June 18, 2007
When landlords get all up in your bidnessNews
It’s bad enough when your parents hound you for being single and ask why you were out so late last night, but the Christian Science Monitor points to the double standard that single women renters face in India at the hands of their prospective (and over-protective) landlords:
It took Chiya Singh three months and seven real estate agents working in tandem to find an apartment to rent in New Delhi.
The problem wasn’t her credit history or salary. It was her status as a single Indian woman. The questions blocking Ms. Singh from a room of her own were a bit personal, she says. Prospective landlords wanted to know why, at age 29, she wasn’t married and why, as a single person, she didn’t want to live with her parents.
“It was an exhausting process,” Singh says, of trying to find her own place after she divorced. “I became a broken record. They asked ‘Why do you want to live alone?’ I said, ‘Um, because I think I’m old enough.’ “
That response usually netted Singh a cold expression and a vague “We’ll let you know” from the landlord. [Link]
Because, I mean…why would a single woman want to live by herself?
In India, “If you want freedom, it can only be for one thing - sex,” Singh says. “You want to tell them [landlords], ‘That’s the last thing on my mind. I think I’m old enough to take care of myself.’ But for the landlord, it becomes an issue of respectability.” [Link]
Right. Here is the even more messed up part. It is okay to rent to single white girls because…well, they are already slutty (or at least that is what the landlord quoted below seems to imply when she says “they are used to living on their own”).
“It’s an Indian mentality,” says Sonia Kakkar, a landlord in South Delhi. “We just feel more protective. You just feel that you are responsible.”
Ms. Kakkar currently rents the second floor of her building to two French women and prefers foreigners because she does not feel as protective of them.
”They are used to living on their own,” she says. “If they have a problem with the flat, they come to us. Otherwise, there is no interaction…” [Link]
Well, to all the parents reading SM let me tell you just exactly what it is that your live-alone daughters in America are doing:
Jennifer Chowdhury just invented the hottest new game in town. Screw the Wii. Ladies, get one of these. Then invite me over (so I can blog about it for the good of the readers I mean)
abhi on June 18, 2007 11:27 PM in Humor, News, Science and Technology · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Hilarious game!
I'm just glad I'm a single brown woman living in the US. I can truly live and be myself here.
How do you score a touchdown in her game? Although maybe getting to third base would be good too...
my aunt in madras kicked out a single female tenant last year due to her 'questionable' nature. reason : she was having an affair with her boss, surmised from the fact that he stayed over at her place twice in the span of fifteen months. i was going to tell my aunt that almost definitely meant there was no action going on there, but refrained so as not to cast aspersions/questions on my own nature - i.e. how would you know?
It's like Twister, with Apple products.
My favorite part is the part where she talks about how there should be a penalty for hitting. "Because there's a temptation to...smack the controller. Some people may like that, I dunno." :-D
I think it's only a matter of time before browndating.com picks this up. A webified flash app, and your partner's biodata in front of you, plus three pop-up pictures of them posing demurely leaned against a tree, or in front of a fountain, or at Niagra Falls. Who needs anything more?
as an aside, i have recently heard a lot about muslims being denied housing in certain parts of bombay, and, apparently, this is not an uncommon practise in particular localities, as applied to all religious groups. on the other hand, gujarati vegetarians have it made in this part of town. no problems with dutching here, i suppose.
This does not only happen to single women. When I moved back to India after my Masters I had a tough time to find a place to rent. It took me almost a month and half before some one relented. Questions range from Why do you want a flat when you are single and living alone, Single guys make lot of noise, bring girls... But I do totally agree that if its difficult for single men to find a place then it will surely be at least 10 times more difficult for single women.
...well, they are already slutty (or at least that is what the landlord quoted below seems to imply when she says “they are used to living on their own”).
Granted it's a 'humor' post, but I didn't get how you arrived at the conclusion from the CSM article. The landlord seemed to merely suggest that western women were used to living alone.
There is also the bit about a single lady who chooses to live with her parents. Now, if you know anything about India, you should know one doesn't have to 'choose' to live with parents/family.
