How to Touch Feet
January 11, 2009 4:13 PM Subscribe
Mefi desis: how does foot-touching really work?
I understand in broad terms the gesture of touching someone's feet to show respect: children touch elders' feet, (traditionally) wives touch husbands' feet. It's a gesture of submission, signifying something like the English idiom, "I worship the ground you walk on." In return, the higher-status person is supposed to touch the head of the lower-status person to bless them. But in practice, it doesn't look like that at all.
I was watching the music launch for some movie, and the foot touching permutations as Lata Mangeshkar, Yash Raj, and various movie stars and crew people all greeted one another were fascinating.
Almost no one actually got to touch a foot. The person being honored would bend forward at the waist to prevent it. Maybe expecting this, the gesture was often just a vague reach in the direction of the knees or so. Why prevent someone touching your feet? "You do me too much honor" or something? Is this how the gesture really is done now, and you are rude if you don't prevent someone from touching your feet? But Yash Raj -- the movie producer/studio head, and everyone's boss -- touched Lata's feet. She laughed and let him do it. She's a living legend deserving of all respect, yes, but why would she let the boss touch her feet and prevent the (much younger) movie stars from doing so?
An actress bent down to touch Lata's feet with a quickness and then pressed her hand to her heart. Lata touched the actress's head, then her own heart. A more affectionate variant?
Only one of Lata's interactions had no foot touching attempted. That means what? The other person was not Indian? Indian, but from some community that doesn't touch feet? A bastard?
So please tell me all the ins and outs of foot touching.
I understand in broad terms the gesture of touching someone's feet to show respect: children touch elders' feet, (traditionally) wives touch husbands' feet. It's a gesture of submission, signifying something like the English idiom, "I worship the ground you walk on." In return, the higher-status person is supposed to touch the head of the lower-status person to bless them. But in practice, it doesn't look like that at all.
I was watching the music launch for some movie, and the foot touching permutations as Lata Mangeshkar, Yash Raj, and various movie stars and crew people all greeted one another were fascinating.
Almost no one actually got to touch a foot. The person being honored would bend forward at the waist to prevent it. Maybe expecting this, the gesture was often just a vague reach in the direction of the knees or so. Why prevent someone touching your feet? "You do me too much honor" or something? Is this how the gesture really is done now, and you are rude if you don't prevent someone from touching your feet? But Yash Raj -- the movie producer/studio head, and everyone's boss -- touched Lata's feet. She laughed and let him do it. She's a living legend deserving of all respect, yes, but why would she let the boss touch her feet and prevent the (much younger) movie stars from doing so?
An actress bent down to touch Lata's feet with a quickness and then pressed her hand to her heart. Lata touched the actress's head, then her own heart. A more affectionate variant?
Only one of Lata's interactions had no foot touching attempted. That means what? The other person was not Indian? Indian, but from some community that doesn't touch feet? A bastard?
So please tell me all the ins and outs of foot touching.
- Apart from your parents, your in-laws, and the pandit, whose feet do you touch? There has to be an established relationship, right? Could it be presumptuous to touch someone's feet?
- How does one differentiate between mere formality and sincere respect?
- When would you let someone complete the gesture, and when would you bend forward to prevent it?
- When would you not attempt the gesture at all?
- Do non-Indians in India perform (or accept) this gesture without irony? (Does Liz Hurley touch her MIL's feet?)
- In shaking hands, a person can fight for dominance/be a dick by crushing the other person's fingers, extending his own hand not far enough, holding the other person's hand a beat too long, etc. Is there equivalent behavior is associated with touching the feet?
Best answer: 1: In my experience, it extends to elders in general. Grandparents certainly, and relatives or close family friends of the same generation (my Grandfather's brothers, and their wives, for example). My cousins on my father's side touch the feet of my maternal grandmother as a gesture of respect.
2: I don't imagine that's any easier in India than it is in any other part of the world.
3: Never having been on the receiving end, I couldn't say when you would prevent someone from doing it. Ultimately it's a formality, and if someone sees it as such (i.e. where someone feels that the closeness of your relationship supersedes that formality) they'd be inclined to stop you from reaching their feet
4: In a purely professional situation you probably wouldn't; obviously you would not do so with someone of your own generation.
5: Not a non-Indian, so I couldn't really say, but respect for elders is pretty big in India, so my guess would be that the average 'well-behaved' Anglo wife of an Indian man, say, would probably do so as appropriate
6: Not that I can figure; as a gesture it has a power/respect dynamic built into it, whereas a handshake is notionally a gesture between equals.
posted by kid_dynamite at 5:03 PM on January 11, 2009
2: I don't imagine that's any easier in India than it is in any other part of the world.
3: Never having been on the receiving end, I couldn't say when you would prevent someone from doing it. Ultimately it's a formality, and if someone sees it as such (i.e. where someone feels that the closeness of your relationship supersedes that formality) they'd be inclined to stop you from reaching their feet
4: In a purely professional situation you probably wouldn't; obviously you would not do so with someone of your own generation.
5: Not a non-Indian, so I couldn't really say, but respect for elders is pretty big in India, so my guess would be that the average 'well-behaved' Anglo wife of an Indian man, say, would probably do so as appropriate
6: Not that I can figure; as a gesture it has a power/respect dynamic built into it, whereas a handshake is notionally a gesture between equals.
posted by kid_dynamite at 5:03 PM on January 11, 2009
Best answer: * You do it out of respect towards the other person. Its not really a sign of being submissive. Rather, a way of showing that I respect you. Its more often done to elder relatives when you meet them after a long time or so. You touch a Pandit's feet as they are performing some religious ritual (act for the Gods). Sometimes you would do it in a way of saying thanks to someone for their kindness or help that they provided you.
