"Don't go to India because ..." Prejudices and Misconceptions Collected

...... translated don't come back home with any strange mindset that will embarass the family name.

When in actual fact Indians are so careful not to push their religious thoughts on you .... that you must be extremely inquisitive in order
to even begin to understand the physical representations of the Gods & Goddesses one encounters in daily travels throughout India ...... gotta go the Mormons are knocking on the door again!

yeah, one of my friends told me I'm going to go "native" and never come back, but he meant it in a good way.....

i love India - its really the only place where you can get to really know yourself - its like a big mirror and all your buttons are pressed constantly

I do however want to give some of the men a labotomy

this sounds like a line for a comedian. indeed it is a great big mirror, isn't it.

I thought that the problem with the "some men" was they had, apparently, already had a lobotomy .

As for the commedy. OK.............

I rather have a full bottle in front of me
Than a full frontal labotomy

I Thank You.

.... you'll succumb to an addiction of IndiaMike.com upon your return home!

in all seriousness, I tell people who ask,
DON'T GO TO INDIA UNLESS YOU WANT TO GO!"
of course nowadays many are posted there for business, but if you are going for other reasons, it's simply not a place that works well for those who do not have an attraction to it beforehand.

Was the question from one incredulous collegue. To which I replied 'on holiday', the response to that was...

'no, no,no, india's not a holiday, there are cows shitting every where.' I think this is preferable to young Brits pissing up walls, which is the general behaviour where he went on holiday last year!

My boss, who obviously knows me a little better said 'Just make sure you come back'

I think the ignorance people have about India is more about the world. I lived in Taiwan for two years and every visit home, people would ask me how Thailand was. I have lived in Vanuatu for 4 years and people always ask how Fiji is. (Great. We went there on vacation once, 3 years ago...) And I am talking about MY FAMILY. You would think they would know where I am. Can't wait to tell them we're moving to Africa-- maybe they'll think I'm in India!

And of course, the comments about going anywhere besides the good ol' USA range from the inane and stupid to the horribly racist... "They eat dog in China!" and "Are you too good for America?" are among the most benign.

Such a small vision that.... to which I responded:

I've already been there and it is not a vacation. Of all the places in the world I could have gone with the time and money I had I chose India,

Because:
there is nowhere else like it, for its diversity, its architecture, its sense of history, its dichotomies. And now I am back to the land of clean bathrooms and abundant toilet paper, in exchange for flocks of bright green parakeets, and weddings under my window at 4 am and K's stories and his firm hand pulling me through the traffic and smiles from passerbys........... the man on the loudspeaker in Pushkar, the coolness of the Kailassa temple, the many shades of blue in Jodphur....

and my inner world is now more full than I could have ever imagined and yet painfully empty after India, and I now know I shall never be the same again!

Great post BlueRose!

there are so many good things and bad things about India. and for all these good and bad you should still go. Life is never entirely bad nor entirely good, so India is life.

Thanks Peak XV, Great thread

I was warned. I tried to be careful.
Yes, some three days. Then just 8 hours of i.v. infusion to cure it. No problem, really.

Warning two: Indians in principle drive on the left side of the road. Sis and BIL showed some road traffic video clips to prove it.
True. I took a taxi from Delhi to Mussoorie. It was quite an experience to be overtaking using the right-hand soft shoulder.

Third tip (Sis + BIL and Hindi teacher): bring toilet paper.
True and necessary.

Other people must have known that they didn't know, so I can't contribute to the bizarre questions/warnings collection.

When I told my parents that I'm going to India in February 2007, my mum was a bit scared and my dad encouraged me. Some of my mates parents think we're just going to India to get boozed up, so they're a bit scared we might get kidnapped or ripped off or something.