Well, you can't be camera shy if you come to India. Who would have thought that being an American in India meant taking endless pictures all day with complete strangers!? In Delhi, we were stopped at every tourist site we visited and asked "will you take a photo with my friend, my brother, my sister, my mom, my grandma, my BABY, my wife, etc." Often times people just lingered around with the camera in their hand too afraid to ask, but I knew what they wanted. Sometimes they wouldn't even ask for a picture, and would pretend to take pictures of the monuments (where I happened to be standing), which were...behind them! The whole situation started out being flattering, to funny, to repetitive, to obnoxious.
Luckily, I love taking pictures, so I didn't mind. However, walking around all day in 90 degree weather, dripping sweat, wanting to pass out in the air conditioned car, and being approached to take a photo with every member in a family every five minutes wasn't exactly ideal timing...nor did I leave them with a cute photo! Here are some of the times we decided to take some photos too. It was so cute because some of the kids who didn't have cameras would ask us to take THEIR picture. People ran up to us just to say hello and ask what our names were. One time some kids asked us for our autographs! We told them we weren't famous, but they didn't care. It was really cute :)
There was a little girl in Delhi that was trying to sell me post cards on the street while we were waiting for our driver who warned me about taking picture with some people. Moments before a crowd of guys asked me to take a photo with them and of course I said yes, but more and more started to crowd around right when our driver showed up to lead us to the car. The little girl followed and said "Madam, be careful with your purse. Men will ask to take pictures with you and take your money when you aren't looking!" She was probably right, but luckily I have my hand on my purse at all times and it is slung across my body. I had never even thought of this, but it made a lot of sense with the situation that happened two minutes before. You have to be careful at all times, especially in those crowded places in Delhi!
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