“Might” overpay? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Well, that’s not quite fair, there are some Indian commercial-transit subcultures that are more strictly-by-the-meter than others, but generally speaking, being overcharged is a given if you’re a foreign tourist.
Yes, if city-traffic games of chicken are not your thing, you will NOT greatly enjoy a ride in an Indian auto-rickshaw (which in my experience is a much more commonly used name for them than “tuk tuk”, or at least the abbreviated form “auto” is).
My experiences in auto-rickshaws include:
Hitting a judderbar so hard that the resulting head-bump against the metal bar in the roof frame actually made my scalp bleed;
Running into and overturning a cycle-rickshaw (fortunately without anybody’s getting hurt, but leading to a long and vehement shouting match between my auto’s driver and the cycle-rickshaw driver in which I learned several interesting new words);
Memorable instances of overcrowding, including a ride with four fairly hefty male colleagues in a regular-sized autorickshaw which technically seats two adult passengers.
Yes, they are lots of fun to ride in, even if they certainly don’t feel like the safest vehicle on the planet. But for the most part, the autos are small, fairly stable, and not that fast, and city traffic moves at reasonable speeds: I have no personal knowledge (whether through word of mouth or news reports, and I’ve lived a total of about two years in India all told) of anybody’s actually being injured in an autorickshaw accident, although I’m sure that it does sometimes happen.
What’s really hair-raising (and was also rendered quite faithfully in the movie) is the games of highway chicken between buses and trucks. Rajasthan (the state in which the film’s main location Jaipur is situated) is especially terrifying in this regard, although (or because?) the roads in Rajasthan are better than in some other parts of the country. I am never riding in the front seat of a Rajasthan long-distance bus again, if several tons of death are heading at high speed straight toward me then at least I don’t need to see it coming.
Finally got to see this tonight and loved it! Have to agree that Maggie Smith’s transformation was a bit unbelievable, but it is hard to squeeze so many storylines in and do them all justice.
:dubious: “Smell India”? There are parts of Jaipur—as of other Indian cities—that smell really disgusting (e.g., slum gutters and highways with smoke-belching trucks), there are parts that smell absolutely fantastic (e.g., spice markets, residential gardens when the raat ki rani is out, downwind from the sidewalk bhelpuri cart), and there are parts that don’t smell of anything in particular.
In other words, India smells just about the same as India looks: disgustingly wretched in parts, ravishingly and exotically beautiful in parts, and pretty much normal elsewhere.
So AFAICT, there would be nothing disillusioning about having olfactory accompaniment to the scenes in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Yeah, I already pointed out that the movie romanticizes and patronizes Indian culture to some extent. But I think it was a more honest representation overall than any cynical and ignorant attempt to represent India as some kind of undifferentiated shithole.
I liked it, the age differences didn’t bother me (but then my wife is 12 years older than me).
For some reason, the disorder Nighy has with his hands seemed really prominent in this movie. Not that it bothered me but I noticed it a lot.
The part that struck me most false was the speech Dench gave at the call center on how to chat up callers. It may be emotionally true but the management reaction was real-world false.
“Smell India”? There are parts of Jaipur—as of other Indian cities—that smell really disgusting (e.g., slum gutters and highways with smoke-belching trucks), there are parts that smell absolutely fantastic (e.g., spice markets, residential gardens when the raat ki rani is out, downwind from the sidewalk bhelpuri cart), and there are parts that don’t smell of anything in particular.