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Dating in Delhi when you're poor

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Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#281
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the masses realized/felt that their life sucks - they would revolt already against the status quo or maybe not, since upper classes will swiftly deal with it and go back to being miserable about their first world problems

I’ve wondered that too. In countries with massive class disparities why don’t the classes band together and revolt? I don’t think this paints the full picture but I believe this is at least partially due to differences in regional identities even within the class. India has multiple major languages, several castes and sub-castes (reference to this has been made in the article). This makes class solidarity much harder…

> In countries with massive class disparities why don’t the classes band together and revolt?

A lot of factors come into play there. Protesting and political engagement require a lot of time and energy. Many of the poorest people need to spend huge amounts of both just to survive to day to day.

Their health is often poor, they may not be as well educated, they're exhausted from back-breaking physical labor and from living in constant stress. It'd seem hard to expect people in that situation to organize a grassroots movement let alone an army.

Even if someone had the time, the energy, the physical and mental well-being to fight for change, and they could do all the work involved in determining exactly who it is that needs overthrowing, how to best set about doing that, and what should be done if they somehow succeed, they then still have to convince others who are lost in their own struggles for survival to abandon what little they've managed to secure for themselves and join them.

That's already a lot of overcome and doesn't even get into the countless ways people are conditioned to feel helpless, powerless, inadequate, responsible for their own suffering, or divided and intentionally pitted against each other or at least some "other" who can be blamed for their problems.

Then of course, even if they do manage to overcome all of that, they're still up against an enemy with vast amounts of resources and power. The only thing they've got going for them are their numbers and that they don't have all that much to lose.

It's amazing to me that revolts happen at all really.

It'd probably go a lot easier if it didn't start from the bottom. Get the declining middle classes involved or some sympathetic members of the upper class and it's another story entirely.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#282
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s accurate - I remember being in Delhi circa 2010 and dinners at the nice hotels coming to something close to this amount, albeit with (not outrageous) wine. I actually went and pulled up the menu for one of the restaurants at the Taj Palace, a place I know well, and an app and entree picked at random came to $73, easily crossing the $125 mark for two without dessert or any beverages.

You can check the menu for Machan hotel from the Taj Palace here [0]. The most expensive item on the menu (a seafood grill, which is probably not a single-person dish) is around $30, and there are plenty of dishes in the sub-$20 range. I've eaten in several five-star hotels in India from various chains (Taj, ITC, Trident, etc) in various cities (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata). Excluding drinks, I can't r…

I mean - we're talking about different hotels. Here's the menu from orient express from Taj Palace:

https://www.tajhotels.com/content/dam/luxury/hotels/taj-pala...

Obviously, I realize you have a lot more experience with a wide variety of places, I was just making a comment that the contention from the article is at least plausible.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#284
post #118
post #50

Whenever there is comparison between something in India and west, almost always its not apples to apples. There are 1.3 billion people, and very wide range of social & economic spectrum, which inherently makes comparison very difficult. for the sake of example - for "X", you will find many many Indians spending vastly more than western people, at the same time you will find millions of Indians who could not even drea…

An Indian man once told me religion is the only unifying part of India. That if that didn’t exist, India would fall apart. Can’t tell of course if that is true.

“Where knowledge ends, religion begins” --Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1804)

% of Atheists: India: 3% Netherlands: 49% Sweden: 43% France: 37% UK: 32% Germany: 27% Spain: 26% Denmark: 25% Belgium: 23% Hungary: 22% Finland: 16% Austria: 11% Portugal: 7% Italy: 6%

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#285
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can check the menu for Machan hotel from the Taj Palace here [0]. The most expensive item on the menu (a seafood grill, which is probably not a single-person dish) is around $30, and there are plenty of dishes in the sub-$20 range. I've eaten in several five-star hotels in India from various chains (Taj, ITC, Trident, etc) in various cities (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata). Excluding drinks, I can't r…

I mean - we're talking about different hotels. Here's the menu from orient express from Taj Palace: https://www.tajhotels.com/content/dam/luxury/hotels/taj-pala... Obviously, I realize you have a lot more experience with a wide variety of places, I was just making a comment that the contention from the article is at least plausible.

I don't deny that it's possible. If you're having champagne and caviar on your date you're definitely going to run a bill of over Rs. 10k. But the author claims that 8k is a typical expense for a date night out, which is absurd.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over That's what a majority of urban poor in India live on - public/unclaimed land (i.e. informal housing). They're not counted as homeless as a result, unlike in LA. That's how LA can appear to have a comparatively larger homeless population, even if it's a lot smaller in reality. In India this type of housing is illegal and can be destro…

I'm hesitant to call the slum population "homeless". We have people in the parks, footpaths too, and that's very different from people living in many of these slums. Here are a few facts: some of these slums are 100+ yrs old. A lot of them have "permanent" homes, something lot harder to uproot than tents. And lastly, if the government attempted to destroy them, it won't be just poor people, almost entire society will…

That they are 100+ years old doesn’t change the fact that that they remain illegal (and thus available for political leverage).

