.JPG)
The little monkey man was dressed in a red waistcoat, a fixed look of surprise on his face that seemed to reflect his astonishment at having found himself working behind the coffee counter at Delhi International airport. He dodged about in his cubicle: the signage above read, "Nescafe, Hot Drinks, Coca Cola".
Unfortunately, his stall was adjacent to the foreign exchange bureau and he had a predatory animal instinct to take advantage of any unsuspecting passers-by. His little, black eyes twitched in our direction as we approached. Life always puts choices in our path. A slight deviation to the right would have taken us safely to the counter that offered a fair deal on Sterling: but an invisible hand led us instead to the monkey man's coffee counter. Why to change money at a valid currency exchange booth when we can have a coffee and get the change in Indian Rupees?
We ordered the coffee and like a proficient, practiced prestidigitator he produced two paper cups full of muddy, steaming liquid, took the 20-pound note proffered with what seemed like a ridiculously protracted and hairy arm and bundled a sheaf of rupees into my free hand with balletic grace.
Now, I wasn't sure what the change should have been but I guessed at the time, with a quick glance at the bundle of notes in my hand, that two-cups of coffee, or was it tea? did not cost 10-pounds. I mumbled a complaint and almost before I'd finished, there was an anticipatory movement that spoke of his having been through this routine a thousand times before with newly-arrived dupes, and two luke warm vegetable pasties appeared in my hand. The man behind the foreign exchange counter seemed to bow his head, pretending he just hadn't witnessed this con, and a shadowy figure passed behind me and whispered in my ear, "They always rip you off."
Monkey man, by this time, was busy serving another customer and I stood there, cup of coffee (I could never tell the difference between tea and coffee the whole month-long trip in India) and pastie in hand knowing full well that my resolve never to be tricked into parting with more money than necessary had been defeated so suddenly and quickly by the little simian in a red livery jacket behind the counter of a tea/coffee stall in Delhi International airport.
An ominous sign of what lay in store.
