Backwards

I don’t want to write a post like this but I just have to get this off my chest. Tonight we were at a friend’s house because it was her birthday and we had dinner there after school. It was getting pretty late and everyone in my apartment is going hiking tomorrow (I am staying behind and writing cover letters… joy). We were walking along the street trying to find a rickshaw and three or four young girls came up to us asking for money. Now I have had children come up to me before asking for money and I normally just ignore them and keep walking. They may follow us for a little but then they eventually give up. We gave these girls the same treatment and ignored them. At some point they realized that we were not going to give them anything and instead of walking away from us they followed us and were basically taunting us. During our orientation session our program directors said that we will get looked at because we are so different from everyone here, but no one will do anything but look. These girls took it to a whole new level. There were things thrown in our direction, and they did not stop until we drove off in our rickshaw.

I must live in some sort of fantasy world because I really just cannot fathom how one person can treat another person like this. I have seen it in the news etc. but I have never done this to someone nor have I been on the receiving end of something like this. I knew that India would be different but I did not expect to be stared at, or treated like we were tonight, as much as we are. I thought I would be OK because I am half Indian, and have the dark hair, dark eyes, and a darker complexion, but I still get stared at. We have had discussions about the stares and I always say that I don’t understand why people here look at us like we are the blue aliens from Avatar (we just saw that movie here so we always compare ourselves to the blue creatures). It is not like Indians have never seen a white person, they are all over billboards in Pune. I come from a society that doesn’t see color. We are used to interacting with people of different religions and cultures. My friends on the program always say that seeing a person on the TV or a billboard is different than seeing someone in person. I guess that is true, but tonight just set me over the edge.

There are people like this in every society. I am not that naïve, but sometimes I do like to believe that we live in an ideal world. We live in a time where so many different people come together and do great things. But we are all also somewhat backwards. This term backwards is used so much in Indian society. The term to me has come to mean that a country that is on its way to becoming a very important player in the world economy, can still have people that don’t have basic human rights, like water, electricity or an education. And I also think that there is no society that is not backwards. There are still people in every society that do not have basic human rights, and also are not accepting of others- and that’s where the importance of an education comes into play. But I digress…

What happened tonight pretty much opened my eyes to how much of a journey we all have to becoming accepting of others, and who knows if we will ever get to that point. I really hope we do in my lifetime, and I hope I will be able to come back to India some day after this trip and not be harassed like I was tonight.

Sorry for the heavy post, but it had to happen sometime, and may even happen again who knows.

On a lighter note- I noticed that I am developing a healthy farmers tan… what fun.

Peace