[Update: Uberdesi kindly sent us the link for the ad which inspired it all. Now you can freak out, too!]
The commercial barely disturbed my reverie; I’m thinking about how much I hate moving, and that is exactly what I’ll be doing at work tomorrow, as we prepare for some renovating which couldn’t come at a worse time. At first, I can’t figure out what this spot is advertising, it looks like college kids, seems to focus on shoes and just as I decide that it must be something to do with the latter, I see it.
A girl, in somewhat cute, patent, MaryJane-esque shoes, in a library like setting…using a stack of exactly and approximately half-a-dozen books four books to step on, to reach a higher shelf. Or something. My brain shorts, because I’m so shocked and my inner pragmatist is all, “That’s so unstable! You’re asking for a sprained ankle.” The thought which immediately chases that maternal scolding is, “Eeeek, that’s not very respectful.” And that is why the shoes are “somewhat” cute; I can’t disassociate their shiny happiness from the taboo, the disrespect.
It wasn’t always like this.
Believe it or not, despite all the other random Hindu-lite rituals I grew up with, I never was scolded for touching a book with my feet. I think this had to do with two things:
1) I loved books so much to begin with and was very careful with them, since I’m vaguely OCD about things getting dirty or ruined
2) My room wasn’t so cramped that books were ever on the floor. They were on shelves. Or my desk. Or my bedside table. The floor was for my clothes, much to my parents’ disgust.
I’m surprised that this is also something I didn’t learn from my sundry collection of Hindu ex-boyfriends, though I vaguely remember hearing about it once in a while. For whatever reason, it wasn’t expanded upon or elucidated.
It was you who informed me of this prohibition against disrespect, and it is you whom I think of, in my tiny studio apartment, when I’m trying to re-organize my bookshelves. I take everything out and stack it on the floor, because there’s no other place to put anything and then I dust, rearrange, etc…but once in a while, especially now when I’m hobbling so awkwardly, if my feet even graze the tiniest part of a book or magazine, I freeze, feel guilty and then think of these cultural mores.
Thanks, mutineers. You’ve given me one more thing to get neurotic about…aww, you shouldn’t have. 😉
My high-level point is, this website has changed how I consider or interpret things, in a significant way. I will never think of the Sepoy Mutiny, the word “mutineer”, paneer dosas, Lemurians, ketchup, Scythians or a thousand other things without being reminded of this space.
That’s why when one of you emailed us a tip, which said:
A quiz on Indian independence and the first question is quite, ahem, mutinous.
…which pointed us to a brief, enlightening quiz in the Economist, I smiled and had to see it for myself. Indeed, the first question was special and it’s why I wrote all of this, because I love words and I find them powerful.
When a word’s definition is altered so dramatically, it’s not trivial, not to me. The last word of the first question of that quiz now means something very precious, and it always will. I thought you should know that, because I’m grateful to you for amending the dictionary in my brain, to accommodate such a delightful mutation.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I got a “seven”. 😉
Talking of literary pursuits while perched, remember in India there is no throne. Acrobatic enough for y’all?
Oh my god. You guys, learn how to read.
Also, Camille, please note that I beat you.
I bet there are websites that feature “naughty indian girls” stepping on books.
If there isnt then there is a segment of a billion person popultion that is waiting for it.
No one beat’s India, when it come’s to way’s that you can offend them.
I’m not worthy 🙂 Also, to be honest, I guessed my way through most of that exam, so to that effect you actually probably whooped me pretty royally. That said, I think we should be semi-blog lovers, now that you’re “the gay” and all. For you, tash, I would keep up my highly developed auntie-proof rumor of lesbianism.
