Tag Archives: indian

Pen Fight – School Game

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Context:

My informant, AS, is a 19-year-old Indian male who grew up in Mumbai, though he has lived in Southern California for the past three years. He went to a private school in Mumbai, and this game was played at his school, as well as other schools. This piece was collected during a facetime call, when I asked him to share some traditions from home. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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Main Piece:

AS: “I was gonna tell you about a game we used to play in class… it’s called pen fight – where we would take pens that we use to write with and put them on the desk, and you’re supposed to flick your pen so that it hits the other person’s pen, and you’re supposed to like, get them off the desk, just from flicking your pen towards the other one. 

SW: “That sounds nearly impossible.”

AS: “No! It was, it was so much fun. Not in one go you get like multiple goes. You go once, then the other person goes, and so on and so forth.”

SW: “That still sounds nearly impossible.”

AS: “How? I think you’re imagining it wrong. Like, take a pen, flick one end of it so that it like, flings towards the other pen and it hits it.”

SW: “Right. You’re forgetting that I have absolutely zero hand eye coordination.”

AS: “Hahaha yeah. But, it basically came down to who had a heavier pen. But sometimes you’d just play like, with random pens. That was a big part of like, seventh, eighth grade. Everyone played that.”

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Informant Analysis:

SW: “Why?”

AS: “Cause we had nothing better to do. And then eventually it got so bad that like, while we were playing that pens would leak, get onto our shirts, and… teachers had to step and be like ‘yeah this is not allowed anymore. You can’t play this.’”

SW: “But did you keep playing it even after it was technically banned?”

AS: “Of course. It was addicting. It was so addicting that we would like, beg our teachers for free periods just so we could play that. Cause breaks weren’t enough… And then people would buy like, expensive pens just so they could play pen fight with them. They wouldn’t even care like, about whether they damaged the pen or not. They just cared about the win.”

SW: “So was there like, this whole hierarchy of who was better at and stuff?”

AS: “Yes there was. It was actually one of the… it was actually a thing like, even though there was like a hierarchy of ya know, cool people and uncool people, it was actually the one thing that actually brought us together, in a way. Just, nobody cared about class, in that context.”

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Analysis:
Pen fight is a good example of Children’s folklore and folk games. The rules are very easy and anyone can play, as the only materials required are a pen and a table of some sort. The game served to bring the students together as everyone played and enjoyed it. Since Indian culture can often be sharply divided by class, it’s important to have practices that bring people together that may not otherwise interact, and games are a good way to accomplish this. The fact that my informant would buy pens specifically for use in pen fight shows how invested the students were in this game. Additionally, the game seems to have served as a way to test boundaries by doing something that was “banned” but ultimately not dangerous, which can be an important part of children developing identity and learning to think for themselves away from authority figures.

बंदर क्या जाने अदरक का स्वाद (How can a monkey appreciate the taste of ginger?)

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Context:

My informant, AS, is a 19-year-old Indian male who grew up in Mumbai, though he has lived in Southern California for the past three years. He now attends UCI. He is fluent in both English and Hindi. This piece was collected during a facetime call, when I asked him to share a typical Hindi proverb with me.

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Main Text:

Proverb: बंदर क्या जाने अदरक का स्वाद 

Phonetic script: bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad

Transliteration: Monkey what knows ginger(‘s) taste

Translation: How can a monkey appreciate the taste of ginger?

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Informant analysis:

“It’s basically used when someone doesn’t appreciate something of quality. For example, if I don’t like the taste of something like caviar, you’d use this proverb.”

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Analysis:

This proverb would appear to show that in Indian culture there is a healthy respect for the finer things in life, and a negative attitude towards those who don’t appreciate quality goods or work. It’s interesting because I can’t think of a direct English equivalent, beyond possibly “enjoy the finer things in life.” This might point to very different cultural values between Hindi-speakers and English-speakers

The Owl… as a Fool?

Nationality: Indian
Age: 48
Occupation: Sales and Media
Residence: Mumbai, India
Performance Date: 31/03/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Punjabi

The Interviewer will be referred to as ‘I’, and the informant as ‘P’. Translations for Hindi words will be italicised and in parentheses. The Informant is a 48-year-old Punjabi woman, born and raised in North India.

P: Saying “ullu ka/da pattha” (child of an owl) is just an insult, it’s an abuse (in this case, the word ‘abuse’ is referring to a curse word or insult). It literally means ‘child of an owl’, but is used more like ‘child of a fool’, because ‘ullu’ (owl) has come to mean fool more in the way we talk.

