Staring Issues

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In all honesty, I'm pretty sick of India now.
It started a while ago when in Delhi and visiting the tourist attractions and I started to notice that people were really staring at me. I'm not sure why I didn't notice it before. Perhaps it was because people hadn't stared at me so much before or perhaps it was because I hadn't noticed it so much... maybe due to being with other friends and not paying much attention to it. It started being more noticable when I was with my family. I had stupidly assumed that because my Dad was of Indian origin, when he arrived in India, he would fit in and people would think we were more Indian. I was so, so wrong, When he arrived, with my Mum who's very English and my Sister who looks more Indian than me, it only made us stick out more. What would an Indian man be doing with an English lady? What would they both be doing with two pretty young ladies who weren't obviously married (no husbands in tow...)?
We stuck out.

No matter where we went or how we dressed, people stared at us. It started to bother me then and now, I feel like a freak pretty much wherever I go.
My Mum and Dad were used to it due to having to put up with blatant staring from English people back in the 1970s when they first met, but I'd never experienced it in such volume and ALL the time. Once I noticed it, it was hard to ignore it and it got worse and worse, resulting in me becoming more and more paranoid on every trip.

I tried a few experiments.
At first, it was easy to see why people stared. I had my lip, eyebrow and nose pierced, plus silver rings all up my ears. I had multi-coloured dreadlocks and I wore hippy type clothing.
First, I tried wearing different clothes. I had already had a salwar kameez made (a panjabi suit for women involving a long tunic top and baggy trousers, plus a scarf to match). I wore this. People stared. I think people stared because although the fabric I'd chosen for the suit was colourful, it didn't have lots of sparkles in it and it didn't match other girls' clothing and also, the idea of a white person wearing Indian clothing is something different, so naturally, people will stare. I covered my head to see what would happen regarding the colourful hair they could no longer see, but people still seemed to spot me a mile off and stare, regardless of not being able to see my hair.

Next I tried removing my piercings - something I said I'd never do, but it was just to see what would happen. People stared. If I wore the Indian clothes with no piercings, people stared without so much disgust, which was nicer, but I still felt uncomfortable. Not only was I wearing clothes I wasn't used to wearing, I had also changed my face to 'fit in'.
So, I decided to wear my normal clothes, clothes which I felt comfortable in, but without the shock factor of the piercings in my face.
For a while, this was OK. I felt comfortable in my own clothes, I didn't miss my piercings that much (in fact it was nice to be able to blow my nose properly!!) and I started to accept the staring by smiling at people.
But, that soon wore off. Not everyone smiled in return and some people held a fixed gawp until either they or I had to leave the situation. I couldn't smile at people all the time. I didn't have it in me. I've never had it in me to be nice to ALL the people ALL of the time. What made it worse was that I just couldn't figure out what it was they were so stunned by.

OK, it's not obvious which country I'm from. People have asked me, am I Spanish, Italian, Israeli? I'm half Indian and half English, but I can't go around shouting it out at the top of my voice in advance of bumping into people and hoping they'll avert their eyes once they've realised where I'm from.
I had tried wearing Indian clothing. That didn't work. I tried covering my hair up. That didn't work. I tried covering my face one day and that made it even worse!

My Dad said that perhaps it is because I'm tall - I'm not that tall, but I guess in relation to Indian girls, I'm a bit massive. My Mum said that I'm just different - OK, so maybe after all the removal of weirdness about me, I still look different... I don't know. I can't tell because I've always looked like this and to me, I'm not that different.

My Mum and sister left India, so I no longer had the camouflage of a family to hide behind. I was now with my Dad.
This was a situation most prone to staring I think. Not only was I a bit different anyway, but now I was hanging out with an Indian man, who's spent so long in England and doesn't dress at all like an Indian (no tank top, no shirt, no flip flops, no moustache - only khaki shorts, a normal t-shirt, a basball cap and a pair of aviator sunglasses!!) that he stuck out perhaps even more than me! At least he could speak the language though, so when people started talking to him and asking him who we were etc, he could respond and they would be much warmer. But, before he had opened his mouth, we were a sight. A white young woman with a semi-elderly Indian man... were they married? or friends? or nothing to do with each other? Only a handful of all the people we met over the six weeks we were together assumed we were father and daughter. That's weird. To me, very strange because of course, my Dad is my Dad! I know he's got brown skin, but in England, everyone knows my Dad looks the way he does and accepts that. In India, it's almost a crime... or it feels as though it is.

