23 ms·

Dating in Delhi when you're poor

358 points by hidden-spyder 5y ago

gopalv 5y ago
Some of this stuff looks very poorly sourced or misunderstood. > Marrying within the “gotra” is one of the primary reasons for recurring “honour killing” of lovers in India I hope not, because it is such a weird upper-caste nit-pick. > they talk about their lives and walk around the park, or eat aloo-chaat or golgappas at a roadside stall That is such a still frame of the middle class life in Delhi from the 90s. My partner's been dragging me to Green park and AIIMS to revisit places which has stayed running for 25 years. The 2012 Nirbhaya case had a chilling effect on this for young couples, which is why the trend moved away from being outside and into malls with security cameras.
- factorialboy 5y ago
  Unfortunately Indian media is full of "secular" authors pretending to be liberal but regularly dishing hate against native faiths. But to be fair, it's not just the news media that's afflicted by this disease, bollywood is no better.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    Huh? I don’t think any journalist cares what god(s) you worship , as long as you don’t impose anything on those around you
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    I didn't understand your viewpoint. What exactly are you angry at in believing the author is "dishing hate" - that the author pointed out that marrying within gotras is frowned upon or that people are sometimes killed over it (honour killing)? Both are facts.
    - ummonk 5y ago
      People are murdered by family over all sorts of things, but random incidents don't imply a general pattern. Honor killing is a real occurrence but not over gotra-incest.
      - webmobdev 5y ago
        > Honor killing is a real occurrence but not over gotra-incest. Only some Hindus (often castiest / religious fundamentalists) believe that a sexual relationship within the same gotra is incest. And it is that mindset that leads to honour killing in the name of gotra. And they do happen. But you are right that they often aren't the major catalyst for honour killing, even if many demand a ban on same-gotra marriage: Will such so-called “honour killings” stop if the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is amended to prohibit marriages within the same gotra? Unlikely. That may be the most publicised of the demands and threats issued by the Khap Mahapanchayat — a congregation of caste Panchayats from Jat strongholds in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — in Kurukshetra on April 13, and subsequently elsewhere. But it was not the only one. They have also reportedly called for a ban on marriages within the same village and contiguous villages, as well as de-recognition of temple weddings uniting runaway couples. (And it is because of such political demands by castiests / religious fundamentalist Hindus that the popular perception that gotra is responsible for honour killing has spread - not because of some "secular conspiracy" against Hindus.) This has even been challenged in court and marriage within the same gotra has been ruled legal in India even before independence: Same-gotra marriages were declared legally valid by the Bombay High Court as far back as in 1945 in the Madhavrao vs. Raghavendrarao case involving a Deshastha Brahmin couple. Two reputed judges — Harilal Kania (who became the first Chief Justice of independent India) and P.B. Gajendragadkar (who went on to become the Chief Justice of India in the 1960s) — examined several court verdicts, consulted the writings of leading experts and quoted from Hindu scriptures in their ruling on whether a 'sagotra' (same-gotra) marriage was valid under Hindu law/custom. They concluded that it was. Source: No honour in murder - https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/No-honour-in-murder/article16302614.ece https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/No-honour-in-murd...
  - random314 5y ago
    Standard right wing talking point. Liberal authors criticizing the current regime, a Hindu nationalist party, are anti nationals. Here criticism of the BJP or social ills is equated to hatred of Hinduism. The authors might themselves be Hindus, but it doesn't matter.
- paxys 5y ago
  Yeah that part stood out to me. Honor killings happen for the opposite reason – the sides are too far apart in terms of religion, caste etc. Gotra is an overall minor concern even to hard-liners.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > The 2012 Nirbhaya case I wasn’t familiar with it but remembered after reading the below link. Warning, it’s horrific. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_and_murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_and_mur...
- dartharva 5y ago
  > I hope not, because it is such a weird upper-caste nit-pick. Honor killing is also a weird upper-caste nit-pick, you know
retrac 5y ago
It's fascinating how much wider the class gap is there, but so many of the same dynamics sound familiar. Parts of it read as very familiar to me. In Toronto, as a guy from a small town and a working class background. It is also very different for me, of course. Ultimately very few Canadians are "poor", in a sense. I could walk into one of our hospitals on one of those dates and be seen for free. Social assistance paid more when I was homeless than that woman earns; though $100 does go much further in Delhi. But I do remember that disjunction; it's normal, expected, to spend what amounts to a week or a month of my income on a night out. Being gay, the pressure to hide, to go for a date some place far away from home, somewhere you can hopefully blend in, or somewhere private, and where you won't attraction the attention of jeers, usually just jeers but sometimes you worry you'll have to run. Even the bit about McDonald's being too expensive. It is. It's a luxury, though most of us, myself included, tend not to think of it as such. Until you have $80 in your account and a whole week ahead and he wants to get a burger for dinner. $25 is a lot of money suddenly. It's an interesting experience when your friends decide to go out for dinner and your concern with where to go is which location has a menu option with a decent ratio for calories per $ and if the water is free. I too found poetry to be worth far more than it cost. Trees can be a gift. As can parks. And settings. Many intangible things can be gifts. And it is an art to be learned and practiced, just like the art of selecting and giving physical gifts. And of physical gifts, I discovered long ago that it truly is the thought that counts. Oh, yes, someone will love something that is of monetary value or expensive. But I have received many gifts worth some real money, but the ones where the gift was the thought are the ones I tend to still have. A card when I wasn't expecting one. I still have the thoroughly wrecked chew-toy for my dog gotten by one particular friend who is now gone. Maybe as a result of our smaller class gap, there is one thing that doesn't ring so true to me. "The girls also don’t have that many expectations." Not here. The boys had big expectations. It's easier to jump over the class gap if you're young and attractive, at least for a while, and pursue the material in exchange for the material, so to speak. I did it too; who doesn't want to go away for the weekend; go out for drinks and not count out the coins?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  It sounds like you are away from home feel a sense of freedom and got sucked into a downtown lifestyle with no budget. I don't understand why out of towners move downtown and only downtown where local people have moved to other areas of the city because of price and affordability. Somehow downtown feels safe because as a tourist that's what you see. For those moving get out of the downtown core and be able to afford your city.
jessaustin 5y ago
Twelve years after they started dating, they married. The family disapproved. Surender’s grandmother and Preeti’s mother were from the same “gotra,” or clan. Hindu clans prohibit marriage within the descendants of an unbroken male line. The Wiki page on "gotra" suggests they "only" have to go back seven generations (I don't know any of my ancestors beyond five generations and the father of one of my great-grandfathers was never known; would that be scandalous in India?), which seems to imply extreme complication. If each female ancestor has her own unique gotra, in seven generations there would be 64 gotras. Unless there are thousands of gotras, it must be very common for a prospective bride and groom to overlap. Little wonder that arranged marriages are common.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  From what I recall, some temples / priests / elders keep a record of this within a community. And yeah, that is one of the reasons why marrying outside your community, with or without your parent's consent, is such a big deal in India (not just with the Hindus who subscribe to gotras but also among other communities, as the emphasis on arranged marriages are often on "shared values" between the families. It's harder to determine what values an "outsider" or their family has, as it becomes harder to use your social circles to investigate them. )
