To me showing respect to people comes with being polite. When you live in a different culture then your home country, it is not always easy keeping this standart, because rules of courtesy are different, and a lot comes with language. Unfortunately my Hindi is very poor, but I try my best.
So but how does it work over here? (This article does not claim to tell the universal truth or to be complete. India is a huge country and views may differ. And I can simply be wrong^^ So please do correct me!)
First thing that surprised me: We came to Ahmedabad from the south of Rajasthan, where it is common to greet someone by saying "Ram ram" (which refers to the god Rama, I guess), or "hare" or simply "Namasté". Everywhere and everyone! No matter if it was a shop keeper or a hotel owner or a train ticket officer. Here this is very uncommon. You walk into the store, say what you want, ask for the price, pay and leave. I find this very rude, but this is the way it is. Or people simply use the English hello and goodbye. I also tried to use words like "good night" and "thank you" in Hindi. But no one really says that!!! It is very very formal to say "Dhanyavad". You just say "thank you".
Also something very Gujarati (but rather lower class), it seems: Volume!The swamp witch, excuse me, the mother of our guard tends to rather shout then talk and enjoys waving her hand in front of our face. Huh!
What I expeced to be seen more is the touching the feet thing. To show your respect to an elder person, you bow and touch his/her feet, or you just suggest the movement. But obviously this mostly happens in families or in interaction with gurus and other important and respected persons. (Please do correct me if I am wrong!)
And then there is the time thing. What is seen as really unpolite and respectless in Europe is no big deal in India at all: being in time. Sometimes I feel that an Indian is half an hour late in general :D "Tomorrow" can be quite a few days. And time periods are sometimes measured in the time it takes to chew a pan oder smoke a traditional bindi cigarette. It seems time is just not that important.
It think most of it goes with language. Which is kind of annoying when you are not able to speak the language. But a few things even I can say.
People you do not know, for example in a shop, a restaurant or a rickshaw, you adress with "bhaiar", which means brother (it also shows that we usually deal with men. Women don't work...), but a polite and formal version of "brother". "Bhaiar" and "ben", which means sister, are also added to someone's name. Our maiden always asks for "PJbhaiar" and I thought for weeks the name of the hostel warden is "Warshaben", but her name is actually only Warsha.
There is also a way of referring to someone in a polite way while talking to someone else, for example a waiter, so that the waiter pays knows that he should respectfully adress the third person.
And then there is the friendship-thing. In India it is completely understood that a friend can borrow your scooter. And of course you share food and other stuff, and asking for it may even be seen as an offense! And I can tell you, I heard the sentence "There is no "thank you" in friendship!" quite a few times by now.
I am sure there are a lot more things to mention. But those are the ones that come to my mind at the moment.
So but how does it work over here? (This article does not claim to tell the universal truth or to be complete. India is a huge country and views may differ. And I can simply be wrong^^ So please do correct me!)
First thing that surprised me: We came to Ahmedabad from the south of Rajasthan, where it is common to greet someone by saying "Ram ram" (which refers to the god Rama, I guess), or "hare" or simply "Namasté". Everywhere and everyone! No matter if it was a shop keeper or a hotel owner or a train ticket officer. Here this is very uncommon. You walk into the store, say what you want, ask for the price, pay and leave. I find this very rude, but this is the way it is. Or people simply use the English hello and goodbye. I also tried to use words like "good night" and "thank you" in Hindi. But no one really says that!!! It is very very formal to say "Dhanyavad". You just say "thank you".
Also something very Gujarati (but rather lower class), it seems: Volume!
What I expeced to be seen more is the touching the feet thing. To show your respect to an elder person, you bow and touch his/her feet, or you just suggest the movement. But obviously this mostly happens in families or in interaction with gurus and other important and respected persons. (Please do correct me if I am wrong!)
And then there is the time thing. What is seen as really unpolite and respectless in Europe is no big deal in India at all: being in time. Sometimes I feel that an Indian is half an hour late in general :D "Tomorrow" can be quite a few days. And time periods are sometimes measured in the time it takes to chew a pan oder smoke a traditional bindi cigarette. It seems time is just not that important.
It think most of it goes with language. Which is kind of annoying when you are not able to speak the language. But a few things even I can say.
People you do not know, for example in a shop, a restaurant or a rickshaw, you adress with "bhaiar", which means brother (it also shows that we usually deal with men. Women don't work...), but a polite and formal version of "brother". "Bhaiar" and "ben", which means sister, are also added to someone's name. Our maiden always asks for "PJbhaiar" and I thought for weeks the name of the hostel warden is "Warshaben", but her name is actually only Warsha.
There is also a way of referring to someone in a polite way while talking to someone else, for example a waiter, so that the waiter pays knows that he should respectfully adress the third person.
And then there is the friendship-thing. In India it is completely understood that a friend can borrow your scooter. And of course you share food and other stuff, and asking for it may even be seen as an offense! And I can tell you, I heard the sentence "There is no "thank you" in friendship!" quite a few times by now.
I am sure there are a lot more things to mention. But those are the ones that come to my mind at the moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment