An American friend of mine, who’s working in Mumbai, has met an Indian girl that he really likes. She’s in her early 20s and goes to college. They’ve been spending a lot of time together, and he wants to seriously date her.
Him being an attractive and well mannered guy just assumed the relationship would progress naturally, because it was obvious that they liked each other.
Not necessary so, I advised him. It’s not the done thing here. Having a foreigner as a friend is looked upon quite favorably, but crossing the line into dating defies the social norms which matter so much in India.
We all got together one afternoon. He picked her up on the way, but she met him in a hotel and not at her house. She also had a very early curfew. They had to leave by 7.30 p.m., so that she’d be home in time.
Coupled with my comments, this got him wondering.
He asked her what her position was in relation to dating foreigners. It turns out that it’s a big issue for her. Her brother and friends also advised her that it wouldn’t be a good idea. So based on that, she turned my friend away. Yet, she’s still eager to have long conversations with him on the phone each night. This has really confounded him.
I tried to explain to him the restrictive and gossipy nature of Indian society, and how foreigners are portrayed as lacking in the appropriate values. Thanks to TV and the movies, we’re viewed as people who like to sleep around, drink lots, and have little care for the importance of marriage and family. As well as that, foreigners in India are viewed as being here for a good time, not a long time.
Then, there’s Indian society, which loves to judge what everyone else is doing. Do something that goes against the grain, and it will bring disrespect to the whole family.
My friend made the interesting comment that in America, people who lead and pave the way are the ones that are admired. Yet in India, it’s the opposite — to be looked upon favorably, it’s necessary to do the same thing as everyone else and comply with society’s expectations.
Related Posts:
- The Difficulty of Dating an Indian Part 3
- The Difficulty of Dating an Indian Part 2
- The Difficulty of Being Married to an Indian
- Cooking Indian Food for My Family in Australia
- Indian Men Being Hand Fed By Mummy
- Indian Boys Dressed Up As Girls
- Indians and Racism
- Indians Ruining It for Other Indians
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
“Even if your theory were ever proved a scientific fact (and I’m not talking about soft science here like “sociology”)… most Indians who follow Vedic Hinduism are DARK! From West Bengal to Punjab, from Himachal Pradesh to Maharastra…. dark.”
NRI define dark. Does dark mean brown skin or does dark mean black color? The darkest ones I’ve seen are from South India. Some of them are as dark as Africans/Australoids.
“The number of “fair” Indians anywhere in India are low in the aggregate.”
Even if there are a few of them left, Indians still admire those fair skinned ones.
I see no such trends. The most popular South Indian actors and actresses are dark or olive complexioned. (Sameera Reddy, Chranjeevi, etc.).
In Ramayana, Ram was said to have a brown skin. In Mahabharata, Draupadi was described as a ‘dusky beauty’. Tell me that both these books were authored by someone with no idea of what ancient Indians liked.
Indian American,
You must not be well versed in genetics. Genetically, Indians are more related to each other than any other group. The genetic relationship between Indians, North or South, is not particularly close as Iranians have a lot of Arab, middle-East admixture. If you go by Spencer Wells, the people with the highest frequency of Aryan gene (R1a) are West Bengal Brahmins who by your standards are probably dark.
Having lived in the US all my life, I can only speak anecdotally and that is I don’t find Punjabis particularly lighter skinned than the rest. The South Indians definitely seem darker but among North Indians it’s not so clear cut. I also find Brahmins to be phenotypically unique.
← Previous Comments