- gopalv 5y ago
  > Unless there are thousands of gotras, it must be very common for a prospective bride and groom to overlap. The brahmin communities have a handful of gothras as I understand it (7 or 8, depending on who you ask). The relationship matrix is resolved by only tracking a single side of the family tree and making first cousins who are able to marry each other without complication on this topic. So it doesn't directly fix the inbreeding within insular communities, though that was its intention. My father-in-law spent quite some time investigating this, as my clan is matrilineal in ancestry (still very patriarchal, just brother-sister family unit instead of husband-wife) with a history of cross-marriages from patrilineal men for treaties/allies. Completely pointless pedigree certificate, felt like I was being picked for breeding instead of an equal partnership. A dive into this sort of discrimination almost left me wondering why something with political eugenics didn't come out of India. Fears which I still have for the 2040s seeing the CAA and NRC.
sombremesa 5y ago
My first thought when reading this was hoping that these types of articles will reduce the comments I see on the internet that try and compare Delhi/Mumbai squalor to LA. Then I read the first comment on this HN thread, which is directly comparing this to Toronto. So either Westerners don't realize that people in these places are making less money in a month than the middle class person can expect to spend in an average afternoon, or there is some intermediate step of "let me compare this to what I know" that is happening. It's not really enough...you should experience it for yourself (there's also other issues, such as people claiming there's more homeless in LA than in Delhi, not realizing that a lot of effectively homeless people in India aren't classified as such - it'd be like saying you're not homeless in LA if you have a tent or a sleeping bag). Reminds me of learning a new language, where beginners try to formulate thoughts in their native tongue and produce a direct translation, whereas those who are fluent can skip that step completely.
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  The mother of a friend on mine in Pakistan was hiring a part-time housekeeper for ~3 hours per day. One housekeeper asked for $40 USD/month, and the mother thought that was too expensive.
  - kshacker 5y ago
    Well it depends on 1) the local price and 2) the ability of the mother to pay. She may not be able to afford help with an American minimum wage.
    - flemhans 5y ago
      In Mumbai, our friends were pretty well off and had a housekeeper who came 2 x 2 hours daily (preparing lunch and dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning around). The housekeeper, being paid pretty well, had her own housekeeper so she could have time for all these housekeeping gigs. The well-off friends had never tried their aircon because it "was not that hot" (35 degrees C) and rummaged around to find the remote. It was so hot, I couldn't imagine that they just accepted it.
chana_masala 5y ago
Dating is so depressing, and it sounds even more soul crushing under these conditions.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  I disagree. It is the best thing they have in their lives. Also, you don't really need money to be happy. I used to have no money at all when I was young and still had great time with girls.
  - chana_masala 5y ago
    I'd rather practice Brahmachariya and be married
    - dartharva 5y ago
      >practice Brahmachariya and be married ??? You do know Brahmacharya means celibacy, right?
      - chana_masala 5y ago
        It kind of means that, yes. It means a lot more. I mean practice Brahmachariya until marriage. Also there is still purusha dharma and sri dharma to follow once married which continues aspects of Brahmachariya into marriage like not lusting after others, even in dreams
webmobdev 5y ago
Something I dislike about the whole "dating" thing (a very US cultural influence due to their media) is that what is supposed to be a normal socialising event between too people, is made into a consumerist ritual. So much that two couples walking in a park or hanging with their friends is not really a "date" or you being cheapskate as, apparently, romance without money is no longer romance.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  I've never made this distinction in my head.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Me neither, but I do have friends that did!
- Invictus0 5y ago
  This is not just a "walk in the park" date. I have seen these parks myself, in Delhi and in Mumbai--there are literally dozens of couples kissing and having sex in the dark in these tiny, tiny parks, hardly 30 feet between couples. It is a date of last resort in a gossip-heavy culture--there is no privacy, and young people are shamed for wanting to experience love, especially if it's with the "wrong" person.
  - bboylen 5y ago
    Damn thats crazy. Had no idea this was a thing over there. So different from my experience in the US
- pm90 5y ago
  The idea of having to spend a lot of money on dates is quite a dated (lol) idea in the US. Perhaps it was true for earlier generations, or maybe it was something that was portrayed a lot in the movies or whatever. My experience has always been of meeting other people for conversation and shared activities. Expensive dinners for first dates are actually pretty tacky and many women will consider it a red flag/try hard.
lota-putty 5y ago
India hosts 400% of humans of its healthy capacity; 150 people per sq km. What the world sees is the tip of the iceberg. Someone alien to India might have to spend decades to get all the idiosyncrasies that run here. For starters, good portion of sexual harassments/rapes are not reported. Even unnatural deaths go unnoticed or ignored.
- winter_blue 5y ago
  > India hosts 400% of humans of its healthy capacity; 150 people per sq km. Urban areas in almost every part of the world have higher density. For example, New York City has 10,716 people per sq km, and Manhattan (a borough of NYC) has a density of 26,821.6 person per sq km. So I'm not sure what you're point here is.
  - lota-putty 5y ago
    Metro cities are not self sufficient, they rely on near/remote regions for resources to sustain.
  - NotEvil 5y ago
    Ever herad of mumbai people to sq.meter or even delhi's. They are much higher than new yorks.
- benrapscallion 5y ago
  How is this comment relevant to the article?
nikkinana 5y ago
That's eracist.
jp42 5y ago
Whenever there is comparison between something in India and west, almost always its not apples to apples. There are 1.3 billion people, and very wide range of social & economic spectrum, which inherently makes comparison very difficult. for the sake of example - for "X", you will find many many Indians spending vastly more than western people, at the same time you will find millions of Indians who could not even dream about X. replace anything in X. Another I have seen many families who give freedom to girl on whatever they want to do, at the same time there are several conservative and hardliners families. its very hard to generalized due to sheer size and diversity of India. IMO without meaningful context comparison between west & India is pointless.
- prox 5y ago
  An Indian man once told me religion is the only unifying part of India. That if that didn’t exist, India would fall apart. Can’t tell of course if that is true.
  - bserge 5y ago
    That's more likely the government + military.
  - rocknor 5y ago
    Makes no sense. Religion is rapidly declining yet the citizens are getting more patriotic and developing a stronger common identity. Things like culture/tradition/language/food are much more important than religion for unification. This applies everywhere in the world.
  - known 5y ago
    “Where knowledge ends, religion begins” --Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1804) % of Atheists: India: 3% Netherlands: 49% Sweden: 43% France: 37% UK: 32% Germany: 27% Spain: 26% Denmark: 25% Belgium: 23% Hungary: 22% Finland: 16% Austria: 11% Portugal: 7% Italy: 6%
- sumedh 5y ago
  > and very wide range of social & economic spectrum, You are just making it more complicated. When you talk about X, that X applies to majority of the population. When someone says India is poor country because majority of the people are poor saying India has millions of rich people is not a valid argument.
doit4thebitties 5y ago
Dating never requires money. And no guy should be a free dinner dispenser or ATM for commercial activities for someone he doesn't even know. You can click, talk, walk, dance, and kiss for free... anywhere and everywhere. Besides, dinner and coffee interview dates are too formal and boring.. zzz.
- bboylen 5y ago
  If you can't have a fun conversation over coffee or dinner you probably arent compatible
  - pm90 5y ago
    > If you can't have a fun conversation over coffee or dinner you probably arent compatible I don't agree with this. Most people aren't comfortable opening up right away on their first interaction with someone they don't know very well. A lot of people also suffer from anxiety issues which can make it difficult for them to open up right away. Coffee/Drinks help to alleviate that somewhat as they're stimulants/social lubricants. Dinner? not so much, it just makes you full and sleepy.