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#287
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve wondered that too. In countries with massive class disparities why don’t the classes band together and revolt? I don’t think this paints the full picture but I believe this is at least partially due to differences in regional identities even within the class. India has multiple major languages, several castes and sub-castes (reference to this has been made in the article). This makes class solidarity much harder…

> In countries with massive class disparities why don’t the classes band together and revolt? A lot of factors come into play there. Protesting and political engagement require a lot of time and energy. Many of the poorest people need to spend huge amounts of both just to survive to day to day. Their health is often poor, they may not be as well educated, they're exhausted from back-breaking physical labor and from l…

Very well said, and a sobering reality of the world - whenever and wherever "the few" hold the majority to ransom in a grotesque asymmetric power equilibrium.

Unfortunately, the same dynamic applies at the national/international level and can often be seen in attitudes between "developed" and "developing" nations.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#288
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s someone on YouTube I sorta watched from time to time when the pandemic hit. He’s located in Venice beach, German in Venice. He was exposing the homeless issue and lack of government response. Fast forward to now. The city offered everyone a free place to go and many took it. There were still a lot of people who refused. Now the garbage trucks and police evicted them. The garbage people packed a lot of stuff a…

First, some people took it and some did not. Yet you are trying to suggest we judge all homeless based on those who did not without knowing any further details. Damn them all to hell because some were offered housing and said "no." A lot of services offered to the homeless are really terrible. I never stayed in a shelter while homeless. They have rules that make it just shy of being a form of prison, they tend to not…

I feel your pain - even though I've never been homeless, am male, from an entirely different country and demographic.

You are early, a good writer - and were able to convey the feeling of frustration and helplessness whilst maintaining your dignity.

Could you perchance share the links to your blogposts on here?

I'm sure there are many on here who would like to help in some way if they can.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#289
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the homeless person in Delhi will still commisserate with the homeless person in Toronto Perhaps, but it's worth pointing out that these experiences are qualitatively different. In India, being poor (especially if you're a certain caste) is tantamount to being non-human. You can be jailed, raped, mistreated, killed without consequence. Even the middle class is afforded little human dignity, the underclass have…

I feel like that's conflating yet a third kind of poverty: having no societal respectability. Having no social "credit." No https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Whuffie . Being in poverty but of a high caste in India, is pretty-standard "absolute poverty." Meanwhile, being well-off but of a low caste in India, is more like being a recently-freed black slave in the ante-bellum southern US. That experience is really nothing…

Very well constructed, logical response - whilst still being respectful.

It is this kind of robust but respectful exchange of viewpoints, that keeps me coming back to HN (and unfortunately, spending hours on the site!)

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#290
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't understand your viewpoint. What exactly are you angry at in believing the author is "dishing hate" - that the author pointed out that marrying within gotras is frowned upon or that people are sometimes killed over it (honour killing)? Both are facts.

People are murdered by family over all sorts of things, but random incidents don't imply a general pattern. Honor killing is a real occurrence but not over gotra-incest.

> Honor killing is a real occurrence but not over gotra-incest.

Only some Hindus (often castiest / religious fundamentalists) believe that a sexual relationship within the same gotra is incest. And it is that mindset that leads to honour killing in the name of gotra. And they do happen. But you are right that they often aren't the major catalyst for honour killing, even if many demand a ban on same-gotra marriage:

    Will such so-called “honour killings” stop if the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is amended to prohibit marriages within the same gotra? Unlikely. That may be the most publicised of the demands and threats issued by the Khap Mahapanchayat — a congregation of caste Panchayats from Jat strongholds in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — in Kurukshetra on April 13, and subsequently elsewhere. But it was not the only one. They have also reportedly called for a ban on marriages within the same village and contiguous villages, as well as de-recognition of temple weddings uniting runaway couples.
(And it is because of such political demands by castiests / religious fundamentalist Hindus that the popular perception that gotra is responsible for honour killing has spread - not because of some "secular conspiracy" against Hindus.)

This has even been challenged in court and marriage within the same gotra has been ruled legal in India even before independence:

    Same-gotra marriages were declared legally valid by the Bombay High Court as far back as in 1945 in the Madhavrao vs. Raghavendrarao case involving a Deshastha Brahmin couple. Two reputed judges — Harilal Kania (who became the first Chief Justice of independent India) and P.B. Gajendragadkar (who went on to become the Chief Justice of India in the 1960s) — examined several court verdicts, consulted the writings of leading experts and quoted from Hindu scriptures in their ruling on whether a 'sagotra' (same-gotra) marriage was valid under Hindu law/custom. They concluded that it was.
Source: No honour in murder - https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/No-honour-in-murd...
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