Very Indian Problems

This happens when your kid is skinny, the child may be healthy but the first question we get is "are you not feeding him well", " I hope you are giving him fresh home cooked food and not getting in to frozen concept, like people abroad do". I get this from my own mom

 

Reminds me of another related incident. I take my LO to the park on walks by myself at times. If I am seen without my DH, anyone from my neighbours, house-help, acquaintances ask me "Where is Sir?". If you are Indian with a child, the rule is that you should be seen with your man. Or not seen at all.

 

Some Indian communities associate wealth/health with chubbiness (if i dare say it ).

 

1. When my first child was a few months old, these were the remarks my ex got while i was next to him:

"No doubt, he is your child. He got the same colour as you!"
"Your wife is so fair but your son is same colour as you. She must loved you alot."
"What were you feeding your wife? Why the baby didn't get her colour?"
"Your baby is 100% copy of yours. Nothing from your wife at all."
Ex was brimming with pride while I was fuming inside.

Same story when my other two came. As the children grew older, the remarks changed to:

"Your children are lucky, they got their colour from their mom."
"Your children are very good-looking, they must have got the looks from your wife."
"Thanks God, your children look like their mother."
"Oh, they're your children? Why they look so different?"

2. A year after I had my firstborn, I went back to work and my gosh, so many uncles were asking me if I really loved my husband. When I told them yes, they then advised me to changed my surname to my husband's. I never did and they eventually got tired.

3. My MIL loves helping her low-income relatives. She asks all her children to contribute and gets full credit for it. She tells her relatives that she took it from her savings so no need to stress about repaying.

 

We were at my friend's kids birthday party last weekend. At least 2 women asked me if the baby (toddler) I was holding was my own. No, I just rented a baby to bring to the party.

 

This is so true. I used to get infuriated with questions from desis "where does our husband work" as the first question. Why do they have to ask me about his work experience? Ask where I worked last. But time I understood that all social attachments are established through husbands work- meaning real family friends, locality etc, so they were asking to make sense of where I stood...where I live...who I might know...all through my husband, and only my husband. Dare I have my own friends or social life..

 

Marriage related:

Caste No Bar - in matrimonial

Love Marriage or Arranged marriage?

No, love cum arranged marriage!!

 

Strangely this happens only within India, if outside the country only Indians ask such questions to other Indian women. I don't recall any non-Indians asking personal questions, even friends (their questions are related to the person or whats happening at the moment). As you said, all social attachments are expected to be established through husbands.

I also noticed a pattern during interviews. The interviewer must know if the female interviewee is single or married. If married, having kids or not. If she will commit to work or will quit and move if husband moves elsewhere. Onsite opportunities and important project responsibilities will be given based on judging all these factors, not based on how talented the interviewee is. None of these personal questios will be thrown at a male interviewee. Same is the not the scene out of India.

 

As much as I hate differentiating between men and women at work, I don't find this type of questioning too bad. A few years back I interviewed for my previous office. Two candidates, one male and one female were shortlisted after final round. Both performed almost equally well. But I suggested selecting the male candidate because the female was just married and I kind of guessed she wont work for much long. But the management chose her as she was a little better technically than the guy. End result: after working for 3 months, and training her and stuff, she resigned because she got pregnant. I was so irritated because 3 months were actually wasted in just training her. So yeah, this happens more often that we would like to accept. It may not be the right thing to consider in a candidate, but it happens too often to ignore.

 

A woman's identity in India: Looks/Age/relationship status, how many kids she has and will she commit for a long term so on... then comes her educational skills/talent
A man's identity in India: What kind of skills/talent he has, where he works, his salary, possessions.

Not fair.

Interviewers in India cannot distinguish between what is professional and what is personal, it runs in our culture. The appropriate question is "Will you be able to give us a long time commitment, for at-least a year?". The selection process should be based on the word given by the interviewee. Not by self-judging her after asking her personal questions.

When organisations cannot commit toward their employees, why should they commit to the company?

Male vs female employee issues run globally, its prominent in India.