  - doit4thebitties 5y ago
    I meant coffee or dinner are irrelevant and unnecessary to having a fun conversation. Plus, doing the same old thing everyone else does is boring and unimaginative.
farmerstan 5y ago
I thought Indians largely looked down on dating, although maybe the times have changed in the last 10 years? I have many close Indian friends and they are all married via arranged marriage. I’m pretty sure their American-born children will not marry via arranged marriage though and they have all come to grips with that. I remember talking with one of my friends about arranged marriage and she laughed in my face when I asked her what she thought about marrying for love. She said that marrying for love is a Hollywood myth and if you look around, did it really exist long term? She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  > She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting. Calmly explain to her that the best thing to do is to spend teens and 20s "finding yourself" and "experimenting" and "having fun" as a "free spirit" then to "settle down" in your 30s when you are "ready" and "know what you want".
  - umangrathi 5y ago
    Somewhat of a personal understanding, settling down later in life is one of the key problems today. In early 20s you are flexible, by later 20s you gonna earn your own skin and ways of life. It becomes harder to gel up with someone else. In case you are luck, make it work early or as they say keep looking.
- watwut 5y ago
  The compatibility being important is something I was told and I live in Europe. The compatibility is talked about a lot on relationship forums too (for example on reddit) - including by Americans. Literally only place where the importance of compatibility is considered odd is HN. Here, compatibility and matching is never mentioned in debated about relationships. Everywhere else, it is considered important.
- triceratops 5y ago
  "Arranged marriage" in an Indian context doesn't necessarily imply "parents tell you who to marry". In many cases it's essentially parent-involved matchmaking. There may be a professional matchmaker or family astrologer who sources leads. The prospective bride and bridegroom consider multiple or even dozens of options, and discuss their favorites with their parents or other close relatives. The bride/groom visit each other a few times, with families in tow. After they reach an agreement, there's a few months-long engagement. The couple may stay in touch by telephone, social media, video calls, (often chaperoned) in-person visits, and so on. If either person finds a major red-flag during this time, they have the (rarely-used) nuclear option of breaking the engagement. (Source: I know Indian couples who have "arranged marriages" in the way I described). > She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting. Isn't that considered important in the West too? Advice such as "you have to agree on money, children, and religion; everything else is negotiable" or "you have to be able to make each other laugh" is thrown out pretty frequently. It's generally understood that relationships have a honeymoon phase, after which compatibility is a major factor in staying together. People who get married young sometimes don't understand this fully.
nine_zeros 5y ago
I would contend it's easier to date in India. Cheap thrills are everywhere, far too many people around for you to stick out of the crowd (you just need to be a few train/bus stops away from familiar locations). Strikingly, transportation is cheap. No need to own a car/get expensive Uber rides. And street food is plenty and delicious. Simple dating is much easier for everyone in the spectrum. Societal issues on the other hand are still not up to the other modern 50% of the country.
- pm90 5y ago
  Its not easier to "date" in India. The society, especially the "traditional" families, are still not accepting of dating. As the article points out, pre-marital sex is still taboo for a large section of society. Alcohol consumption is frowned upon. You really have to be extremely careful when you hang out as a "couple". > far too many people around for you to stick out of the crowd (you just need to be a few train/bus stops away from familiar locations). Except that everyone seems to be extremely nosy, are part of extended clans, so it feels incredibly suffocating. You feel like you're always being watched, even if that seems silly (it happens often enough to cause concern but not 100% of the time). In liberal/Western countries, dating is so much easier. You can meet with anyone over coffee/drinks, hang out anywhere, make out in public, whatever.
- dartharva 5y ago
  Absolutely not. It may be cheap in terms of money, but the implicit costs are horrendous. In areas out of large metro-cities dating (or even courting) is a taboo and seen as a sign of lack of character, especially for women. Young couples very often get thrashed by their family members or self-styled vigilantes for it.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/fv5U4 https://archive.is/fv5U4
alasdair_ 5y ago
One thing that struck me was the number of parks they went to. I’m sitting here is a fantastically beautiful state (Western Washington) with so much to offer outdoors, yet I realize I’ve barely explored what is there for free, always opting for expensive dinners or events. This weekend I’m going to change that, for the first time since covid started we’ll go for a hike in a park.
rainhacker 5y ago
We never went to malls as everything there was out of my budget. I was also afraid that they would throw us out because we couldn’t speak English Reading this breaks my heart. In a few weeks India beings an year-long celebration to mark the country’s 75th Independence Day. And yet people feel discriminated because the don’t speak English.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- capybara_2020 5y ago
  It is not just English. Traditional clothes are also frowned upon. A few years there was a case of a man not being let into a mall because he was wearing a Dhoti(A traditional Indian men's wear, prevalent in some parts of the country.) But the irony was he had to argue in English to be let in. And something I heard years back. Kids were not allowed into another school where a competition was being held. Why...because they were in dhotis and not in uniform. The only problem, that was their school uniform.
  - fixzVjSi0t 5y ago
    Isn't just the language or clothes. People feel inferior/discriminated to eat with their hand (traditional Indian food) as opposed to using forks / knifes, which somehow is supposed to be "civilized". People feel that even when they speak English, their Indian accent is somehow bad / funny. Its not uncommon for people (specially from the western world) to make judgements how Indian/Asian food smells/tastes bad. Wonder how much of these stem from the colonial past of systematically being subjugated and being told you're inferior for 100s of years.
hiyer 5y ago
> The 23-year-old earns 8,000 rupees a month ($125) for her work. That’s what her employers can expect to pay for a single “date night” out at one of the city’s finer restaurants. Even in 2021 (article is from 2017) this is an exaggeration. You can have dinner for 2 at a five-star hotel in Delhi for less than half that amount, unless you're splurging on the drinks.
- mattzito 5y ago
  I don’t think that’s accurate - I remember being in Delhi circa 2010 and dinners at the nice hotels coming to something close to this amount, albeit with (not outrageous) wine. I actually went and pulled up the menu for one of the restaurants at the Taj Palace, a place I know well, and an app and entree picked at random came to $73, easily crossing the $125 mark for two without dessert or any beverages.
  - hiyer 5y ago
    You can check the menu for Machan hotel from the Taj Palace here [0]. The most expensive item on the menu (a seafood grill, which is probably not a single-person dish) is around $30, and there are plenty of dishes in the sub-$20 range. I've eaten in several five-star hotels in India from various chains (Taj, ITC, Trident, etc) in various cities (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata). Excluding drinks, I can't recall paying over Rs. 2500 before tax for 2. It helps that my SO and I are both vegetarian, but even non-vegetarian would only cost around 50% more. Drinks - especially hard liquor - are crazy expensive though, and will easily cost you Rs. 1000+ including tax for even a single large drink or cocktail. 0. https://www.eazydiner.com/delhi-ncr/machan-the-taj-mahal-hotel-mansingh-road-110165 https://www.eazydiner.com/delhi-ncr/machan-the-taj-mahal-hot...
    - hiyer 5y ago
      Just to add, these are five-star restaurants we're talking about it. While I am privileged enough to be able to afford them, even I don't eat at such places more than 2-3 times an year if that. At very good non-five-star restaurants (where the food is arguably better if you ask me) you can have a meal for two for under Rs. 2000 including tax. One of my favourites in the NCR region is 21 Gun Salute in Gurgaon [0]. And at a chain like Haldiram's [1], which is where most Indians including me would go for a normal weekend outing, you can have a meal for 2 for under Rs. 500. 0. https://www.zomato.com/ncr/21-gun-salute-sector-29 https://www.zomato.com/ncr/21-gun-salute-sector-29 1. https://www.haldiram.com/about https://www.haldiram.com/about
