Pull it together, India. We can get through this. Promise.

I’ve been through this exact scenario before, but I swear, the movie’s just made it worse. Here’s what happened.

I was on assignment for an American magazine with a British photographer. Our job, that day, was to profile a poor woman in Delhi who works in a middle-class neighborhood, going door-to-door collecting garbage. Women in India attract unwanted attention. Foreigners attract unwanted attention. And cameras and gadgetry of any sort attract unwanted attention. Put the three together, and you’ll know the circumstances we were working under.

Anyway, I was interviewing my subject, standing next to her just talking, when a guy on a motorbike stopped behind me. For a minute, he just stood there with his engine running (therefore ruining my audio), and then, because apparently, it’s perfectly normal to stand in the middle of the road staring at people you don’t know, he turned it off and waited for me to finish.

I sighed, turned around to face him, and braced for whatever was coming. “Yes, what is it I can help you with?” I asked.

“Is he a foreigner?” he said pointing to my photographer.

His white-as-milk skin must have been the giveaway. I nodded.

“Don’t let him take pictures!” he said. “He’s going to sell them in his country and make India look bad. That’s what they do.”

For a few moments, I just did not know what to say. The absurdity of remarks like that always amuses me. There, in front of him, stood a woman who digs through trash to make a living, who cannot afford to send her kids to school, ensuring that they, too, will dig through trash to make a living for the rest of their lives, and instead of being concerned by her situation, this guy was more concerned by how the pictures were going to make his country look.

There is a growing sentiment here, especially among the middle class, that foreign journalists come to India to try and make their careers writing about the social problems the country faces. The intense criticism by Indians of both Slumdog Millionaire and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger are results of that.

I just wish more Indian journalists would try and make their careers in the same way.