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Dating in Delhi when you're poor

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Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#191

Post by rendall »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #107
sombremesa wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what the solution is for trying to promote better cross cultural understanding. I think that's just it: trying to promote better cross cultural understanding. That's something I tried with the GP here, but I could probably write up an article to be linked to in such discussions. > metrics like "How many meals per day do you get?" and "What kind of shelter do you have?" I think this is a good thought, a…

I'm a former military wife. Just trying to explain how military life is different to other Americans was insanely hard. I lived in the same country. I used the same currency. I spoke the same language. Yet my life was not like that of civilians I knew and their underlying assumptions and mine that informed our decisions just did not match up to such a degree that I eventually stopped trying to explain my life choices…

That's interesting. Would you mind giving an example of one of these disjuncts? Some decision you made as a military wife that others did not understand?

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#192

Post by buu700 »

austhrow743 wrote: post #189
buu700 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then, the only way you can convince yourself you’re not an evil person is by playing some Mental gymnastics. Does benefiting from severe inequality imply amorality? I don't see any inherent contradiction between personal financial success and supporting policies intended to uplift the poor (similarly to how some uber-wealthy in America publicly advocate for more progressive taxation).

What do policies have to do with anything? This isn't global warming where the big deal is only in the aggregate. That there are X million people you cant help even if you do all you can doesn't undermine the fact that if you make hundreds of thousands of dollars you could change the lives of many forever with not much of a lifestyle hit for yourself.

So, just to be clear, your position is that any >=middle-class person who doesn't donate the majority of their wealth to charity is "evil"?

What do policies have to do with anything?

I can't tell if this is a serious question. Policies are how we effect change at scale. Relying on countless people to each independently make the decision to follow your particular moral values isn't a practical solution for addressing inequality throughout the entire country of India.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#193

Post by Kakashi4 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #181
DoreenMichele wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago, I read of a study that measured poverty not in terms of income but with metrics like "How many meals per day do you get?" and "What kind of shelter do you have?" It concluded that less than 1/2 of one percent of Americans were poor by standards in India. When I've repeated that online, on at least one occasion someone who lived in India got mad at me for supposedly promoting negative stereotypes and t…

Grew up in india, spent my twenties in the US, and now back in India. I can give you some potential explanation: Even though the poor and lower middle class make abjectly low amounts of money, the upper middle class and the rich actually make money comparable to most developed countries. This is reflected in the real estate prices (Chennai, the fourth largest city, has prices comparable to Brooklyn). I can make 200k…

The upper middle class does not nearly make money comparable to most developed countries. If you make 200k USD a year in India you are strictly rich. I make 10x less than you and I'm still upper middle class. The average rent in a place like Anna Nagar in Chennai (which is probably one of the most expensive places to live) is about 50,000 INR a month or ~700$ for a 3 bhk apartment. In comparison, the average rent in Brooklyn for a 1 bedroom apartment is around 2000$ a month. Just wanted to clarify on the numbers, I do agree with everything else you've said.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#194

Post by hiyer »

mattzito wrote: post #187
hiyer wrote: post #184

> The 23-year-old earns 8,000 rupees a month ($125) for her work. That’s what her employers can expect to pay for a single “date night” out at one of the city’s finer restaurants. Even in 2021 (article is from 2017) this is an exaggeration. You can have dinner for 2 at a five-star hotel in Delhi for less than half that amount, unless you're splurging on the drinks.

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 recall paying over Rs. 2500 before tax for 2. It helps that my SO and I are both vegetarian, but even non-vegetarian would only cost around 50% more. Drinks - especially hard liquor - are crazy expensive though, and will easily cost you Rs. 1000+ including tax for even a single large drink or cocktail.

0. https://www.eazydiner.com/delhi-ncr/machan-the-taj-mahal-hot...

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#195

Post by erikerikson »

sombremesa wrote: post #7

My first thought when reading this was hoping that these types of articles will reduce the comments I see on the internet that try and compare Delhi/Mumbai squalor to LA. Then I read the first comment on this HN thread, which is directly comparing this to Toronto. So either Westerners don't realize that people in these places are making less money in a month than the middle class person can expect to spend in an aver…

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#196

Post by [deleted] »

rendall wrote: post #191
DoreenMichele wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a former military wife. Just trying to explain how military life is different to other Americans was insanely hard. I lived in the same country. I used the same currency. I spoke the same language. Yet my life was not like that of civilians I knew and their underlying assumptions and mine that informed our decisions just did not match up to such a degree that I eventually stopped trying to explain my life choices…

That's interesting. Would you mind giving an example of one of these disjuncts? Some decision you made as a military wife that others did not understand?