Anyhow, yes, it's generally more difficult for single women, but broadly speaking, it is difficult for all single people over 25 or so - particularly if the landlord has a nubile young daughter :) But there are a lot of single working women that live alone or share a flat. Landlords can be quite irritating, but like everyone else, there's the good, bad and the weird. My experiences have been very positive overall (my parents had quite a different ride).
Where are all those who insisted that the difficulties women have renting in Delhi must be imaginary, when were were discussing this a few weeks ago? It's really hard to deny it, folks, especially when landlords and agents tell you to your face that they won't rent to you because you're a single woman and they don't want to have to worry about your morality. It took me a full month of full-time hunting and I went around with my parents for crying out loud, never had a single male visitor, and still the only person who'd rent to me charged me way above market rate (in an already upmarket neighbourhood) and had Russian hookers renting upstairs. If you were American or European, though, they were fine with renting even to unmarried couples and of course charging them twice the going rent.
god bless america.
SP, Delhi doesn't quite have a great reputation as a (relatively) safe city for women, not sure if that makes it more difficult. The degree of difficulty varies across cities. As for the time taken, believe me, even in relatively relaxed Kolkata it used to take me a while to find an apartment. On occasions I had to field questions about the marital status of my whole family. These days, it's the rent and the 'security deposit' that make all the difference :)
p.s. try finding people to rent to you if you are a single male in the USofA :-) go to the property management companies, they can't discriminate (at least officially). yes, i know it can be done, but there is def. some discrimination.
Been on both sides of the divide - landlord and tenant.
Price is a function of what the market will bear. Differential pricing is the norm in several industries - the same in rental real estate market.
As a single guy tried to find an apartment in southern India - really tough. Once I said that I was in Software - bloody easy.
Single women find it hard - although groups of single women dont find it as hard.
Some landlords refuse to single men while others refuse to rent to single women and yet others refuse to rent to non-vegetarians.
Hardly worth getting worked up over.
Got go in for a meeting - more comments later.
mmm, landlords...worldwide they're a pain. when i lived in southern spain in early 80s my spanish landlady (ie a kind of spanish auntie) complained to me that i had too many "black and brown ("moros y negros") friends traipsing in and out of my apartment." she knew this thanks to my neighbours--her spies, it turned out. but since she was charging me (a foreigner) extra-high rent, she was reluctant to kick me out.
Oh poor Chiya Singh!
Single woman status can affect the ability to get jobs as well in the Motherland, from what I hear from specific friends who have tried to explore their prospects out there. One friend was told in at least two interviews to her face that it was not the company/firm's practice to hire single women because they weren't secure employees to hire - the company would have to worry about the women leaving because she was getting married or needing time off because she got pregnant.
SO TRUE! Thanks for bringing this out. And exactly as you said, as if facing parents wasnt enough.
Landlords, whether it be in the upper west side of manhattan, or downtown new delhi, always make some kind of 'lifestyle assessment' of their tenants. It's part of their business, remember 'sloth' from the movie seven? It's not enough to just pay your rent on time. The problem is linking "single-ness" to "sexual ping-pong" As for different attitudes towards foreigners, the same goes here. I have an italian landlord, very nice people, but if I was an italian female tenant, you bet I'd have them in my face, va fangool.
What utter tosh. Did you just make that story up ?
It's also rumored that women breathe oxygen too.
lol...this reminds me of the lady who came to "look" at me for one of her relatives. She rejected me and gave a huge lecture about "hostelites" and told us that they knw enough abt girls staying in hostels coz she owns one and knows all the going-ons
In conservative cities like Chennai it is often times easier for single women to rent a place, especially if the landlored has daughters. Also there are many womens' only hostels which have decent facilities and way cheaper than rent + advance etc. i say just live in one of them and always answer the question "Your place or mine?" with "not mine".
Yes, landlords make lifestyle assessments anywhere, but I find it ridiculous that those of you who are a) not female and b) have never tried to rent in Delhi feel free to say it's "not such a big deal" and just the same as renting anywhere. I've rented on four continents, including the urban US, Europe, the Middle East, and trust me, nothing was as bad as Delhi. And Dipesh, I've heard the reluctance to hire women for the same reason from several family members who have their own businesses. What is it with people dismissing experiences they have no way of confirming or denying?
well, good for you. cuz i bet u dont want to marry into a family where your mother in law is going to be like this woman.
