19 January - Indians & Big Bro

I have nothing to say about Jade and Shilpa. Except that imitating accents is easily done without much malice. I don’t think there could be many people visiting India who at some point haven’t found themselves saying to whichever friend they're with little sentences that have stayed with them and in repeating them (‘You are hearty welcome Sir’ was our catchphrase since we heard it) haven't used the original accent of the person saying it. Indian accents are just too funny sometime and all the head shaking is contagious. Toph used it in replying to a waiter at the Malabar who was taking our wine order. He simply hadn’t noticed he was doing it and the waiter presented with the no no head shake that actually means yes, was as confused as we normally are. I think if there are issues of racism, there should be degrees, like there’s assault and aggravated assault and manslaughter and murder and so on.
Anyway, some questions are in our heads. Ok, it’s the way you ask them so Jade had no right to ask do you live in a house or a shack. But equally, given how high the incidence of Aids is in India and how separated the genders seem to be (describe NYE on the beach), I was wondering how do you spot an Indian prostitute. What is the equivalent of the miniskirt and platform boots. I’ve seen no fishnet sari. Frank has the answer, having worked for abused women’s charities and travelled on their behalf in Gujarat. He says you find them at roadside cafes. As to how you recognise them, I come to the answer in a lightbulb moment. The sheer fact that they may be in such a place where a respectable Indian woman should be, means they’re that category. I have other questions about where do they go in such a crowded society where we couldn’t find a space to have a solitary PDA until we got back to our hotel room. As for how much…. A quid seems to be a going rate. How sad. Probably better than breaking rocks to make road building paving materials.
I have other questions, about which caste they are drawn from mainly. Are they the Dalits or are they fallen middle class women? Are they doing it to score drugs like in the western world? I have to keep my curiosity for the time being and it’s only curiosity. Am not planning, after all, planning to do anything to help their plight.