Rant Number 1

Dear India,

I really like you. Like, I like you a lot. But there are some things that are upsetting me. Let me start by saying that you're generally awesome. Take for example the auto driver who takes me to yoga every morning, the guy who lets me live in his house, or the family that took me in for Diwali, and a lot of other stuff. But sometimes I feel like you're taking advantage of me.

Like I said, I'm going to yoga. This means that I'm more tranquil, calm, and stuff but you make this hard. For example, The Green School. It was cute at first, but now I'm afraid I might hate The Green School. This is the school next door to me that blasts (like, I wear earplugs, have the fan on, and it will still wake me up) the same song over and over again starting very early and going on for a long time. Well, sometimes they stop for a minute to sing "for he's a jolly good fellow," but that's about it. Please Green School. On the few days I don't get up before dawn for yoga, please let me sleep.

On that note, the mosque. Oh man. The mosque. I want to like you, I do. Especially because I'm an American and liking you would be progressive so my liberal ass is all about it. But I don't. You are also unnecessarily loud with your calls to prayer. You also do something else at 5 AM where you kinda make noise for a long time. I get up at 5:35 so when you manage to get past my shut windows, fan, earplugs, and consequent dust allergy, I get mad and don't like you.

Now for the next point. Sometimes you get confused and think that my white skin is made of money. It's not. It actually worries about running out of money in India on a daily basis and often can't sleep because of this despite aforementioned yoga. I know that the distance you took me in an auto costs 30 INR. I know this because I go every day and have used a meter. (You may notice that you drop me at an office, not a museum or other tourist destination) So when you arbitrarily charge me 100 INR for a 30 INR journey, I want to cry. (Or hit you, but yoga is keeping me nonviolent.) Of course I can pay a little more. I'm a humanitarian/cosmopolitan so my liberal ass is all about it. But honey buns, 100 is over 3 times the price. As much as I struggle to hold on to thinking I deserve to be charged 3 times more, I'm inclined to think you're an asshole. Maybe a racist asshole.

Which brings me to my final point. Visiting national monuments. I'll take Quitab Minar as an example. It costs 20 INR for an Indian to get in. How much does it cost for everyone else? 50 maybe? 100? Nope. 500 INR!! That is 25 TIMES MORE! Now I try to be open minded so I asked around and the explanation is obvious: My taxes haven't gone to maintaining QM so my admission price should reflect that difference between me and Indians. Cool. But I've found people don't realize I bought a visa to get into the country. How much was it? Well, works out to about 500 INR a month for a year. I thought this might be to mitigate the fact that I haven't paid taxes for the places I'll be visiting. But I'm a dumb foreigner. As Ban said, "You're not gunna just not go to these places." Oh yes I am.

So India, it's not that I don't like you. It's just that you're kinda racist. And I'm really trying India. I'm really trying to see your point of view that America has money and therefore I do and thus I should give it to you, but it's turning out to be a little more difficult than I thought. So throw me a bone here. I'd really like to move forward in our relationship and explore all the wonderful things you have to offer. But I feel like you're holding back and don't want to share yourself which isn't the basis for a healthy long-term relationship. Please get it together or I'll be forced to have an affair with Nepal.

Love,
Me