Landlords aside, a LOT of such judgements on women (like 'hostel girls', 'immoral', 'not family type' etc) are made by other women, especially in the desh. I dont see that changing anytime soon.
I had a female American brown friend living in Bombay for a few months who couldn't get a place to rent, so when a male British brown friend arrived for an internship, they suddenly became "cousins" and were able to find a place together. She had lived in Bombay previously in a place supplied by her job, but she was kicked out because the night watchmen decided she was a slut (she came in late and had friends stay over occasionally, but never got any action) and told her boss.
This same friend told me an awesome story from her last trip there...she really needed tampons (she said they consider women who use them to be non-virginal or whatever, making it a stressful shopping experience) the guy at the pharmacy kept not understanding her. Finally a man who was standing there with his wife said loudly, in a thick Indian accent, "You know, tam-PONS!" and wiggled his little finger upwards. The wife looked horrified, and my friend got her box and left. She said that when she needed the morning-after pill a few months later, she forced her boyfriend to get it because she didn't want the pharmacist to ask "Morning after vat?" ;)
They need to enact anti-discrimination public housing laws in Delhi.
These laws have been very successful in the US though there is some evidence that the banks in US do discriminate when it comes to giving out loans to Blacks. But the anti-discrimination laws have taken care of most of the problems in the housing market.
The realtors cant even mention the fact that a particular neighborhood has a lot of blacks. So the realtors have to rely on terms like 'that neighborhood has bad schools' even when the prospective buyer has no kids.
I don't see why this is such a problem. Most landlords in India are not renting multi-story apartment buildings, they are renting rooms that are part of their homes. Why shouldn't they choose to uphold their own values within their homes.
Maybe I'm used to being from the South (Chennai) but this seems like common practice where I live. If people do rent to unmarried girls, they tend to be very protective and almost parental, such as inviting them to share all meals. There are often obvious reasons, such as a family with daughters of their own would hardly want their children exposed to what they think is an immoral lifestyle. Renting to someone is an extremely personal choice, and with the multitude of things that can go wrong, it's hardly surprising that landlords in India are so particular about the lifestyles of their renters.
Let me point out that I am not judging anyone for wanting to live alone or have as much sex as they like. But this seems like another instance of applying western-centric views onto a completely different set of societal values.
yeah...but the posts above seem to be talking about "the apartment 1 floor up". sounds like they are talking about apartment buildings...
now...do american brown women count as automatically sl*tty?
G Unit - the apartment I rented was not within someone's home. No meals were shared, no interaction beyond exchanging money. And they'd have a right to worry about my morality if I were their guest, not when I'm paying above market rate to rent the place from them. They don't place the same restrictions on men and families. The old chestnut about "Western centric views" doesn't hold in this article or in my case, because these are Indian-born women in India, adults with responsible jobs, wanting to live alone and feeling frustrated when people refuse to rent to them primarily because they are women.
independent veman is vestern concept. ve do not have the s*x here.
why not? isn't that the big desi fear of coming to america - raise your kids in western education, make them get good jobs (so they can keep bringing us all those american goods) but don't let them become western in the 'ways that count.' this is pretty much my extended family's mentality, and no, i am not surmising - my family is quite blunt about these sorts of things. i have had at least two cousins tell another cousin that they sincerely questioned my chastity since i live alone : 'who knows how many boys she must be bringing over.' obviously, this is not so for everyone, and my family is quite conservative. on the other hand, i think they are not so different in their thinking as other families in madras.
Addendum: most landlords in Delhi have flats on the second and third floors above their homes, with separate entrances and staircases, or different people own different floors. That's how most people live in South Delhi these days, with separate families on each floor. It's not what you'd call a classic apartment building but it functions as one.
Puliogre - good question, IIRC American browns were treated for rental purposes like desi girls, though of course if you were willing to pay a very high rent (and Americans usually were), landlords were willing to overlook a few things.
my parents used to be liberal. the last 6 months since i have started searching for a wife, they have gotten really conservative. all of a sudden if a grl has had a boyfriend she is unacceptable (never minding that they drove me to my grlfriends house in high school), and an Iyer grl is unacceptable "what if she doesnt change her name?! what will society think?! PEOPLE WILL TALK?!"
people get really touchy about mating habits in general...
no, ve only have the AIDS and billion-person population (both increasing verrry fast, but ve don't do the s*x here.