[deleted]

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#197

Post by seestraw »

The author is convinced that the couple’s life sucks.

He/she is writing from a point of view of superiority - “look, this is what they’re lacking, they can’t afford a Rs.8000 dinner”. To a billionaire, my software engineer life will look miserable - “They have to go eat at Panera and Olive Garden. For their employer, a nice dineout costs $5000.”

Can we stop looking down on people because they cannot afford what’s normal for us? I agree about the freedom and social parts here, so let’s focus on that. Most of the article seems to be written to evoke shock and awe from a middle-class person - look what they can’t afford! Lets focus on their social struggles instead of what they can or cannot afford.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#198

Post by hiyer »

hiyer wrote: post #194
mattzito wrote: post #187

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…

Just to add, these are five-star restaurants we're talking about it. While I am privileged enough to be able to afford them, even I don't eat at such places more than 2-3 times an year if that. At very good non-five-star restaurants (where the food is arguably better if you ask me) you can have a meal for two for under Rs. 2000 including tax. One of my favourites in the NCR region is 21 Gun Salute in Gurgaon [0]. And at a chain like Haldiram's [1], which is where most Indians including me would go for a normal weekend outing, you can have a meal for 2 for under Rs. 500.

0. https://www.zomato.com/ncr/21-gun-salute-sector-29

1. https://www.haldiram.com/about

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#199

Post by zamzoid »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #162
zamzoid wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am wondering why you think a basic income check wouldn’t help anything, because it seems to exactly solve the issue you describe. You sign up for the check (or a lot of the times, get it automatically from the IRS), get it regularly, and buy food with it. Very little bureaucracy compared with food stamps. I agree that one must not call those who rely on the checks entitled and refuse them any further assistance. I…

The amount they are proposing for UBI wouldn't even cover rent in some parts of the US. Or it would barely cover rent in some places with little or nothing leftover. Online conversations about UBI frequently include comments to the effect that "If you had UBI, you could move someplace with lower rent." It amounts to the latest version of putting homeless people on a bus and shipping them elsewhere so they stop being…

I truly appreciate the insight you gave on zoning, housing, and healthcare. But I feel we are talking past each other, and you are attacking a strawman. I never implied UBI would be a catch all solution to the problem of homelessness. You are attacking the people who treat it as such when I said explicitly it is only one of several remedies.

I simply meant 1) it seems like a good solution for replacing food stamps, and it seems like you dropped this point entirely. I also think 2) it can be helpful in a wider sense. It is certainly easier to give people basic income checks than to rearchitect the entirety of American society away from cars, employer-based healthcare, and suburbia. While I agree with you that we perhaps should be on this more effective path, such a radical reorganization would take decades and massive political will that just isn’t there yet. Not even the New Deal, Great Society, or Eisenhower highway programs reached anything near this scope. UBI is something that has already had a test shot, and the data shows it has had a huge effect in reducing poverty during the pandemic. Unless I’m missing something big, it seems like a good way to start.

Re: Dating in Delhi when you're poor

#200

Post by umangrathi »

nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: post #74
farmerstan wrote: post #66

I thought Indians largely looked down on dating, although maybe the times have changed in the last 10 years? I have many close Indian friends and they are all married via arranged marriage. I’m pretty sure their American-born children will not marry via arranged marriage though and they have all come to grips with that. I remember talking with one of my friends about arranged marriage and she laughed in my face when…

> She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting. Calmly explain to her that the best thing to do is to spend teens and 20s "finding yourself" and "experimenting" and "having fun" as a "free spirit" then to "settle down" in your 30s when you are "ready" and "know what you want".

Somewhat of a personal understanding, settling down later in life is one of the key problems today. In early 20s you are flexible, by later 20s you gonna earn your own skin and ways of life. It becomes harder to gel up with someone else. In case you are luck, make it work early or as they say keep looking.
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