Special treatment of Foreigners
18 augustus 2019 - Mumbai, India
Sunday! Time to go out and sniff some Nature at the national park. Off to the train station, where we get on the train to Borivali, first to buy some tickets, they cost about 20 Rupies, that will be around 0,25€. Then up to find the right train… the signs look a bit confusing but after some explanation it makes sense… in a way… Well at least I know how to find my train on Monday.
After arriving at Borivali, we took the three-wheeler (rickshaw) to the park. As I am used by now traffic is always hectic, hooping loud. Did you know that they add extra loud hoops for Indian vehicles? I hope I wont damage my ears here, madness hooping!
The park is really nice, we first walked to a small hill, to overlook the park. On the way we have seen beautiful butterflies and some deer, everything was pretty green. Too bad that the Indian throw away their garbage everywhere, even in this park! After a stunning view it went down and along a big road where all kinds of vehicles and people passed by, some taking more care of the potholes filled with mud as others… On the way where some rivers were we could wash our feet, but first we checked out that there weren’t any Crocodiles.
At the end of this muddy road we could see a mountain with some caves in the distance. We went up the road and at the entrance had a nice interaction with a monkey, some even had their pleasures while all Indians watching, guess some kind of sexual education for them. ;)
At the entrance we had a nice welcome from the Indians, the tickets to the famous caves where for the Indians 30 MRP and for the foreigners 300MRP. Very curious, especially because they don’t ask for a passport. So how do they know if I’m a foreigner? Well, oké that was easy, but what if I had the Indian nationality? What about people from Sri Lanka, Pakistan? They look like Indians…
After some discussions with the security men, we went to visit the caves. Very old caves, made and used even before AD. Stunning carves of Buddas, imposing pillars all carved out of the rocks. We walked all the way up and enjoyed the view over the forest, and the skyline of the city. Very impressing this contrast. It’s really a city full of contrasts. In so many ways… And I’m the lucky one to discover some of them, I hardly can wait. I feel blessed lying on this mountain, enjoying the sun, the view and the best of all to know my adventure in India has started.
You are a very, very spoiled girl! You are probably living in a western hotel or in the foreigners or embassy neighborhood, excluding yourself already from us beforehand. You write about us as 'other', treating us as 'other' already, why complaining when 'we' treat you as 'other' when you do it to us? Do you know how much your continent took from us during colonialism?
How often do you see 'Indians' on the streets of Berlin, seeing them as Indians instead of Germans? Have you ever asked their passports when you debunked an Indian restaurant, mostly run by Eastern-Turkish people instead (who do look like Indians)?
Do you complain at your hotel when you visit Paris or Barcelona when they tax you as a tourist? Do you know how much tourists pollute our environment? Do you have any sense how much you profit over our bodies? You probably have the luxury to have Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter or the like: who keeps that clean from bad images and comments? You have expensive medication like the conception pill you get practically instantly from your doctor: have you have thought where this is produced under which circumstances and payments?
You are so arrogant I have to say. I am sorry for that, but I hope you understand this (but probably you want to argue everything from your backs instead of accepting things as they are).
Be blessed that you have the possibility to call your general practitioner and your insurance company from their beds because YOU - yes, YOU, not them, but YOU - forget YOUR conception pill on the day YOU planned to leave YOUR comfortable home, making YOUR problem a problem of ANOTHER PERSON. Be bless that you can have your birth control pill on the airport practically for free and almost instantly so you can control your period and have sex without any concern. Be blessed that you can make YOUR problem about sex, the problem of someone else who takes care for you. Be blessed that you can educate yourself about sex through normal sex education in school. But never, never judge anyone who is mesmerised about seeing monkeys having sex, and never raise such a racist voice! That makes you are very bad person who is only thinking about making a statement instead of actually doing or thinking about something.
You have worked in South Africa as a volunteer, I have read. Was it a pre-set program by another organisation? Have you questioned their program as well? Or have you organised your South-Africa trip from your own initiative? If the latter applies, you should have collected either fair experiences or it was a blessed luck, as volunteering-organisations around the world do not work like your standard: "I command, you do". As you wrote in one of your posts, that is stubborn indeed! YOUR world is not OUR world.
Girl, you are preoccupied with yourself. Find good friends who can challenge your preoccupation, instead of confirming your selfishness and nodding yes to you. These complex friend can make you a better person! Hope my India is a learning lesson for you. Be critical to yourself or your India experience will be another useless neo-colonial experience, my dear!
Ms. Shira from Mumbai, India