Apartment Building Gate Sign in Pune, India
April 16, 2009
“Bachelors & Foreigners As Tenants Not Allowed”
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An Unquiet Mind Blog by Mahendra Palsule is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
Funny. That would be illegal in the US, but who wants partying rowdies from abroad
?
Several residential apartments are also adopting ‘vegetarians only’ policies too. I don’t know if its good or bad, but if the housing society is run by a board, it must have a right to decide what it wants and what it doesn’t.
Where is the ‘vegetarians only’ policy being applied? In Canada or India?
Whether its good or bad is a subjective opinion of course…the legal aspects of it are another mater altogether!
Priyank:
I have experienced ‘vegetarians only’ first-hand in Bangalore where my real yet unarticulated-by-landlords ‘sin’ was being a North Indian girl. :-/
Mahendra:
If this ever happened to ‘us’ (meaning Indians) abroad, we would be very quick to label people racists, won’t we?
I believe Indians are the most racist people on earth.
Shefaly, to be frank, NO, I won’t be quick in labelling people as racists, even if such a thing happened to me abroad. Similar things have happened to me abroad, but rather than labelling them as racists, I was rather amused at their inability to appreciate cultural divsersity, and tended to look down upon them, who acted as stereotypes!
But yes, Indians are indeed people who are most likely to think about caste, origin, economic status, so on and so forth. You are absolutely right when you say that Indians are the most racist people on earth!
Mahendra, we have long established that you do not represent Average Joe
On bachelor trouble, you may like to read this from Aravind Adiga: http://tinyurl.com/dc23b4
Thanks for pointing to an entertaining article. Though Aravind does make the mistake of thinking that a writer would be able to complete a novel with his wife looking over his shoulder! But he may be forgiven for this oversight as he is still a bachelor…
Somehow, reminds me of a bit that I read a long time ago”
The sign in the cafe, when I entered, said that it reserved the right to refuse service to anyone.
You reserve the right to do absolutely anything you want to do, I thought. Why put up signs to say so? Makes you look frightened. Why are you frightened? Rowdies come in here, break things up? Organized-criminals? In this little cafe?
~ Richard Bach, in The Bridge across forever.
Yeah…I recollect it now. RB does have a way with words, doesn’t he? Perfectly matching quote!
I’ve come late to this post!
Well, that is a very interesting sign Mahendra, and not at all surprising! And I am sure it’s illegal in India too, but who will go to court? Bachelors and foreigners? Unlikely!
And the vegetarian only policy is common in many post areas of Mumbai where Jains live.
I am not surprised.People in this building are honest and have mentioned it. It is an unsaid rule in many buildings.
This is in Pune??! Where?!
Came here on Nita’s recommendation to see your take on movies – Marathi & otherwise. But couldn’t help noticing this before I got to any post
Well amusing as it could be, it’s definitely not pleasant.
You find such specimen everywhere, but I’m more disturbed that this is in a place as cosmopolitan and accepting as Pune. Couldn’t they just say they’re not renting out if a bachelor or “foreigner” came in?
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Hi Gauri, welcome to my blog. This is very much in Pune, and not in the conservative old-Pune, but in the cosmopolitan outskirts. It is definitely not pleasant and hence this post!
I wonder how many people would agree with you that Pune is ‘accepting’. It has become truly cosmopolitan only in the last decade or so, and the core still remains Punekari. Puneites are infamous for their rude signs (puneripatyaa.com), which are obnoxious to the point of becoming hilarious. That’s the culture that permeates Pune – keep them out, rather than say no and be forced to argue with them!
I’ve seen such boards in Pune in localities that have a lot of college students. Most places in Pune refused to have me as a tenant because I was a teenager and because I would “corrupt” the building by allowing guys. I took residence in a PG filled with girls. Some people in our building labeled us as “dhanda wali” women, believe it or not. Our landlord didn’t have a good reputation and everyone thought that he’s running a racket. I was so embarrassed and upset when I got to know about this.
That is shocking and abominable. Puneites can really be very petty and narrow-minded, still this is too much.
Forgot to add- I’ve also witnessed some waiters really posh restaurants in Koregaon Park treating foreigners like dirt. They made it a point to “ignore” the foreigners- didn’t serve water, ignored menu card requests etc. I saw a couple empty their seats in a huff.
Come to London and see how desi waiters in some desi restaurants reserve this treatment for desis.
Yeah…that is all too common everywhere. I recall Pu La Deshpande’s quip about visiting a zoo in England and seeing an Indian crow in one of the cages. “Just like Indians avert their eyes and ignore other Indians, the crow too seemed to ignore me”.
I agree- it happens everywhere in the world, including US.
Waiters’ attitudes usually depend on how much tipping they expect. Wonder about this case. Usually waiters are suckers for foreigners.
interesting flow of comments
\yeah thats like Pune too….by th way just saw the films memes – have lotsa vacation reading to do at your site apparently. A Beautiful Mind had touched me too – had my students all of them watch it.
thanks for those film posts – urs are always enjoyable.
Hey, thanks for visiting again. Hope you like reading my film posts…