Indian men and Inter-racial dating

A post titled, Indian guys, white girls, and more..., prompted me to write this blog. In that blog, an Indian guy who has "no trouble dating women (of any ethnicity)" gives us a 10-point advice on making ourselves more date-worthy. He also seems to imply that the lack of these 10 qualities is the reason why we don't see a lot of white women dating Indian men. It's too much of a bait for me to resist. And for the record, I have dated a few white women myself.

The points listed in the above blog are generic good pointers for life, not only for just dating. And they will certainly help in the dating arena.

However, it is wrong to think that the lack of these qualities is the reason why we see less white women with Indian men. And having these qualities won't guarantee you a white woman either. It doesn't take a genius to realize that there are enough non-Indian losers in the US who don't have most of these qualities and still score white chicks.

In my opinion, the main reasons why there are not enough white/black/hispanic chicks hooking up with Indian guys are three:

1. Racial differences: This is the primary reason. Most women have very specific race (and also height, weight, looks) preferences when it comes to dating. This is especially true of the Western women. If you belong to the race which the woman prefers, you have no problem. However, if you belong to a different race, it is not easy to cross this race preference barrier, unless you are an exceptionally attractive specimen of your race (and being rich helps too). The average man - Indian/white/black - is not such an exceptional specimen.



2. Cultural differences: Even if a person is not very specific about ethnicity or race, there are still cultural differences to surmount. The cultural differences between an average American and an Indian raised in India are just enormous. Put the average white girl and the average desi guy in a room, and watch them talk. Chances are, everything about them is different - their language, their ideas and beliefs, their interests, their preferences, everything. They might have an interesting conversation because of these very differences, they might even be able to have a short fling, but anything steady or longer term is very very difficult. It takes enormous maturity, flexibility and intelligence on the part of both people to be able to carry off anything steady or long term. The average person - white chick or Indian guy - does not possess this enormous maturity, flexibility and cultural intelligence. And nobody blame the Indian guy if he is not in tune with the latest Western fashion trends or music! Why should he be? If he likes lounging around in a lungi, watching Kal Ho Na Ho, that is his culture and his preference.



3. Personality: I am talking of the personality of the average Indian guy in the US. What is his profile? Middle class Indian background, middle class values. Probably above average in studies. Probably below average when it comes to chatting up the girls, even in India. He is pretty stable and responsible, but he is not a playa by any definition of that word. How can he come to the US and play the field successfully? Especially when racial and cultural differences are aligned against him? It is too much to expect. On the other hand, I know a few players from my college days in Bangalore who could come to the US, not follow most of the 10-point advice listed in this blog and score more white chicks than even the average white boy. Scoring chicks is an in-born talent for them. It is in their personality. Fortunately or unfortunately, most such Indian players don't score good grades and end up in jobs which don't bring them to the US. I am not suggesting that you need to be a player to date foreign women. But you do need some skills to surmount the racial and cultural obstacles in the romantic arena. I don't think such skills are available in plenty among the typical Indian tech workers in the US.

Bottomline, most Indian guys in the US are just not made for inter-racial dating. I am sorry guys. I know it sucks to hear this. I know it sucks double when you go to a store or restaurant or tourist spot and see white guys or even retarded-looking hispanic guys accompanied by hot-ass chicks acting like kittens begging for their petting. I know it sucks triple when the most female social contact you have is either small talk with your colleague's wife or that average/ugly single Indian girl at work who usually has half a dozen Indian guys surrounding her and who shows nakhras like she is the Queen of Sheba.

That is the price Indian guys have to pay. It is the price for earning big bucks in a foreign land. It is the price for being born in a culture where dating is still not the primary method of picking your partner, a culture in which girls act as if talking to or going out with a guy who does not look like prime husband material at first glance, is the equivalent of losing their virginity to a stranger on the street. So, just grin and bear, jerk off to porn/fantasies of white women, get married to a nice sensible Indian girl, have smart kids and continue the glorious traditions of our glorious culture.

For the other Indian guys who are aware of all this and still want to score white women, I wish the very best of luck. I am a great advocate of inter-racial dating and mutual sharing of stories, dreams, food and various bodily fluids as the best way of experiencing other cultures and expanding one's horizons. And please guys, try your best to make it an experience she will remember with pleasure. We have got a reputation to build and maintain!

Here's a related post specifically for non-Indian women who are interested in Indian men: Dating Indian Men I

What is the scam with the phone cards?

I sometimes use this phone card to call India, from the US. Can you believe the number of digits I have to dial for my call to go through? First the 11 digit 1-800 number of the calling card, then the 11 digit pin number, followed by the 15 digit phone number (including 011-countrycode-areacode-phone no.). That is a total of 37 digits dialled to make one phone call! It is so very easy to dial a wrong digit when punching so many numbers. When I am in a hurry (need to make an urgent call before going some place) or agitated (argument with someone, need to call them back), the frustrations of dialling 37 randomly sequenced numbers and getting it wrong a few times, probably shaves seconds or minutes off my lifespan!

Add to that the unreliable quality of the connection in the form of dropped calls, noise on the line, the possibility of being charged even when the connection with the calling party is not properly established. And then throw in other things like service charges, connection charges, weekly/monthly charges, half-, 1-, 2-, 3-minute rounding. That completes the misery of the calling India experience. A droning lifeless voice announcing, "You have one more minute of talk time left", before the connection is cut-off abruptly, no matter how important, critical or emotional the conversation is, makes the experience even worse.

