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India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

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Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#41

Post by speeder »

devindotcom wrote: post #13

Something I noticed while in India myself, which may help explain (not excuse) some of the behavior (please note I am not discounting the author's perspective at all): I'm a little over 6 feet, blond hair and green eyes, and when I and my family were visiting India (Mumbai and a few other areas around Maharashtra), we got stared at really, really hard. Like everyone around us literally stopping on the street and doin…

I lived once with 6 indians that came to Brazil on a contract.

One wanted to learn portuguese, and knew english really really well, and loved to talk (also he knew like 6 indian dialects, he really liked languages), and he was married.

Talking with him, and later with the others when he was nearby, I learned that this is a kind of new thing, and they are confused...

Seemly the merging of a traditional patriarchal culture with the western materialistic culture led to this weird bizarre culture where women are not seen as human anymore (and the lack of women because of female infanticide do not help either)

EDIT: And yes, they are curious, and are not shy about it, also they loved museums a lot... They visited in 4 months more museums here in Brazil than I ever did in my whole life.

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#42

Post by sid6376 »

Sven7 wrote: post #37
devindotcom wrote: post #13

Something I noticed while in India myself, which may help explain (not excuse) some of the behavior (please note I am not discounting the author's perspective at all): I'm a little over 6 feet, blond hair and green eyes, and when I and my family were visiting India (Mumbai and a few other areas around Maharashtra), we got stared at really, really hard. Like everyone around us literally stopping on the street and doin…

I agree with most of what you say. There's just one point I want add. I have been to India and the US multiple times. If I judged the US, just based on my experiences living in downtown Detroit or Newark I would never visit the US ever again. Just thinking about the things I experienced gives me the shivers.

I have seen this culture of misogyny and treating women as sexual objects in almost all places in India I have lived in. Not trying to counter your point, just saying that this observation could have been written by a woman who spent her time in Kolkata/Chennai/Bangalore/Mumbai rather than in Pune. In fact Pune in some respects is much better than some of the cities I mentioned above.

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#43

Post by dhruvarora »

Tichy wrote: post #30

What I don't understand is why anybody would think of India as a traveler's paradise? Because everything is cheap for a western person? Does one need a huge amount of ignorance to enjoy traveling among hordes of poor people? (Real question - I've never done such a thing)

I think you're confusing the joy of travel with a vacation. I believe the two to be very different things. India, the Middle East, China offer very different cultural experiences, and most people travel to take a glimpse of those experiences.

The crimes and experiences as highlighted in this article however are completely inexcusable.

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#44

Post by openforce »

gnufied wrote: post #34
thisisnotclear wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well as an indian it saddens me to say that i agree with you. also I believe that middle class and rich are the most misogynist among indians. There is no morality that works in india accept "I can get away with this because I have money and power to do so". I think that world will face a lot of problems integrating india and indians in near future.

Are you implying education has little impact on how a person perceives the world around him/her? Can we deny that, all rapes that were reported in media were done by people from lower rung of our society? Sure for every poor criminal there is a educated bureaucrat taking bribe and doing as he pleases. But we are specifically talking about street harassment and crime against women here, which is fixable by educating p…

"all rapes that were reported in media were done by people from lower rung of our society?"

Wow, thats a strong comment. I am sure you have concrete data supporting that!

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#46

Post by wreckimnaked »

hankcharles wrote: post #14
gnufied wrote: post #10

The problem I think is - The people at lowest rung of our society have very little moral values. The most important thing is to survive. Sure occasionally you meet a auto-rickshaw driver who did not try to charge you more, but by and large every one of them will try to take as much as they can. I have been with some of the poor people (heck I come from poor background) of this country, took a trip in transport truck…

I don't understand your logic, or what democracy has to do with the matter. I am no expert on India, but I spent enough time there to observe a clear and disturbing trend in male behavior and I have spent enough time in other - developed and developing - countries to have appropriate context for comparison. An easy place to start would be China, which exhibits some similar demographic issues, but you really never com…

As a brazilian that have lived in India for some time, I could tell you that the form democracy present in both countries today has a lot to do with incidents such as the reported on the post. The historic distance between poverty and middle-class just grows as the public institutions can't provide basic (or with the minimium required quality) services to the poor: education, healthcare, housing, etc.

I don't agree with the _poor people have a different moral_ argument presented by 'gnufied, but there is an intense feeling of social tension on a daily basis on both countries, which is clearly related to the income gap and the almost tribal mindsets developed by those completely different realities.

Besides the economic factor, India also displays consequences from gender issues liked to its patriarcal society and sexual repression. Unsurprisingly, the lower part of the social pyramid is also the one that suffers more from a conflict between the exarcerbated sexuality pushed by media and the to be said moral values of society. The education system wouldn't reach that part of the population with the same quality as rich or middle-class people, which, as said on other comments, also suffers from that on a lesser degree.

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#47

Post by Camillo »

Sven7 wrote: post #37
devindotcom wrote: post #13

Something I noticed while in India myself, which may help explain (not excuse) some of the behavior (please note I am not discounting the author's perspective at all): I'm a little over 6 feet, blond hair and green eyes, and when I and my family were visiting India (Mumbai and a few other areas around Maharashtra), we got stared at really, really hard. Like everyone around us literally stopping on the street and doin…

I agree with most of what you say. There's just one point I want add. I have been to India and the US multiple times. If I judged the US, just based on my experiences living in downtown Detroit or Newark I would never visit the US ever again. Just thinking about the things I experienced gives me the shivers.

It may be interesting to hear that story as well.

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#48

Post by Tichy »

rayiner wrote: post #38
Tichy wrote: post #30

What I don't understand is why anybody would think of India as a traveler's paradise? Because everything is cheap for a western person? Does one need a huge amount of ignorance to enjoy traveling among hordes of poor people? (Real question - I've never done such a thing)

Either ignorance, or a healthy dose of youthful, idealistic liberalism.

What does liberalism mean in that context - the belief that everybody is only responsible for themselves? (Again serious question, I don't know how to interpret this).

Re: India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

#50

Post by inoop »

grannyg00se wrote: post #27

Why don't we hear this more often? I often hear stores about people traveling to India but I've never heard of this level of incessant public abuse. And what about the people who were warning her to dress conservatively and not make eye contact? Did they know the extent of the abuse she was about to endure? Did they deliberately downplay it for some reason? Or did she experience unusually horrific treatment because o…

I've heard similar first-hand accounts from women travelling in northern India. One friend in particular was almost raped in a taxi but was able to fight off the attacker and escape. She also was molested on trains on multiple occassions, basically men groping her breasts and groin as described in the article.

Combined with the recent reports of rapes of tourists and local women I think that by now it's fairly well known that India is not particularly safe for women travellers.

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