seestraw 5y ago
The author is convinced that the couple’s life sucks. He/she is writing from a point of view of superiority - “look, this is what they’re lacking, they can’t afford a Rs.8000 dinner”. To a billionaire, my software engineer life will look miserable - “They have to go eat at Panera and Olive Garden. For their employer, a nice dineout costs $5000.” Can we stop looking down on people because they cannot afford what’s normal for us? I agree about the freedom and social parts here, so let’s focus on that. Most of the article seems to be written to evoke shock and awe from a middle-class person - look what they can’t afford! Lets focus on their social struggles instead of what they can or cannot afford.
- pm90 5y ago
  > The author is convinced that the couple’s life sucks. Objectively, their life does kinda suck. The woman is living in a slum and cleaning houses for a living, earning very little for a lot of exhausting labor. The man is doing little better. They have to be creative in finding places to just hang out with each other, which is really the foundation for any relationship. This isn't a judgement call on their relative economic status; life is just more difficult for them. I didn't feel the author was looking down on them as much as pointing out the obscene difference in ease of living between the upper and lower classes.
  - EvilEy3 5y ago
    Not kinda. It sucks.
  - seestraw 5y ago
    I agree with some of your points. And kudos to the journalists for exploring this topic. However, look at the following: “She’s the first woman from her family who makes her own money.” To her, that might be an amazing success. Getting out of your default path and making it on your own is a big thing. Why do we need to emphasize that she can’t afford to eat at a Zomato restaurant? Is that a minimum bar for life being good? I agree with your point that they do have a lack of freedom and a lot of societal issues. Also basic facilities. Those should obviously be called out and kudos to the journalists for this. I’m mainly commenting on the author’s choice of contrasting it with luxury brands: > “I don’t really want any expensive gifts, or to go to big restaurants. These things are superficial,” said Anuradha, who said she likes watching romance movies and is a big Shah Rukh Khan fan. Kudos to her, she doesn’t consider those important, then why does the author keep calling out luxuries she doesn’t have? Malls, expensive restaurants, Zomato, Tinder. Sadly in Indian soceity, these luxury items are given too much importance in determining your “class”. In the US (and many less rich countries), take a look at articles on poverty. They focus on problems and solutions, not on brands they can’t afford.
superfreek 5y ago
Delhi has a per capita annual income of 300,000 rupees ($4,615) - the highest in the country and three times the national average. But nearly half of the city’s population lives in slums without basic services and facilities like drinking water, garbage disposal or a proper drainage system. And life goes on, and little change is made. Many nations are so unfortunate to live in a poor society, with not so many chances of getting better.
anovikov 5y ago
Seriously, a dinner for two costs $125 in India in a place with $400 average monthly income? This is what it would cost here in Cyprus, short of really nice places in Nicosia or Limassol, and the monthly income is 5x as much. Maybe $200 in the very nicest of places. I'm a developer and make in mid-six figures, and whenever i see a $125 bill including tips, i start to feel like "oh, this is pricey".
- programmer_dude 5y ago
  Dinner at an average restaurant doesnt cost that much. You can have a nice meal (for two) in a place with good ambience for 20 USD.
- dartharva 5y ago
  It doesn't, author is making a gross exaggeration.
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    Exaggeration is an understatement. The author is either ignorant or has an agenda. Rich people buffets in the city cost $20 for 2. The most expensive buffets on New years Ev, in the city cost like 80$ for 2.
- kakkan 5y ago
  Even though the article captures a good amount of truth about the lifestyle, the dinner pricing might need a bit of context. The top 5% of the restaurants might cost more than a hundred bucks for two people but that should be expected from the high-end four star and five star restaurants. I'm an Indian engineer who earns in USD, and even if I'm picky, my per meal is always between $3 - $5. Even if I'm going for keto or specialised meals, it never goes beyond $10.
- ascar 5y ago
  You surely meant five figures and not ~500,000?
  - 5y ago
cosmodisk 5y ago
I used to go on dates when I could barely afford to sit in a cafe. It was glorious. I've met women, had great time,etc. Never did any fine dining on any of my dates and it was fine. I'm sure many indians do the same and instead of going to super duper restaurant, they adjust based on their income level and do something else instead.
dartharva 5y ago
What the author tried to implicitly say, and what many readers seemed to miss, is the fact that how the concepts of "dating" are uncharted and carry so many risks for people in the lower classes even after you take away the money factor. Their families and societies are tied up in such a way that makes indulging into such "modern" or "western" acts a huge taboo, with the youngsters facing severe punishments if caught. For many parents with such mindsets, their children "dating" someone is seen as an act of dishonor.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  Wealthy countries are struggling with the impact of teen moms, single mothers & alcoholic/druggie parents. In countries like India with 1/10th to 1/25th the percapita income such social restrictions are a necessity.
  - dartharva 5y ago
    > Wealthy countries are struggling with the impact of teen moms, single mothers & alcoholic/druggie parents. Are they, really? Do you have a source? I'm willing to bet the suffering these social restrictions put on young women and men in general is several times that faced by the outliers you're conveniently pointing to. Also willing to bet these cases of teen moms and alcoholic parents will be much more prevalent among the poorer classes in India than in the west in general.
    - naruvimama 5y ago
      > Also willing to bet these cases of teen moms and alcoholic parents will be much more prevalent among the poorer classes in India than in the west in general. Precisely why the social restrictions exist. Alcohol has been a taboo in most parts of the country until the recent 2 decades with "westernisation". > Are they, really? Do you have a source? About 25% of children in the US are in single parent families. By itself isn't bad, but the cascading effects on society may be significant.
      - 5y ago
jwMnWbdt 5y ago
Marrying in same gotra is not one of the reason for honour killing. There are no evidences for it. There are reports for such incidents for marriage between two castes and religions. It appears the author has preconceived notions against certain aspect of indian society. A little factual evidence being provided,or diligent research before putting personal perspectives would have been better.
jacobwilliamroy 5y ago
As a man who lives below the poverty line I am extremely insecure about dating just because I worry about my partner trading up for someone with more money than me. The consumerist culture doesn't help my confidence with women either. That Bruno Mars song "That's What I like" is literally just 3.5 minutes of him explaining how he seduces women by buying them lots of very expensive things. I couldn't even compete with a walmart middle manager at that game.
taauji 5y ago
That is a misleading article. Nobody spends that much amount of money on a single "date night" or "movie night" unless you are an elite. This article is again a low effort attempt to sell western people news that fits their narrow knowledge base.
- fakedang 5y ago
  Or you know, she could have been a wage worker for an elite. There is literally no price variation in India for someone who earns $50k or $20k or $500k - the maids ultimately earn the same regardless of the net worth of their employer. The only differentiators are the perks (staying within the apartment/building, free food, etc). To give an anecdote, a friend's cousin is a partner at a consulting firm in Delhi, yet I was surprised to find out that their live-in help was paid 12k INR a month. It's not about them being stingy, it's just the market rate (or in this case, above market).
GaryTang 5y ago
Much easier than dating in Antarctica when you’re rich
known 5y ago
You may want to know Why Honor Killings happen in India https://archive.is/sqh8q https://archive.is/sqh8q and https://archive.is/mPsqz https://archive.is/mPsqz
m4rc0 5y ago
wow this was such a nice reflexion on values, about romantic stuff, really it was a great reading, thanks a lot