Puli, It’s gross even with inexpensive shoes; I hate having little bits of dirt in my shoe because someone put their shoes on top of mine. It kind of ruins the top of the shoe, also, and in bad weather it gets the tops muddy! Do you play drums/piano? (I’m trying to think of instruments that require sitting). I would probably walk onto a stage with shoes, too, especially depending on the venue. I love carpets for this reason, though (for laying over the stage) I think, when you practice barefoot, there is some greater level of connection/control than what you get when you’re shoeless. I also like feeling the vibrations of instruments, though, which I think is easier to do barefoot 🙂
you know, my pet peeve in college was the way they would line the walkways with paper ads for upcoming events — games, plays, etc. on particularly narrow paths, i would be hopping back and forth, trying to avoid all the damn paper on the ground. drove me crazy! there are a lot of superstitions/rituals i have shirked, but this one is just so deeply ingrained in me.
I never grew up religious, even as a kid. While I was aware of this taboo among Hindus, it was not an issue with me. i had papers and books all over my floor. And plenty of times, I would step on them. When i was lil kid, I would create steps with books, and walk up and then jump down.
drums, piano, guitar, and opera. i agree with the vibrations bit. feel like you are more more connected to the instrument. maybe play better. i never really had much controll over the stage. somehow.
easier to either beat up cheap shoes by washing them, or throw them away. with a $400 pair of loafers. hell no.
Sorry, I miswrote, I meant barefoot == better connected to the instrument than shoe-clad. 🙂 You sing opera and own $400 loafers?
well…yes. i sing opera.
the loafers. thats a long story. my boss looked at my ragidy @ss shoes, and said “youd better get new ones”. so, hence..i own overpriced shoes, suits etc…. (depite my non flashy personality)
i do what work requires of me…
yup…i guessed that, cause i feel the same way.
Whoa! Watching her step on the books hurts. Literally! I can still hear my mom’s voice ringing in my ears about treating books with respect. I think that is one of the things about our culture that I really appreciate. An inherent respect for all things, and especially books and learning and knowledge.
Ah the “G” line, college apartments – what great memories. A N N A, all my Davis apartments had carpet the color of turds, so I don’t know what is worse…
GO AGGIES!
It’s interesting how feet and shoes are such a big part of our culture. You never touch your feet to books or paper. You never wear shoes inside. You always perform music or dance barefoot. I have to think some of the reasons this has developed is very practical. It’s damn dirty on the streets of India, you don’t want to be tracking that in your house. It’s easier to dance barefoot. It’s really hot, so you would rather not wear shoes.
My dad “jokes” around that Hindus are vegetarian as function of the weather in India. It’s so hot that there was no way to preserve meat and it was to prevent people from getting food poisoning!
5/12 🙁
i thought assembly lines were evil. why couldn’t nehru be a warrior tsk tsk. and here i thought he’d use the khadi to towel slap the british ass. overestimated the british population and underestimated the indians. and i never was good with figuring out relatives in an indian family.
all the same, i am deeply ashamed. i need some chaya to take the edge off. but i won’t even be served chaya by any self respecting indian. and jst after independence day too.
I have lots of these, and most of them are women. Fight amongst yourselves. 😉
BIG, also, wearing tight shoes for majority of our waking hours does a number on the feet. It’s nice to let them be free and breathe for some time. 🙂
AGREED! I am not allowed to wear open toe shoes at work, and so wish I could on hot days! There is a reason feet get stinky and sweaty when wearing shoes, they aren’t meant to be constricted like that.
M F Hussain. Walks bare feet everywhere. Was even thrown out of a brown sahib club in Mumbai.
I do not. Real nihongo steel is too expensive, mostly it’s tourists who pick up cheap fakes as mementos. Actually a lot of them are family heirlooms, passed on generation to generation in many ways similiar to kimonos or in desi culture a mother’s gold bangles.
Try buying some japanese incenses, many are still made in traditional temples around the country and adhere to strong standards. They smell quite wonderful. Also, higher quality hand made japanese fans or wooden combs are good too. Women with long hair love them as gifts. 🙂
This would do it for me. ‘Naughty India girls with glasses stepping on books who wear gray tweed skirts in a library’!!!!
However it kinds of reminds me of Ignatius J. Reilly’s, the main character from A Confederacy of Dunces, love of a certain photograph.
Recently I came across some type of promotion where they were stepping on notebooks and I immediately shot off a note to the guy. It was extremely uncomfortable to see people stamping on the notebook to show how hardy it is!!
