Our first stop at the Chilika Lake boating adventure—an expanse of water so huge you have to visit it to understand how huge it is—sees us being greeted by a man who brings a plastic basin. Inside, three brilliantly red crabs scramble over a layer of sand, trapped under a net they clutch with their claws, attempting escape. These crabs, we are told, have 360-degree vision. So while I admire their vivid colour, I'm left wondering: do they see their captivity in glorious, panoramic detail, and does that mean they are pained that much more?
The answer, much like the lake itself, is vast and unsettling, and felt personal because I had been mulling it over since the start of this trip. No! Let me correct that. I've been feeling it since the start of the pilgrimage to Puri.
Actually, scratch that as well because I've been marinating in it in every temple town across India. To such an extent that I call it the national pastime: the artful, often cheerful and sometimes bland fleecing of the faithful. In Varanasi, an e-rickshaw ride of just over a kilometre near the temple, which costs a local ₹10, is charged ₹100 to an outsider. In Puri, a two-kilometre e-rickshaw ride from the beach to the Jagannath temple through charmingly cramped lanes lined with little temples and ashrams, the sound of mantras and the smell of food from local eateries riding the same airwaves that remind you of similar lanes in Varanasi, sets you back by a cool ₹200. At the magnificent Konark Sun Temple, which had me in tears marvelling at the science used to build a religious edifice a thousand years ago, the entry fee for Indians is a nominal ₹40. But once outside, watch out for the sharks who lie in wait.
The unwritten rule in these towns seems to be: if your expense is discretionary (like, say, seeking spiritual solace or experiencing your own country's culture), you're fair game for fleecing, as if you're a walking wallet for the locals. Case in point: the Chilika Lake boat counter. Allegedly government-run, it had no visible price list. Instead, two men behind a metal window proudly displayed laminated sheets, perfectly calibrated for illegibility. The damage? ₹4,800 and ₹5,800 for three and four hours. Cash only, naturally.
"UPI doesn't work here," our driver claimed, citing poor connectivity. I showed him the full bars and 5G to shut him up. I would later understand our driver's complicity in all of this: he had already guided us to a local restaurant for a "pre-booked" lunch where four small pieces of fish, which I divided between him and me as mom only eats "pure-veg", cost ₹580, that too right next to a lake teeming with fish.
Watching the red crabs on our first island stop at Chilika had reminded me of the world-famous-in-India "crab mentality" joke: a scientist worries that his Indian crabs will escape a jar. His friend assures him they won't because if one tries to climb out, the others will pull it down. Well, I’m happy to report from my experience crisscrossing India's spiritual tourism sector with mom, that at least in that area, this mentality is extinct. The crabs in this sphere work in beautiful synergy to ensure everyone gets a piece of the tourist. From the Chilika boatman to the Varanasi wheelchair pusher who charged ₹1,500 to ferry my mother just over a kilometre from the Kashi-Vishwanath temple to Dashaswamedha Ghat. It's a wholesome, "you eat, I eat" ecosystem. This barely-educated wheelchair charioteer probably earns more than an IAS officer or a doctor. Such is the power of this united, cute, crab corruption. Now, if only the rest of India could work with this same teamwork, we would truly become the superpower we deserve to be. This, I wonder, metaphorical tongue-firmly-in-real-cheek.
Our Chilika journey turned out to be a masterclass in these mini-swindles. The red-crab man returned with a tray of oysters, cracked a few empty ones, till, finally, in one, a pearl appeared. My sweet, gentle mother, delighted as she was, was quoted ₹650. I declined. The reason I gave him: the boat counter exhausted all my cash, which was true. "No problem, sir!" the crab-oyster man beamed, pulling out a smartphone. "I have UPI!" Of course he did. In the middle of a lake, on a deserted island, UPI works flawlessly. But at the official counter? A digital black hole where I watched unaware tourists nudge wives to fish out cash from the endless depths of their big purses.