358 points by hidden-spyder 5y ago

Some of this stuff looks very poorly sourced or misunderstood. > Marrying within the “gotra” is one of the primary reasons for recurring “honour killing” of lovers in India I hope not, because it is such a weird upper-caste nit-pick. > they talk about their lives and walk around the park, or eat aloo-chaat or golgappas at a roadside stall That is such a still frame of the middle class life in Delhi from the 90s. My partner's been dragging me to Green park and AIIMS to revisit places which has stayed running for 25 years. The 2012 Nirbhaya case had a chilling effect on this for young couples, which is why the trend moved away from being outside and into malls with security cameras.

factorialboy 5y ago
Unfortunately Indian media is full of "secular" authors pretending to be liberal but regularly dishing hate against native faiths. But to be fair, it's not just the news media that's afflicted by this disease, bollywood is no better.
- namdnay 5y ago
  Huh? I don’t think any journalist cares what god(s) you worship , as long as you don’t impose anything on those around you
- webmobdev 5y ago
  I didn't understand your viewpoint. What exactly are you angry at in believing the author is "dishing hate" - that the author pointed out that marrying within gotras is frowned upon or that people are sometimes killed over it (honour killing)? Both are facts.
  - ummonk 5y ago
    People are murdered by family over all sorts of things, but random incidents don't imply a general pattern. Honor killing is a real occurrence but not over gotra-incest.
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      > Honor killing is a real occurrence but not over gotra-incest. Only some Hindus (often castiest / religious fundamentalists) believe that a sexual relationship within the same gotra is incest. And it is that mindset that leads to honour killing in the name of gotra. And they do happen. But you are right that they often aren't the major catalyst for honour killing, even if many demand a ban on same-gotra marriage: Will such so-called “honour killings” stop if the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 is amended to prohibit marriages within the same gotra? Unlikely. That may be the most publicised of the demands and threats issued by the Khap Mahapanchayat — a congregation of caste Panchayats from Jat strongholds in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — in Kurukshetra on April 13, and subsequently elsewhere. But it was not the only one. They have also reportedly called for a ban on marriages within the same village and contiguous villages, as well as de-recognition of temple weddings uniting runaway couples. (And it is because of such political demands by castiests / religious fundamentalist Hindus that the popular perception that gotra is responsible for honour killing has spread - not because of some "secular conspiracy" against Hindus.) This has even been challenged in court and marriage within the same gotra has been ruled legal in India even before independence: Same-gotra marriages were declared legally valid by the Bombay High Court as far back as in 1945 in the Madhavrao vs. Raghavendrarao case involving a Deshastha Brahmin couple. Two reputed judges — Harilal Kania (who became the first Chief Justice of independent India) and P.B. Gajendragadkar (who went on to become the Chief Justice of India in the 1960s) — examined several court verdicts, consulted the writings of leading experts and quoted from Hindu scriptures in their ruling on whether a 'sagotra' (same-gotra) marriage was valid under Hindu law/custom. They concluded that it was. Source: No honour in murder - https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/No-honour-in-murder/article16302614.ece https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/No-honour-in-murd...
- random314 5y ago
  Standard right wing talking point. Liberal authors criticizing the current regime, a Hindu nationalist party, are anti nationals. Here criticism of the BJP or social ills is equated to hatred of Hinduism. The authors might themselves be Hindus, but it doesn't matter.
paxys 5y ago
Yeah that part stood out to me. Honor killings happen for the opposite reason – the sides are too far apart in terms of religion, caste etc. Gotra is an overall minor concern even to hard-liners.
lostlogin 5y ago
> The 2012 Nirbhaya case I wasn’t familiar with it but remembered after reading the below link. Warning, it’s horrific. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_and_murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_and_mur...
dartharva 5y ago
> I hope not, because it is such a weird upper-caste nit-pick. Honor killing is also a weird upper-caste nit-pick, you know

retrac 5y ago

It's fascinating how much wider the class gap is there, but so many of the same dynamics sound familiar. Parts of it read as very familiar to me. In Toronto, as a guy from a small town and a working class background. It is also very different for me, of course. Ultimately very few Canadians are "poor", in a sense. I could walk into one of our hospitals on one of those dates and be seen for free. Social assistance paid more when I was homeless than that woman earns; though $100 does go much further in Delhi. But I do remember that disjunction; it's normal, expected, to spend what amounts to a week or a month of my income on a night out. Being gay, the pressure to hide, to go for a date some place far away from home, somewhere you can hopefully blend in, or somewhere private, and where you won't attraction the attention of jeers, usually just jeers but sometimes you worry you'll have to run. Even the bit about McDonald's being too expensive. It is. It's a luxury, though most of us, myself included, tend not to think of it as such. Until you have $80 in your account and a whole week ahead and he wants to get a burger for dinner. $25 is a lot of money suddenly. It's an interesting experience when your friends decide to go out for dinner and your concern with where to go is which location has a menu option with a decent ratio for calories per $ and if the water is free. I too found poetry to be worth far more than it cost. Trees can be a gift. As can parks. And settings. Many intangible things can be gifts. And it is an art to be learned and practiced, just like the art of selecting and giving physical gifts. And of physical gifts, I discovered long ago that it truly is the thought that counts. Oh, yes, someone will love something that is of monetary value or expensive. But I have received many gifts worth some real money, but the ones where the gift was the thought are the ones I tend to still have. A card when I wasn't expecting one. I still have the thoroughly wrecked chew-toy for my dog gotten by one particular friend who is now gone. Maybe as a result of our smaller class gap, there is one thing that doesn't ring so true to me. "The girls also don’t have that many expectations." Not here. The boys had big expectations. It's easier to jump over the class gap if you're young and attractive, at least for a while, and pursue the material in exchange for the material, so to speak. I did it too; who doesn't want to go away for the weekend; go out for drinks and not count out the coins?

ipaddr 5y ago
It sounds like you are away from home feel a sense of freedom and got sucked into a downtown lifestyle with no budget. I don't understand why out of towners move downtown and only downtown where local people have moved to other areas of the city because of price and affordability. Somehow downtown feels safe because as a tourist that's what you see. For those moving get out of the downtown core and be able to afford your city.

jessaustin 5y ago

Twelve years after they started dating, they married. The family disapproved. Surender’s grandmother and Preeti’s mother were from the same “gotra,” or clan. Hindu clans prohibit marriage within the descendants of an unbroken male line. The Wiki page on "gotra" suggests they "only" have to go back seven generations (I don't know any of my ancestors beyond five generations and the father of one of my great-grandfathers was never known; would that be scandalous in India?), which seems to imply extreme complication. If each female ancestor has her own unique gotra, in seven generations there would be 64 gotras. Unless there are thousands of gotras, it must be very common for a prospective bride and groom to overlap. Little wonder that arranged marriages are common.

webmobdev 5y ago
From what I recall, some temples / priests / elders keep a record of this within a community. And yeah, that is one of the reasons why marrying outside your community, with or without your parent's consent, is such a big deal in India (not just with the Hindus who subscribe to gotras but also among other communities, as the emphasis on arranged marriages are often on "shared values" between the families. It's harder to determine what values an "outsider" or their family has, as it becomes harder to use your social circles to investigate them. )
gopalv 5y ago
> Unless there are thousands of gotras, it must be very common for a prospective bride and groom to overlap. The brahmin communities have a handful of gothras as I understand it (7 or 8, depending on who you ask). The relationship matrix is resolved by only tracking a single side of the family tree and making first cousins who are able to marry each other without complication on this topic. So it doesn't directly fix the inbreeding within insular communities, though that was its intention. My father-in-law spent quite some time investigating this, as my clan is matrilineal in ancestry (still very patriarchal, just brother-sister family unit instead of husband-wife) with a history of cross-marriages from patrilineal men for treaties/allies. Completely pointless pedigree certificate, felt like I was being picked for breeding instead of an equal partnership. A dive into this sort of discrimination almost left me wondering why something with political eugenics didn't come out of India. Fears which I still have for the 2040s seeing the CAA and NRC.