Talking of notebooks, did any of you DBDs stand at the college bus stop and twirl your notebook on your index fingers? kya timepass.
It’s all good in the ‘hood, mutineers, I touched a book and then touched each eyelid, so the BOGO girl is excused by proxy.
I cringe when my husband puts his beshoed feet on the coffee table (those things have been all over New Orleans, please keep them off my furniture) or his bare feet on paper, etc. And he doesn’t quite get my exasperation (one of those moments that make you wonder how the hell you’re going to raise those hypothetical bi-racial kids)> This is why I make it a point not to put papers or books anywhere his feet can reach them. Life’s just easier for me that way.
11/12
Missed the Gandhi quote…
I still refrain from stepping on books. When I was dating my wife, it used to bother me when she put her foot up the dashboard. We both take off our shoes before going into the house although we aren’t adamant about it, especially with guests. When my wife and I went backpacking around India, she said she totally understood why desis like washing their feet and don’t wear shoes inside the house, because, as someone said earlier, there’s dirt everywhere! I think a lot of these “superstitions” have practical roots.
I’m beginning to think the same about two other things:
On another note, it seems like the quiz has some problems. It miscounted the correct answers and also selected choice which I know I didn’t select.
Now this guy really disrespects books.
American Ads should not be subject to non-American traditions.
If Indians or Hindus do not step on books that is their symbol of respect.
Symbols only have meaning if we give them meaning.
Not all cultures give meaning to the same symbols.
Juanita, thank you for implying that the cultural norms of American-born people of South Asian descent are somehow less American, less acceptable, or less appropriate for inclusion in the multicultural fabric of the U.S. I hope that if someone is inadvertently disrespectful to a symbol that you value, that you will exercise the same open-minded tolerance of the “emptiness of symbols.”
The thrust of this post was not an indictment of the Payless ad, but rather a reflection on the growth that we all experience from engaging in conversation on this blog. In effect, it was a celebration of e-community, not an attempt to judge or demean Payless’s ad campaign.
Sorry, I realized my tone might seem harsh. All that said, welcome to the Mutiny, and please consider sticking around 🙂
Define American.
I’m American. So are the other 100 people on here. It’s our tradition, and that means it’s American, too.
Beyond that, no one called for a boycott of Payless. I’m allowed to make observations which are relevant to my community, in the space I helped create for exactly such musings. I knew other desis would relate to my reaction and that was my point. Non-desis who come here with an open mind are welcome to observe and understand us better because of it; they are not welcome to lecture us with clue-free, isolationist pronouncements.
Not at all, since this person is a potential troll. Besides, you were way nicer than I was, Quick-draw Camille. 🙂
Folks, how many Americans, have a taboo with stepping on books? A majority? Minority? Something in between? It’s not a significant symbol here. Sure, some American Hindus have that tradition, and that’s fine. But to expect Payless commercials to conform to that, be sensitive about it, or even know about is un-realistic. But of course at the same time to those whom it is an important symbol or tradition they have every right to observe it.
Aw shucks, I was just in the right place at the right time. You can call me Annie Oakley, though, if you like. (I am so kidding, even if I do think she is the bomb dot com).
I guess the apology is because with all the recent trolls it’s hard to maintain a personal philosophy of assuming good-intent, which is how I generally try to be in life. I wouldn’t want to drive away a potential commenter who is thoughtful and engaged, but these days it’s really hard to tell the difference between a troll and someone just testing the waters. =/
Where in my post did I suggest any of that?
I saw a commercial.
I had a reaction to it.
I realized it was a very South Asian reaction.
This amused me.
I thought it might amuse other brown people.
It did.
That’s all.
I didn’t single you out exclusively, but some of the commenters? I mean, not buying Payless over a commercial that shows shoes on books? Seems a bit much.
Al_Chutiya_for_debauchery,
“Whats wrong with stepping on books?” – Most people handle books with their hands, and considering the hours potentially spent with a book, their hands would wonder and scratch their face, et cetera. People generally like to have such intimate contact only with clean apparatuses. After all, you wouldn’t like having me walk on your pillow cover on which you rest your cheek with my soiled shoes on.
