Same Shit....different country!

Everyone has an impression of India as being divided by castes and religion. I met a guy last week who asked me....rather told me that he knew since I was Indian I would only get married with someone from my caste. He was a conservative southern guy (american) who of course thought that everything besides his country was 'third world'. Combined with ignorance his thoughts were pretty annoying.

That conversation got me thinking - having spent considerable time in both countries, I tried to rationally think about how different things are between India and the USA. Yes India has a prevalent caste system in the smaller towns and rural regions and maybe marrying someone outside your caste is a taboo there. But in the metros and even the bigger cities I think it is fairly normal to date and marry whoever you wish to. Having spent a lot of time travelling across the US, I have to say there is a similarity here...think interracial dating and marriages. Theres the east coast and west coast - a small chunk of the more liberal population lives here and they are the few ones okay with it. But as you go towards the interior or 'red' states, majority of people do not seem to approve dating or marrying interracially. Not much different from the caste system in India.

Of course this is entirely my viewpoint and based on personal experiences and the people I have met and not on any sort of numbers. But I somehow expected the most 'progressive' country in the world to be whole lot better.