sombremesa 5y ago

My first thought when reading this was hoping that these types of articles will reduce the comments I see on the internet that try and compare Delhi/Mumbai squalor to LA. Then I read the first comment on this HN thread, which is directly comparing this to Toronto. So either Westerners don't realize that people in these places are making less money in a month than the middle class person can expect to spend in an average afternoon, or there is some intermediate step of "let me compare this to what I know" that is happening. It's not really enough...you should experience it for yourself (there's also other issues, such as people claiming there's more homeless in LA than in Delhi, not realizing that a lot of effectively homeless people in India aren't classified as such - it'd be like saying you're not homeless in LA if you have a tent or a sleeping bag). Reminds me of learning a new language, where beginners try to formulate thoughts in their native tongue and produce a direct translation, whereas those who are fluent can skip that step completely.

devoutsalsa 5y ago
The mother of a friend on mine in Pakistan was hiring a part-time housekeeper for ~3 hours per day. One housekeeper asked for $40 USD/month, and the mother thought that was too expensive.
- kshacker 5y ago
  Well it depends on 1) the local price and 2) the ability of the mother to pay. She may not be able to afford help with an American minimum wage.
  - flemhans 5y ago
    In Mumbai, our friends were pretty well off and had a housekeeper who came 2 x 2 hours daily (preparing lunch and dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning around). The housekeeper, being paid pretty well, had her own housekeeper so she could have time for all these housekeeping gigs. The well-off friends had never tried their aircon because it "was not that hot" (35 degrees C) and rummaged around to find the remote. It was so hot, I couldn't imagine that they just accepted it.

chana_masala 5y ago

Dating is so depressing, and it sounds even more soul crushing under these conditions.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
I disagree. It is the best thing they have in their lives. Also, you don't really need money to be happy. I used to have no money at all when I was young and still had great time with girls.
- chana_masala 5y ago
  I'd rather practice Brahmachariya and be married
  - dartharva 5y ago
    >practice Brahmachariya and be married ??? You do know Brahmacharya means celibacy, right?
    - chana_masala 5y ago
      It kind of means that, yes. It means a lot more. I mean practice Brahmachariya until marriage. Also there is still purusha dharma and sri dharma to follow once married which continues aspects of Brahmachariya into marriage like not lusting after others, even in dreams

webmobdev 5y ago

Something I dislike about the whole "dating" thing (a very US cultural influence due to their media) is that what is supposed to be a normal socialising event between too people, is made into a consumerist ritual. So much that two couples walking in a park or hanging with their friends is not really a "date" or you being cheapskate as, apparently, romance without money is no longer romance.

chrisco255 5y ago
I've never made this distinction in my head.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Me neither, but I do have friends that did!
Invictus0 5y ago
This is not just a "walk in the park" date. I have seen these parks myself, in Delhi and in Mumbai--there are literally dozens of couples kissing and having sex in the dark in these tiny, tiny parks, hardly 30 feet between couples. It is a date of last resort in a gossip-heavy culture--there is no privacy, and young people are shamed for wanting to experience love, especially if it's with the "wrong" person.
- bboylen 5y ago
  Damn thats crazy. Had no idea this was a thing over there. So different from my experience in the US
pm90 5y ago
The idea of having to spend a lot of money on dates is quite a dated (lol) idea in the US. Perhaps it was true for earlier generations, or maybe it was something that was portrayed a lot in the movies or whatever. My experience has always been of meeting other people for conversation and shared activities. Expensive dinners for first dates are actually pretty tacky and many women will consider it a red flag/try hard.

lota-putty 5y ago

India hosts 400% of humans of its healthy capacity; 150 people per sq km. What the world sees is the tip of the iceberg. Someone alien to India might have to spend decades to get all the idiosyncrasies that run here. For starters, good portion of sexual harassments/rapes are not reported. Even unnatural deaths go unnoticed or ignored.

winter_blue 5y ago
> India hosts 400% of humans of its healthy capacity; 150 people per sq km. Urban areas in almost every part of the world have higher density. For example, New York City has 10,716 people per sq km, and Manhattan (a borough of NYC) has a density of 26,821.6 person per sq km. So I'm not sure what you're point here is.
- lota-putty 5y ago
  Metro cities are not self sufficient, they rely on near/remote regions for resources to sustain.
- NotEvil 5y ago
  Ever herad of mumbai people to sq.meter or even delhi's. They are much higher than new yorks.
benrapscallion 5y ago
How is this comment relevant to the article?

nikkinana 5y ago

That's eracist.

jp42 5y ago

Whenever there is comparison between something in India and west, almost always its not apples to apples. There are 1.3 billion people, and very wide range of social & economic spectrum, which inherently makes comparison very difficult. for the sake of example - for "X", you will find many many Indians spending vastly more than western people, at the same time you will find millions of Indians who could not even dream about X. replace anything in X. Another I have seen many families who give freedom to girl on whatever they want to do, at the same time there are several conservative and hardliners families. its very hard to generalized due to sheer size and diversity of India. IMO without meaningful context comparison between west & India is pointless.

prox 5y ago
An Indian man once told me religion is the only unifying part of India. That if that didn’t exist, India would fall apart. Can’t tell of course if that is true.
- bserge 5y ago
  That's more likely the government + military.
- rocknor 5y ago
  Makes no sense. Religion is rapidly declining yet the citizens are getting more patriotic and developing a stronger common identity. Things like culture/tradition/language/food are much more important than religion for unification. This applies everywhere in the world.
- known 5y ago
  “Where knowledge ends, religion begins” --Benjamin Disraeli (b. 1804) % of Atheists: India: 3% Netherlands: 49% Sweden: 43% France: 37% UK: 32% Germany: 27% Spain: 26% Denmark: 25% Belgium: 23% Hungary: 22% Finland: 16% Austria: 11% Portugal: 7% Italy: 6%
sumedh 5y ago
> and very wide range of social & economic spectrum, You are just making it more complicated. When you talk about X, that X applies to majority of the population. When someone says India is poor country because majority of the people are poor saying India has millions of rich people is not a valid argument.

doit4thebitties 5y ago

Dating never requires money. And no guy should be a free dinner dispenser or ATM for commercial activities for someone he doesn't even know. You can click, talk, walk, dance, and kiss for free... anywhere and everywhere. Besides, dinner and coffee interview dates are too formal and boring.. zzz.

bboylen 5y ago
If you can't have a fun conversation over coffee or dinner you probably arent compatible
- pm90 5y ago
  > If you can't have a fun conversation over coffee or dinner you probably arent compatible I don't agree with this. Most people aren't comfortable opening up right away on their first interaction with someone they don't know very well. A lot of people also suffer from anxiety issues which can make it difficult for them to open up right away. Coffee/Drinks help to alleviate that somewhat as they're stimulants/social lubricants. Dinner? not so much, it just makes you full and sleepy.
- doit4thebitties 5y ago
  I meant coffee or dinner are irrelevant and unnecessary to having a fun conversation. Plus, doing the same old thing everyone else does is boring and unimaginative.