The attention I received from men and women was different. The middle-aged women, more often that not, stared, looked me up and down, couldn't quite hide their disgust properly and then looked away before tapping their companion, usually their husband and gesturing to 'look at that'. Sometimes, they had a shocked look on their face until I smiled (if I was feeling comfortable enough TO smile) and then they smiled back. It was nice when they did smile and even more so when they followed up a smile with a gesture of 'come and sit down' or would you like a drink/snack (insert item here... that only happened a couple of times though). Most middle-aged women didn't smile.

The young women were less shocked and if I smiled, I could mostly guarantee a smile in return... mostly. However, when a young woman didn't smile back, it was hurtful, I think because I thought I may receive some compassion from someone around my age. Not necessarily so.
Young men were a different kettle of fish and quite threatening sometimes. They STARED! and they didn't look away. Some men stared and stopped dead in their tracks to examine me up and down. It felt like being undressed right there on the pavement/train/bus/whatever. Some young men asked for photographs to which the reply was always no. Who knows what they wanted a photo of me for!!!??? One can only imagine - eeeewww!
It's actually a punishable offence for a man to stare at a woman (or gesture, or touch, or make comments, or mock etc) on public transport, so after I'd learned this rule, I made absolutely NO hesitation in reporting two educated young men in their late twenties/early thirties to the train inspector after they deliberately stopped and stared a number of times, plus when I asked them why they were doing it as I was feeling uncomfortable, they made silly comments to each other about me 'feeling uncomfortable'. Pathetic, but they were moved from the carriage I was in and threatened with being taken to the police!
Middle aged men had a bit of a staring issue, but once they'd had a look, their interest generally dimmed and elderly men mostly didn't look once, let alone twice.

Kids were a different species. Most kids stared, most kids were shocked and most kids didn't smile.
People who owned, managed or worked in hotels were generally OK. They were either very diplomatic right from the outset, or once they'd seen me around a bit, the stares turned into smiles.
So, I felt like what I can only imagine a celebrity feels like when they're too famous. Eyes fixed on them at all times, no escape unless in a hotel room and fending off photographers. I hated it. At most, I was OK with it fifty percent of the time, but usually it pissed me off to the extreme of aggressively asking people why they were staring at me... or just Kya??? (what???). If I'd noticed someone taking a photo of me without my permission, I'd tell them I thought they were rude.

If I could've worked out what they were staring at, maybe it would have been different, but I tried everything. I tried dressing like an Indian and covering my biggest give-away (my hair) but literally, people's eyes would seek me out of a crowd, a rickshaw, a restaurant... anywhere, within around five seconds.
Was it just the plain and simple fact that I was white? Had these people not seen a white person before? I found that hard to believe in the bigger towns and cities, but understandable in the smaller places. I didn't have as much of a problem with them as they were generally more intrigued and friendly than disgusted and threatening. It was the people who I assumed would be more educated and open minded... I was wrong. Perhaps it was just a case of them staring at ANYTHING that's slightly different.
It got to the point where I just wanted to blend in and it wasn't possible, even in Delhi.

It seems strange to think that not seventy years ago, this country was ruled by the British empire that made the words 'it's rude to stare' an integral part of at least my growing up where we also learned these things called 'manners'... where were they here?
Perhaps people don't realise how they're making another person feel? In a country where each life is not as valued as it is in western countries, it's easy to believe that most people generally don't give a shit about anyone else. In a country where there are far too many people, half of them hungry, why would anyone give a shit about how a white person feels when they're stared at? Why should I give a shit about how they're making me feel? To be honest, I don't know.
It didn't bother me at first, but after four months of it, it does now. Is it the people making me want to leave or is it me taking things too personally? Either or both maybe. Until you've been in that situation, you may not understand.
It's making me really dislike the country. Unfair? Probably, but we'll get over it and I'm going to Thailand anyway.
Rant over.

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Comments

[Akash]

You are right to be annoyed. I'm from India. This habit of staring is not uncommon. And not just foreigners, people just stare anyone for no reason whatsoever. You are right that most people don't care if they make someone uncomfortable by their lack of manners. Perhaps its due to the competition people have to deal with here. Before reading this though, I thought that this thing is not uncommon in the West.