Excuse me sorry to be Indian, but what is this s*x you are talking about?
is somehting vite vemen do. and if u move to umrika ur kids vill do too. is bad.
Hai besharam - don't you know that "s*x" refers to a sixer, aka a batsman hitting the ball over the boundary line?
good, beta....
It is okay to rent to single white girls because…well, they are already slutty (or at least that is what the landlord quoted below seems to imply when she says “they are used to living on their ownâ€).
Granted it's a 'humor' post, but I didn't get how you arrived at the conclusion from the CSM article. The landlord seemed to merely suggest that western women were used to living alone
"Slutty" is a bad thing? I don't think Abhi is even saying that. :)
desis would be really good as the sex counterpart of the soup nazi - no sex for you! in some implicit way, this is the role of these landlords.
1. For many people in India, single women living alone is not a typical or acceptable living arrangement. I am not saying this is preferable, but if I were you I would think twice before assuming that all people must share your views. My mother lived at home until she was 29, when she got married. She was a doctor and made plenty of money, and at no point did she feel "oppressed" by that decision. The same is true of most women in my family even today, and indeed most of the single Indian women I have ever met. However, recognizing that women now hold jobs outside their hometowns, and often must study in different locations, growing numbers of single sex dwellings, hostels and buildings are being created. Also, it is becoming gradually more socially acceptable for young people, both male and female, to live alone before marriage. Perhaps sitting in heart of isolationism and self-centeredness here in America, we call this "progress" but I personally am not so sure that living alone is inherently superior to the extended family arrangement. I think the way many of my friends were essentially kicked out of their homes at 18 or after college, and left to fend for themselves is far more worthy of criticism. Things will change within a generation, but it is unfair to expect social mores to be completely overturned in such a brief period of time.
(Interestingly, many of these traits carry over to the New World; for instance while my American friends are generally financially independent at an early age, many of my Indian friends, especially girls like my sister, do not find it strange to have their parents continue to pay their rent, give them money or buy them homes, even well after they are capable of doing so on their own. Again, I don't see why this is a negative.)
2. I wouldn't go so far as to say that "all western women are sluts," but I would argue (again treading carefully)that its not unrealistic to say that Western attitudes towards sexual conduct especially premarital, are far more relaxed than those in India. Again, I don't see why this is a negative. Of all the Western things that are becoming global trends, I personally consider the casual treatment of premarital sex to be the most damaging, (for both men and women) along with rampant materialism and lack of personal responsability.
It's like Greece, Rome, Egypt, heck all the big empires; as soon as they lost their moral ascendency (though it was generally dubious to begin with) and started tolerating all sorts of perversions, the fall that followed was inevitable. Thankfully, America is fast sliding down that slope; places like China and India that still place some value on personal morality and discipline will ascend correspondingly.
I had a friend (from Madras) in grad school whose dad's major piece of advice to him before coming to the U.S was to stay at work between the hours of 3 to around 9 in the evening, because apparently that's when the women are outside, partying it up, and apparently focused on seducing his boy. He also felt that it was his duty to spread this gospel among all his friends who were coming to the U.S.
As for the serious point about brown women in America, Tamil movies certainly perpetrate the stereotype of the America-returned woman usually wearing skimpy tight clothes and being loose. Whereas it is considered a symbol of status and wealth for a guy.
Ok, now I have the visual of a moustachioed Tamil guy in a white veshti and Tantex banian yelling this at me.
no matter if women living alone or with family is superior or not, having the freedom to choose to live alone and rent an apartment without having your landlord think your a sl*t is clearly a good thing. seem ridiculous to think otherwise. "yeah...isnt it great that we are so moral?! if your a girl you are a h0 for living by yourself!". this isnt a preference. this is just giving the girl less optons, because she is a girl.
perversions is your opinions. and....tolerance is what draws people to america. americas strength is based on tolerance.
curruption is rampant in india and china, aids is spreading like wildwife through india and china. this isnt personal morality and discipline we are talking about in this post. its sexism and mysogeny. and besides, i wouldnt hold any country as "morally superior" to any other.
