Comment by estreeper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by estreeper | Hacker News Reader

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We visited India last summer. We had been warned by other travelers, blogs, and even the Indian Railways employees, that we should stay with the higher class cars. When getting tickets from Agra (where the Taj Mahal is) to go north, they were one short for our group, so I volunteered to stay by myself in the lower (sleeper) class.

We got on the train around midnight, and I stumbled around looking for my berth. Everyone was asleep. An IR employee, who was genuinely happy that I was there, helped me find the spot. I was paranoid and alone in a train car filled with strangers.

The next morning, I felt like a fool for feeling that way. I awoke to find my 5 other cabin-mates sitting around the small central table, quietly talking so as not to disturb me. Suddenly we were all talking, even though I spoke almost no Hindi and they spoke almost no English, and they were all feeding me delicious home-cooked food that was unlike anything I had ever had. That experience was a demonstration of the power of technology to connect people in unexpected ways as well - we were showing each other maps of our home towns, pictures of my family and city, and translating hindi words on a smartphone as we made our way through rural India. One of my favorite experiences of the trip only happened because I couldn't get the ticket I wanted.

I think it's easy today to live in our own walled gardens, and being so connected means we don't need to move outside of them often - we'll just see our friends' posts, watch the stuff in our Netflix queues, and read the articles that we agree with. But, I still believe that sense of camaraderie with strangers is still there, based if nothing else on the fact that so many people crave it. We just have to move outside of our comfort zones and find it.

As others have noted in previous flame wars, classism revolving around European/Anglicized (the old colonial big state & its vestige) vs Native is quite big in India (in pretty much every avenue). I usually translate "Hindutva" and other such emotive tag words in contemporary propaganda into this hidden unspoken framework (that's not to say most such representatives aren't vacuous idiots).

(Also see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B27IBNotwpE)

It's worth considering why you were advised to stay in the higher class cars. It could be classism and segregation, or there could be a higher incidence of theft and you got lucky. Or who knows.

In my experience, toilets are an important consideration.

You mean the western toilet in the higher classes of the train?

I've found that Indian toilets are more hygienic while travelling India, because you don't touch the toilet at all. Just bring your own toilet paper.

I have an example:

A Norwegian woman I worked with was in India as a kid because her parents worked for UN.

IIRC she told us how a woman, after staring at her for a while leaned over and pinched her face to check if a kid could really be that pale or if it was some kind of paint or something.

She also remembered being pulled in the hair because people wanted to know if it was real.

That said, this was something like 30 years ago and today after reading this discussion I wonder if she was just really unlucky or what.

My sister is a white, blonde girl, and she did a volunteering program in India 2 years ago, some remote village in the middle of nowhere.

She said that basically everyone in the village came over to touch her skin and hair, because they have never seen such a pale person(and blonde hair).

I had the same happen to me when I was 2, living with my mother while doing her dissertation in Chihuahua, Mexico in early 70's. Everyone wanted to pet me.

I can definitely see this happening today, but I wouldn't consider that anything malicious, just very different culturally. I'm from the US, and wouldn't even be considered blond, but at some of the monuments it was like being a celebrity, and tons of people would want to take pictures with me. This happened perhaps 100 times in our one month there, and it was really strange at first.

I did also have people touch my arms and look at me with big grins on their faces. If you're not from a place where touching a stranger is acceptable, this can understandably be quite shocking until you get used to it. There are so many people in India that you'll find people with a wide variety of different customs and social norms.

Unlucky? No, that's just learning.

I'm black; I remember (white) people being amazed at how my hair felt before I kept it really short. A black woman I knew who lived in a wealthy Detroit suburb where they were the only black family related to me (while laughing) how the neighborhood kids were so fascinated that the color on her children's hands didn't wipe off.

This is all in the last 30 years or so in the US. People meeting different people is a good thing, don't take it negatively.

Hah, the hands. Oh, it's always the hands!

I was fortunate to have lived in a fairly diverse community (military town, lots of different people, although the city is very much almost majority-hispanic), and one of our family friends was a tall black police officer. To a toddler exposed to many different people, I never gave it much thought--except the hands, of course, when he'd pick me up to show me the lights and siren on his motorbike. (It's maddening how stupidly enjoyable children find certain loud noises.) The young me was oddly fascinated with the lighter color of the palms of those of African descent, and how similar--yet different--they were to my own.

As the years passed, I never really gave it much thought until a friend of mine from high school looked at my hands once when we reconnected some years later and asked me "Why do white people have such pink palms?"

He was teasing, of course, so I had to relate my own experiences. We shared a good chuckle.

Sometimes it's heartening to consider that our differences can be advantageous as a vehicle for bringing us together. It's rare (sadly), but it's also a very beautiful thing.

Thanks for reminding me of this, even if indirectly! Good memories.

I don't think those are mutually exclusive. It would make sense that a classist/segregated society would both cause and be reinforced by elevated crime rates in the lower classes. Less legal opportunities for the lower classes to make money, and if they were poorer they'd have a more desperate need for immediate wealth than the upper classes, so that would make crime more attractive for them on average. And reports of those crimes would be a reason for the upper classes to justify their classism/segregation to themselves (ie: "of course those people just can't be allowed into polite society, look how dangerous they are") and lead to them enforcing the segregation more strictly. And that's not even taking into account selective prosecution/policing by law enforcement.

> It could be classism and segregation, or there could be a higher incidence of theft and you got lucky

I can only speak from my personal experience, but I would attribute it more to the former. The advice I generally heard was that you should stick to the heavily developed areas, near your hotel, etc. We were abroad for about 4 months, and I always felt safest outside of the touristy, "nice" areas. Especially in India, you'll find many scammers (sometimes entire organized teams of them!) in the areas where there are lots of tourists because that's where all of the money is. But, I found that by walking often just a few blocks away from these areas you would be alone as a foreigner, and there wouldn't be mysterious people with excellent English following you around and trying to "befriend" you. I was definitely noticed, but people would be smiling, or shouting "hello!", or waving. I never felt threatened.

I felt very fortunate that I learned this lesson; we also met many people in India who had barely left their hostels because they were so stressed and afraid of dealing with the scammers who waited at all hours of the day and night in those areas. When they made it out they didn't go far: they went to the tourist-friendly places that could be found on TripAdvisor, but these places were also teeming with scammers. I think a lot of people end up missing out on India because of this and not liking it.

We were very lucky and none of us dealt with crime the whole trip. Of the travelers we met who had had stuff stolen though, it was in touristed areas, especially on beaches while they weren't paying close attention to their stuff (and/or very drunk).

There could be lots of reasons . . . some of which are mentioned in this thread. Other possibilities include that they are aware that many or most western tourists will not be comfortable in the lower class cars, and they are genuinely trying to help. Or, maybe they view the foreigners as rich, and are trying to make as much money from them as possible.

For perspective, in the US, the largest (gross revenue) category of personal care products is shampoo. In India it's skin lightening products.

Though also for perspective, a few years ago the NYC-Boston intercity bus gray and legit markets briefly merged. Before Greyhound then used political and pr hardball to repartition them, which also resegregated them by class and race. Upon hearing I took these cross-over "Chinese buses", I heard a lot of "oh, they're not safe" (the pr campaign), and once, from a professionally-dressed black woman travelling Greyhound, a comment about "dirty Chinese".

>It's worth considering why you were advised to stay in the higher class cars

Because the advisors get a cut of the train fares, most likely.

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