot of people around you close to you uh, touching touching you i mean i don't mean literally touching you but in some cases sorry yeah you not touching me touching you yeah if you go to india people will touch alan um, no but it's it's a different ball game isn't it i what what could even prepare you literally.
Alun:
[17:05] A different ball game.
Adam:
[17:07] Yeah be safe out there guys because it might happen what could prepare you for traveling india apart from traveling to india, I don't even know. Maybe Bangladesh, perhaps? Is Sri Lanka?
Alun:
[17:23] I don't know. Neither me or you have ever been to Bangladesh. So that's not an avenue we should pursue because I don't want to speculate. But you're saying like, what's the most India adjacent experience that you could have? I've often said that in that area of the world, you've got difficulty modes of which Nepal is the easiest, Sri Lanka is middle and India is the hardest yeah india is very very difficult from a culture shock personal space perspective when i arrived in south asia i started in nepal, i fell in love with nepal i thought it was an incredibly easy beautiful wonderful country to travel in favorite country ever you then, yeah up there i went from nepal to delhi, in my heart of hearts i knew immediately that i disliked uh delhi and india by proxy because it was my only experience of india i traveled from delhi to goa for new year's where i went to a new year's rave, people who know me will know that that wasn't, wasn't really what i'm into so i hated it even more as a result at least you got in for free but yeah yeah i jumped over a fence um.
Adam:
[18:37] Oh the patreon subscribes declining.
Alun:
[18:39] Yeah.
Alun:
[18:44] You're of course referring to a literal friend of ours who unsubscribed from our podcast and no longer speaks to us because we you once described a story of jumping over a fence in Portugal but that is a segue yeah um.
India Deserves a Second Chance
Alun:
[19:00] So I'd been to Delhi I'd been to Goa I'd really thought, if I'm honest with myself, I think I decided that India wasn't for me very much. I didn't really like it. And I actually took a break to go to Sri Lanka, enjoyed Sri Lanka much more. I really quite liked Sri Lanka. And I still had like five months left on my India visa. And it took a lot for me to go, I'm going to go back to India and give it this second, not that India needs to be given a second chance by me, but more that I think, you know, if you're doing stuff that you enjoy, it can sometimes be hard to go back to somewhere that you didn't enjoy in order to give another go. When I arrived back in India, it wasn't until I kind of went to Kerala and then Maharashtra and then up north and explored India far more thoroughly that not only did I start to like it, but started to love it very, very deeply. And I think what that speaks to is, You should never let your first and only experience of a place inform your belief of that place. Like, imagine if I'd gone on holiday to India for amonth and then gone back.
Adam:
[20:16] Which many people do, or less.
Alun:
[20:18] Most people who experience India experience it in that length of time. And then, like, my perspective would have been completely warped when I relayed it to people. When I told people what I thought of India, it would have been from the perspective of someone who really had no place saying what they thought of it. Because they hadn't experienced the totality of what India had to offer. Because experiencing the totality of what India has to offer is now impossible. It is a subcontinent.
Adam:
[20:45] Yeah, so what I would say in response to that, a couple of things. We always say that your experience of a place basically dictates whether you like it or not. You can only judge a place by your experiences in it. So if they were previously negative, that then is why you maybe had a negative view. But hats off to you for coming back and giving it another shot, because it's so enormous and so diverse and rich. And, you know, the society has so many layers to it. It's so complex, the history and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, it's a country that functions somehow. When I think about me experiencing India, I think, how does something this complicated, this enormous? I mean, Alan, it's 32% the size of Europe, India is. And it's got almost double the amount of people 1.4 billion, And obviously, there are multiple religions, the social classes, wealth classes, extremely rich people, some of the richest on earth, extremely poor, some of the poorest on earth. But it just works. It just seems to keep ticking over.
Alun:
[21:51] Well, I suppose the answer to what you're saying, though, is that it doesn't function in the same way as any other country that you're thinking of in Europe, for example, functions. It functions in an entirely unique way, which has evolved with obvious influence from specifically Britain.