farmerstan 5y ago

I thought Indians largely looked down on dating, although maybe the times have changed in the last 10 years? I have many close Indian friends and they are all married via arranged marriage. I’m pretty sure their American-born children will not marry via arranged marriage though and they have all come to grips with that. I remember talking with one of my friends about arranged marriage and she laughed in my face when I asked her what she thought about marrying for love. She said that marrying for love is a Hollywood myth and if you look around, did it really exist long term? She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting.

nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
> She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting. Calmly explain to her that the best thing to do is to spend teens and 20s "finding yourself" and "experimenting" and "having fun" as a "free spirit" then to "settle down" in your 30s when you are "ready" and "know what you want".
- umangrathi 5y ago
  Somewhat of a personal understanding, settling down later in life is one of the key problems today. In early 20s you are flexible, by later 20s you gonna earn your own skin and ways of life. It becomes harder to gel up with someone else. In case you are luck, make it work early or as they say keep looking.
watwut 5y ago
The compatibility being important is something I was told and I live in Europe. The compatibility is talked about a lot on relationship forums too (for example on reddit) - including by Americans. Literally only place where the importance of compatibility is considered odd is HN. Here, compatibility and matching is never mentioned in debated about relationships. Everywhere else, it is considered important.
triceratops 5y ago
"Arranged marriage" in an Indian context doesn't necessarily imply "parents tell you who to marry". In many cases it's essentially parent-involved matchmaking. There may be a professional matchmaker or family astrologer who sources leads. The prospective bride and bridegroom consider multiple or even dozens of options, and discuss their favorites with their parents or other close relatives. The bride/groom visit each other a few times, with families in tow. After they reach an agreement, there's a few months-long engagement. The couple may stay in touch by telephone, social media, video calls, (often chaperoned) in-person visits, and so on. If either person finds a major red-flag during this time, they have the (rarely-used) nuclear option of breaking the engagement. (Source: I know Indian couples who have "arranged marriages" in the way I described). > She said compatibility was the most important thing, not love, which I found very interesting. Isn't that considered important in the West too? Advice such as "you have to agree on money, children, and religion; everything else is negotiable" or "you have to be able to make each other laugh" is thrown out pretty frequently. It's generally understood that relationships have a honeymoon phase, after which compatibility is a major factor in staying together. People who get married young sometimes don't understand this fully.

nine_zeros 5y ago

I would contend it's easier to date in India. Cheap thrills are everywhere, far too many people around for you to stick out of the crowd (you just need to be a few train/bus stops away from familiar locations). Strikingly, transportation is cheap. No need to own a car/get expensive Uber rides. And street food is plenty and delicious. Simple dating is much easier for everyone in the spectrum. Societal issues on the other hand are still not up to the other modern 50% of the country.

pm90 5y ago
Its not easier to "date" in India. The society, especially the "traditional" families, are still not accepting of dating. As the article points out, pre-marital sex is still taboo for a large section of society. Alcohol consumption is frowned upon. You really have to be extremely careful when you hang out as a "couple". > far too many people around for you to stick out of the crowd (you just need to be a few train/bus stops away from familiar locations). Except that everyone seems to be extremely nosy, are part of extended clans, so it feels incredibly suffocating. You feel like you're always being watched, even if that seems silly (it happens often enough to cause concern but not 100% of the time). In liberal/Western countries, dating is so much easier. You can meet with anyone over coffee/drinks, hang out anywhere, make out in public, whatever.
dartharva 5y ago
Absolutely not. It may be cheap in terms of money, but the implicit costs are horrendous. In areas out of large metro-cities dating (or even courting) is a taboo and seen as a sign of lack of character, especially for women. Young couples very often get thrashed by their family members or self-styled vigilantes for it.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/fv5U4 https://archive.is/fv5U4

alasdair_ 5y ago

One thing that struck me was the number of parks they went to. I’m sitting here is a fantastically beautiful state (Western Washington) with so much to offer outdoors, yet I realize I’ve barely explored what is there for free, always opting for expensive dinners or events. This weekend I’m going to change that, for the first time since covid started we’ll go for a hike in a park.

rainhacker 5y ago

We never went to malls as everything there was out of my budget. I was also afraid that they would throw us out because we couldn’t speak English Reading this breaks my heart. In a few weeks India beings an year-long celebration to mark the country’s 75th Independence Day. And yet people feel discriminated because the don’t speak English.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
capybara_2020 5y ago
It is not just English. Traditional clothes are also frowned upon. A few years there was a case of a man not being let into a mall because he was wearing a Dhoti(A traditional Indian men's wear, prevalent in some parts of the country.) But the irony was he had to argue in English to be let in. And something I heard years back. Kids were not allowed into another school where a competition was being held. Why...because they were in dhotis and not in uniform. The only problem, that was their school uniform.
- fixzVjSi0t 5y ago
  Isn't just the language or clothes. People feel inferior/discriminated to eat with their hand (traditional Indian food) as opposed to using forks / knifes, which somehow is supposed to be "civilized". People feel that even when they speak English, their Indian accent is somehow bad / funny. Its not uncommon for people (specially from the western world) to make judgements how Indian/Asian food smells/tastes bad. Wonder how much of these stem from the colonial past of systematically being subjugated and being told you're inferior for 100s of years.

hiyer 5y ago

> The 23-year-old earns 8,000 rupees a month ($125) for her work. That’s what her employers can expect to pay for a single “date night” out at one of the city’s finer restaurants. Even in 2021 (article is from 2017) this is an exaggeration. You can have dinner for 2 at a five-star hotel in Delhi for less than half that amount, unless you're splurging on the drinks.

mattzito 5y ago
I don’t think that’s accurate - I remember being in Delhi circa 2010 and dinners at the nice hotels coming to something close to this amount, albeit with (not outrageous) wine. I actually went and pulled up the menu for one of the restaurants at the Taj Palace, a place I know well, and an app and entree picked at random came to $73, easily crossing the $125 mark for two without dessert or any beverages.
- hiyer 5y ago
  You can check the menu for Machan hotel from the Taj Palace here [0]. The most expensive item on the menu (a seafood grill, which is probably not a single-person dish) is around $30, and there are plenty of dishes in the sub-$20 range. I've eaten in several five-star hotels in India from various chains (Taj, ITC, Trident, etc) in various cities (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata). Excluding drinks, I can't recall paying over Rs. 2500 before tax for 2. It helps that my SO and I are both vegetarian, but even non-vegetarian would only cost around 50% more. Drinks - especially hard liquor - are crazy expensive though, and will easily cost you Rs. 1000+ including tax for even a single large drink or cocktail. 0. https://www.eazydiner.com/delhi-ncr/machan-the-taj-mahal-hotel-mansingh-road-110165 https://www.eazydiner.com/delhi-ncr/machan-the-taj-mahal-hot...
  - hiyer 5y ago
    Just to add, these are five-star restaurants we're talking about it. While I am privileged enough to be able to afford them, even I don't eat at such places more than 2-3 times an year if that. At very good non-five-star restaurants (where the food is arguably better if you ask me) you can have a meal for two for under Rs. 2000 including tax. One of my favourites in the NCR region is 21 Gun Salute in Gurgaon [0]. And at a chain like Haldiram's [1], which is where most Indians including me would go for a normal weekend outing, you can have a meal for 2 for under Rs. 500. 0. https://www.zomato.com/ncr/21-gun-salute-sector-29 https://www.zomato.com/ncr/21-gun-salute-sector-29 1. https://www.haldiram.com/about https://www.haldiram.com/about

seestraw 5y ago

The author is convinced that the couple’s life sucks. He/she is writing from a point of view of superiority - “look, this is what they’re lacking, they can’t afford a Rs.8000 dinner”. To a billionaire, my software engineer life will look miserable - “They have to go eat at Panera and Olive Garden. For their employer, a nice dineout costs $5000.” Can we stop looking down on people because they cannot afford what’s normal for us? I agree about the freedom and social parts here, so let’s focus on that. Most of the article seems to be written to evoke shock and awe from a middle-class person - look what they can’t afford! Lets focus on their social struggles instead of what they can or cannot afford.

