Interesting article on a lone Aussie female in India

New-South-Welshman

Alexandra Roginski
May 27, 2007

A pashmina salesman felt me up on my first day. "Drink chai with me. You must," he bossed, snaking through the glass tunnel of cabinets in suspiciously white boots.

"Oh no, my fiance will be wondering where I am," I lied feebly, still hobbled by the Australian politeness that had dumped me here - in one of hundreds of shops in the burbling cesspool of Colaba, Mumbai's tourist quarter.

"No, sit!" He pushed me back onto the plastic stool as I attempted to escape - and retrieved a soft shawl from the cabinet.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/india/whi...e#contentSwap1

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batistuta

A good read. I, somehow, don't think that she would want to come back to India for an encore.

Nick-H

Sounds to me like she took a dozen trips and wrote the highlights (or lowlights) into one article.

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Sadhu

That would have been interesting 15 years ago. "I went to India and it wasn't like Australia - Boo Hoo..."

uh, if so many bad things happened in one month, maybe you need to check your common sense. "I thought I was gonna be in a movie, but got tricked!" Gee, that NEVER happens in America...

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PeakXV

She has fictionalized and/or dramatized some of her experiences a tad .... but the story has good insights, tips, & lessons on the basics of Indian travel.

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

mairangi_vice

lots of people seem to write stories like that, and it got me thinking what I would put down if I was going to write a similarly themed article... the answer? not a lot! I have, of course, had bizzare and sometimes unpleasant experiences in India, but I have never allowed that to colour my general impression of the place. After all, things are bound to go wrong where ever you travel to.

Perhaps this woman was extremely unlucky, or perhaps, as is common amongst 'westernised' people who come to India (myself included), it just wasnt quite what they expected it to be.

Traveller62

I think India is like being married !So many things to hate about it but always more things to love about it .I was in India for 4 months this year and Ausralia for one month both places were completely different and I Loved and hated them both for different reasons !

Tapestry

After a while all these Indian travelogues begin to sound the same. I'd love to find some Indian travel story that actually sounds really 'new'. I find that no matter how long or short, shocking or uplifting or repulsive the tales I just think, "yeah, it happens (in India)."

Sama

"Anyone who has touched down through the smokestacks, patchwork slums and taupe-coloured hills of an Indian city, will tell you that hitting India as a solo female is foolhardy at best."

hmmmmm....I certainly would not agree with that statement, but her experiences really don't strike me as being out of the ordinary.

We all see the same thing through the lenses of our own perceptions. What strikes one as par for the course might strike another as ghastly.

I've just finished blogging about my second trip to India. Some people have told me that I should submit my writings somewhere to make some money, I'm sure some people here might think my blog is a piece of

It's all a matter of perception, but I am sure she spoke her truth in her article, that is the only thing we can do. Speak OUR truth.

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Nick-H

Maybe it all happened.

maybe she experienced a few things, looked around and heard about a couple of things, chucked in a bit about the situation of women in India and so on.

It's a tailor-made article. A piece of professional journalism; x column inches. Non of it can be denied --- which doesn't mean to say that it is all true!

Sama

"Ah," he grinned lasciviously, "a beautiful journalist."

yes, I think it's tailor-made to scare solo women travelers. I am reading it from my perspective of a woman of a certain age. She's young and will look at things differently than I do. When I tell my college students about some of my Indian experiences, the typical reaction is usually EEEEUUUUUUU!!!!!!!

By the looks of her I have about 25 more years of worldly experience than she does so I know that my reactions to India are completely different from hers. Let's see if she's still going to India at my age....

steven_ber

I got maybe half way through it and had to stop.

It's a sad world when Racist ranting can be presented as a travelogue and it suddenly becomes OK.

And those who know me, know that I never use the word 'Racist' lightly.

I don’t accept the ‘everyone sees things differently’ opinion, everyone views experiences differently, but most of the stuff at the beginning was not based on experiences, it was based of what she thought may happen.

If the article was written about a trip to see Aboriginals in Australia, there would be hell to pay in Australia, but the ‘travelogue’ is acceptable because it’s written about ‘poor’ foreigners.

I feel confident the end of the article would tell us how wonderful Indian people really are and how some of her best friends are Indian, but I'm not prepared to read that far.

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tacita

well, the thread title is certainly misleading. as i read it, there's nothing even remotely interesting about the article. moreover, it's ostensibly redeeming quality (i.e., that it offers a few "helpful" tips) is nothing that a newbie wouldn't pick up within his or her first hour of perusing this site.

"suspiciously white" boots? molested by a pashmina saleman and "embalmed" against her will? (she used this word twice in this short piece -- must be a favorite of hers.)journalist? um...no, i don't think so. a wannabe pulp writer or third-rate travel writer, maybe.

apologies to those who found the article interesting. just my two rupees here, but the piece strikes me as little more than time-worn, solo-woman-in-india, stereotyping. indian men are staring because you're a curiosity, girls, not because they're preparing to molest or gang-rape you. in fact, the chances of such things happening to you as a white tourist in india are infinitesimal.

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blackbird

The article will have served a purpose if it puts off a few people like her from visiting India.

We experience all kinds of shit when we visit India, especially the first time, but she wasn't prepared to accept that that's what goes with visiting somewhere which has a different culture to her own. An Indian in Australia for the first time will also find many aspects of western society shocking. As for the poor thing having to put up with the poverty around her, it makes some of us feel compassion, and grateful that we are so comfortable materially.

I'm sure all the basic facts of her stories are true -- there's not usually a lot of need to embellish your India experiences -- but she certainly exaggerates the hardship: no way is Colaba a "burbling cesspool" in comparison with other parts of India, or Mumbai for that matter.

Sama

that just about sums it up. I don't think she's racist. she writes about the staring, etc. well, she freaked out about it. me, I ignored it. that's what I mean about everyone having a different perception. frankly, if my college students were in India, many of them would also freak out about one thing or another.