When I moved to the mountains, I started meeting more people. A lot more, actually. Life here flows differently. It is quieter, smaller, and that means you end up socializing without really trying. The community is full of people who have fled cities, countries, careers, past selves. Among them are many white women who have found love, adventure, or escape in Indian homes, often with Indian men.

And that, in itself, is not a problem.

The problem is how easily so many of them seem to embrace the very structures we have been trying to break.

I am sure you all have that one friend who gets overly excited about attending an Indian wedding. It has become a kind of social currency for white people traveling through India. They post about the colors, the laughter, the chaos. The hospitality, the food. And of course, the “ Indian Culture.”
You have probably seen the feet-touching reels, sindoor selfies, mehendi covered hands folded in a perfect Namaste. All wrapped in filters and hashtags like "spiritual connection" or "embracing Indian culture".

But what is missing is context, critique, and curiosity. No pause to ask what these rituals meant and still mean for Indian women. For us. Because while they perform these rituals for the camera, many of us are still trying to free ourselves from their weight.

Many of these women are not just tourists in traditions. They are marrying into it. Living in Indian households. Performing the rituals with a kind of wide-eyed reverence that might seem harmless on the surface.

Feet-touching becomes a lifestyle. Karva Chauth becomes content. And what was once a symbol of obedience is now framed as cultural celebration without ever asking who those rituals were designed to serve.

And if you think this is just about personal choice or harmless admiration, go read the comments of any of these videos. Indian men are the loudest cheerleaders in these spaces. Applauding white women for “respecting our culture.” Using them as the new gold standard for how Indian women should behave.

Look how she touches his feet.
Look how she fasts with love.
Look how she values our traditions.
Not like you.

It becomes a quiet, sinister comparison. A way to remind Indian women that our questioning is the problem not the system we are questioning.

Because when we push back against patriarchal expectations, we are labeled arrogant. Disrespectful. Westernized. But when they perform the same rituals, they are seen as enlightened, evolved, open-minded.

To me, it is cultural gaslighting.

For decades, women like me have been questioning why our labor, our devotion, our silence, were seen as virtues. We have been unlearning what our grandmothers were taught. To serve first, speak later. To carry family honor in our bodies and obedience.

So watching white women proudly adopt these rituals as aesthetic choices feels more than strange. It feels like betrayal.

It is easy to romanticize a culture when you were never punished by it.
It is easy to adopt rituals when they come with no expectations.
It is easy to revere tradition when you never had to obey these rules.
And it is easy to ignore the caste, class, and gender hierarchies when you were never the one at the bottom of them.

That is what privilege does. It lets you pick the parts you like and discard the rest. It lets you rebrand oppression as spirituality. It lets you cosplay someone else's burden as your aesthetic.

I want to be clear. This is not a rant against love, or intercultural relationships, or white women. Cultures are meant to mix, to learn, to evolve.

This is about responsibility. It is about showing up to a culture with humility, not entitlement. It is about asking who benefits when you perform a tradition, and who pays the price when that tradition is enforced. When white women perform our rituals without learning their weight, they are not appreciating, they are erasing. They are upholding the very patriarchy we are still trying to fight.

We do not need more barefoot brides. We need more critical allies.

If you love a culture, ask what it cost the women who were born into it. And if you really want to honor it, start by listening.