I KNEW IT! The wild wives are the problem. Tame them now, Richard Gere!
(Seriously, I agree with most of what you say, Puliogre #43).
its hard to wear clothes in chennai. its freakin hot in chennai....
i meant wildfire...hehehe. (ive got shaadi.com wife searching on the brain)
Sorry, I meant being America returned is a status symbol for a guy, not wearing skimpy tight clothes. Thank goodness! Otherwise, we'd see Vijayakanth and half the Tamilnadu population in them.
although that kind of outfit is really comfy in that hood...
Don't forget, the gays caused 9/11.
G Unit, it's nice that you're worrying about Indian civilisational decline sitting in the heart of America. Now why not let Indians in India figure out for themselves how they want to live - including adult women - instead of debating the relative morality of living with family or on one's own.
Of course attitudes towards sex are more conservative in India than they are in the US, and about twenty years ago a woman who lived alone was looked upon suspiciously. But more and more women have reason to live alone. I have aunts who lived alone in Delhi twenty years ago because they were working there while their parents were in Calcutta, or in the case of one aunt by marriage, because her parents had died and she had no other family. They were considered very exceptional then. Today you have thousands of young women working in all sorts of jobs in Delhi, from other towns, or some who simply want to live closer to work. Should they be automatically assumed to be immoral? Quite honestly, you can put girls in hostels all you like and if they want to mess around, they will (just ask anyone who ever lived in a girls hostel in college in India).
As more and more working women rent places of their own, people will hopefully become more comfortable with this. Yes, it will be a gradual process. And in the meanwhile, honest hardworking responsible adult women will have to work twice as hard to find places, pay more, and deal with much more nosiness and judgement from those around them.
i'm glad we concur on the male wardrobe befitting these roles.
Of all the Western things that are becoming global trends, I personally consider the casual treatment of premarital sex to be the most damaging, (for both men and women) along with rampant materialism and lack of personal responsability
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thankfully, America is fast sliding down that slope; places like China and India that still place some value on personal morality and discipline will ascend correspondingly
Yo, it's gittin' like caligula up in here.
Seriously though-people really believe in the "moral superiority" of any country?
Hahahahahaha!
My grandmother, (a zexy, old-country latina immigrant) used to say about pretty much anything whether it be college, marriage or a new sport, "Try it, seek if it works for you. If not, you could always try something else. Comer,nina!"
Words to live by, man. Words to live by.
didnt m@zi g*rmany have "discipline". werent they superior in culture? s!eg h@il!!!!
i meant n@zi.
I was trying to quote G Unit below the underline in #52 but it got screwed up. Hopefully, y'all know that ai'nt me.
I am all for the "fast sliding" down of morals when it comes to the sex. I'm not good at bein' all romantical and shit so that makes it easier to git some.
You guys make it seem like it is pretty common to be single and having sex in India. Is it really that common? If it is then I can't wait to go there and get in on the fun. My parents have a lot of real estate in India but I haven't heard of them discriminating against singles.
is a guy sleeping around also wrong?
do landlords care if you bring girls up to your room a lot? are you just a playah at that point?
seriously, G Unit - if that was you treading lightly, i don't even want to know the rest....
i come from a 'conservative' family in madras - but 75% of the men in my family have had affairs, some even with proper second wives (there's literally a veedu in the chinna veedu situation), as well as children as a result. and the whole damn city knows about this. but nobody cares. meanwhile, our on-again-off-again chief minister karunanidhi is quite open about his two wives, who, for public consumption i assume, get along very nicely. can you imagine if a woman had done any of these things? this is surely a double-standard, and it can be seen even in smaller ways, like puliogre's (sorry, dude) parents' ban against girls with previous boyfriends, while he has obviously openly dated with his parents' knowledge. and i don't even want to start on all the things puliogre mentioned in #43. so, do i think of india as a particularly moral country? NO. and if that's your idea of moral superiority, you can bloody keep it.
does this mean that i can rent my properties in india out to women only, and charge a lot of rent? that seems like a better deal for the landlord. i should be all over that trade.
maybe shouldnt have brought that up. my parents are actually really sweet people...
a man after my own heart! i hope you are teaching all of this in your sexed class - i could see several quotes from SM being helpful.
ak, you omitted the other on-again-off-again one Jayalalitha, whose ascendancy to power was primarily due to the fact that she was the mistress of the previous illustrious chief minister MGR. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it is good to be the chief minister!
