Marvelous Things You Can Get in India You Can’t Get in China

Following our two articles on the Ten Things in India that You Can’t Get in China and the Ten Things in China that You Can’t Get in India. We now look at the marvelous side of things:

Elephant Traffic Jams
You’re on your way to a meeting, harassed, late, and under pressure. Grabbing a taxi on a hot sweaty day, everything is fine as you cross the big city until… a massive snarl up. It doesn’t go anywhere, and you’re stuck. You have to postpone meeting, knowing you’re hopelessly late. Getting out of the car to have a look at the cause, half a kilometer up the road you sense a commotion, and in the middle of it, a large bull elephant. He’s devouring the contents of a street side sweet shop, with the shop owner, invariably a Muslim, swearing incantations to Muhammad and the hapless elephant driver, the mahout beating his charge with a long stick of sugar cane. The elephant continues to munch his way through entire packs of coconut goodies and sweet syrupy fried doughnuts. Passersby drop in handfuls of rupees to reimburse the shop owner for the spectacle. You don’t get that on Jianguomenwai Avenue.

Alphonso Mangos
Named after Afonso de Albuquerque , this is an exquisite and expensive variety of mango considered the very best in a country with more than 350 different types. Grown mainly around Maharashtra and Southeast Pakistan, this is the veritable “King of the Mango,” made even more succulent by a season that only lasts for a few weeks each spring. Fragrant, delicious, and highly prized, the Alphonso Mango is a world apart from the grotty, unappetizing specimens served in Hainan and marketed across China. In one of my cookbooks, a recipe for chicken and mango curry exists, dating back to 1890 and the days of the Raj. However, it warns “Eating Alphonso Mangos in a curry is not the best way to consume these divine fruit. Far better to eat them naked, in the bath, with your lover.”

Sacred Cows
Just outside our office in Bandra, Mumbai is the main Linking Road, which is the equivalent of Shanghai’s Nanjing Xi Lu. Expensive boutiques line the street, fantastic restaurants vie for customers and Armani clad executives pound the pathway en route to a meeting, their iPhones permanently glued to the ear. Busy, bustling Mumbai is the country’s modern commercial core. Yet look out for the cow shit. Sacred cattle wander here just as they do everywhere else in India. A nuisance? Yes. Unhygienic? Probably? Accident prone? Definitely. Walking the city streets taking care not to get cow poop on my black polished Churches somehow is a great leveler – I too am ultimately one of the great unwashed and if I’m not careful I’ll get shit on me. Killing a cow in India is punishable by two years in prison. Moo on, my dear bovines, moo on.