Alun:
[22:18] It's involved entirely separately and on its own. Like, I think that's what's so beautiful about Indian culture is in so many ways, it doesn't look to the West at all. It has its own popular genres of music and its own fashion and all those things which are entirely separate from those which are served up by the Western machine. And that can't really be said in the same way of many other places on earth. Like we've traveled all over. I've traveled all over Africa. Let me tell you, the fashion and lots of the popular music, they very much look to the West. All over Latin America, of course, that's true. I'm not saying these places don't have their own strong culture. They absolutely do. But they are more intrinsically linked to the culture served up by Hollywood and the United States and the West in general. India has its own film industry, and I think that in large part contributes to this entirely separate evolution of fashion and music and culture.
Adam:
[23:26] Yeah, and India now, I mean, I'm not qualified to say this, but it seems like it's completely self-sufficient and independent and can make its own decisions. It's now not having to deal with the West from an economic standpoint.
Alun:
[23:41] Yeah, more so than almost any other country economically, yeah.
Adam:
[23:43] Yeah, it can now pick and choose who it works with. It's super rich, super wealthy, super advanced. And I mean, we will go into that. I'll tell you a quick little story about just how advanced it is, because it really is like going into the future in some respects. But I heard someone the other day when I told them that I was going back to India. So it was someone in the UK, an English person who's never been to South Asia, to my knowledge. But that's by the by. And they said, in response to me telling them that I was going back to India for a third time, they said, oh, I could never go to India. And I was thinking, please don't. Please don't ever go to India. Because if that's your attitude, obviously it's informed by the things that you've been exposed to, which is usually sort of Western media. Or maybe that might even be social media. But if your attitude of going anywhere is, God, I can never go there, and turning your nose up at it and scoffing at it, just don't go. Save yourself the trouble and save the country and the locals the trouble as well. I get quite protective over it.
Alun:
[24:48] Yeah, well, that's because you love it. Like me, you deeply love India. I think we have time for each one of us to sum up like the one thing that we love about India most of all, the thing that will keep us coming back, the thing that really endears us to the country more than anything else. You can go first.
The Realness of India
Adam:
[25:05] Okay well i'll tell you a quick anecdote um i was with my girlfriend just the other day and we were we were in bangalore and you know as as you do um ended up smoking a doobie is that the correct terminology i.
Alun:
[25:20] Don't know i believe that's the scientific name for the plant inside of the we we smoked up.
Adam:
[25:26] As uh as people say.
Alun:
[25:28] I'm not i'm not someone who smokes weed.
Adam:
[25:30] Really and you know that.
Alun:
[25:32] Well i do know that i would like to take this opportunity to say that during our time in india together i smoked a lot more weed than you.
Adam:
[25:44] Yes yes you.
Alun:
[25:46] Did you forget about that detail.
Adam:
[25:48] I did but funnily enough it also involves a romantic interest so.
Alun:
[25:54] Maybe we're just impressionable influenced young little lovable boys as soon as some beautiful bollywood actress looks at us sideways we go okay right i'll smoke weed then i'll be whatever you want to be sativa indica cannabinoids coursing through my veins whatever you give me i'll smoke it baby
[26:13] Did i mention i love smoking weed yeah.
Alun:
[26:15] Fantastic um that's actually something i base my whole personality around oh smoke weed do you okay suppose i do as well miss.
Adam:
[26:23] Do you want to roll then uh No, no, no. I won't roll. You can roll. You can roll. You do the first roll.
Alun:
[26:29] Thinking desperately back to my times at university. I think I can do this. Do you have one of those quality street tins? I've only ever rolled on top of one of those.
Adam:
[26:39] Right. So the reason that's important is just so that you know the frame of mind that we were in. It was late at night. We were in our hotel room. We were getting hungry. And we decided using an app called Swiggy, which is, they're not sponsoring this episode, but hopefully one day they will, because it is incredible.
Alun:
[26:59] Mate, I know.
Adam:
[27:00] I can see you smiling.
Alun:
[27:00] Can I just really, really quickly, whilst I was with said actress smoking said doobie, her brother asked me if I can fix his guitar. I said well no because it requires a very very specific part thanks to Swiggy, I mean minutes later the part was at the apartment so I know that Swiggy's it's
Alun:
[27:24] a powerful powerful tool in.
