The women in India dress very elegantly in silk saris. But I was shocked the first time a stunningly beautiful woman, who was very richly dressed, walked past me and belched loudly. She just opened her mouth and let it rip. The first time this happened I though the woman was being rude, but after it happened a number of times in different places and situations, I realized that belching is very acceptable in the Indian culture. I only heard women belching, and not men. Weird.
But Indian men scratch their genitals in public. I soon realized that men adjusting themselves and scratching their genitals openly in public is perfectly acceptable in India. Men also piss anywhere that is convenient, which gives India a very distinctive smell that I'll miss. Women don't relieve themselves in public, just the belching thing.
Pushing to the front of a lineup is also normal in India, and I soon learned do likewise. Once at a Railway station lineup I almost knocked over an Indian teenager who was starting to piss me off with his shoving and edging in front of me in the queue. I towered over people with my backpack and soon perfected the technique of swinging my backpack to the side when someone tried to nudge in front of me. It worked well.
Private property is viewed differently in India. For example, if you put your newspaper or book down on a bus or train, someone will almost immediately pick it up and start reading it. It's the norm here. If you put something on your seat to hold it, don't be surprised your jacket or pack has been moved and your seat taken when you get back. If a body is not in a seat, it's up for grabs in India. There is no such thing as "holding" a seat by putting on of your possessions on the seat.
Almost all the women in India are lovely and friendly, but the young men, especially the 15 to 25 age group, are a pain in the ass sometimes. They tend to roam around in gangs with nothing to do but bother tourists and make a general nuisance of themselves. But here's the clincher. They walk around hand-in-hand, or with arms around one another. In western cultures only gay men do this, but in India all men walk around hand-in-hand.
Here's a little one. When drinking out of a bottle, Indians do not let the container touch their mouth. They tilt the bottle and pour it into their mouth, but without putting their lips to the bottle. Everyone drinks this way and it might have something to do with sharing water bottles around.
No comments:
Post a Comment