Benjamin van der Spek Photography
The Zoo
No. 20 The Zoo
The new millennium took me back to the Indian subcontinent. My girlfriend at the time and her younger brother joined me on a journey that would start in Kerala and would take us through Tamil Nadu and into Delhi. This time we would travel on a shoestring, use public transport and explore sides of India we hadn’t experienced before.
After travelling by train and local busses, we reached the capital Delhi. This massive city was a world away from peaceful, green and friendly Kerala in the south. The feeling of safety we had, walking the streets of Trivandrum, disappeared in Delhi. The atmosphere here was completely different. Traffic was dense with motor motor rickshaw's, mopeds and cars. The city was so congested, a blanket of blue’ish smog hung thick in the air, day and night. It made it much harder to breathe. So after reading good reviews about New Delhi Zoo, we decided to check it out. It sounded like a good day out of the heat, noise and stench.
There was no one else at the entrance so I walked up to the ticket booth to buy tickets. The price list was rather confusing to me. Adults and Children to a certain height, but also ‘Foreigners Adult’ and ‘Foreigner Children’. This was something new to me. Naive as I was, I had never seen such discrimination before and I decided to challenge it. “Three ‘Adult’ tickets please”. Of course this was impossible. We would have to pay five times more than a regular ticket because we were foreigners.
I demanded to see the managing director. I wanted to know why some people, like foreigners were discriminated against and would have to pay a different price. I found it striking that a nation, scarred by foreign discrimination would continue to make such a distinction between peoples.
The director would see me and I tried to explain to him the outrage such a distinction would cause back home in The Netherlands. Imagine what would happen if we charged Indians five times more, just because they are foreign?! Of course that was just it. This was India, not The Netherlands. The director remained calm and told me I would have to take it up to the Minister of Culture of India. “I will!”. I asked him how and he gave me pen and paper. “You could write him a letter”.
Strict on principle, I took his offer and wrote the Minister of Culture of India a stern letter. Right there in the director’s office. Of course I knew by now I was fighting windmills, but I charged ahead and handed over the letter.
Although still angry, walking back to the ticket booth I had started to come to terms with the fact that we would have to pay the foreigners' fee. At the entrance, a lady had arrived with her four children. She was looking through her purse and bag for something. My girlfriend explained.
“Three of her children are charged children’s entrance fees. The fourth child looks too white and is charged an ‘foreigners-child’ entrance fee. Now the mother is looking for the child’s ID-card…”
That was the last drop for me. Screw that zoo!
The Zoo
No. 20 The Zoo
The new millennium took me back to the Indian subcontinent. My girlfriend at the time and her younger brother joined me on a journey that would start in Kerala and would take us through Tamil Nadu and into Delhi. This time we would travel on a shoestring, use public transport and explore sides of India we hadn’t experienced before.
After travelling by train and local busses, we reached the capital Delhi. This massive city was a world away from peaceful, green and friendly Kerala in the south. The feeling of safety we had, walking the streets of Trivandrum, disappeared in Delhi. The atmosphere here was completely different. Traffic was dense with motor motor rickshaw's, mopeds and cars. The city was so congested, a blanket of blue’ish smog hung thick in the air, day and night. It made it much harder to breathe. So after reading good reviews about New Delhi Zoo, we decided to check it out. It sounded like a good day out of the heat, noise and stench.
There was no one else at the entrance so I walked up to the ticket booth to buy tickets. The price list was rather confusing to me. Adults and Children to a certain height, but also ‘Foreigners Adult’ and ‘Foreigner Children’. This was something new to me. Naive as I was, I had never seen such discrimination before and I decided to challenge it. “Three ‘Adult’ tickets please”. Of course this was impossible. We would have to pay five times more than a regular ticket because we were foreigners.
I demanded to see the managing director. I wanted to know why some people, like foreigners were discriminated against and would have to pay a different price. I found it striking that a nation, scarred by foreign discrimination would continue to make such a distinction between peoples.
The director would see me and I tried to explain to him the outrage such a distinction would cause back home in The Netherlands. Imagine what would happen if we charged Indians five times more, just because they are foreign?! Of course that was just it. This was India, not The Netherlands. The director remained calm and told me I would have to take it up to the Minister of Culture of India. “I will!”. I asked him how and he gave me pen and paper. “You could write him a letter”.
Strict on principle, I took his offer and wrote the Minister of Culture of India a stern letter. Right there in the director’s office. Of course I knew by now I was fighting windmills, but I charged ahead and handed over the letter.
Although still angry, walking back to the ticket booth I had started to come to terms with the fact that we would have to pay the foreigners' fee. At the entrance, a lady had arrived with her four children. She was looking through her purse and bag for something. My girlfriend explained.
“Three of her children are charged children’s entrance fees. The fourth child looks too white and is charged an ‘foreigners-child’ entrance fee. Now the mother is looking for the child’s ID-card…”
That was the last drop for me. Screw that zoo!