She's Conspicuous

Staring does not seem to be a social faux pas here. So when you’re a six-foot tall white girl…you get stared at, by women, even more by men, and especially by teenage boys. In the tourist district you sometimes see foreign women, college girls and twenty-somethings, wearing strappy tanktops and skirts that fall above the knee. Outfits like that are a traditional no-no, and because staring isn’t, they’re in for a big dose of unwanted attention. (Although I have to say here that you see quite a few Indian young women wearing “Western” clothing, especially in Mumbai and Delhi. But this usually means jeans or trousers and t-shirts, nothing that is by any means skimpy.) Once you’re out of Colaba, the main tourist and business traveler’s area, you rarely come across foreigners. Then it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.

For a while, feeling so conspicuous was making me paranoid. When I’d go for walks I’d feel like groups of people were talking about me or laughing at something about me as I passed. This is ridiculous, I know. But going on walks is one of the few remotely interactive pastimes that I have after I finish up my volunteering sessions for the day. I don’t like feeling so solitary and uncomfortable just going for a walk, which is normally one of my favorite activities. Really, I have this urge to go to the chai wallah on the corner, buy a cup, and squat down on my haunches and sip it while all the other men gathered there go about their business. This will never happen though, because no matter how long I live here, no matter that the chai wallah sees me walk by every day, I’ll always be a white woman. My approach alone, whether I order a chai or not, is a total conversation stopper. Though I'm not up to hanging out with the chai-sippers yet, I’m learning that the best way to handle the staring is to walk confidently with a faint smile on my face, sometimes making eye contact and offering a smile of greeting—most people beam back, or say hello. A few more weeks and hopefully I’ll be able to find going out for a walk a more pleasurable experience.

But again, it’s different in the tourist area where there are more beggars and hawkers. There its best to avoid eye contact or you’ll be followed for 20 yards by men selling ridiculous things you would never need or want, like silly little drums, laminated maps, or huge balloons. Or you’ll meet eyes and be followed by little children in rags or women carrying babies, trying to keep walking, trying not to look while a lump of guilt sits in your throat. Zuber says the beggars don’t get to keep most of the money they collect. He says that there is usually someone behind the scenes that organizes the beggars and offers them “protection,” then charges most of their collections for these “services.” Seeing some of these people, though, is when it is hard for me not to stare—especially when there are little children, barefoot with matted hair and swollen bellies, or people crawling on their shriveled limbs, or waving the stump of an arm.

Being conspicuous also has the strange result of being asked to take photos with a lot of people. Yesterday I walked from my flat to Chowpatty beach and as I sat on the public beach reading the newspaper, I was asked by three different people to take a photo with them. The day before at my favorite local gathering place, Priyadarshni Park, a group of women and their children wanted their picture taken with me. A quick snap on a camera phone is one thing, but two of these people used up a frame of actual film! I don’t get it…the only thing I can thing of is that it has something to do with everyone’s innate desire to gawk at things they find disturbing or freakish, and to be able t prove that they saw it to their friends. I just wonder how many random photo albums I’ll end up in over the course of our stay here.