It is possible to eliminate each one of the above obstacles and miseries. I do use services which don't have some of these problems. But such services come with a cost. Eliminating one to almost all of the above woes can cost me anywhere from 2 cents to 20 cents to 70 cents or even over a dollar more per minute of talk time, as compared to the phone card I've described above. Apart from the extra per minute charges, there could also be a flat monthly fee of 3 to 6 dollars.

Now, what is this scam with the phone cards? Why can't my home phone or my cell phone company offer me unlimited, unrestricted, good quality International calling at comparable rates? It is not as if there is no bandwidth. The bandwidth is there. And it is being sold by phone card companies in pathetic tiny, inconvenient to use packages. If the bandwidth is available, why can't I have it without the need to dial long phone card numbers and pin numbers? Why should I get it only in small chunks, which abruptly run out and end my call? Why can't my home phone or cell phone company buy all these chunks of bandwidth from the phone card companies or whoever it is that owns them, and offer them to customers like me in one convenient uninterrupted stream, at the same rate? I am sure there would be lots of willing buyers, who will help such a telephone company realize the economies of scale.

The situation is analogous to this: There is a great, well-built highway, available for our use. The only choices of transport we now have are small individual cars offering rides of different comfort levels depending on how much we are willing to pay. What I am asking for is something like a big bus or train, a mass-transport service which can offer reasonable comforts, at reasonable rates.

But we don't have a cheap mass-transport service available. In America, the cost of long distance bus travel is almost close to the cost of some air-ticket deals. Similarly, Indians calling India from the US have to pay extra bucks for good quality connections or suffer through the experiences of poor calling cards. Even calling Australia from the US is so much easier and cheaper. Although Australia is farther and certainly has less number of callers from the US!

When, oh when will the situation improve? I know that there will come a day when all these problems will be a thing of the distant past. We will be making free phone calls from anywhere to anywhere in the world, with any device - phone, cell phone, computer, whatever. I can see such a world of cheap, seamless communication. It is not too far in the future.

The Internet is an incredible portal which reduces communication time and distance to almost nothing. Such an Internet is within finger-tips access of me most of the time. A major part of my current life is spent in close proximity to high-speed Internet connections - both with cables and wireless, both at home and at work. Through this medium, I can exchange data, voice, video and typed communication with people around the world, in almost real time. I pay a sizeable fee for the pleasure of having a constantly available, high-speed Internet connection. I don't even utilize the full capacity of the connection available to me. I do not want to pay anything more for any of my other communication needs - not for my cell phone (unless I am "roaming" away from a Net zone), and certainly not for lousy calling cards.

Being in close proximity, most of the time, to such a medium as the Internet and being able to imagine a world of cheap or free seamless communication from anywhere to anywhere, my frustrations with the current long-distance calling situation is multiplied many times. When I use these calling cards to call India, I feel like a Formula One driver from the future, who normally owns and drives F1 cars for free, being zapped into the past and asked to pay for the use of a pathetic mule-driven cart.

Accident Statistics for Workers of Electronic City, Bangalore

I know that one of India's foremost software companies - let's call it W - has a big campus at Electronic City (ECity), on Hosur Road, in southern Bangalore. Thousands of people work there. I also know that ever since this W company started to move its operations to ECity, it has lost the life of at least one employee - perhaps more - every year in accidents on Hosur Road alone. That is not a small number. That is a grave (no pun intended) statistic for a company of any size!

This makes me wonder about the following questions:

1. Exactly how many employee lives has W lost in accidents, on the way to and from office, on Hosur Road?

2. How many employees of W have only been hurt, but not lost their lives in accidents on Hosur Road? (I almost never hear about the no-fatal accidents).

3. Repeat the above two questions for W's employees encountering accidents to and from work, in other parts of the city, i.e., accidents which don't happen on Hosur Road.

4. Repeat all of the above questions for the hundreds, may be even thousands, of other companies which have setup shop in ECity and whose employees travel to and from work at all hours of the day and night.

I am sure the statistics would be staggering. It would be very revealing and explosive if some newspaper gathered these statistics, interpreted them in a proper way and published the results. I don't have the time or resources to do so myself.

If Bangalore is the technology capital of India, ECity is undoubtedly the technology headquarters of Bangalore. There are hundreds of companies here and lakhs of people who work here. The rush hour traffic to and from this place is a nightmare. For most people, the commute to their offices in ECity is a minimum of one hour journey in crowded, indisciplined, reckless and dangerous Bangalore traffic. For people riding two-wheelers, it is a literal deathzone. Even people in cars are not safe and could be easily crushed by the countless trucks and buses plying on this road. People in buses are not totally safe either. In fact, the last employee of W company to die on Hosur Road was travelling in a bus. Such is the notoriety of Hosur Road.

Incidentally, in the 90's, the condition of this road was much neglected by the government. Repeated complaints by the tech companies in this area produced no results. Finally, frustrated employees of Infosys and other tech companies, took up road repair tools and got down on the road themselves, "to repair it". It was a symbolic protest, but it finally made the government to sit up and take notice. However, as usual in India, each new development effort undertaken on this road is too late. By the time any development activity is completed, the volume of traffic would have increased manifold and neutralized the benefits of such development.

The result is that today's technology workers who set out every morning towards Electronic City in Bangalore, face an equivalent or greater danger to their lives as compared to a caveman in prehistoric times who sets out with primitive weapons into a dangerous and hostile jungle to get food.