Ferries, Saris and Indian men

I left the center on Saturady and hopped a train into Cochin, the nearest city 3 hours north of arunmula. The city is split into two major areas, Ernakulum, which has the train station, department stores, a million horns blowing every second and lots of hotels and Fort Cochin a former dutch and portugese settlement which has tons of historical sites-mainly churches (which were all closed on Sunday!) and even more goats roaming the roadway. The two sections are connected by a ferry ride across the harbor.
Given my past history with ferries-the childhood rides across the susquehanna, the "ferry" in Kiribati- a few boards nailed together(thanks kate for that one) and most notably the near death experience that Deb, John and I had in Thailand (a story for another time) i was in no hurry to board an indian safety standard boat.
Luckily the boats were not that bad and the ride completely smooth. The funniest part about it was the ticket process, first you bought your ticket and then there were two ticket takers at the entrace to the dock, one for men and one for women. The women were let directly onto the dock and the men into a cage directly behind the women, i'm using the word cage because it was a four sided room made entirely of bars with a door leading to the deck that could only be opened from the outside. As soon as the boat started pulling in the men began yelling and banging on the bars. They were release after about half of the women boarded and promptly pushed the rest of us aside.
(On the same note last night i was waiting in the information line at the train station around 11pm to find out my berth no. when this man grabbed my shoulder pulled me back and pushed in front of me. Everyone pushes in front of me so that's nothing new but i can't believe that he pulled me like that. and yes i elbowed his ribs as hard as a could and called him an asshole.)
I just realized that i have been very negative about indian men and while for the most part my experience hasn't been the best it isn't fair to stereotype. I have also met some extremely kind men for example:

My singing teacher, who cried when the students gave him a birthday cake saying that it was the nicest thing anyone has done for him and who sang to me as much as I wanted during class.
and another:
Yesterday I was wandering around Jewtown (real name) and ducked into a coffee shop, i was greeted by a little old man with about 6 teeth left who asked in very accented english-"where you from?" I told him america and he became so excited "I'm from america too!" he then pulled out a photo album of his children-who all moved to america and proudly told me that he has a pass to go whenever he wants. After this he insisted that I stay to eat and he was just going to go home to see if his wife had any fresh samosas for me. before i could protest he had jumped onto his motorbike and was off, returning with samosas. The he insisted that I would love his wife's chappattis (unleavened bread-like tortillas) and was off again this time returning with coconut curry and a plate of hot chappattis. One more time this was repeated with fruit cake before I could finally get away (not that i was trying so hard, his wife is an awesome cook).
okay that evens it out a bit.
Today i am in Madurai in the state of Tamil Nadu. There is a very famous temple here that i hope to visit this evening. I am wearing my bright orange silk sari today, I had been wearing the saris at the center and around Arunmula but this is my first time to wear one out in the city. People just love to see a foreigner dressed in a sari and bindi (even more so if it's done properly). For the first time I am getting friendly smiles on the street-especially from the women and clucks of approval.