Swiggy Biryani Surprise
Adam:
[27:26] It yeah every Indian person well that you're likely to meet I guess uh will have Swiggy on their phone it's essentially an application similar to Uber Eats or Deliveroo or whatever but you can get everything you could get almost anything there's like supermarkets different shops restaurants but loads of stuff you can just order one thing you can order multiple things from multiple establishments and within 15 20 minutes half an hour it's so so detailed you've got how much things cost you've got all of the items there for you on each separate you know restaurant or whatever and it even tells you the delivery times and you get refunds in minutes if things don't turn up it's just so unbelievably advanced and useful and efficient, and functions so well and really well run so just if you're going to india just get swiggy on your phone and i'm not sure, when you think about it with like through an environmental lens because now there are lots of motorbikes and auto drivers and all that sort of stuff and cars delivery things that maybe wouldn't be on the road if people weren't ordering things through their phone but anyway that's another segue for a different day so we were there we wanted a biryani, and we ordered one and then it just became sort of a waiting game. Now, I was thinking to myself, I'm quite high and I would like it if the driver came all the way into our hotel, into our room and just placed the biryani in my hands.
Adam:
[28:50] Because I can't be bothered to move. Now, usually what happens is you are delivered whatever it is you've ordered, either to the apartment block or maybe the hotel reception or, you know, the hostel reception or whatever. And sometimes you have to go down to the foyer or outside to obviously get a notification when it's been delivered, right? And then sometimes it's just a knock on the door of your hotel room where you're staying, or I imagine your house. And they'll deliver it sort of to your hands, which is also pretty cool, but you're never quite sure. So we learned after the biryani arrived that the particular hotel that we were staying in does not allow swiggy deliveries or deliveries of any sort after 11 p.m and it was about two in the morning.
Adam:
[29:33] So there we were high as a kite on the sofa and i was thinking fucking hell we've got to go down oh my god i've got to interact with someone, and we left the hotel room we walked down the corridor, we opened the elevator and the the biryani was sitting on the floor of the elevator just wrapped up in a nice steaming hot parcel and i didn't even clock because even though i've been you know spent a lot of time in india i did not think for one second that that was our biryani on the floor, and i love just remember i've said this guys in india almost, nothing is as it seems whatever you think you know about the way things work right whatever even if you've got enough information to go off that you are absolutely certain beyond any reasonable doubt that your reality is going a certain way trust me there'll be a fucking curveball, and my my girlfriend just looked at the parcel on the floor and went oh brilliant and picked it up and i went what you doing and she was like where's the food, i went what food she was like a biryani and i was.
Alun:
[30:34] Like sorry were you faking smoking that.
Adam:
[30:36] Because you seem awfully sober, okay Sherlock that's our biryani is it, How could it be completely unattended, just left to its own devices on the floor of an elevator? Why on earth would it be a biryani?
Alun:
[30:51] Left to its own devices? What, like the swiggy driver was like the parent of that biryani? It's okay, biryani. You go out into the world now. You'll survive.
Adam:
[31:01] But you know exactly where my mind goes even when I've not smoked up. So I was thinking, so what's just happened here is that the driver has been told at the reception desk, assuming that there was someone on the reception desk that they're unable to go up to the room to deliver it, so they've said maybe with an ambiguous head nod or two, can i just leave it on the floor of the elevator and send it up to the second floor where they're where they're staying in the hope that what that we're walking towards the elevator and we're the first people to pick it up because i know the receptionist.
Alun:
himself.
[31:33] Do you think the receptionist said yes to that or do you think the Swiggy driver took it on
Adam:
[31:39] I mean...
Alun:
[31:39] He's like, I've delivered this to the best of my ability.
Adam:
[31:42] I could not have done more. And it's not my problem if they don't get the elevator down. I mean, there's multiple elevators in this building.
Alun:
[31:49] The only thing I could have done more is set off the fire alarm to the building so that everyone came outside, and then I could identify the Buriani purchasers and hand it to them directly.
