Best Friends

During the first 20 days here in India I got an uncountable number of new best friends. Normaly they are in the age between 7 and 17, some are older also. They live either in Slums or relatively bad conditions and you meet them everywhere but especially in places like Old Delhi. Making friendship with them is basically quite easy as you just pass by and from every corner voices are saying:

"hey you're my best friend"

What follows then is that they either want you to take a picture of them or they just wanna have one Dollar or Euro... or probably both. Sometimes it is pretty hard to shake these guys off but meanwhile I have learnt how to ignore everything that happens around you. I try to be as arrogant and ignorant as I can, after some while the guys normally leave and look for other victims... But sometimes you also need to be quite rude and tell them to go or piss off.
Certainly this is not a very friendly way of behavior, especially as a guest in this country but unfortunately it is the only way to get rid of these people and carry on your program.

Anyway I have to admit and I appreciate that many of the people here are actually very friendly, cooperative and lot's of them have a very big heart. Walking through Old Delhi today I have been invited for a Chai by one Chai producer on the street who owns actually almost nothing. However he was so kind and told me "no money, you're guest in India" and gave me the Indian tea for free. Ofcourse I wanted to pay him but he declined to accept the payment of 3 Rupies (6 Cents) for the Chai which is actually like nothing for me...