Reasons India is Driving Me Crazy

NOTE: There are tons of exceptions to all these generalizations, but all of these hold in the general. Sorry this is such a generally negative entry, but I've just been fed up with this stuff lately. You want to know how I'm feeling in India? This is a pretty accurate assessment. St. Stephen's I go to St. Stephen's College, arguably the most elite liberal arts institution in this India. You would therefore expect a high degree of social and intellectual sophistication. It feels like middle school. At parties, on either side of the dance floor are same-sex cliques that look at each other and "eye-flirt" across the floor. In class, it's recitation, recitation, memorization. The lack of independent thinking and analysis and synthesis is maddening, coming from a place like Brown, where the theme is hybridization, and people actually like being intellectuals. People here are here to get a degree and then get an MBA and then get a job that lets them live like their parents. I also expected there'd be a strong progressive viewpoint, people would have creative ideas for dealing with India's staggering problems. Alas, none. I've heard and been in many more discussions about drinking, smoking, sex and music than anything substantive. It's not like there's not that segment of conversation everyplace in the world, but the proportion here is so unbalanced. There's also the disturbing, rather unbelievable lack of taste, politeness, and/or political correctness. Since my friend Shimrit, who goes to Middlebury and is on the Rutgers program, mentioned it the other day, weirdly enough I've heard more than a few people drop the n-word (the n-bomb, as Nate calls it) to describe black people or anyone in Africa. In America, if you told someone that some people would find it offensive to be called that, odds are good that many people would react with a "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone," sort of thing. Here it's like "Why not? I don't know any, and if I did I don't know if I'd talk to them." Lastly, the St. Stephen's kids in general are righteously spoiled. A huge number have cars and DRIVERS that wait for them to finish classes to take them home. These guys, and there are tons of them, wait in the parking lot at St. Stephen's and read the newspaper and try to stay out of the heat while they wait for their charges. They go to 5-star clubs most nights and throw decadent parties. It's very comparable to a lot of my least favorite people at Brown (and the Agawam, for that matter), in that there's this arrogant feeling of entitlement, like somehow they deserve what they have. As we all know, I have a thousand thoughts flying around in my head at any given time, but arguably the one that inflects more of my actions and beliefs and thoughts and plans is this: To whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given unbelievable opportunities in life, just read some of the archives of this rag for examples. But I don't forget that I've been given them, and I plan to do something with them. I want nothing less than to alter the course of human history, and for the better. I want to move us toward a new plane of existence. Done. That's it. All these experiences, all these things I'm learning and reading and synthesizing, they're all in some way, either directly or indirectly, in order to move closer to that goal. Much can be expected from me. I'm prepared for it. These kids, and I do mean kids, there's just no recognition there... Misogyny and Lack of Liberty It infuriates me to no end that my female friends here literally cannot go out on their own after dark here. Delhi is the rape capital of the subcontinent (243 since the New Year, and those are just the reported ones), and no one seems to care. Even Anusha, one of the most badass and independent people I've ever met, does not walk to her gym after dark, and that's less than a 10 minute walk through our very suburban-feeling neighborhood. My friend Rudy doesn't let his girl friends go home alone, no matter how far they have to go or how inconvenient it would be for someone to escort them home. This is not an unfounded fear. Pick a street in Delhi and odds are excellent that, after dark, stationed at various points along it are groups of shady, leering guys from age maybe 16 on up. These guys check out literally every vehicle that passes their station. If there happens to only be males in the car, they don't give a second glance. If there are females in the vehicle, all eyes are locked on her, giving her not just a once-over but occasionally making gestures that would make Madonna blush. If there are only girls in the car, I have seen it happen that said shady guys will hop in a car and follow whatever vehicle they were looking at. Who knows what their real intent is, or how long they keep that crap up, but the point is that it's intentionally threatening. Related story Keerthi and Chrissy, two Rutgers girls, and two of the sweetest people I've ever met, took an auto to go out to a club a few weeks ago. They were dressed to kill, which admittedly was not good strategy. (Not that there should have to be strategy!) They got their auto from out on the Ring Road, and wanted to go to this place called Shalom, some swank club where a bunch of our friends had gone out. About halfway to their destination, their auto broke down. On a dark street. On this street was the required gaggle of shady guys, growing by the minute, and three drunk cops. The cops immediately started giving them a hard time. Who are you? Where are you going? What are you doing out? After the belligerent one ripped their St. Stephen's ID's out of their hands, Keerthi called her program director and him to speak to the cop. The cop took the phone and started screaming, literally screaming into it. While this was happening, the gaggle of guys around them was still growing. One cop told them to come over to where he was, in the shadows near some bushes or something. The gaggle chanted that they should go over to him, "get it over and done with," to "do their duty," they said, laughing. It was clear to Chrissy and Keerthi that "their duty" was to get raped by the side of the road. Confronted with this terrible and rapidly destabilizing situation, they did what any reasonable person would do: they jetted. They caught an auto, didn't ask the price, didn't tell him the destination, just told him to go and go quickly. The auto guy didn't know what was going on, but he saw a siren in his rear-view mirror. Instead of pulling over, he turned onto sidestreets and tried to blend in with the rest of the rickshaw traffic. Apparently the guy knew he was doing the right thing, but was obviously freaked out. After they told him that they needed to get to Civil Lines, he stopped and pulled over. (This is not an irregular occurence when taking autorickshaws: one guy picked up a woman I assume to be his wife on a detour home from colleg one day.) Already panicking, Chrissy and Keerthi went into overdrive and tried to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. When the autowallah came back, he was smoking one from a pack of cigarettes he had just bought. Chrissy and Keerthi relate that he took backroads, roads they'd never seen before, to get home, and was constantly checking his rearview mirror and muttering to himself in Hindi. They got home alright, but were shaken up for a week after. They didn't go out with us, even with escort, for quite a while. I wish I could say that this was an uncommon occurence, especially the part about the drunken, abusive cops, but apparently it's a part of daily life here. That, my friends, is maddening. Economy Ok, this is a poor country. I understand this. But when every single economic interaction has to become a confrontation, even when prices are LISTED on the item I want to buy, it totally saps my energy. It's such a bloody hassle to get anywhere, to get back from there, to make sure no extra items are added to whatever total bill you accrue there. This faux, "Oh, hey, sorry, those are the prices" B.S. is taxing on mental and physical reserves. Don't tell me just to "deal with it" and move on. It's an onslaught. It takes an enormous amount of strength of will and willingness to just walk away from a transaction in order to get something akin to a market price. More coming, I think, but I have work to do.