The boatman had his own entrepreneurial spirit. I later learned our "cheaper package" still had a lovely Kali temple visit on one of the islands in the lake. Mom would have loved it, and I'd have delighted in her pleasure while sending photos to a Kali-bhakt friend to entice her to visit. He didn't take us there; instead, he took us to an island he said wasn't part of the trip, offering illicitly cooked prawns (prepared under a snack counter hidden from view) and "budget" pearls. Apparently, chilled beer was also available here, where there was no electricity, for a price. I tipped him ₹200 at the end, even though I knew his 'I make only ₹ 100 a trip' was a lie, following my kind mom's principle: never forget to give extra to the poor. But I would regret this later, when I saw the payment slip given at the counter: it listed the Kali temple and a few other places that he did not take us to. And here’s another corruption: the slip made no mention of the money we paid for it.
On that same island, I witnessed the other great corruption, this one belongs to every Indian: our blatant disregard for basic cleanliness. The island where he stopped his boat, and where I could walk 200 meters to see the sea, was a ground that was a mosaic of beer bottles, plastic wrappers, and assorted human filth, competing with the pine trees for visual dominance. Swachh Bharat? More like Stinky Bharat. And this wasn't just in this remote island.
While Bhubaneswar was tidy, Puri—a holy town that should be pristine—was disgracefully littered. Every empty plot of land is an unofficial dustbin, every road or narrow lane littered with dirt and red gutka stains. And honestly, I can't entirely blame people. I walked around on my corner of the beach, wanting to throw a biscuit wrapper, but I couldn't find a dustbin. That's when I started noticing: apart from the Jagannath temple corridor and the premises of some of the other temples, there are barely any dustbins in town. Even most of its cigarette shops were missing the cardboard box, turned into a makeshift dustbin, ubiquitous across the rest of India.
But the most disgusting spectacle assailed me inside the very compound of the Jagannath temple. As the tour-guide Panda talked about the piety with which food for the lord is prepared in the ancient, sacred kitchen, a practice unchanged for a thousand years, I could see pan spits on its walls and just at the entry to the narrow passage where the material used to prepare food is ferried to and from, there was a dirty little pool of these red stains. And the cooks who are supposed to prepare this food, I saw them chewing and spitting there. Thankfully, alcohol shops in Puri dot only the coastal side of town. And I saw no one smoking inside the premises. In the same vein, chewing tobacco and paan should also be banned inside every temple, church, mosque and ASI-designated heritage site in India.
And the priests, the pandits of both Puri and the temples of Bhubaneshwar? That's a corruption so grand and time-honoured I barely need to detail it. They expertly separated my emotional mother (wish your father was here) of over ₹10,000 in these two towns, despite my muted objections. In Kedarnath, for ₹5,000, you can touch the Shiva lingam inside the sanctum, and for ₹5,000, you can offer milk and oil as long as you want. Otherwise, you're herded like cattle and barely get a glimpse. And this is not an exception; it's the temple template across India.
Throughout our Odisha trip, we encountered men who solemnly spoke of Kalyug—the age of moral decline—with our Chilika lake driver citing the Bhavishya Malika, written by Saint Achyutananda Das, which prophesies that Odisha will be swallowed by the sea due to human corruption in all forms. The irony, dripping thicker than the sugar syrup the delicious temple prasads are covered in, seemed lost on them. While decrying the corruption of others, they were gleefully indulging in the same in the name of mother, father, children, etc. They weren't repeating Achyutananda's prophecies as much as determinedly ensuring his apocalyptic visions came true, one cunning transaction, one plastic wrapper carelessly thrown at a time.
This tale of our sweet, smiling corruption in Odisha—Varanasi's people were a little more confrontational—had begun at the airport. Our Uber driver charged an extra ₹240 for "parking" and "highway toll", claiming Uber wouldn't include it. The eventual bill that came to my inbox included ₹42 for parking and ₹36 "paid to airport". And I was too tired at 10 at night to check the toll on the highway.
Now, the punchline will have you laughing your guts out. After three days in Puri (billed as four by our hotel because we arrived at night), mom and I had become so accustomed to the cheerful rip-offs that this Uber driver, with his sweet talk and 20% corruption, seemed like an exemplar of honesty and sophistication. So, we booked him for the return trip. After all, the devil you know is not only better than the one you don't: he is also your most trustworthy ride home.