Frequent picture requests

I'm pleased to be able to say that there are plenty of women on the streets in this end of India. I don't know about more remote places, but, in the handful of towns and cities that I visit, it is the women out there doing the shopping. Then there are the women working in the shops, the offices, banks, hospitals etc. etc. No paucity of women; certainly not a dramatic one.

That's the surface view. Below the surface, yes there are gender issues and girl-child stuff here in the South too.

Can any males on here report on photo requests? So far the thread has mainly focussed on females being asked.

I must have been asked at least 20 times in the last 6 weeks but think it might because im tall and the Indians are curious of this. The strangest is when its a group of middle aged men. The photos of me without anyone else in them certainly feel the most awkward.

It is nearly always males asking whi
ch is a shame, i would like to get to talk to more Indian females. I have never denied anyone because i don't want to disappoint anyone on their holidays and also people are always very respectful about it.

The people who take pictures without asking also make me laugh, one guy at a railway platform came right up to me with his phone, took a few pics and walked off. Not a word was said.

John,

I've been asked countless times also - but it does seem to depend on where you are. In Goa, very rarely, maybe because they have filled their memory cards already with bikini shots
I don't often have a problem with the photo takers - but I sometimes draw the line at groups of sniggering/drunk young men.

I am a male, and I got asked for photos all the time as well. I am six three, ginger, blue eyed, and built like a Scots-Irish brick s%$thouse, so I imagine they found that interesting.

This has happened to me before in other countries (like East Turkey and Uzbekistan) but what I do find it odd that it happened in India. It's not like tourists are thin on the ground there. I guess we are still exotic to them. I also noticed that most of the folks asking were Indian tourists, so maybe the gora don't get to wherever they are from much.

I've heard that if you are a woman, men will take a picture with you and then claim that they slept with you (not sure why this bothers people), but I don't think that is the operative motive here. Even men asked for my photo more than my wife, and I doubt they were claiming to have slept with me.

Strangely, despite the fact that my wife is objectively much better looking than I am, not nearly as many people asked for her photo.

None of the men I know ever showed me a photo of a foreign woman on their cameras/phones and said "I slept with her", and I lived in India for almost 25 years.

Years ago, photo ops were requested on occasion but since the digital era has arrived it happens more often, especially Indian people taking pictures while you sleep on a train etc. Anyway, a photo is fairly harmless. If you say yes to a photo, you control the proximity and mind your gear. Enjoy, its India

Hehe yes this happened to me ALOT. Mainly when I would go to tourist places. But I would wear my normal westerner clothes ( I lived there so i got used to people disrespecting me regardless of if I cover my whole body or not). It would also happen in the mall alot. It is usually people from smaller towns that just rarley come across forengers. Some do it sneekely and arrange their friend in front of me and pretend they are snapping a picture of their friend. They dont know I speak hindi so they easily say in hindi "have you got the girl in shot ok?" I dont mind, I like the attention actually, haha is that bad?
My first roomate Suvi even admitted to me that she used to snap pics with westerners because she is from jammu a cold small town where westerners rarley pass by. To her they seemed like movie stars because she is used to watching hollywood movies.

oh, when i was a kid, a long time ago, it was rare to see a foreigner in the parts i lived. and most of them, if we ever saw them, were of the hippy kind.

so, we would, kids all get together, and follow the foreigner at a safe distance for hours on end. No talking, nothing, just a few kids walking behind a foreigner for as long as possible.

If the person tried to talk to us, we would just be quiet.

We had no access to cameras, so no picture requests were made.

Can i take your picture OP? (tongue in cheek)