I wonder why …

I wonder why only India should be free-for-all, no rules country…..

Yesterday all TV channels were crying hoarse about Mr. Mahesh Sharma’s comment that women tourists should not wear skirts… the Big Bindi brigade, fake liberals, Presstitutes, fossilized women who were once considered journalists (!!), and the rich and famous all chewed up Mr. Sharma. Hahahahaha… well, here are some pictures to get some perspective on this utterance of a “Sanskari” “moral-police type” government minister.

The above picture is a clip from the travel advisory for Cambodia’s famous Angkor Wat temple and Krishnan and I are witness to several Western tourists who flouted this rule and landed up at Angkor Wat in shorts and were denied entry to the inner sanctum. But Cambodia is not a country that rich Indians visit ! No page 3 value, no party value, no show off value and too inexpensive to get the envious looks.

Ok, here goes – for the fake secular brigade.

Am particularly interested in the second picture … guess what the skirts have to be longer than your knees if you want to enter the St. Peter’s Basilica ! Oh no, J Lo can’t walk in there with her revealing sheath dress that caught everyone’s attention on the red carpet ?? Really? How intolerant of the church. And how can the Vatican expect tourists to come there if they have such rules ? … Hey not my words, one of the fossils on TV said this -“how does the minister expect tourists to come to India if they put so many rules, and do moral policing”. Now the fossil can’t go to Vatican too !

Here are a couple more pictures –

It appears as though in India only women are unsafe and all these folks on TV yesterday raised a hue and cry about how Mr. Sharma said that women tourists should not go out alone at night…. Guess what “behenjis”, in New York City and London both men and women are unsafe alone in the night! One of my ex-colleague (a man) got mugged on the tube in London in the afternoon – not even at night. Tell your husbands not to go to these cities – looks like Mr. Sharma has sent some moral police force there too and got them to write these things in their travel advisory. Ouch !

The challenge we have in India is, we have either media-made celebrities spouting borrowed marketable wisdom or we have new born babies giving relationship tips or fossils trying “Mummy returns” on TV… the real voices are drowned out. The fact is tourists have to behave themselves in every country – follow the traditions appropriate to that country. Period. If you don’t like the traditions and culture of a country, don’t visit, but no one has a right to flout the rules. Travel is to broaden your horizons, find similarities and interesting cultural practices that you can adopt, that you can learn about. Just as you won’t walk into a board room in a bikini, you cannot walk the streets of India in one. Just as you won’t walk into an interview without wearing a shirt, you cannot walk into a mosque in the nude. Just as you won’t eat noodles with your bare hands, you cannot eat “Pani Puri” with a spoon…. those who get it, will get it.

The TV panelists who were debating this won’t get it… they would have stopped reading at the picture that has the dress code at the Vatican. That would have hurt them most. All rules can be applied in all countries except in India – are we a free for all country? Can one of these fossils explain why tourists turn pedophiles in Goa ? or some tourists become traders in antiques ? well, I won’t go too far and ask about traders who become rulers!