It’s the beginning of March and a slow day in the temple town of Mamallapuram for tourist guides. SG Mohan, a 36-year old guide from the Tamil Nadu Tourism Board has been ambling around the ticket counter near the Pancha Rathas for three hours, but the fish are simply not biting.
Mohan has a purple shirt on and looks well-groomed. He approaches a group of tourists and offers to be a guide. They don’t pay him any attention. He offers for the second time, but they refuse. He backs away for a moment, then steels himself to ask them for the third time. This time, he tells them why they should hire a guide, even giving them a brief history of Mamallapuram —a mini-demo of his services. The tourists refuse to make eye contact with him, instead staring off in space while shaking their heads. But, Mohan moves on to try his luck somewhere else. He has perfected the art of perseverance despite rejection in his 19 years as a tourist guide.
Mohan was born in Mamallapuram into a family of guides. His grandfather was one, as was his father. He himself started working when he was 17, selling postcards to be able to fund a temple architecture course. To this day, he remembers his first potential clients. A French couple, seeing that he was a local, asked him a few questions about Mamallapuram. Despite knowing the answers, he couldn’t talk to them, embarrassed by his poor English. Today, he can not only speak English but also a little French. “If you have interest, you don’t need a formal education. My father in his lifetime learnt seven languages from different tourists and he never went to school,” says Mohan.
A large group of high-school students from Aizawl approach the ticket counter led by an agent from Kolkata. Mohan jumps at this opportunity. A hard pitch later, Mohan and the agent begin bargaining. Mohan states ₹ 750 as his price, but the agent is set on ₹ 600. Appeals for student discounts are made. They finally agree on a concessional rate of ₹ 650 for three monuments.
There are no fixed prices, reveals Mohan. “One look at a tourist and we can guess how much they are willing to shell out,” he says. “We observe them, the way they dress, speak and behave. That tells us a lot.” The standard post-bargaining rate for the Indian middle class is ₹ 700 to ₹ 800. For foreigners, the rates are hiked up to ₹ 4,000 per day as it includes a detailed guide through the town’s fishing villages, farms, stone-carving shops and the countryside. A major part of his trade relies on word of mouth. He is a part of a web of hotel staff, auto-rickshaw drivers and agencies who bring tourists to him.
Mohan addresses the group of students on the history of the Pancha Rathas, the type of stone used to carve them, and the different types of South Indian temples. As he speaks, he looks like a college professor. “Guiding students is tougher,” he admits. “They keep cross-checking everything with what they have been taught in their textbooks. So you have to be on your toes. With Europeans, it’s as much about the epics and legends as it is about the history,” he says. He regales them with not just stories from The Mahabharata but also the folk stories he learnt from his grandmother. ‘The Ant and the Mosquito’ is a hit in particular. “You have to be an actor, a story-teller and most importantly, you must always have a smile on your face.”
One of Mohan’s best friends was Howard, a Canadian from Vancouver whom he met in 1996. Howard was in Mamallapuram for two days when he met Mohan, then 18, at a kiosk near the Lighthouse. After buying postcards from him, Howard asked him if he would accompany him to Puducherry. Mohan agreed, as long as he could bring a friend along. That was the beginning of a decade-long friendship. Howard would visit India every few years and they would travel together.
Not just friendships, but even love can blossom between a tourist and a guide. Mohan tells us how his friend M Srinivasan fell in love with a Spanish tourist.
“He moved to Spain for her but it didn't work out. He married another woman there. I met him two years ago but he didn’t seem very happy. Husbands and wives have to share the household work there, they even cook separately. He makes sambar rice, she makes spaghetti.”
The group of students are Mohan’s only clients for the day. Off-season has clearly begun. “I will go to my uncle’s place in Karaikudi for the summer. I’ll see if there are any temple restoration jobs for me in the meantime,” he says.