I: The owl is usually a symbol of wisdom in Western cultures — why do you think it’s so different here, why would it mean fool?

P: Um… I would presume because owls are nocturnal, and generally, people don’t relate with that? It’s unusual, weird… and usually when people do unusual or weird, or, or foolish things, the response of calling them ‘ullu ka pattha’ is normal, but now it’s just become more like an abuse, like… ullu pretty much means fool more than it does mean owl. So, a person who behaves in unusual or silly ways — saying you are the son of a fool. Which is also weird because why would that make sense? You’re abusing (insulting, cursing out) the parent, you’re just saying that he is the son of a fool, not that he is one. 

Analysis:

Insults can tell a person a lot about a culture and its values, and here, one thing that stands out to me, other than the owl discrepancy, is exactly what also stood out to my informant: the act of insulting a parent rather than the person themselves. This is especially apparent in many Indian insults, where there is an equivalent to essentially any imaginable animal as or sexual act being performed upon a parent, or a relative (usually a sister or a mother, which points to sexual taboos and gender-centric disparities). I think this points to the family-centric nature of Indian culture and its values, where an insult about a family member is an even more grievous insult than an insult to the self. The owl part is largely explained by the informant, and I concur with their explanation, the idea of acting unusual or weird as being foolish, worthy of being insulted (or having your family insulted, in this case), even though the owl is a creature of wisdom in many Western cultures, for example, within Greek mythology, the owl is representative of the goddess Athena, primarily known to be the goddess of wisdom and strategy, among other things.

Don’t touch anything with your feet

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4/17/2021
Primary Language: English

Context & Background:

The informant is a friend met in college and is Indian. I grew up in a rural town in Wisconsin, USA, where there weren’t many other Indians. Throughout middle and high school, I didn’t have any friends with who I could relate with culturally, so when I came to college, I got to meet people who have the same heritage as me. Here is a conversation with my Indian friend. KR – informant, SD – collector.

Performance: (via FaceTime)

KR: Yea, so I know that whenever your feet touch anything, especially books or a laptop but basically anything, you have to touch it with your hand and put your hand to your head and heart. It’s kind of like apologizing or asking for blessings or something like that.

SD: I do that too! I’ve done this my whole life, so when I do it in public, people sometimes ask what I’m doing and then I tell them this exact same thing.

KR: Yes, I know a lot of my friends do it too. 

SD: So do you know why we have this belief?

KR: I think it has to do with our feet being bad. Like they are the body part taking all the dirt and scraps and so if we touch something with a dirty body part, we have to apologize. 

SD: Yes, I think that might be it. 

Analysis: 

In this piece, you can again see the underlying emphasis on knowledge and academics in the Indian culture. KR mentions “especially books or laptops”, which are sources that give you knowledge and wisdom. Another version of the importance of this tradition that I have heard is that if you put your foot on something, you think you are better than them. You don’t want to be arrogant and you don’t want to consider yourself better than anyone, even an inanimate object. So you ask for forgiveness. 

Indian Superstition – Leaving the House

Nationality: Indian
Age: 28
Occupation: Corporate Healthcare Lawyer
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 20, 2021
Primary Language: Gujarathi
Language: English

Main Piece

Informant: “If you’re about to leave the house and someone asks you where you are going, you have to come back in and sit down for a minute and then tell them where you are going. Basically it’s because it’s bad luck to interrupt someone as they are leaving. You shouldn’t ask someone where they’re going if they’re already on their way out and if someone asks you, then you should come back inside. Or else whatever you were going to do will not get done.”

Background

My informant is a practicing lawyer in Los Angeles, California. She is of Indian descent, and her knowledge of Indian folklore comes from her father. 

Context

This superstition is enacted when someone is about to leave the house and they are interrupted.  

My Thoughts

There is not always a rhyme or reason for superstitions. According to my informant, people follow superstitions even if there is no good reason to follow them. However, there are certain elements in this superstition that I connected with others. This superstition falls in line with the Indian black cat superstition (originally from Egypt, popularized in India). This popular superstition says that if a black cat crosses your path, you will have bad luck. Both the black cat superstition and the superstition told by my informant depict the interruption of a journey. In both superstitions, your interrupted journey will bring bad luck and assurance that whatever you were doing will not get done.