Tintin Forums

In Tintin in Tibet, Tintin visits New Delhi, India. However the Taxis in India are always yellow in colour and not Maroon as shown in the book. Furthermore the license number on the taxi starts with WB (which mean West Bengal - Calcutta and not New Delhi).

Good catch! I am sure that that would have been an important detail to Hergé, had he known. Sounds like he must have used an inaccurate reference...

The poet Derek Walcott, in “The Saddhu Of Couva”, talks of someone with a maroon taxi, who I think is supposed to be in Bengal (it seems to be a daydream, so I can’t say for sure); perhaps it really is Bengali taxis which are maroon? I tried looking up Bengali taxis on the net, but I got a company in Newham, so I gave up...

I'm no expert on the subject at all, but is it not entirely possible that taxis in India (back in the 60s) were maroon? Or maybe he just liked the colour for it. I don't really see this a problem. But to each his/her own.

No, it isn't a problem, but it is part of the game! Hergé was so detailed in his research that to find an error which may have slipped through is quit something!

Having just watched the Michael Palin Himalaya series on the BBC, in which he journeyed through the entire range, visited Everest base camp etc., I was slightly disappointed that it didn't really look much like Tintin in Tibet at all... Maybe he made it all up... ;-)

I agree with jock123. Had it been any other book, nobody would have bothered. But with the exceptionally high standard of accuracy Herge has set, it feels like an achievement to have spotted an error which Herge made :).

I think Jayesh is right. I don't know about now but when I was in New Delhi in the 80's most of the taxis I saw were black Ambassadors with a yellow roof, like this one.

I don't mind the taxi colour (as it can always be explained by that one person having a maroon (or orangish, in my book) taxi), but the BE* would certainly bother Hergé, I'm sure - well spotted!

There was one episode of the Michael Palin thing where I really thought it looked like Tintin in Tibet, one of the market squres, possibly in Nepal.

* of course, he could have just had a very, er very long fare.

I thought some of the marketplaces and fairs and festivals looked more like the Peruvian one in Prisoners of the Sun, with the dancing and the colours.

Just remember that Hergé never actually went to these places, though; he had to research everything, so it's reasonable that it might have escaped him somehow.....

Sometimes for the sake of humor or story, some actual facts have to be dropped by the artist. For example, in "Tintin in Tibet", if Herge had used the original Taxi than the red one he made, Haddock would never have been tossed into the taxi by the berserk cow. Otherwise what jayesh pointed is right.

Yes, its true. No maroon taxis in India in the 50s-60s. And a taxi in Delhi must have a registration starting with DL. WB makes it a taxi in Calcutta (West Bengal).
http://www.rademakers.org/fons/calcutta-2003/imagepages/image14.html. You can just make out the WB on the number plates from this picture.
Herge's attention to detail certainly makes this a big find. The colour of the taxi had no relation to Haddock being dropped by the cow. He just missed it this time.
But the temple in Kathmandu is like a snap-shot. I have been to this temple myself, and I would have to say that Herge's rendering is absolutely perfect. If he had not been there, he must have had a photograph at his disposal.