Tag Archives: wealth gap

Ekelavya and Guru Dronacharaya

Text:

This is a side story in the Mahabharatha. There was a young boy named Ekelavya who couldn’t be trained in the bow and arrow while growing up because his parents were too poor to hire a teacher for him. However, he found the 5 main brothers being trained by a great teacher, Guru Dronacharaya. Day after day, Ekelavya watched from some nearby woods as Guru Dronacharaya trained the five, one of them, by the name of Arjuna, growing to be known as the best archer ever. Arjuna was Guru Dronacharaya’s pride and joy as his best pupil ever. 

Meanwhile, in the woods, Ekelavya had a great respect for Guru Dronacharaya. He built a statue of Guru Dronacharaya and began training in the woods in front of it, pretending that he was being trained by the guru himself. Ekelavya grew very skillful at archery this way. One day, Guru Dronacharaya was passing through the woods when he came upon the statue in his likeness, along with Ekelavya. After observing Ekelavya’s archery for a bit, he realized that this boy was leagues better at archery than Arjuna. Guru Dronacharaya approached Ekelavya and asked how he had become so good at archery. The boy told him that he had watched the Guru training the five brothers and practiced on his own in the woods. 

Guru Dronacharaya wanted to protect his pupil Arjuna’s status as the best archer ever, so he asked for Ekelavya’s right thumb as his gurudakshina. This way, Ekelavya would be unable to draw back a bow. Because of his great devotion to his teacher, Ekelavya complied and cut off his right thumb to give to Guru Dronacharaya. 

Context: 

This story is from the Mahabharatha, and is a plot point in the main storyline. An extremely simplified synopsis of the Mahabharatha is that it’s about the war between 5 brothers and 100 of their other brothers (Note that brother and cousin are essentially synonymous in this context). The “good guys” are the 5 brothers, and they eventually end up winning the war. 

During these times, archery was seen as the most stylish and elegant form of combat, and thus was highly respected. All nobles were trained in it. 

A gurudakshina was paid to a teacher after your time training with him comes to a close, and the guru could ask you for pretty much anything and you had to pay it. In this specific case, however, Ekelavya only really pays the gurudakshina out of respect for and devotion to Guru Dronacharaya, as there was no formal training or contract of any sort between them. 

The interviewee feels that this story resonates especially deeply with him because it shows that sometimes the world isn’t fair and people can just get in your way despite you doing everything correctly. Ekelavya works the hardest of any character described, and yet gets pushed to the side merely because he wasn’t born into nobility. It’s about realism. 

This story isn’t one that is told to younger children, as it kills their hope by teaching them that they can do everything but still not reach their goal because others get in their way, or things don’t go in their favor. Some families don’t tell their children this story at all because of the cynical way that it describes this world. 

Analysis: 

In addition to the life lesson my interviewee notices, I think this story promotes respecting authority and tradition, seen by Ekelavya’s decision to pay the requested gurudakshina, despite it costing him greatly. The authority that is placed inherently in that culture’s nobility is also respected, as Ekelavya doesn’t question his place as separate from the other boys, opting to train from afar instead of asking to join their sessions or something of that nature. It puts an interesting emphasis on hard work. The hard work still pays off, as Ekelavya becomes better than the best archer ever, but he gives up his reward/possible reputation after all the hard work out of devotion. There is also a selfless element to this story, as he is thinking more about what’s good for Guru Dronocharaya than what is good for himself.

Gesture – “Packs a lot of Money”

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego, CA
Performance Date: 2/19/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Text: The above image shows the gesture. It is similar to the shape people make with their fingers to make a gun, but instead of making the pointer finger straight, it is slightly hooked inward. One is also supposed to slightly shake their hand once it is in this position.

Context: One of my roommates whose ethnicity is Mexican shared a universal hand gesture between people in Mexico. She shared that it means “a person packs a lot of money…it’s like they’re wealthy, they have money, they’re rich” and that “because in Mexican culture pointing at someone or using someone’s direct name in an unmanly or rude manner is very disrespectful”. As a result, she said, “[they] use this form of sign to mention people who have money or as a way to speak about them and how they like have a lot of bucks”. She then provided an example of how friends will use this gesture with one another when mentioning wealth. She also talked about how this gesture is “widely used…like the middle finger…growing up [one] sees it and are like oh…it’s widely used in Mexico…anybody will know it even in other Latin cultures…predominantly used in Mexico”. When asked what she thought of it/its importance she said “[she] thinks it’s important in the way that it helps people identify cause [she] feels like there’s a huge wealth gap in Mexico and those who are usually very wealthy always live in the bigger cities…more unaware of other living circumstances of people”. Overall she stated that this gesture is “a way for people to refer to those people…oh they carry big bucks they’re not gonna understand how [they] live or the situation that these lower-income people live”. She discussed how this gesture most likely came about due to the large gap between lower and higher income and the gesture is a way for the lower class to “refer to them without referring to them directly”. That being said the gesture can be used in “a serious manner or a laughing manner”.

Analysis: I think in general it is not polite to point at people when you are talking about them, but I think in America it is more common to just talk quietly rather than use hand gestures with someone else. I think this hand gesture has to do with the fact that the gap between the wealthy and the unwealthy is a lot greater than in the United States. It might be even harder to jump that gap as well, not that it is super easy in the United States. As a result, this hand gesture to reference the vastly wealthy can create a sense of community, like being a part of a group. As mentioned, since the wealthy do not understand the less wealthy’s circumstances, this gesture could pose as a gesture that only the less wealthy understand. Kind of like this gesture is something for just this certain group of people that not even the wealthy people, who have everything, know.