{"id":2589,"date":"2005-11-30T17:38:58","date_gmt":"2005-11-30T22:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=2589"},"modified":"2005-11-30T22:01:48","modified_gmt":"2005-12-01T03:01:48","slug":"do_not_touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/30\/do_not_touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Not Touch! [Updated]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While shop window designers are offending our readers by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/002587.html\">sexualizing Indian religious icons<\/a>, Indian authorities are busy putting the &#8220;hi&#8221; back into &#8220;hijra&#8221; &#8211; their new hospitality guide makes it very clear to all those dirty over-sexed foreign visitors that they must behave themselves in a supremely chaste fashion when in-country.<\/p>\n\n<p>A <strong>20 page booklet<\/strong> has been prepared to instruct visitors to Ajmer, Rajasthan, in the &#8220;proper&#8221; way to respect Indian sensibilities. Here are some of the rules:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiatravelog.com\/images\/ajmer.jpg\"><img class=picture height=206 hspace=20 src=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/ajmer[1].jpg\" width=227 align=right vspace=10 border=0><\/a><\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Men should <strong>never<\/strong> <strong>touch women in public<\/strong>, <strong>even to help a woman out of a car<\/strong>, unless the lady is very elderly or infirm<br \/>\n<li>In Indian culture&#8230; <strong>men socialise with men<\/strong>, and women with women<br \/>\n<li>Married couples in Asia <strong>do not hug, hold hands or kiss in public<\/strong>. Even embracing at airports and train stations is considered out of the question<br \/>\n<li>Generally <strong>it is improper for women to speak with strangers<\/strong> on the street and especially to strike up a casual conversation [<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4474528.stm\">Link<\/a>]<\/li><\/ul><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n<p>Hotels and restaurants have been instructed to give this booklet out to new arrivals, as if to discourage tourists from staying a moment longer than originally planned. Hotel owners have been asked to post these rules prominently, in large font, on their walls even though it&#8217;s self-touching not other-touching that leads to poor vision. A shorter version is being prepared for the back of hotel receipts, perhaps to remind post-coital couples that cuddle time is now officially over. Luckily, these rules do not yet have the force of law, and are &#8220;merely&#8221; suggestions. <\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n<p><span class=pullquote style=\"padding-right: 8px; padding-left: 8px; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; font-size: 16pt; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 20px; width: 250px; line-height: normal; padding-top: 5px; FONT-STYLE: normal; text-align: left; FONT-VARIANT: normal\">&#8220;It is improper for women to speak with strangers on the street,&#8221; the rules inform tourists<\/span> While versions of these rules are being prepared in English, German, Hebrew and French, there is no indication if they will also be distributed in Hindi or other Indian languages. <\/p>\n\n<p>Speaking personally, these rules don&#8217;t describe the behavior of my extended family within India, let alone how my married relatives behave. Maybe it&#8217;s just because I&#8217;m a Punjabi, but the idea of not being hugged at an airport or being told that I shouldn&#8217;t socialize with female members of my family in public seems quite absurd. This is far more sweeping that regulation of behavior between couples, it&#8217;s the Talibanization of all relations between the sexes, within the same family or not. I look forward to active civil-disobedience being staged starting soon <img src=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/wink.gif\" align=absMiddle border=0> Road trip to Rajasthan, anyone?<\/p>\n\n<p>UPDATE: <\/p>\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s additional information on the origins of these guidelines:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>A priest at Puskhar said that such behaviour was a form of &#8220;cultural pollution&#8221; and had led to local people petitioning Rajasthan state&#8217;s chief minister to put a ban on all Israelis entering the town.<br \/><br \/>The minister rejected the calls, but sanctioned the 20-page booklet of &#8220;do&#8217;s and don&#8217;ts&#8221;, which has been published in English, French and German, in order to &#8220;educate foreign tourists about local culture and sensibilities&#8221;  [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2005\/11\/30\/windia30.xml&#038;sSheet=\/news\/2005\/11\/30\/ixworld.html\">Link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>This is just like Middle-Eastern politics! You can either blame the Israelis or blame the Israeli blamers, but either way there&#8217;s a lot less fun in the world than there was before.<\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p><\/p>\n\n<p>Related posts: <!--StartFragment --><a class=l onmousedown=\"return rwt(this,'res','1','&#038;sig2=7ZFmt-LOURFsmSmRRdoXnA')\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/000872.html\">Delhi sex clip portends sexual revolution?<\/a> <!--StartFragment --><a class=l onmousedown=\"return rwt(this,'res','2','&#038;sig2=Qp_b-gCDhH7zZM11d_vvxw')\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/001069.html\">Everyone&#8217;s having sex except you<\/a> <!--StartFragment --><a class=l onmousedown=\"return rwt(this,'res','10','&#038;sig2=gZRsm88nzQsT96-2zcIX5g')\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/000386.html\">the youths! they are having the SEX! <\/a><!--StartFragment --><a class=l onmousedown=\"return rwt(this,'res','11','&#038;sig2=2dJgAwdrUX46VA4DWN-fVw')\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/002257.html\">No sex please, we&#8217;re Indian <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While shop window designers are offending our readers by sexualizing Indian religious icons, Indian authorities are busy putting the &#8220;hi&#8221; back into &#8220;hijra&#8221; &#8211; their new hospitality guide makes it very clear to all those dirty over-sexed foreign visitors that &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/30\/do_not_touch\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}