* Sometimes its done out of formality when you don't really respect the other person but just because he/she is elder to you and everyone else seems to be doing it. I think your body language shows whether you did it out of formality or out of respect - but there isn't really a way to know for sure why it was done.
* Normally elders let it happen and would give you blessings - If i touch my grandparents/parents feet they would let me do it and would touch my head or back while i am bent as way of giving their blessings.
Bending and stopping the other person is a way of telling tht u r humbled to know the other person's intentions and tht the other person doesn't need to complete the task.
* I wouldn't touch the feet of someone who i don't like/disrespect. In case the person is a close relative then i might be required to do it but just out of formality.
* In many parts of India, people don't allow girls to touch their feet as girls are considered alike Lord Lakshmi.
>> * In shaking hands, a person can fight for dominance/be a dick by crushing the other person's fingers, extending his own hand not far enough, holding the other person's hand a beat too long, etc. Is there equivalent behavior is associated with touching the feet?
Not really. As i said, touching feet is a symbolic gesture of showing your respect and has nothing to do with superiority/submission etc.
posted by bbyboi at 7:39 PM on January 11, 2009 [2 favorites]
* Sometimes its done out of formality when you don't really respect the other person but just because he/she is elder to you and everyone else seems to be doing it. I think your body language shows whether you did it out of formality or out of respect - but there isn't really a way to know for sure why it was done.
* Normally elders let it happen and would give you blessings - If i touch my grandparents/parents feet they would let me do it and would touch my head or back while i am bent as way of giving their blessings.
Bending and stopping the other person is a way of telling tht u r humbled to know the other person's intentions and tht the other person doesn't need to complete the task.
* I wouldn't touch the feet of someone who i don't like/disrespect. In case the person is a close relative then i might be required to do it but just out of formality.
* In many parts of India, people don't allow girls to touch their feet as girls are considered alike Lord Lakshmi.
>> * In shaking hands, a person can fight for dominance/be a dick by crushing the other person's fingers, extending his own hand not far enough, holding the other person's hand a beat too long, etc. Is there equivalent behavior is associated with touching the feet?
Not really. As i said, touching feet is a symbolic gesture of showing your respect and has nothing to do with superiority/submission etc.
posted by bbyboi at 7:39 PM on January 11, 2009 [2 favorites]
Mod note: comment removed - making the text small doesn't suddenly make it okay
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:39 PM on January 11, 2009
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:39 PM on January 11, 2009
Best answer: Another time you may wind up needing to touch somebody's feet: If you accidentally touch somebody with your feet, then you have to quickly touch theirs to show that you didn't mean any disrespect. It can get silly. I accidentally brushed a sadhu with my foot and before I could react he's diving for my feet, preempting my own foot-touch to be like, I am humble enough that you can go right ahead and put your foot on me, so then I have to block him while trying to get my original foot-touch in.
It's not usually that awkward though.
posted by BinGregory at 12:03 AM on January 12, 2009 [1 favorite]
It's not usually that awkward though.
posted by BinGregory at 12:03 AM on January 12, 2009 [1 favorite]
What bbyboi said.
And you don't touch anything (except the floor) with your feet. Especially books. See here.
posted by anniecat at 9:42 AM on January 13, 2009
And you don't touch anything (except the floor) with your feet. Especially books. See here.
posted by anniecat at 9:42 AM on January 13, 2009
Yes, I totally forgot about the touching things with feet thing (its just ingrained in me now :P)
As Anniecat and BinGregory said - You don't touch anything apart from the ground (or carpet,mats,shoes etc) with your feet. Especially people, books, paper, etc.
posted by bbyboi at 9:45 PM on January 13, 2009
As Anniecat and BinGregory said - You don't touch anything apart from the ground (or carpet,mats,shoes etc) with your feet. Especially people, books, paper, etc.
posted by bbyboi at 9:45 PM on January 13, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks to all. It sure seems like Indians wrote the book on how to get along: the more I learn, the more I admire.
Kid Dynamite, I think you've explained why Yash Raj gets to touch Lata's feet when she wouldn't let Shah Rukh Khan -- Ultimately it's a formality, and if someone sees it as such (i.e. where someone feels that the closeness of your relationship supersedes that formality) they'd be inclined to stop you from reaching their feet. Yash Raj is older than Lata and as the studio head her employer, so he would not be expected to touch Lata's feet. His doing so is a compliment that she would be ungracious to prevent, I think? Whereas Shah Rukh is obligated to touch Lata's feet as a formality, and she in return graciously prevents him, implying that the closeness of their relationship supersedes that formality.
posted by Methylviolet at 8:30 AM on January 14, 2009
Kid Dynamite, I think you've explained why Yash Raj gets to touch Lata's feet when she wouldn't let Shah Rukh Khan -- Ultimately it's a formality, and if someone sees it as such (i.e. where someone feels that the closeness of your relationship supersedes that formality) they'd be inclined to stop you from reaching their feet. Yash Raj is older than Lata and as the studio head her employer, so he would not be expected to touch Lata's feet. His doing so is a compliment that she would be ungracious to prevent, I think? Whereas Shah Rukh is obligated to touch Lata's feet as a formality, and she in return graciously prevents him, implying that the closeness of their relationship supersedes that formality.
posted by Methylviolet at 8:30 AM on January 14, 2009
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I was expressing my thanks for taking care of me and my respect and gratitude that they'd taken someone else's child to heart for a year, and asking for their blessings both as I was starting a long journey and because it was unlikely I'd see them again.
posted by QIbHom at 4:37 PM on January 11, 2009