One of the strangest things about being in India was a sort of instant celebrity status. I’m not sure if it was having such light skin in a place where almost no westerners travel. We spent very little time in touristy areas. That combined with India’s obsession with light skin (It’s actually kind of sad. So many girls asked how they could get skin that looked like mine. They have such smooth, tan, beautiful skin that most Americans lie in tanning beds for ages trying to get. Why can’t we be happy with what we have? That’s a whole different post though.) we were quite the oddity.
This led to much waving and staring. We would sit on the balcony and talk while children across the street would watch us and wave. When we’d wave back they’d giggle and get so excited. I kind of felt like a monkey in a zoo. The entire time we were there they never got tired of waving at us.
Later we got a note from this girl saying how much she’d like to meet us and asking us to fill out a question book with our autographs.
We later went over to the note writer’s house for tea.
They were so happy to meet us. The way the little girl acted when she met me was kind of how I acted when I met Robin Williams. It was so strange to make someone that happy just by meeting them.
Another time a whole group of kids came to ask for our autographs and for us to answer questions like our favorite colors, food, musicians etc.
When we went to speak to a group of youth they all wanted our autographs as well. Here’s a video of me signing their hands with my name.
It was neat that one of the kids grabbed the camera from me so we got this clip of both of us with the youth.
When we were out seeing the sights in and around Hyderabad we had more of a celebrity type of experience. We were constantly being stopped and asked to have our pictures taken with different people.
Even the police wanted pictures with us. Not that we would have felt comfortable saying no.
I mean, look at those guns.
It was actually hard to see things because every few seconds someone would stop us for a picture. I can understand now how celebrities get body guards and deny taking photos with people. It’s kind of exhausting.
But I’m not going to lie, all that attention? I kind of loved it.