Adam:
[31:59] He probably had another job on, and he's thinking, right, I mean, sure, I'd love to wait down here for an extra 30 seconds and hand it over to them. Given the situation, I think it's fairly low risk. I'll pop it in the elevator. I'm sure they'll get it. And, you know, we could have definitely sent a message to Swiggy saying... It's the perfect combination of determination and laziness. I don't know. Well, he executed it perfectly because it worked. The doors opened and it revealed our biryani on the floor. And it was so funny.
Alun:
[32:24] It's like deal or no deal, isn't it?
Adam:
[32:25] It was so funny. I mean, you can imagine what it's like if you're high. It was fucking hilarious. I was just...
Alun:
[32:30] I know, yeah.
Adam:
[32:30] I was reeling in laughter at the thought that that bloke thought it would work. And it did.
Why India Feels Alive
Alun:
[32:36] Yeah well you know that's sober logic he probably wasn't high and therefore had uh cognitive domination over you, mate i want to quickly touch on what i love most about india and then we'll go to the patreon section where i've heard a rumor that one of us has got a crazy story um, but what i love most about india and a lot of what i'm going to say here is going to sound negative but is actually incredibly positive here it goes oh, what i love about india is i think it might be the realest place, on the whole planet earth a planet which i've explored as thoroughly and as best as i can, and what i mean by that is you'll get the poorest of the poor people and the richest of the rich people lining up in the same place for the same really tasty vada pal you'll get people of all sorts of status pushing each other out of the way and clambering to get on a train you'll get people of all kinds jumping in the back of a tuk-tuk and, ripping through the streets to get where they need to go you've got people treating each other well treating each other badly, bustling doing all sorts of stuff and it's so real I know that sounds like a kind of negative place in some sense the idea that you've got all these people crammed in together doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
Alun:
[34:06] But it's very, very real to the point that when I left India and I went back to the UK for a bit, I remember I was going to a supermarket with my dad and we drove into the car park and sort of waited for someone to reverse out of the space so that we could go into that space.
Alun:
[34:26] And I understand that that sort of behavior is what makes civilized society. But there's something about being in India for six months prior where I was like, this is bullshit. It's crazy. Because we just want a space and there is space there. It's just that someone's drawn white lines that means we have to use the specific spaces that they want us to use. And therefore, there's less space that if everyone just chaotically did their own thing and shoved their cars in as tightly as they could, then there would be more space. And we wouldn't have to wait for this person to drive out. And it would just be more efficient in some ways, but just less civilized. India, in some sense, made me think that while tradition and spirituality and kindness and all those things are as important as possible, there's a certain element where the dogmatic civilization that we have in a country like England... It's this there's kind of a bullshit element there's a bullshit element to the queue to the car park to all those things you know i mean i understand that those things are sort of necessary but they're yeah they're they're a charade and i think india strips down that charade in a very beautiful way.
Adam:
[35:35] Yeah yeah and.
Alun:
[35:36] That's what we've got for you this week i think.
Adam:
[35:38] Well what i would add to that just um just to finish off is that the way that you've said that india is very real for me it's the one country where you cannot do anything else but feel alive, and in the same way that when you're scuba diving or when you're on top of a mountain after a long hike, it's so overwhelming and overstimulating that you cannot slip into this autopilot, state you're you're always on especially if you're outside maybe if you're in a hotel room or resort or whatever which do exist there and probably worth visiting as well but at every single level, India is just a wonder to behold and i i love it to bits and there's lots of things as we said that we don't like about the country but that's not really for us to say it's it's so, you just feel alive all the time switched on because you can't afford not to.
Alun:
[36:27] Be there's going to be lots of things you don't like about everywhere but it takes a very special place for you to love it you know i think me and you both love it despite not liking things about it and that's what true love is imagine being in love with someone you think everything about them is great sounds very superficial to me sounds like you might be experiencing limerence as opposed to true love and you should take a good look at yourself and download hinge baby okay now, it's time to go to the patreon section for the price of i mean a pineapple juice a fairly bougie bar you can get a pretty premium patreon subscription where you get to hear all sorts of stories so we'll see you over there after the show much love.
Adam:
[37:05] Thanks very much guys we'll see you there cheers bye.