I was between apartments in New York so I rented a room in a private house from a Punjabi family. Myself being Punjabi it was kind of nice but then it got old really quick. They really wanted a girl to live there instead and they complained that I was always coming home too late (I work late). The apartment was ok for a temp situation, not bad but not the cleanest, but now they have a girl living there and all she does is complain about the cleanliness, things needing to be fixed, etc. Poetic justice I guess.
Someone said earlier about renting from management companies. I swear by that. They actually fix things on time and have set procedures for handling complaints. Much better than a private landlord who thinks the only thing they are supposed to do is collect rent. ANY landlord is going to be nosy as hell.
puliogre - your parents are not so uncommon in that view. hell, my own parents think dating is evil - everytime my mother talks about somebody else's bf or gf, she says it with such heavy moral disdain (and uber-pronounced desi accent)that there is no way i would ever introduce her to any of my own bfs. so they know about none of my own endeavours. my parents are pretty cool otherwise, but dating is a big no-no...
Not that I disagree with your analysis with respect to affairs, etc.. However, two sexes (that, in my view, exhibit stark physiological and psycho-somatic differences in the way they perceive the world) would naturally lend it self to two standards.
hmm...i just view my tenants as a rental yield. i dont care about their "morality" unless it stains the carpet and therefore reduces my yield.
dating wasnt taboo for me. i mean...my dad dated in india in the 1960's. my parents liked my grlfriends.
i hope you are teaching all of this in your sexed class - i could see several quotes from SM being helpful.
I teach it all, baby. I tell them-when you decide to make that choice-WHENEVER it is, here's what you need to know. I encourage them to wait but many are already active so those who are-there's stuff they gotta know man.
a man after my own heart
BTW ...coach diesel=female. Your mind been blown?
fair enough. but it's discrimination whene the differenetial in treatment has nothing to do with either of those two aspects you mentioned. having sex, per se, is not related to either.
Sheesh, get a room already, you two! As cousins, of course.
so....thast what they mean by "kissin cousins"
I think this has been said in different words above but let me express my opinions in slightly different terms:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you are killing me. Actually India is probably one of the more promiscuous (and hypocritical about it too) societies in the world. Lest you think that is a sweeping generalization, look up some of the government statistics on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Anecdotally (well, not quite), one of my friends did his two years of mandatory village service (mandatory in Maharashtra) after graduating from med school in a couple of places in Vidharba. By his reckoning (and he kept records) about 3 out of every four patients had multiple sexual partners. The difference in India is that no one talks about this and almost everyone is a f..ing hypocrite. Another problem is that such sexual conduct is tied up with a lot of social hierarchies (gender and caste, to be precise). Friend if you dig beneath the surface in India (or perhaps many other societies)and go beyond the frankly bullshit rhetoric you will find many dirty little secrets such as these.
sorry! you mentioned something in the previous post that inferred you had overlooked some aspects of the female anatomy/sexual process. i also have not been on this blog long enough to ascertain you clearly as a female. but it was NOT because i think coaches can only be men.
i just view my tenants as a rental yield. i dont care about their "morality" unless it stains the carpet and therefore reduces my yield
I view my tenants as my own private peep show.
theres an idea i havent thought of. i should hook up a webcam...
People, I think what all of you are missing, is that if you don't acknowledge or talk about sex, like in India, it's effectively not happening. It is a similar philosophy to the abstinence education out here. And look how well that's working. It's not as if it is a natural human instinct or anything, with no deleterious consequences (with appropriate protection etc.).
you mention only you and your dad - so if dating wasn't taboo for you or your father, how come it is for the prospective wife?
sorry! you mentioned something in the previous post that inferred you had overlooked some aspects of the female anatomy/sexual process. i also have not been on this blog long enough to ascertain you clearly as a female. but it was NOT because i think coaches can only be men
Is good, baby. I didn't take it that way to be pissy, just makin' a funny. I may purposely create a little ambiguity sometimes...