pm90 5y ago
> The author is convinced that the couple’s life sucks. Objectively, their life does kinda suck. The woman is living in a slum and cleaning houses for a living, earning very little for a lot of exhausting labor. The man is doing little better. They have to be creative in finding places to just hang out with each other, which is really the foundation for any relationship. This isn't a judgement call on their relative economic status; life is just more difficult for them. I didn't feel the author was looking down on them as much as pointing out the obscene difference in ease of living between the upper and lower classes.
- EvilEy3 5y ago
  Not kinda. It sucks.
- seestraw 5y ago
  I agree with some of your points. And kudos to the journalists for exploring this topic. However, look at the following: “She’s the first woman from her family who makes her own money.” To her, that might be an amazing success. Getting out of your default path and making it on your own is a big thing. Why do we need to emphasize that she can’t afford to eat at a Zomato restaurant? Is that a minimum bar for life being good? I agree with your point that they do have a lack of freedom and a lot of societal issues. Also basic facilities. Those should obviously be called out and kudos to the journalists for this. I’m mainly commenting on the author’s choice of contrasting it with luxury brands: > “I don’t really want any expensive gifts, or to go to big restaurants. These things are superficial,” said Anuradha, who said she likes watching romance movies and is a big Shah Rukh Khan fan. Kudos to her, she doesn’t consider those important, then why does the author keep calling out luxuries she doesn’t have? Malls, expensive restaurants, Zomato, Tinder. Sadly in Indian soceity, these luxury items are given too much importance in determining your “class”. In the US (and many less rich countries), take a look at articles on poverty. They focus on problems and solutions, not on brands they can’t afford.

superfreek 5y ago

Delhi has a per capita annual income of 300,000 rupees ($4,615) - the highest in the country and three times the national average. But nearly half of the city’s population lives in slums without basic services and facilities like drinking water, garbage disposal or a proper drainage system. And life goes on, and little change is made. Many nations are so unfortunate to live in a poor society, with not so many chances of getting better.

anovikov 5y ago

Seriously, a dinner for two costs $125 in India in a place with $400 average monthly income? This is what it would cost here in Cyprus, short of really nice places in Nicosia or Limassol, and the monthly income is 5x as much. Maybe $200 in the very nicest of places. I'm a developer and make in mid-six figures, and whenever i see a $125 bill including tips, i start to feel like "oh, this is pricey".

programmer_dude 5y ago
Dinner at an average restaurant doesnt cost that much. You can have a nice meal (for two) in a place with good ambience for 20 USD.
dartharva 5y ago
It doesn't, author is making a gross exaggeration.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  Exaggeration is an understatement. The author is either ignorant or has an agenda. Rich people buffets in the city cost $20 for 2. The most expensive buffets on New years Ev, in the city cost like 80$ for 2.
kakkan 5y ago
Even though the article captures a good amount of truth about the lifestyle, the dinner pricing might need a bit of context. The top 5% of the restaurants might cost more than a hundred bucks for two people but that should be expected from the high-end four star and five star restaurants. I'm an Indian engineer who earns in USD, and even if I'm picky, my per meal is always between $3 - $5. Even if I'm going for keto or specialised meals, it never goes beyond $10.
ascar 5y ago
You surely meant five figures and not ~500,000?
- 5y ago

cosmodisk 5y ago

I used to go on dates when I could barely afford to sit in a cafe. It was glorious. I've met women, had great time,etc. Never did any fine dining on any of my dates and it was fine. I'm sure many indians do the same and instead of going to super duper restaurant, they adjust based on their income level and do something else instead.

dartharva 5y ago

What the author tried to implicitly say, and what many readers seemed to miss, is the fact that how the concepts of "dating" are uncharted and carry so many risks for people in the lower classes even after you take away the money factor. Their families and societies are tied up in such a way that makes indulging into such "modern" or "western" acts a huge taboo, with the youngsters facing severe punishments if caught. For many parents with such mindsets, their children "dating" someone is seen as an act of dishonor.

naruvimama 5y ago
Wealthy countries are struggling with the impact of teen moms, single mothers & alcoholic/druggie parents. In countries like India with 1/10th to 1/25th the percapita income such social restrictions are a necessity.
- dartharva 5y ago
  > Wealthy countries are struggling with the impact of teen moms, single mothers & alcoholic/druggie parents. Are they, really? Do you have a source? I'm willing to bet the suffering these social restrictions put on young women and men in general is several times that faced by the outliers you're conveniently pointing to. Also willing to bet these cases of teen moms and alcoholic parents will be much more prevalent among the poorer classes in India than in the west in general.
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    > Also willing to bet these cases of teen moms and alcoholic parents will be much more prevalent among the poorer classes in India than in the west in general. Precisely why the social restrictions exist. Alcohol has been a taboo in most parts of the country until the recent 2 decades with "westernisation". > Are they, really? Do you have a source? About 25% of children in the US are in single parent families. By itself isn't bad, but the cascading effects on society may be significant.
    - 5y ago

jwMnWbdt 5y ago

Marrying in same gotra is not one of the reason for honour killing. There are no evidences for it. There are reports for such incidents for marriage between two castes and religions. It appears the author has preconceived notions against certain aspect of indian society. A little factual evidence being provided,or diligent research before putting personal perspectives would have been better.

jacobwilliamroy 5y ago

As a man who lives below the poverty line I am extremely insecure about dating just because I worry about my partner trading up for someone with more money than me. The consumerist culture doesn't help my confidence with women either. That Bruno Mars song "That's What I like" is literally just 3.5 minutes of him explaining how he seduces women by buying them lots of very expensive things. I couldn't even compete with a walmart middle manager at that game.

taauji 5y ago

That is a misleading article. Nobody spends that much amount of money on a single "date night" or "movie night" unless you are an elite. This article is again a low effort attempt to sell western people news that fits their narrow knowledge base.

fakedang 5y ago
Or you know, she could have been a wage worker for an elite. There is literally no price variation in India for someone who earns $50k or $20k or $500k - the maids ultimately earn the same regardless of the net worth of their employer. The only differentiators are the perks (staying within the apartment/building, free food, etc). To give an anecdote, a friend's cousin is a partner at a consulting firm in Delhi, yet I was surprised to find out that their live-in help was paid 12k INR a month. It's not about them being stingy, it's just the market rate (or in this case, above market).

GaryTang 5y ago

Much easier than dating in Antarctica when you’re rich

known 5y ago

You may want to know Why Honor Killings happen in India https://archive.is/sqh8q https://archive.is/sqh8q and https://archive.is/mPsqz https://archive.is/mPsqz

m4rc0 5y ago

wow this was such a nice reflexion on values, about romantic stuff, really it was a great reading, thanks a lot