I got to the Taj Mahal nice and early to avoid the masses of tourists. As it happens, that means queuing up with a lot of other earlybird tourists!
As often happens in India, men and women were separated into different queues. The women’s queue moved much slower than the men’s. The guards were searching every bag and each woman was carrying at least one bag – myself included.
The bag search was low-tech. There was a conveyor belt and scanner which the guards paid very little attention to. I saw at least three bags fly off the end of the belt – including my camera! The guards were much more interested in rummaging through handbags, selecting random items and requesting an explanation.
Being a lady, there are certain things I always carry with me. In many Asian countries sanitary products are tough (if not impossible) to find, so I had packed plenty from home.
The guard who searched my bag, it seemed, had never seen a tampon before. He lifted one out of my bag and held it high up in the air, turning it over and over in his hands with a look of utter confusion on his face. The morning sunlight glinted on the plastic wrapper as my friends giggled behind me.
The guard continued to contemplate my tampon, asking his fellow guard (in Hindi) if he could identify this strange item. The second guard seemed equally perplexed and I frantically searched my mind for the least embarrassing explanation possible. My mind was failing. Oh god. What could I say?
Luckily, and to my immense relief, he didn’t ask me to explain. Popping it back in my bag, he returned my bag and allowed me to collect my camera from the ground. And then I saw the Taj Mahal, which is even more beautiful than any one of the photos you’ve seen, and a pretty good tonic for embarrassment.
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