In my experience if someone is getting their chaddis in a twist about others getting some action, its because they are not getting enough or they did not have the same freedom when they were young and are jealous.
I know this is anecdotal, but I have noticed that its usually women who are the self appointed watchdogs of sexual morals. Is it just my experience? If its true, I wonder why.
not sure its taboo. its just that my mom (oddly enough, not really my dad)makes it a point to ask if a perspective grl has had a boyfriend before. if the answer is yes, she then makes a funny face.
Is that what the Kinks meant when they said "she walks like a woman and talks like a man"?
#81
They don't call 'em The Kinks for nothin', baby.
Rahul, was that you who emailed me the other day or another imposter?
Beige Seige, it's a good guess (and yes, I've often thought the judgemental aunties just needed to get a vibrator already) but most of the landlords who refused to rent to me as a woman were male.
AK - basic logic, beta - men are allowed to date, women are suspect if they do. The women that these men dated in college (my father, uncles, etc etc) will then, after being dated, be considered unworthy marriage material and rather "fast" - there are women for fun, and women you marry. It's changed a bit now, thank god, but the double standard hasn't gone away altogether.
Whoa! No, I never emailed you!
i would think that women would want their daughters to be better off than them? would expect guys to get more bent out of shape.
On my block, yes. Also double and having seks w/ someone other than your insignificant other? Yes, yes, yes.
Re: morals. From Gangs of NY, “The appearance of law must be upheld”.
but there is clearly a different standard there, even if slight? she's OK with your gfs, but not OK with the ladies' bf? surely, if you dated before and had gfs and your mom was OK with that - why not the same treatment for the girl? the very fact that this is enough of an issue for her to ask that question of the prospective wives means she is not OK with it.
Rahul-there is an imposter trying to git wit me using your name. I saw right through it though. They didn't have your 'lil somethin' somethin'.
heres the real twist..shes ok with my female relatives boyfriends. i gave up trying to understand....
I know this is anecdotal, but I have noticed that its usually women who are the self appointed watchdogs of sexual morals. Is it just my experience? If its true, I wonder why.
I've noticed the same sort of thing, and I'm not sure it's limited just to Indian society either. I mean, you never hear "been around the block" in connection with a guy's past, do you? And American fathers presumably don't lecture their sons on how nobody will buy the cow if they can get the milk for free...
Coach, although, if you send me (or SM admins) the email (actually just the headers, but we need the headers), we should be able to extract IP address information, which when correlated with SM's comment logs, could potentially help identify the perpetrator.
If you care enough to do that, mail me at rahulsmutiny. The mail address is on yahoo.com.
puliogre - do you have a sister?
SP - sigh. this is something i've figured out way before - and i try to fight the fight. but really, given my family's views (and those of desi society at large) - i know what is mentionable and what is not in the family social circle. but even in the larger society, it's only changed somewhat - for instance, a lot of men will not have a relationship with a woman who 'gives it up' too quickly. or who has sex with a lot of people (even if it's less than the number of women with whom they have slept). i don't know why, but many guys are just not cool with having a woman who is as sexually active as them, much less more so.
Uh oh. I have friends in high places! I may just do that...
a female cousin. very much like my sister. the relationship between her and me, my parents is very close.
ive had girls parents do due dililgence on my past. parents in india get really suspicious cause im an american, and everyone knows americans sleep around.
I've found that putting this as my name on the horoscope (of course, horoscopes need to match!) eliminates the sleeping-around question. Feel free to try it out.
i don't know why, but many guys are just not cool with having a woman who is as sexually active as them, much less more so
They are not cool with it because it is intimidating for them. It causes self-doubt, worry and comparisons, provoking anxiety which is, as we all know, very romantical and zexy.
the horoscope matching makes me angry some times. one parents wanted a horoscope match. I asked why. they said "your american, we need to be extra careful". I thought "so, because of my nationality you cant be sure of my morality, so the position of neptune at the time of my birth will asuage your fears?!"
puliogre - the fear with prospective grooms is not sleeping around - it is that you already have a wife, or that you have 'tricked' other women into marriage/prospect of marriage in bringing them over to the states.
why havent landlords in india caught on to the fact that women need to over pay rent. why wouldnt they just rent to women only, and make a lot of money. seems like an arbitrage.
