Narrative Essay

Since I have been doing school stuff lately I thought I would share my latest assignment. We were asked to write a narrative essay on a topic of our choosing. India was my choice, and the following is what I wrote. (be gentle...it's been 9 years since I've had to write an essay!!)




Being a blonde, blue eyed woman in India is like walking down the street topless in most American cities. You are sure to receive more attention than you have ever had in your life. Some is flattering, most is not, and all of it, after awhile, is less than welcome.
In 2004 my boyfriend Dustin and I went traveling together in Southeast Asia and India. The majority of our time (six months) was spent in India. Being that it was Dustin’s third trip back to the amazing country he gave me several bit of sage advice, one of them being dress appropriately. In India it is tradition that women do not bare their shoulders or legs, as doing so is considered very provocative. There are two traditional forms of dress India. One being the sari, a strip of unstitched fabric, either cotton or silk, ranging from four to nine meters in length and draped strategically over the body. The other is the far more casual Punjabi suit. It is a long embroidered tunic worn over baggy, tapered trousers and accessorized with a scarf. As beautiful as saris are they are quite complicated and cumbersome to take on and off, so I opted for simplicity. I donned the Punjabi most days we were out in public, and found them to be quite comfortable.
Despite my concerted efforts to be respectful and dress in traditional attire I still attracted an ample amount of attention. Some of it was quite understandable, especially when we were staying in smaller villages where the people had less exposure to tourists. But, the Indians are an inquisitive people to say the least, and even while we were traveling in more heavily populated areas I had a tendency to attract a crowd.
“Excuse me madam, autograph please.” said a beautiful Indian child who approached me at the Calcutta train station.
I looked behind me expecting to see some famous Bollywood star before realizing she was talking to me. It took awhile getting used to the fact that in this exotic and amazing country I was the one who was considered exotic. It was a strange feeling that I never quite got used to, but I adjusted as best I could. Adjusting to the attention from the male part of the population was not quite as easy.
The majority of Indian men are sexually repressed. This is due, in large part, to the strong tradition of arranged marriage in Indian culture. In this tradition there is little opportunity for dating or sexual contact before matrimony. I have also been told that their opinions of western women are influenced by high volumes of Scandinavian pornography films that circulate throughout the country. This combined with the fact that they have seen plenty of American, European and other western minded women walking around in shorts and tank tops makes most men in India come to one conclusion: western women are sluts who will most likely have sex with any man who approaches them. This mildly distressing and often demeaning factor made my travels in India, at times, quite challenging. I was traveling with a man which made things easier, but not as easy as I would have liked .
Most of the male attention I received came in the form of anonymous pinches and squeezes while walking in large crowds. Being that the population of India is over a billion I was walking in crowds most of the time. My butt was the main object of desire for most of the unseen molesters, but my breasts were targeted more than once. By the time I turned around in a rage to see who had violated me, my the perpetrator was usually lost in a sea of faces. Other times I was approached more directly, like the time a man asked me to join him for sex in the toilet on a train ride. His eager face looked down upon me, as if waiting for me to jump into his arms and skip ecstatically with him to the unspeakably filthy lavatory. Had I received this insane proposition in my everyday American life I would have laughed hysterically. Given the circumstances however, nary a giggle escaped from my lips. I was pissed off, and I had had enough. I was doing all that I could to try to respect the culture I was in, and in return I was being treated like a skank!
“Don’t take it so personally baby,” Dustin told me calmly on a train ride to Rajasthan in northwestern India. “I know it’s frustrating but just try to ignore it.”
Easy for him to say. Him with his enviably thin tank top feeling the cool breeze on his shoulders, while I was sweating away in what felt like a thousand layers of cotton . Still, I might as well have been wearing a string bikini the way I was being treated. I met another female traveler on that train who was all to familiar with my plight. She gave me some advice that I never forgot
“Mention their mothers,” she said with a sly look in her eye. “Indian men have a thing with their mothers and if you mention the mother to shame them I think you‘ll find it works wonders.”
I tried this approach the next week with successful results. A young man and his gaggle of friends were following me around the ancient city of Varanasi when he asked me, with a lustful and hopeful look in his eye, what I thought of Indian men. I turned my wrath upon him.
“Not very much!” I said angrily. “Would you treat your sisters this way?” I asked. “Would you treat your mother this way?!?!” I yelled more dramatically. A fearful look came into his eyes.
“Oh no madam!” he said in a whimper. “No, no madam. Begging your pardon.”
I walked away feeling righteous and vindicated and left them sulking guiltily behind me.
Even Dustin had his breaking point. At the end of our six months we were back in Calcutta awaiting a return flight to Thailand. It was the hot season and we left our stiflingly hot room at the guest house to take a walk through the slightly cooler night bazaar. We had been strolling no more than ten minutes when I felt the familiar feeling of someone squeezing my ass. Being that it was extremely hot outside my reaction time was slower than normal. Dustin’s however, was not. I turned around groggily looking for the culprit, but my man was already on the case. He ran behind me and grabbed an unassuming business man by the tie. The crowds parted around them. Anger is rarely taken out physically in Indian culture. You never see Indian men brawling like you would see men in our society. It is an extraordinary thing to witness, especially when a western man is involved. The crowd looked on in shock.
“ Did you just touch my wife asshole?!” yelled Dustin in the distressed man’s face.
“No sir, no sir.” said the Indian man sweating profusely. Dustin knew differently and dragged the man down the street by his tie until he was standing in front of me. He demanded that the culprit apologize. The man did so very awkwardly, avoiding my gaze and adjusting his tie as he spoke. I accepted his apology just as awkwardly, painfully aware of the hundreds of curious eyes staring at me from all angles. A large part of me wanted to disappear, to be lost in a sea of brown faces. But anonymity was not a gift I was blessed with in India. At least my blonde honor had been defended our last night in the country. My white ass had been vindicated for all to see, and I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t like it. I loved it.
Let me just say that I met many wonderful Indian men while traveling, and befriend some as well. India was the most amazing place I have ever been in my life and I will most definitely be returning there for more adventures. The unwelcome advances were just a small part of an incredible journey through a vast and ancient culture. Be that is it may, it made me appreciate being a random face in the crowd more than ever before. After nine months abroad we returned home to Oregon in the chilly month of November. My fellow north westerners were draped in the usual sweatshirts, raincoats, heavy jackets and other seasonally appropriate layers. I, on the other hand, promptly stripped down to my tiny little tank top which was accessorized with nothing but a mini skirt and flip flop sandals. In some parts of India I could have had rocks thrown at me for such atrocities. But in the good old Portland airport I was wonderfully and blissfully ignored. People stared straight ahead of them, unaware and unconcerned with the scantily clad girl just back from Asia. I may be an American slut to the majority of Indian men, but here I was in a vast sea of other American sluts, anonymous and free, and it felt fabulous.