India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear

I have so many things to say about this. I'm glad someone came out and wrote about how violating and disturbing living -- actually living -- in another country can be.

I'm happy this article is getting the attention it is.

I'm impressed and filled with respect for the author that she had the guts to write this out.

I'm depressed that people are shocked to the point of disbelief by the contents.

I am Indian, but grew up in the Middle East. I split my time perhaps 4:1 between the Middle East and India as I grew up -- enough that I knew what life was like there, but not enough that I could feel like I was part of it, or it was part of me.

When I came to college in the US, I had a culture shock of my own, but most of it was in the positive direction. A friend in college told me she was going to study away in India. I was genuinely worried for her safety and mental well-being to the point of trying to almost dissuade her from going. I was torn between trying to tell her she must go because of how amazing and enriching the culture and heritage of India will be - despite being an engineering student she cared deeply for the arts and culture - and that she's better off changing plans because of how terribly violated, discriminated against (in good ways and bad, but discrimination is bad in general), restricted and confused she will be. Especially because she was going to be a (very very, even among familiar culture) attractive, fair-skinned foreigner there.

In my malformed attempt to "prepare" her, I wound up telling her a lot from both sides, and she was a little flabbergasted at my deviations from the tourism industry pitch, but took me seriously. She ended up going, she ended up "having a great time" as she told me and her other friends, and she also told me at some point while she was there "I understand what you meant when you were telling me about this place." That was surprisingly it. She probably wasn't nearly as traumatized by her time there as the author of the essay, and I'm glad for her. But I'm doubly glad that people step outside of their national bubbles, experience culture and society around the world, and realize there's so much to fix that we never hear about, drowned in tourist attractions, exotic food pictures, and stories about politicians.

Globalization, rapid as it is, is miles from bringing about understanding of life in another part of the world from where you live - not tour.

I lived in India for awhile and had female friends go though a bit of what is described in the story it brings back situations I was in and I empathize.

But why is this on the front page of Hacker News?

This is crazy. I have traveled a lot and I have never even been close to having any of those things happening to me.

I hope this gets published and circulated widely because women need to realize how dangerous traveling can be.

I have known a few women who have not taken proper precautions.

It's sad, but reality.

Not only are rape and sexual harrassment quite prevalent in wealthy, modern cities it also has a very real presence in those within the highest income brackets of those cities.

What comes with education and wealth is the sophistication to define the context in which said violence takes place. It can be swept under the rug, it can occur between people who know each other and both want it kept secret, it can occur and then be dealt with by a large sum of money. It is quite ridiculous that being poor inherently makes one more likely to be a rapist when there's no evidence suggesting a causal link.

I totally disagree to, "that this type of looking and curiosity is part of how Indians generally are." Indians or for the matter of fact every human being is curious. But the stares described are not of curiosity but of lust, of wanting that body to satisfy a temporarily desire and then to boast about it to the friends. The biggest reason for such behaviour is the lack of respect that is given to a female in the Indian society. For every male god, there is an equally powerful or even more powerful a female god and we (quite a lot) Indians will go every day to the temple to ask the lady god for fulfillment of wishes but as soon as we are home we treat our wife, mother, sister with no respect at all.

Not only the males are to be blamed for turning India into a male society but also women. There are many (hell lot) women in India who want a son (still do not understand the reason). If they have a girl and a boy and no matter how good the girl is when compared to the boy, the boy will always get more love and attention.

I am an Indian and have lived all my life here and in many parts of the wonderful country. But it makes me sad to see the state we are going into.