P.S. the BBC quiz was too easy, anyone scoring less than 9/12 needs serious help.
It’s a free market, Lou Dobbs used to believe in it before the dumbass got burnt on Space.com. People are free to give their business to whomever they please
s/BBC/Economist/
Did I miss the BBC quiz? The one that Anna mentioned is at The Economist.
never mind re: #139 🙂
I think people in India are starting to discriminate between the sacred and the mundane when it comes to the printed word. In the not so distant past if you had a book it was either a religious text or an academic text book. Stepping on some filmi digest doesn’t seem to provoke much anger but is still considered rude
That was charming, and by charming I mean obnoxious. Lurkers are intimidated enough, sentiments like that don’t help them feel comfortable.
They don’t even teach us American history here, setting some random bar for how much we should know about India is so 90s, so ABCD vs. FOB.
Juanita Jameson,
“I didn’t single you out exclusively, but some of the commenters? I mean, not buying Payless over a commercial that shows shoes on books? Seems a bit much.”
I agree; moreover, Payless was probably only loosely involved in the making of that advertisement. Seeing that paper airplane being thrown inside a public library, however, that makes me thank the stars for letting me live in an era where computers and the internet allow me to never, ever, set foot in those unruly hellholes called public libraries. If they wanted it to be more like a real public library, however, they need to have some of those kids spit out gum into their hands and jab that mess against the underside of their desk. Oh, yes, and some half-blind geriatric librarian needs to be squinting at the pages of some trashy romance novel under the flickering illumination of tubelights that had never been replaced since the building’s construction. That said, even in such a dysfunctional library, I would find it hard to believe that the on duty librarian would ever let a kid stack books on the floor and climb up it, with shoes which likely stepped on some of that ubiquitous chewing gum no less.
If something offends you, you can vote with your dollars. Louiecypher is right; people have the right to take their business wherever they choose. But that wasn’t the point of this post. My point is now lost in this useless discussion over what is American or whether it’s reasonable to dislike Payless. All this was intended to be was a cute conversation where people could chime in and say “I totally relate to that taboo” or “I got an 8 on the quiz”.
Dude, when did this become a hyper critique of Payless? How many people here seriously proposed a boycott? Oh, that’s right, NO ONE. No one even criticized the ad, but rather said that it made them cringe given their own upbringing around how books are to be treated. Instead this turned into whether or not South Asian Americans should have a right to ask for cultural competency in advertising (something, at this point in this topic specifically, none of us even asked for).
But regardless, that wasn’t the point of this post. Jeez people, way to take a feel good post and turn it all sour. In the spirit of tone-resurrection and shoes…
I have a very serious footwear question. I have never in my life had to invest in “winter boots” — can someone east coasterly explain what this is, really, and whether I should actually look for “special boots”?
Eskimo boots worn over denim.
Blech.
oh camille – is this going to be your first winter on the east coast? it’s not so bad with the right gear, depending on where you are. as for boots, you need one for the everyday, and one for the night-time (when i moved to boston, it was the first i actually needed nice boots), and preferably both should be waterproof. lots of people still wears uggs – super-warm, but not sure how great they are in terms of water repelling. i’m not really into brands, but i think banana republic has a good selection of practical and fancy boots – i bought these for the snow and these for the rain. also, make sure to wear warm and long socks inside – makes a huge difference, esp. wool ones (i was surprised but cashmere and cashmere blends are actually the warmest). in terms of special boots, it might be worth it, actually, to spend a little more if it has everything you want – warm, tall, waterproof, and aesthetic appeal. the winters and the slush can be really miserable – dry and warm vs wet and cold makes a huge difference in how well you get on in the winter.
also, puffy jackets are usually much warmer than wool ones.
that is so 2006. 2007 is all about the uggs with miniskirts!
What can I do as a male to put an end to this abominable snowperson look? Uggs look like a baby polar bear is gnawing at your feet.
who decides this $hit?