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What does the world think of India? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I am an Indian and I have noticed that Indians are way too proud of their country for some reason and at the same time lack any civic sense towards it, they are extremely loud and extremely proud. We feel like the world revolves around India and our culture is superior to that of others. Also, a considerable chunk of the population has been sold the "India is a world-leader" myth and they think India is somehow leading the world in innovation, science and technology, human development etc.,

Now, I know for a fact that this is not true, when I try to gauge the perception of Indians abroad on Twitter, I get pretty negative results, but Twitter has nothing good to say about any group of people, so... I kinda wanted to know what you people though of India, don't base it upon the etnic Indians who might be your friends and are decent people, but base it upon the news you read, the stories you hear from those Indians, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 151 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It was the loudest and smelliest country I’ve ever been to.

I’ve never seen a country where the cross-country sleeper train bathrooms had literal holes on the floor to shit and piss out of. You saw the tracks wizz below you from the toilets. No plumbing, just excrete onto the tracks.

Chennai train station had the strongest most overwhelming diarrhea smell I ever experienced in my entire life.

Dudes were creepy as hell. They see you’re white and then you’re swarmed everywhere you go. People trying to scam, trying to appoint themselves as your tour guide and won’t stop following you and trying to guide you to “the mall”. Calling you Harry Potter because you wear glasses. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if I was a woman there. I shudder to think.

Crossing the street means walking into oncoming traffic and hoping and trusting everyone to just drive around you. Absolute fucking chaos. The people are not warm or friendly. They stare and get too close and touch you all the time. I kept having people touch my shoulders and try and touch my face when I was in public or queuing.

I never ever want to return to India ever again. I don’t recommend any of my friends go there. There were very few positives about that trip other than it being an eye opening experience as to how over 1 billion humans on the planet live.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Train toilets dumping directly on the tracks isn't excessively unusual, we still have trains here in Austria that do that although it is definitely being phased out.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They stare and get too close and touch you all the time. I kept having people touch my shoulders and try and touch my face when I was in public or queuing

This is more of a culture thing, I used to do it a lot when I was younger (it's considered friendly)

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

To someone from my culture and to me when I was there, I hated it. It felt the absolute opposite of friendly. It felt predatory. I didn’t feel safe, I felt uncomfortable, I felt I was a freak and an oddity and it made me embarrassed to go anywhere. And this was with Indian-American guides who were familiar with which places to go to and which to avoid for tourists.

I say this to you with no disrespect to you as a person. I’m just trying to state things without sugarcoating them. I appreciate you explaining the cultural perception.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It felt predatory. I didn’t feel safe, I felt uncomfortable, I felt I was a freak and an oddity

I feel no connection to this culture whatsoever, I would happily follow your cultural norms if ever am lucky enough to visit the West, so you are not offending me, and I appreciate the honestly too :)

[–] [email protected] 58 points 5 months ago

Thank you for being genuinely interested in the opinion of others and for explaining culture differences.