I tell them that as a materialist, the only relevant things are that Mercury is in the house, and Saturn is in the garage.
what would i get out of spending a boat load of money to bring some chick to the US if i already have a wife? guys looking for harems?
i guess you could be married, go to india. sit through the ceremony. b*ng the grl, leave the country, return to family life.
Puliogre - landlords DO charge women more, basically the "foreigner rate" - which very few Indian women can pay, particularly the young, call-centre working kind.
And the reason that desi men sometimes marry the nice girl their parents picked out for them from home even though they're already shacked up (with a Vhite Vitch, no doubt, hidden from their families because she'd Never Be Accepted) is so that they can make their parents happy. Uphold civilisation and morality and all that.
Uh oh. You said boat. You meant DBD.
oh yeah, baby. because god forbid their partner is as good as - or better than - them in bed. so i guess it's not just their size that weighs anxious on their minds.
theres got to be cheaper ways to get action than that...
so..in that case, wouldnt you want to only rent out to rich single indian women or foreigners? i mean..why wouldnt yu want to receive market rents when you can ream women/foreigners.
parents in india get really suspicious cause im an american, and everyone knows americans sleep around.
I don't really think that's because they think you're sleeping around. They want to make sure you don't have an American girlfriend/wife or boyfriend/wife who is going to break up their daughter's marriage...they want to make sure you're not some sort of deviant who is going to harm their daughter...they want to make sure you're not an ax murderer.
If you lived in India, they could easily ask around and find out all these things about you, but the information network is much more sparse in the US. Ergo the due diligence.
thats f-cked up. i think im too simple a guy. i dont think i could dream up a scheme like that even if given time to dream it up.
is this kind of info more easily available if the guy is indian?
i mean...it cant be hard to hite a girlfriend on the sly if your chillin in mumbai and your community is in bangalore....
the desi version
is this kind of info more easily available if the guy is indian?
Yes, or at least I think so. Let's say you're a guy living in Matunga (heh!). Even if you live by yourself, you have three nosy neighbors, five cousins, and at least two distant relatives living in the area who will be more than happy to rat you out...er, discuss how wonderful you are with the parents of a prospective bride.
I once helped my aunt and uncle sort through horoscopes from India for my cousin. Some horoscopes were accompanied by detailed family background descriptions, including addresses and phone numbers, in case my aunt and uncle wanted to check out the family.
HMF on June 19, 2007 09:49 AM
So it wasn't the Jews afterall?(nice comeback) ;-)
Oh Lord, not another "Everything in India is so anti-women ....thread"
Please !
Agreed that some folks may act like complete twerps when it comes to renting .But let me offer my own personal experience:
- Lived alone from the age of 17 - rented/Paying guest/hostel etc
- Have single women firends who successfully rented in N Delhi - oh, yes!
- Have family that own property and rent out to - gasp!- single men , single women
- Have myself rented out to - single women, unmarried cohabitating couples - oh ,yes!
So please, while I am sure everyone has had varied experiences , no blanket statements and I would take the CSM article with a very large pich of salt.
Further rants about the "dating" and "employment of single women" will follow later
please...continue...
Runa - rented their own places, or a PG accommodation? The latter is very common, or sometimes they'll have a group house and rent out rooms to individual girls. Renting your own place is the problem. Not impossible at all (as the article indicates, the woman did find a place), but tons of resistance.
I definitely agree that renting as a single woman in Delhi is hard (unless you have another single woman roommate, in which case I've found it's easier), but with the growing number of young post-college professionals, I've noticed this opening up in the 'burbs (e.g. Gurgaon). I think neighborhoods with more foreigners can also be a little easier to rent in (for the second story of a house or whatnot), but a little more expensive. I don't know how that compares to renting a flat or apt, though.
Oh, to backtrack, I always got the impression that ABDs are considered sluttier, but for some reason there's some kind of desire to "save them from themselves" since they, too, are brown. I haven't really seen this with other (gori) women.
You would be amazed by what some guys will do.