So, so far I’ve been very positive about India. I think that when you’re encountering something new, it’s best to be positive and welcoming to it. That way, you don’t shut it out- you keep learning and in time this reveals the more negative aspects too. If you accept your immediate gut fear/ repulsion, you shut something out and stop learning about it too soon.
So there are a few negative things I’d like to talk about now I’ve been here for a while. One thing I’ve found increasingly uncomfortable is the attitude displayed towards people with white skin. Don’t get me wrong, people are EXTREMELY friendly and welcoming to us, and many of the children are very charming and have lots of interesting, genuine questions to ask us. But sometimes I feel we are welcomed TOO MUCH! It can start to feel like hero worship! For example, the younger children all want our autographs, and whenever we walk down the corridor or sit down somewhere public in the school we’re hounded by huge groups of them begging “Please! Please miss! Please, autograph, please!”; it’s very hard to make them go away! They’ve never seen foreigners like us in their school, so I understand that it’s an exciting novelty for them, but I don’t like to give them autographs, because it encourages them to see us as some sort of higher beings, not students just like them. I wouldn’t mind if they were just curious, but the way they BEG for autographs puts us on another level to them. It seems to reduce them, and they’re such amazing, lovely, cute, normal children. My friends and the teachers say that if we were black visitors from Africa we wouldn’t get the same attentions.
We watched a very popular Bollywood film last night called “Singh is King” which increased my concern. Firstly, all the actors were (as is usual in all the media here), very pale-skinned. There were a lot of half-naked ladies, and all looked Western, some having unnaturaly white skin, as if they’d just rolled in talcum powder! Most Indians walking down the street are actually far darker-skinned than I’d realised- definatley closer to black than white. But white skin is the ideal. There’s even a product called “Fair and Lovely” which I’ve seen in most beauty shops, which whitens your skin.
In some ways I find it funny, because in the UK we all want to look tanned! In place of “Fair and Lovely”, we have fake tan. And you don’t catch many pale-white girls flashing their bodies in films and the media. We both want to look like the other! Why can’t we just appreciate the beauty of what we have? So, it’s certainly not just an Indian ‘illness’.
However, there are associations with white skin that are quite openly believed in society here, whereas in the UK I think we’ve learned to either challenge our natural prejudices, or not to express them for them sake of being PC. WHen we asked the children in the school what they thought people in Britain were like, they said, Kind, Friendly, Nice, Fair (skinned). OK ok, so we were standing just in front of them looking clearly British, but others have confirmed that we’re seen as very polite and nice (if a little snobbish!). And they all think we’re proud of our white skin! They laugh when I tell them about the fake-tan craze! So, I suppose I don’t really know what to make of it. One kid in the class actually said he saw British people as “the enemy”, which was slightly worrying! Others see us as lacking spirituality, morals, and fulfilment, and not taking marriage and relationships seriously. So there are two sides to every coin!
The movie “SIngh is King” made me upset for other reasons though. In this area of India, the vast majority of women cover up, and don’t wear clothes that are tight enough to show your shape. So it was a shock in the film when every single woman was scantily-clad, always showing either cleavage or most of their legs, and usually showing both… in slow motion… with their boobs jiggling as they ran… with sexy music on in the background… while the men behind me in the audience hooted and whistled. Ergh, it made my skin crawl. And the whole movie was carried by the men, who had nearly all the lines and the only distinct personalities. The women were there to be oggled or fought over. The way it portrayed women just felt horrible to watch. I was looking out for exceptions to the rule, but really couldn’t find any. Oh, excpet for one, who was 50ish, fat, and the mother of the bride-to-be. Even she didn’t have much of a role except selling flowers and crying a bit. I can’t tell if I’ve just become overly sensitive since living in this more conservative area, or if it really is a serious issue. What do you think?
And the caste system still exists here, whatever people say, but I won’t go into that now because this post is lacking balance! So, on a brighter note, I went to the zoo on Saturday and saw 2 baby elephants and a baby monkey and some chimpanzees and a hippopotamus and, best of all, a little mouse gaily skipping along the back of a python and practically giving it a dental check-up, without suffering a scratch!
Hmmm. Doesn’t quite balance out the negative. Well… we went on Chennai Live (a local radio station) for an hour and it was REALLY FUN, then we called up another station while they were playing retro songs like Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, George Michael! (It was like the old Gits’ disco, Mum!) And, I have a companion staying with me with my host family, because my partner Sam was feeling home sick on here own! It’s much more fun when there are two of us!
There we go, that’ll do 
If you have any points, questions, comments, please do leave them. Especially, I think a few people who live in India have been reading this, so I’d be interested to here what you have to say about my observations. Am I jumping to conclusions too soon?
Thanks, all the best, and kind regards,
Sally
