Beware the "friendly" Hello!

sannna

Well, good to know.. Even thoughit is very very unlikely it will ever happen to me again - as I do not shake hands anymore in India.

I really enjoy it now when someone walks up to me and my husband and enthusiastically shakes his hand hoping that he can hold my hand afterwards too. Than I will do a namaste and my husband will say haughty and slightly offended: No, my wife doesn't shake hands with men. Next we get a surprised/disappointed look and I have to laugh...

Great fun, meeting people in India, as long as I am the one who decides the terms and conditions.

brishti

sanna - let me put it more plainly and definitely - its a straight signal of 'wanna lay/get laid'. there can be no other aspiration/meaning of this kind of obscene shake.

shashank - it is most POSITIVELY something worth getting violent about. i'd kick him in the jellybeans and question his motives later... if at all.
WHAT ELSE COULD THAT UNCOUTH HANDSHAKE MEAN - HUH??? my middle finger doth scratcheth??? what???

but then i'm indian - for you sanna - say a 'EUKH' and walk away - just walk away with a grimace... as a foreigner you cannot do anything else IF on your own.
however - if you're in the company of people you know - create hell - heck knee up the bast**d. he wants contact? give him the contact!!!



:brishti

shashank.aggarwal

Thanks for confirmation !!

Thats what I wanted to write, just kick him in the balls, but then better sense prevailed and realized that she is not a local/Indian. So this advice might not work out in many cases.

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capt_mahajan

why?

they should be in the same place for locals and foreigners alike.

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Ali-Monbeam

Oh my goodness............that happened to me!!!!
I feel like going all the way beck to knee him in the jelly beans...(love that expresion)!

Actually in my case I should be flattered lol (oops Laugh out loud...sorry for the forum speak!)

JuliaF

Yes, Ali-M, it's only through reading this that I realise it has happened to me too, can't remember where or when but I know I've had that sensation.

Will be definitely sticking to namaste in future, which I generally do anyway.

brishti

true.

heck - if there were 3 strangers, and one of them did that to me - even i'd think twice before kicking his gonads -
why? because i aint physically strong enuff to take on 3 guys... and who knows what the public will/wont do.

as opposed to a foreigner - she may/mayn't get the support - things could get that much more uglier.
unfortunately, thats the truth cap'n.

but like i said - if she's in the company of folks she knows - go hammer and tongs -
but then again - these yellow-livered !@#$%^ will never do stuff like this in company - would they?



:brishti

<<crossposting>> this is in response to cap'ns post.

IVAN

So, in your own country you people would shake the hand of anybody jumping to shake your hand on the street for no reason?

I wouldn't... And in India neither...

(there is a hidden message somewhere in this post...)

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brishti

ivan - a stranger on the street would not want to shake my indian hand - as opposed to wanting to shake a tourists hand!

in all probability - to me it would happen in a social circle
you do realise there are rats in every corner of the world - they just operate differently...
thats the message - if at all you're looking for any hidden profound philosophy.



:brishti

sannna

Well even though I am white, I do know what hurts and where to kick/slap.

It wouldn't be the first time I hit someone in India, unfortunately I have to add. (Last incident was only one week ago, but I was on my cycle so after I had done my bit of slapping and pinching (? with my long finger nails) I had a quick escape.) (But maybe I have to add that I am quite tall, 5.10/ 178 cm - that might make a difference)

The thing is, and I think this is just as true for desis, is that you need to be sure that you can either escape or that there is back up. But then, why would I shake hand with a guy in a secluded place anyway.. Doesn't happen.

My experience, as a "forner" is that many Indians love to fight for a just cause such as saving a foreign girl from perverts. So when I scream or start to fight, twenty bystanders are more than eager to lynch the bastard. This actually is a reason why I am sometimes afraid to make a scene.. I don't want to kill someone by proxy... Although, the more harassment I get, the less I seem to care about that. Who would miss those people anyway...

brishti

attagirl sanna
get the bastard roughened up - bollocks to consideration - absolutely none warrantied.



:brishti

IVAN

Actually, my "message" was that too many tourists coming to India suddenly seem to think that they should accept any nonsensical behaviour from a local, which they would never do at home.

This is kind of annoying for those of us who don't regress into infancy just because they are in India, because by doing so, these people encourage such nonsensical behaviours, instead of conveying the message that a foreigner will not automatically accept any crappy nonsensical behaviour that any looney can come up with...

And btw. it's precisely because so many foreigners accept any looney behaviour as normal, that some scammsters will use that propensity to do their tricks.

The funniest thing happens when you stumble on a group of tourists who become like children and accept any crap, and when they see that you do not take the same crap the way they do, they even look at you with reprobation, as to say "you too should graciously take any crap from these poor indigenous people"...

sannna

Yeah but the fact is that at home I would not get that crap in the first place.. So who is to blame the stupid foreigner who might be insecure about what is and what is not accepted? Or the pervert Indian who forgets values and moral behaviour as soon as a white girl/man comes along???!

I do get your point, don't get me wrong, and I am long past the idea of cultral relativism. Rude is rude and nasty is nasty, no matter where you are on the globe. But I do dress okay, I do behave okay, just like the other twenty foreigners in the city where I live. But still I get stupid crap from many men/boys every, literally every! single friggin day... So please don't blame the foreigner!

IVAN

Well, I still tend to blame them... a little.

Particularly when I saw the number of tourists accepting all kinds of crap, they would never do at home.
The word of mouth goes around, and soon a lot of local people begin to think that such behaviour is acceptable towards foreigners.

It's probably not the whole story, I agree, but a non negligeable part, I would venture.

capt_mahajan

Agree.