The Caste System?

Since I am currently not really travelling anymore, it is hard to think of good topics when I am not riding elephants and camels and trying to figure out what the heck is going on every five minutes.

While I was in India there were a lot of people who mentioned the caste system. I asked someone if they had seen a lot of India and they said "no not really, because of my caste". I was pretty shocked to say the least that the caste system was so prevalent still. The guy also told me that in his caste, "people were intellectual, you know like professors and doctors, etc".

The caste system in India is still alive and well. I was looking at the newspaper and instead of classifieds, there are huge sections devoted to finding brides/grooms and it is wholly unlike (what I think) dating sites in the USA are like. They put everything out there such as, they are light skinned (important to the caste system in India), thin, height, job, caste, etc. There is no walking on the beach and candlelit dinners fluff.

Most marriages in India are still arranged, so these ads are helping to find not love, but a good match for sons and daughters whose parents were not able to secure them a prior suitable match.

It got me thinking about the caste system and if it exists at all in the rest of the world. Not being racist or thinking anything negative about interracial marriage or gay marriage or whatever. Really I think you should do what you want, I don't personally see the effects as much between race.

Where I think that it comes into account more is socioeconomic factors. Would everyone really accept if I married that Mickey D's fry guy? What about the guy that aspires to be a manager at Safeway? You can't help who you fall in love with, but would everyone else be ok with it?

I can't imagine my mom or my family really condoning a marriage that I would be struggling to make ends meet and someone without goals that my family understands i.e. college educated, grad school, "real" job, being able to support themselves and a marriage.

Really aren't there castes in the western world as well? There are stories about people from different backgrounds- rich and poor falling in love and how their families are always ok with it in the end and everyone lives happily ever after. But would this really happen?

I am not trying to rag on the people who work hard for a living and trust me I understand that it is hard to find a job (I graduated with honors in molecular biology and had to settle for a bank teller job), I just think that although most people find it shocking that the caste system exists, the USA and the western world is not immune to it.

Just some random thoughts from the last week. I am really not intending to offend anyone, I was just thinking about this.

Other Updates:

I am currently searching for a summer sublet in NYC until the end of August or so. I signed up for a Spanish class and will start later this month to position myself better to move to Colombia in the fall if that is still what happens (still the plan). Either way it is really important to me to learn more!